For every PewDiePie there are dozens of millions of creators trying desperately to recreate his success. Obviously this article is not just about PewDiePie's personal distress.

For every uplifting dishwasher-turned-billionaire story, there are millions of dishwashers who will never share that fate.

He isn't a vlogger, not sure why it was reported that way. He had a vlog series like a year or two ago for a week.

You've said, I watched PewDiePie's video, he also says he: He's "not a vlogger". What is he then, what's the industry term? I've failed to see it identified anywhere.

Gaming/meme/reaction/commentary channel. Bit if everything

For each person making millions of dollars, there's millions of creators who want to be stars doing exactly that. Having worked in the game streaming business for a while, I can assure you there's no shortage of those people.

There are also hundreds making a sensible living and thousands making a decent supplemental income.

My dad makes holiday videos and various guitar repair / upgrade videos, he doesn't earn enough to live off of but it's bought him all of the guitars he's ever dreamed of owning.

I'm also related to Steejo and Suzy Lu who both make their living from game video streaming. They work harder than most people but they also have a degree of autonomy that most people would envy.

It's a cage. A gilded cage, but a cage nonetheless.

Not related to youtube, but related to the gilded cage thing. Back in the day when I worked at a print shop, there was a pharma-sales guy that had some cards and random brochures printed with us here and there. About a year later, he has me create the collateral and website for a new business he wanted to do, asphalt repaving. I thought he was out of his mind. But he explained, he and others in the area that do pharma-sales make about $160k-$200k a year (2009) without trying (middle of nowhere Virginia mind you). They all know each other and they all say the same thing about the job, golden handcuffs. They all hate doing it with a passion because they know half the shit they peddle is dogshit and the other half is overpriced compared to what it should be and they're just going with the motions of the business. But where else are they going to make the same kind of money? Before I left, almost a year later, I saw him again and to be honest, he was a lot happier (also seemed way less suicidal) owning and running an asphalt repaving truck. He also said once he buys his second truck and trains another crew, he'll make more than he did in pharma-sales. For him, that year was a total win. So yea, nothing is really free, even making lots of money has its price.

It's not much of a cage if he can choose to quit any time he wants. The only thing keeping him in the cage is his desire to keep making tons of money.