A good chunk of that YTP money goes to creators.

man I hate to pull the "get a real job" quip but I would bet my life that most of those "creators" are going to end up getting a "real" job in the next few years. My sister makes a couple TikToks a month to review stuff and these companies pay her stupid amounts of money because of the number of followers she has. She lives in the West Village where she regularly hangs out with Malcolm Gladwell and David Blaine. She does something with art. Spain's bureau of tourism (I'm sure they have another name for it) paid to fly her and a couple of other "influencers" to Spain for a several-day tour of places Salvador Dali either lived or created something for. It's fantasy land, where company execs think things like that are a good use of money. MrBeast and Legal Eagle will be alright whether YouTube dies or not, but everyone else is screwed.

That actually furthers the argument of "it doesn't cost that much", since creators get about ten times as much money from YTP viewers.