For real though, I don't have much to add to what you're saying here, but I did want to say "thank you" for your work; I literally can't guess at the hours of enjoyment I've gotten over the years from Gamespot/GB. And, personally, I've always low-key had an eye on the games and games journalism space and Gamespot/Giant Bomb being what they were and are, while the space changed around it...hit home that while I might've wanted to do what Giant Bomb does, I wouldn't want to do what everybody else does.
I think your analysis is pretty spot-on about the constant shilling; I know a couple creators whose endorsements shouldn't mean squat given what they knew about the products when they endorsed it, I don't even mean the NordVPN stuff. But they need to figure out some way, any way, to actually make money off of this stuff. Patreon is a sorta-answer, but Patreon are kinda pricks and they own your patrons instead of you owning your patrons, so you're stuck there, too. Good times.
I don't know what the next step forward is. Floatplane is interesting...but Floatplane wants to use YouTube as the minor leagues to pull creators, and I genuinely don't know if there's enough organic lead generation to do that in a sustainable way that doesn't just privilege existing voices. I have no idea what comes next there. I've been writing a "Wordpress for podcast networks" web app as of late ('cause Wordpress is not great for podcasts, though people use it) to help people self-host that stuff, but video is expensive.