But this obscures the fact that she was still "catering to the audience" when working in academia as a paid physicist. She was just placating a different audience and worked on topics she really didn't think was groundbreaking just to keep the grant money rolling in. The misalignment of incentives just happened outside of Youtube.
Deep link to her explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKiBlGDfRU8&t=4m37s
A lot of viewers wish that "content creator" wasn't a thing and people just did Youtube for free as a hobby. Understandable. But what viewers don't realize is that it's also actually saying this: "Please continue being unhappy in your crappy day job so you don't need to live off money from Youtube ads or sponsorships."
It’s totally fair that emotionally she was done with one and able better to continue work with the other, but removing the hobby element actually did remove one set of well aligned incentives and did not replace them with another.
It's hard to get people to find it though due to the platforms all promoting professionals from which they earn more. But on the other hand I don't really care either.
But the reverse is also true: Not for everybody being content creator is the dream job. Some like creating something once in a while, but otherwise enjoy their life and job.
If I search for ANYTHING, I get a tutorial, or tips, or some clickbait like "I had no idea about this!" Every video is by someone whose job is Youtube. The giveaway is that all of them have custom thumbnails. Someone who just made a random video about something and posted on the free video platform wouldn't even have bothered getting a custom thumbnail for it. You can't find those videos, at all. At this point it wouldn't surprise me if a custom thumbnails was a requirement for the algorithm to consider your video even if it isn't spelled out anywhere.
1. https://www.avclub.com/why-does-everyone-on-youtube-make-the...