YouTube’s Super Creators: How MrBeast, Rhett & Link, Michelle Khare, Adam W and More Use the Platform to Power Their Businesses

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube, 20 years after it launched and soon became the most massive video repository on Earth, has been an economic engine that powers a huge part of what’s known as the “creator economy.” Today, a class of entrepreneurial creators distributes their shows on the platform and take a cut of the revenue from ads served on their channels (a 55% share under YouTube’s standard deal).

They have leveraged that footprint into other lines of business like merchandise, live events and more. Those include Jimmy Donaldson — aka MrBeast, currently the biggest YouTuber with 370 million subscribers — Rhett & Link of “Good Mythical Morning,” Mark Rober, and First We Feast, producer of the Sean Evans’ talk show “Hot Ones.” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan calls them “the startups of Hollywood.” YouTube remains the dominant internet video platform despite challenges from other players.

One early rival, Vimeo, adopted a creator-subscription business model instead of an ad-supported one. In recent years, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter (now X) have each tried to lure video creators with various monetization programs.

But none has achieved the scale of YouTube — or its earning potential. “Like, you can make a lot of money on YouTube,” says Evans.