Unless you have your head in the sand, You know that the FTC has unfairly targeted and threatened to sue YouTubers for the violations of COPPA that YouTube committed. They are now taking severe actions that are going to seriously hurt or destroy thousands of honest hardworking Youtubers that did nothing wrong.
For years now. YouTubers were warned repeatedly to not make a career out of YouTube. The reasons why were numerous, the biggest one being that you're at the complete mercy of a third party platform and forces outside your control.
Not only that, but the writing has been on the wall for years--multiple Adpocalypses, multiple sponsors pulling support, huge channels (like Alex Jones) being pulled, and revising the Producer Rewards program so that a large majority of creators couldn't make money anymore unless they achieved a threshold.
Given all that's happened, I don't understand how people at this stage of the game are still making creators out to be victims. No one is being hurt or destroyed by the FTC except people who still insisted on pouring their blood, sweat and tears into a platform in spite of the constant warning signs not to do so.
Maybe it is time to show the world what their internet experience would be without us. I think all youtubers should band together and stage a 24 hour strike in which we move all over our content from Public to Private for one day. Each channel should have only one video, explaining how unfair this what the FTC is doing is and asking our viewers to meltdown the FTC servers and phone system with complaints.
I have been on YouTube since the very beginning, from even before Google acquired it. YouTube has been through two phases--1) The days before The Partner Program, when people were posting for fun and major content producers/companies were posting to promote new products and releases (2005-2009) 2) After the Partner Program, when people came to upload for the money (2010-present).
People who tend to go on and on about how "they made YouTube" are not the ones who made the platform what it was. They were the Johnny Come Latelies who came to it long after the site had become popular and only on account of the Partner Program.
The ones who made the platform--and continue to make it--are the people who only posted for fun, promotion or utility and continue to, like they've been doing since the beginning.
All that would happen as the result of a blackout from the" We Made YouTube and Therefore Can Break It" brigade is a rude awakening. They would realize that their content only comprised of maybe 5% of the platform and therefore, wouldn't be missed. For every "We Made YouTube" creator blacked out, there would still be 10 vloggers talking about their life experiences; 50 publishers that already have a presence on the web (Cnet, BuzzFeed, Collider, etc.); 100 major content producers from the entertainment industry (gaming, film, sports, news, TV); and 1000 YouTubers uploading tutorials, compilations, video game playthroughs, vintage clips and public domain footage.
In fact, come to think of it, I think that a blackout would further give Google the go ahead to continue cutting YT creators loose. For a platform to survive, it's important to have reliable content producers. Why waste time with creators who are going to flake out on it with a blackout, when so many more reliable vloggers, networks, studios and major content producers are just going to keep posting?