@Daojoan LOL. How about my 3 Parsec Award nominations in the category of “Best Gaming!Podcast”? (2008, 2009, 2011)
The “creator economy” did exactly what the mainstreaming of anything does: ruined something the early adopters made awesome.
The difference between me and your average creator today is that I was never arrogant enough to think of content creation as a job. Thus, I never sold out to anyone, and we never compromised our content. Ever.