I can’t see how you can get that far ahead without screwing over someone else, or leaving someone you should have brought along behind.

Like I said, I don't know him so I really don't know the circumstances and I don't know the details of his deal - but he, or his investors have employed 40 people to work with the channel. I'd assume they are all salaried and some of them seem to be straight from school - so apart from capital exhange (which, as I pointed out, is ideological differenre)I don't really see the abuse like you do. But again, I don't know the circumstances.

And I hate when those in positions to resist it, become part of the problem instead.

So this is more of the key for me, or more interesting talking point anyway. Being on YouTube is part of the problem, because YouTube is monopolistic surveilance platform driven by advertising money. But many science communicators choose YouTube over, say community owned Nebula, because of business reasons (CGP Gray and Kurzgesagt were part of the founding members, but left in favor of YouTube). And the amount of people who choose fedi alternatives PeerTube are not even comparable - without robust ad-networks fueling creators, there doesn't seem to be very many alternative options.

That's a problem.