How YouTube ‘Built an Economy,’ One Creator at a Time

Published: September 18, 2025

By India McCarty

YouTube puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to paying creators; the company recently announced it’s handed out over $100 billion to creators, artists and other creatives.

“We didn’t just create a platform. We built an economy,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said, via Mashable.

20 years ago, @youtube revolutionized storytelling and made a huge bet on the creativity and ambition of people all over the world. Today, that bet has paid off.

At #MadeOnYouTube, we announced that we’ve paid out over $100B to creators, artists, and media companies over the… pic.twitter.com/OODSQpWozb

— Neal Mohan (@nealmohan) September 16, 2025

YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich gave the credit to the site’s creators, praising them for shaping “culture and entertainment in ways we never thought possible.”

The video-sharing website is one of the best places for online creators to turn their creative hobby into a real career, and it’s still growing — a study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau found that creator jobs grew 7.5 times in four years.

“Total job opportunities for creators grew from 200,000 in 2020 to 1.5 million in 2024,” Mashable reported. “Creators now make up one out of every ten full-time, internet-dependent jobs.”

IAB’s report explained, “This remarkable growth stems from three key factors: 1) the shift of ad budgets to digital platforms, streaming services, and online publishers, 2) the ease of creating and distributing digital content, and 3) the rise of a more professionalized creator economy.”

They also claimed content creation is “the fastest-growing and leading driver of U.S. GDP growth, valued at $4.9 trillion.”

YouTube is one of the leaders in the content-creation industry, as many experts have pointed out that the video platform has become the new TV.

YouTube claimed that the number of channels it hosts on the site that make more that $100,000 from TV screens rose 45% year over year, via CNBC.

Forbes reported, “YouTube announced viewers are watching over 1 billion hours of YouTube content on TVs daily, and television has surpassed mobile as the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. As Nielsen confirms, YouTube has maintained its position as the No.1 streaming platform by watch time in the U.S. for two consecutive years.”

The outlet explained that YouTube is a “platform that understands its role in shaping the future of entertainment,” adding, “While YouTube continues to innovate in creator monetization and support, many other platforms still treat creator compensation as an afterthought…[we] believe it’s crucial for other platforms to follow YouTube’s lead in building sustainable creator ecosystems.”

YouTube’s recent financial milestone is proof that, when it comes to supporting the creators that keep the site going, the video-sharing website is willing to shell out the big bucks.

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