But it scales. If he keeps at it (while keeping the quality - I watch most videos), it's likely that each year will bring as much revenue as all previous years combined. It may saturate at few millions subs but at that point it's not a bad profit and revenue from potential partnerships increases.

I'm not saying it's an easy money, but it could be much more rewarding than working for big tech. Of course having a yt cahnnel is still kind of working for big tech, but he seems to be smart about it, heavily promoting newsletter, presumably to be able to switch platform if necessary.