Direct donations are a much, much better way to engage and support creators. The marginal Youtube view is worth ~$0 and relying on views for ad impressions skews incentives toward clickbait.
Content creators make quite a lot more money through their YouTube Premium viewers than through their ad-sponsored viewers; so, if they don't have a patreon or merch, YouTube Premium is the best way to support them.
So how much did you donate last month to your favorite creators?
Clickbait aka good marketing is always going to be important regardless of the monetization model for a video creator.