I agree completely with what you say.

I advocate that content creators start by creating their own web sites. Once you have a site, you can usually get ads from affiliate networks.

Content creator should use the social media sites to build traffic to their site.

If you have a site, you should stop being link stingy and put links to other independent sites that you support.

As for youtube; you can embed their videos on your web site and monetize the views that come through your site with your personal ads.

People are foolish to invest too much into any single social media site.