This economy has really 5 critical players: the advertiser, the content creator, the platform, the content curators (people who make playlists/channels on and off the platform that encourage content), and lastly the viewer. The advertiser is paying for their content to be advertised, and the content creator receives certain rewards bottlenecked by the platform provider. While some may argue that the viewer deserves no compensation for simply enjoying the video, many argue that the content economy is not an economy of content but an economy of attention. It isn’t the content creator that is watching the ads but the viewer. The value of that specific token increases when videos by that content creator get views.

Source: Huffington Post November 25, 2017 19:52 UTC