> But, I'd be willing to put in 10 a month if I did not have to worry about allocating that to each of them or micromanaging who gets what. IMHO a simple distribution based on views/listens/clicks, could work.
Yes, but not to your creators. Google's description is vague, but my impression is YT Premium revenue (after google's cut) goes into a big pool and is split up among all creators: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276#YouTube_Re... So your creators are getting paid by watch time, but not all of your $10 is going only to creators you watch.
Some creators note it is many times what ad revenue brings them and is a significant part of their income on that platform. I think LTT and other tech creators have mentioned this however buying merch or subscribing on Patreon/their own site is a bigger generator than anything on YT.
YouTube Premium?