I mean that much of the exodus has already happened in the sense that the necessary changes have already been made to set events in motion that will inevitably result in people leaving YouTube for these other platforms. It's like when people insist that socialism can work because civilizations have survived for several decades under socialism. My answer is no, it doesn't work when we define "working" in terms that extend beyond a few decades. You just aren't tracing causality far enough back. Socialism removes the incentives people have for producing wealth, and the result is that people stop producing wealth. Likewise, YouTube's new policies remove the incentives YouTube has for treating creators well, and the result will be that people stop creating for YouTube. Of course I don't mean all people. I think YouTube will survive and persist even after a competitor becomes more popular.

The question isn't whether or not YouTube's monthly active user counts are going up, the question is whether the rate at which they're going up is increasing or decreasing, and how that rate compares to competing platforms. The monthly active user counts are going up on competing platforms too, as well as the rate at which they're going up. I didn't imply that there's an exodus either, I implied that there's going to be one. It would depend how we define exodus. I would point out that small creators are just big creators of the future. So when YouTube makes their platform inhospitable to small creators, they simultaneously deprive future YouTube of big creators who will have found a home somewhere else. In other words, much of the exodus has already happened. YouTube just won't realize it until it's too late.

It removes YouTube's incentive to treat their creators well. With this change, YouTube has fewer reasons to care if the creators aren't happy with the way YouTube is running things, because YouTube gets to monetize the creator's existing work either way. It's going to accelerate an exodus from YouTube to alternate platforms. Very bad financial decision, in my opinion.