[keiferski]

This is a pretty simplistic understanding of how modern art/content markets work. Michelangelo got paid to produce images that promoted certain power structures and individuals (the Medici, the Catholic Church, etc.) and not just because his benefactors wanted to create beautiful objects.

Creators get paid for drawing attention to something via the content they create. No one watches them because they are promoting VPN ads. This is not substantially different from a Renaissance artist creating a painting that promotes Catholicism.

If anything, the fact that modern creators are funded in ways explicitly and obviously "separate" from their creative work would imply that the work itself is less bound by patron requirements and more by the (more pure) currency of attention.

In other words, if a creator today made a video in the same manner as a Renaissance painter did, we would likely interpret it as "shilling" or somehow lacking in artistic authenticity.