Thanks for the kind words, and I'm glad you found the post helpful! Also appreciate your offer regarding contacts, but truth be told, we were dealing with many of the "top" people already back then, and were basically told if we kept "bugging them" they'd take our whole channel down. That was sort of the last straw, not to mention a complete 180 turn from when YouTube actually flew us out all expenses paid to the first YouTube Live event in San Francisco in 2008.
We tried to have it sorted out with Margaret Healy (head of YouTube "strategic partnerships" at the time), those in charge over at the "YouTube Creator's Club" held in Manhattan's Googleplex, and we were even being courted by the likes of Maker Studios and others at the time as well. We told them if they (as a consortium of channels) could "fix" this crap, then we'd certainly be open to joining if it could help us just focus on content creation instead of all the "political BS". Even they said there was really nothing they could do (or perhaps they were just afraid to step on any toes, since it obviously seemed the "YouTube Mafia" had developed "a thing" for us over there). And all this doesn't even consider that YouTubers with millions of subscribers now face similar "problems" and "worries" on daily basis! Unless, of course, you're Katy Perry with her latest video "Bon Appetit"...
Anyway... enough drudging up old infuriating memories, and back to thinking about the future! I've gotta say, between patreon and steemit, it's great that YouTubers may finally have a shot to successfully and more steadily monetize without "that cloud of uncertainty constantly lingering over their head".