It’s not all black and white though. People in the 2000’s didn’t know that you can make a living off content creation, but people who have adopted this style usually can and will (or should) turn more effort into creating high quality videos.
Isn’t that exactly the point of the meme? Internet 20 years ago was about sharing mostly. Internet today is about monetization mostly. And content quality isn’t what makes you big, it’s your ability to game/abuse the system
The point of the meme is “How dare creators expect any sort of compensation for their work!? No ads! No subscriptions! Give it to us for the ‘exposure’!”