For those of you wondering, this is why JT needs more money to keep running his channel
I tend to agree with your conclusion, but I'm gonna run with the argument. If JT is a capitalist selling the idea of liberation, does this mean his videos were somehow more proletarian or revolutionary before he employed people? He still "sold" the idea of liberation, he just didn't engage in labour exploitation to do it.
Besides, I think you're missing the point of the post. JT was explaining why it's neccesary for Second Thought to generate revenue, and like another commenter said, that would still be neccessary even if the channel was a coop.
Also, we don't have any information on how the business is structured or what the workplace's democracy looks like. After all, the only thing that really determines if it's labour exploitation or not is what happens with the surplus value the company workers generate. If it goes to JT, sure, he's a capitalist, but we don't have that kind of information, so I'm not willing to make that judgement (yet).
There is a collective in Brazil called Soberana. They have a lot of presence in online spaces, and they are Marxist-Leninists. They employ no one, they help each other but they each acts as an “independent” propagandist. They don’t need to make a profit as an organisation to survive. The efforts and works of each member, directed in tasks, is what keeps the collective going.
Each individual might or might not try to make a living out of producing propaganda, but it’s not a profit incentive as they are just laborers making money off their work. Their incentive is to survive.
I understand JT was explaining his reasoning, but it falls short of what he espouses. Sure his private company needs to make a profit to survive. This profit is the direct surplus value from the employees’ labor. Before he had a private company with a profit motive, his only incentive was to survive within the system as a worker. He has completely different incentives as a business owner, diametrically opposed even, no? That’s the whole basis of class, his material incentives are now different. Would he sacrifice the business he’s been growing for years because of ideology? Perhaps, but it’s more likely he’d sacrifice ideology for the business instead.
Your example is not that good. Soberana members like Ian Neves and João Carvalho still have video editors and other people that directly work with them, even if Soberana itself don't have that.
We are all living in capitalism, if that type of thing is needed for us to be able to spread class consciousness, then it needs to be done. JT is not hypocritical for doing things this way, it's the unfortunate reality if he wants to continue to be a propagandist.