This here is a Smithosian article that kind of makes fun of the music union mafia of 1930, at the advent of sound film. They made ads (as you can see in the illustrations) using some rather lame "scare tactics" about how "robots" (a new term/concept at the time as well) would be making "soulless music". Hilarious, right? Because we're talking recorded music, not robot-made music as we understand it:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/musicians-wage-war-against-evil-robots-92702721/
Oo, that's some scary robot there, makin' musical mince-meat with his grinder ...
Now fast forward a bit.
Not to mention them holographic whatchamacllits .. vocaloids ...
This could actually be a recurring series. "We Were Warned".
I was going to say this as well. If the net-effect of Vtubers is pretty girls have to develop a personality to compete... then we're all being well served in the long run.
Wouldn't that be great. Honestly it's a mix of heartening and disheartening to see there's women who have a personality out there re: the whole vtubing thing. Women generally don't where I live. It sounds like an incel cope I know, but man so many really don't.
Supply and demand is a facet of all interactions, why would it stop at romantic interludes? If the supply is restricted, people will demand even inferior product. If the supply is flooded, people will only "purchase" that which they view entirely meets their desires.
No women like socially awkward nerds. By virtue of being utterly average and plain, a woman could become a nerd "queen" with literally zero effort or luck, since there was zero supply. Then the "queens" get displaced as the market opens up... And profit in the market is noticed in superchats, onlyfans, strip instagrams, so the "thots" show up: They have the same zero-personality (or even overtly caustic) of the "queen", but by virtues of birth luck, makeup effort, or photoshop skills, they are notably more attractive. The market has more when it was tolerating so few, and so the market flocks to the new product being sold.
Then the market opens up more, as more and more profit is revealed in it. Now you have "personality" as a selling feature, one that few, if any, of the "thots" sold in their product offering. There's some brand loyalty, some customers won't leave, but others are flighty, and like this new product. But this new product is TOO good, non-target-market customerbases start seeking it out, ramping demand. Suddenly "normal women" are needing to compete with "camwhores with personality" for male attention as a whole, it isn't restricted to the market of "socially awkward nerds". They can offer unique product offerings, such as "sex", but the question is: Is that sufficient? They only have one unique product quality, and to "win" in a market, you need to not only have something unique, you must also at least approach the level of qualities of existing product, that is, they need to have not just "a likeable persona", but an actively approachable one.
We will see if the market catched up to that point. Market forces move quickly in the internet age, I could see a push to this new product hitting the market in only two or three years.