People come at this one case as if success was a foregone conclusion. This level of financial success was absolutely not a sure thing for a movie made by 2 YouTubers, even if it was good. Plenty of people would negotiate away their equity stake for an increased wage (which would be a good choice in many cases), and some of them would then complain afterwards if it succeeded. Plenty of movies flop. As a person whose work cannot guarantee it even primarily influence success or failure, it makes no sense to trade guaranteed wages for equity in most cases.
It’s the same situation in startups, but usually people get a wage and equity, because you don’t generally have much of an option to boost the wage much instead. The project would much rather trade risky equity than have to dig up more cash for higher wages
People come at this one case as if success was a foregone conclusion. This level of financial success was absolutely not a sure thing for a movie made by 2 YouTubers, even if it was good. Plenty of people would negotiate away their equity stake for an increased wage (which would be a good choice in many cases), and some of them would then complain afterwards if it succeeded. Plenty of movies flop. As a person whose work cannot guarantee it even primarily influence success or failure, it makes no sense to trade guaranteed wages for equity in most cases.
It’s the same situation in startups, but usually people get a wage and equity, because you don’t generally have much of an option to boost the wage much instead. The project would much rather trade risky equity than have to dig up more cash for higher wages