I can see this Coppa situation playing out a few different ways, and I keep changing my mind about how I think they're going to handle it, but whichever way it goes, they're going down (how soon that is, I think is the question!) My theories are:
1. They aren't going to switch on 'made for kids' and take the risk, hoping that the FTC won't be bothered with their channel, and will target much larger channels. Which isn't the most likely IMO due to the fact they'll be reported left, right and centre. Or keep their channel running the same way and wait it out until YouTube's algorhythm does it for them.
2. They will turn on the 'made for kids' and take the hit on their revenue from the views, but continue to make videos and just plug their merch, and make that their main source of revenue. Hence the big merch surge that we've seen.
3. Switch to Youtube Red and have a paid per video kind of scenario. Again, can't see this working well as their main audience are children.
Maybe a combination of all of those
Really interested in anyone's thoughts on how they are/think they can keep the same current level of business they are now?