>>198012
VTubers really brought upon the death of otaku culture, didn't they? Since their inception, the most cancerous trends in anime (over-designed girls with multicolored highlights in their hair, horrible BGM/insert songs/openings & outros that sound like someone threw five or six of the most generic JP chord progressions in a blender with the worst amerikorean rap-pop they could find, SJWist censorship and dogshit writing) have gotten to incredibly high levels.
The doujinshi world has been in dire straits for quite some time now as well.
As for the problems with western otaku these days, your post sums it up pretty well. Scanlations are dead, nichebases are shrinking- the only saving grace is following good Japanese hobbyists around on various art sites and SMNs