It's funny how a bunch of these streams have actually become communities in and of themselves, with people coming in, chatting about life, work, heartbreak etc. while recommending new artists to check out (esp. if you are a fan of indie music, these live chats are gold). Most of them are also actively administered and have very little tolerance to bullshitting/harassment so they end up as a great place to hang out. I usually pair RainyMood [1] along with one of these streams while working and that has a very calming effect and is a great multiplier for my productivity.
Truly reminds me of a IRC groups I hung out on a decade ago, and this is the closest to a Web 1.0 forum-like environment built around music.
From my little slice of amateur producer internet there's also dramatic controversy around the genre. Issues such as how much sampling can you slap together and still call it your own piece, excessive vinyl effects, arguments about track lengths and loops, what it even means to be lo fi. It's fun to watch and results in great music! And also hence why lofihiphopbeatstostudyto has pretty much infinite material to work through.
Near the start of the corona lockdown, Will Smith published 1½ hours of chill/lofi hip-hop by various different artists on his channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA56B4JyTgI He even did a Will Smith/Fresh Prince-themed take on ChilledCow's aesthetic. Pretty good stuff.
I enjoyed the Switched on Pop episode on Lo-Fi. I don't listen to it a lot, and I didn't know much about its origins, but I'm a big fan of J Dilla and Madlib, who they cite as major influences on the genre.
Spotify chill-hop/"music to study to" playlists are popular and people listen to them repeatedly and for long stretches of time which makes them lucrative for streaming revenue.
I know someone who runs a chill-hop "record label". Their most popular songs get on big spotify chill-hop playlists and have ~10 million spotify streams. This equates to around $50-70k USD. Most of their releases have a fraction of this but it is worth it for the odd hit.
My guess is they give artists exposure in exchange for a share of the profits through their channels. I don't know if they can monetize the free stream on YouTube, but they also stream on payable streaming services and sell albums on Bandcamp.
I can readily admit to looking for random 1-hour videos of Lo-Fi music on Youtube that really do sound like what I'm able to "create" with this player.
The most famous channel of it that I know of is ChilledCow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qap5aO4i9A
But there are others such as:
SynthWave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVcMequS9vE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Jdm0H-A9k
NeoChill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx63aT4UvDI
And many more. Great background music for coding