Not to sound too dire, but it sure seems like there's an uphill battle ahead for freelancers / creative folks on the internet.
Platforms and audiences are clearly migrating over to short-form video and livestreaming.
Platforms that were previously good at just being a good place for text or image posts are either crumbling under the weight of bad decision-making or have shifted priorities over to video.
There are new platforms and niche platforms that ARE good for posting your work, but they don't have enough users on them to actually build an audience. In other words, if a platform is good for creators and somewhat calm/ethically designed, it might not accumulate enough traffic for you to be able to find enough people to keep your business afloat.
I don't know what the answer to all this is, if you're new and still trying to build an audience for your work. As the internet changes, and we change as people, it's possible that we will all just drift in separate directions and there won't be large centralized hubs for non-video posts anymore. I think, as a user, we'll all just find our own routines in our own little corners of the web.
I can only really think of two approaches people can take, if they're worried about their freelancing or small business:
Approach A: Embrace the new platforms and make short-form video, livestreams, or podcasts, etc. to accompany your other work.
Approach B: Aim for an older / "more old-school" audience and make a blog, website, and email mailing list. Start making friends with other people doing the same thing and link to each others' sites, just like people did before social media.
Or, obviously, do both.
I know there's a lot of people out there who do freelance illustration, comics, music, etc. who don't want to do the song and dance of short-form video. I can relate, I have no interest in making short-form video either.
In the grand scheme of life I don't know whether this is all a good thing or bad thing. Very bizarre to see things change so quickly in the past couple of years. I imagine that 5 years from now, the sites/platforms I visit will be very different.
I also imagine, like a lot of other people, I will probably start LIMITING my time looking at social media in general. Even this fact (that we all might become more cognizant of our mental health and give ourselves less "screen time") might ironically also make it harder for freelancers trying to get shared. Lol.