Creator features like live streams, custom URLs, scheduled uploads (and many others!) are not going away with the YouTube Partner Program update. We just updated our Help Center to clearly outline this info (thanks for the suggestion!): https://goo.gl/mAUaMj https://twitter.com/paragraph_8/status/953663437065936897 …
As a new and very small YouTuber I am finding the hurtles to be challenging. I will however keep working at bc it is a fun hobby and I enjoy it. It would be nice and easier if I could make some money off it though.