Does gacha art really pay that much? Just seems bizarre to me to choose that over getting paid to play video games for 9 hours a week and/or do streams chatting with friends about what kind of cake you'd like to eat.
You don't usually get as good as Sana is at drawing if you don't love it. And as long as she hasn't fallen out of love with drawing then it's not much of a decision as long as the money is comparable.
If it was partially due to contractual obligations: playing video games or talking three times a week for one hour for one year is nothing. This is for a six figure job. This is the bare minimum. If someone can't even fulfill that much then they're not cut out for the job.
Yeah, Sana streamed long hours when she did stream but there's a reason it's a weekly requirement and not a yearly one: consistency is far more important for a streamer than long hours.
Looking at work load Ina is your comparable here since they have the same occupation. Ina sleeps four hours a day or something. Ina draws pretty quickly even for a professional artist. Ina until now has lived at home and had her parents there to partially take care of her chores. Ina mostly cut MMOs and gacha out of her life. Sana has a pretty severe back issue. Realistically, something had to give at some point.
With better luck Sana would probably have made it past the year and gotten the Ayame treatment. Heck, they could have given her art commissions to work on if she preferred that over streaming.
As an aside, I think hiring someone with a successful full time creative job is not the way to go. Sure they're talented but they're also overqualified and might not prioritize the job. Hololive got lucky with Ina the first time around.
Focus on hiring someone who wants to stream and/or sing for a career. Everything else is a bonus.
