I think YouTube's algorithm is changing all the time in response to what is happening in the real world, the somewhat recent incident involving PewDiePie is a prime example of that. Not going to go into details on that here.
As far as whether the YouTube algorithm in 2017 is deliberately rigged to hurt the small channels, honestly I don't think so, and I'm saying this as a small channel myself. But is it hurting the small channels? I'd say so, but probably not as badly as you may have heard.
You may or may not have had some of your videos placed into a 'Limited' state with the words "Not suitable for all advertisers" next to it in your Video Manager. This has been the subject of a great number of videos by Youtubers everywhere as of late, and it might make you think that videos with the yellow dollar icon are not earning any revenue whatsoever.
But from what I know so far, ads do still play on those videos, but just not all the advertisers will have their ads being shown there. The keyword here is "not all"; you might, for example, have ads for mobile games, cable TV or software apps but not, let's say, women's fashion or kid's toys if your video is a let's play of Doom or Resident Evil 7.
In other words, you're likely still have ads running on your videos, but just not all the possible ads from advertisers are going to be shown. You may or may not still be earning the same amount of revenue with the yellow dollar icon, but it's probably too far-fetched to say that you won't earn any revenue at all.
But if your video gets cut off from monetisation altogether with the crossed-out dollar icon, that's a completely different story...
