A specific issue with video data is that it’s much denser: the same concept in video takes up more bytes than in text or image. Therefore hosting is more expensive, so less people host and the ones that do (e.g. YouTube) expect revenue. Furthermore, because videos are dense, people want to download them streaming, which means hosts must not just have storage but reliable bandwidth.
Even then, there are a few competitors to YouTube like Nebula, PeerTube, and Odysee. But Nebula requires a subscription and PeerTube and Odysee have worse quality, because good video hosting and streaming is expensive.
The real problem is that YouTube built a model where the platform, not the creators, controls the money flow. They could have charged creators directly for hosting and left monetisation up to them, but by inserting themselves as the middleman, they gained leverage and authority over content itself. The "cost of hosting" is just the technical excuse for such centralisation.
> They could have charged creators directly for hosting and left monetization up to them
A platform could do that today. I doubt such a platform would've beat YouTube even in the early 2000s. Creators can get almost the same experience by hosting their own site on a VPS.
There are lots of platforms where people pay for their distribution, but they're not as successful.
The main problem is that smaller creators couldn't afford the true cost of hosting and indexing to the level that YT provides.
As someone who's spent many years building streaming platforms, the lack of understanding of the economics and this kind of massive over simplification is really sad.
There's no conspiracy with YT, they've built a 'wonder of the world' which has a very low barrier to entry and which has paid out billions to creators.
Even then, there are a few competitors to YouTube like Nebula, PeerTube, and Odysee. But Nebula requires a subscription and PeerTube and Odysee have worse quality, because good video hosting and streaming is expensive.