I'm not really happy with youtube. In my opinion, it's hard to find quality content if you don't already know what you're looking for. They do have lots of content. The platform itself is the definition of "meh". They have their userbase and massive infrastructure... that's their edge.
There was a recent post to HN about alternatives to Maps. Maps might be the best, but it isn't like other maps services aren't just as good for most users.
The real elephant in the room is Search. I haven't really used another search engine in years.
It seems to get around 50 results for this query. Google returns 7 million. No foreign languages in the first two pages.
I decided to give it another shot. "sort git commits by date" was my query. I was pretty impressed by the formatting of the card it displayed at the top, but it was wrong (other top results seemed good though).
I don't know if this is ready for the switch.
But if you already know what you are looking for, then YouTube will usually have the most relevant, and sometimes even high-quality, content.
That's the direct result of massive userbase+infrastructure and an edge very hard to beat and gets even harder as time passes and more content gets uploaded to YouTube.
As Paul Graham said, "There is always room. In a hundred years the only social networking sites will be the Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Del.icio.us? Not likely.”
You don't start out by beating the giant. You pick users away here and there. You find a niche. You find other niches. You keep what you have, take what you can. You don't even have to beat the giant ever. Become the number 2 video sharing site. Hell, become the number 10 video sharing site and I bet you'll have more money than you know what to do with, even if most people have never heard of you.
Free daily limit of 250,000 map views and 25,000 service calls.
Still missing some stuff though, like cycling info....