Video consumers / watchers >>>> Video / content creators. YouTube makes money monetizing eyeballs. There are a LOT of eyeballs, much more so than content creators. Every time one content creator gets smashed, another one pops up. So who does YouTube care about? The creators? No way. They want the eyeballs that they sell the advertisers. The content creators are the inconvenient intermediary. If Google / YouTube could realize their fantasy, they'd automatically create all the content themselves with ML or some super amazing generator and get rid of the content creators altogether.

Personally, I don't think that the system being rigged is the problem, but the path to justice being obstructed. Thus, there is no correction and no remedy.

And, why are people still on YT? Well, because it's where everybody is. I.e., critical accumulation, out ruling any other considerations. It may turn out that having a viable path to justice on such a system of critical mass may be as important as having anti-trust clauses.

Creators are there because it pays them (until it doesn't). YT have the largest viewing audience and the most advertising spend.

You have to go where the audience is at, and Youtube is a huge audience.

Same reason people still make IOS apps.

There isn't a real alternative. Many content creators have created their own sites (like corridor crew), and there are theme specific sites like nebula or masterclass, but nothing with the broad appeal and audience of youtube

because none of the alternatives even come close in terms of viewers, virality, monetization

15 years later and still nothing even close to a viable YouTube alternative.

Look up 'preferential attachment'.