You claim that there are plenty of other ways to support a video streaming platform yet fail to mention even one of them.

Things cost money. Every monetizing strategy involves users paying for it or the company making money from the users indirectly. OP mentions both of these. So tell me, what's a monetizing strategy other than these that works?

People consumed videos online at a very limited scale before YouTube, and those videos were usually hosted by few, generous individuals. Even if every user in the world decides to contribute 50% of their device storage for a decentralized streaming platform, I doubt it would even fit a small part of all videos in YouTube's catalog right now.

I really dislike the attitude of hating megacorps without really proposing any viable alternatives.