Netflix has been around since 1997. At that time, directly streaming movies to consumers was techincally impossible anywhere in the world. As a non-American, how were you watching movies in 1997?

And yeah TikTok/etc didn't exist then. No one hard smartphones and the Internet was text/GIF only.

That said, we used to have the America's Funniest Home Videos show. People mailed in VHS recordings of their kids/pets doing cute, funny, or cringe things. This aired on TV and people voted to pick a winner. People could win $10k-100k in prize money. So yeah, proto YT or whatever was a thing, just scaled to available tech at the time.

EDIT: Just realized AFHV is still around, and will outlive Netflix DVDs. *That* certainly feels like a joke. How does a network television meme show still exist in 2023???