I mean, this is just capitalism.

And while I loved old forums, they were constantly fighting with being underfunded, there was infighting between the "owners", and each one worked differently, making them a bunch of disconnected little silos.

Especially compared to Youtube, there's just NO WAY IN HELL any non-exploitative company could ever finance a project of even remotely similar scope. There are already, right know, alternatives for all the big monopolists. Most people aren't using them because they don't like the trade offs.