People ... or at least, the demographic attractive to advertisers, won't watch endless hours of dreck. That's what's streaming on OTA broadcast now, and the audience and advertisers are in an ever accelerating race to the bottom. YouTube knows network effects and virtual and vicious feedback cycles.

There is a wealth of content on YouTube, including a surprising amount of niche content. But there are a limited number of very high value creators -- a circumstance that's always the case. High-level creativity takes talent, time, some degree of money, and a network that's conducive to it -- which has an audience that can, will, and does find and view it.

Right now, that dynamic plays strongly to YouTube's benefit, though there are some extant alternatives -- Vimeo specialises in higher-quality content, Facebook and Reddit offer social "friends-and-family" or short-content platforms, and there are emerging platforms such as PeerTube which offer federated hosting options.

Mind: PeerTube presently has significant limitations, and I was discussing the issue with a video producer earlier this week:

https://mastodon.social/@unfa/102599106680590597