However people making money on youtube are a significant minority. Most uses are not that use.
So in terms of non-commercial sharing - I already pay for my internet connection and fibre 'upload' speeds ( from home-out ) are very under-utilized.
Also usage isn't metered - the limit is maxbandwidth X time.
So the only risk here is being too popular - which is frankly unlikely!
If you wanted to scale - p2p is an option - the issues around illegal content etc - that can be fixed if you have identity and permissions built in - the people who share are identifiable and you only choose to peer people/content you approve.
Imagine it being like a retweet - with just the same legal consequences, but with just the same potential to reach millions - but without a single company in control...
No, that self-hosting option doesn't replace Youtube. A lot of techies seem to have a blind spot as to the real value Youtube provides to content creators and video uploaders: $0 hosting costs for unlimited audience.
No self-hosted tech stack or home-based network appliance to stream videos can offer that same financial deal.
Techies seem to only see the technical stack and the protocol to host a video. The intimate knowledge computers is actually misdirecting you away from the real strengths of Youtube. Instead, look at Youtube the same way a non-techie content creator would. My previous comments trying to explain this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18488484
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19939392
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19940180