I think that's not really what people have issues with. The scariest thing about YouTube to me is that there's so much great content that's only on YouTube and there's not really an alternative. So if YouTube goes away for some reason, or Google decides to wipe all videos with < xxxx views, or Google decides to get rid of it for liability issues or other things there's nothing to archive this amount of content.

It's tedious to even have to draw these distinctions at all, but I'm not saying it is the answer. A replacement is most preferable. In the meantime, here's something that accesses youtube without being associated with a youtube account or ads, which is one step better than being directly plugged in as we await a preferable alternative.