> I don't want paid for content.

Then the solution for you is extremely simple: Do not go to youtube.com

Then you won't have to be bothered by any videos that people made with the expectation of being paid.

But what are you doing in a discussion about YouTube? You're free to make as many videos as you please and share them by P2P. YouTube is a partner for video creators for distributing their videos. You are not in that partnership in any way.

You are offering a "solution" to a sentence taken out of the larger context. Poster is arguing for a platform for videos that are not made for payment.

and the implied answer is that such a platform does not and would not exist.

As I explained in another comment, YouTube is not that. Netflix is that. Patreon is that.

YouTube is something different. It's more like Wikipedia to many people.

Believe me when I say if I could avoid YouTube I would. They've made it abundantly clear they don't want people like me. But what choice do I have when the vast majority of stuff is uploaded there? It's like saying "just stop breathing if you don't like air pollution".

I don't care about technicalities. I care about practicalities. YouTube can either be the free public repository of videos or it can be private like Netflix and facilitate payments between consumers and creators. Not both.

If this were about YouTube's costs then they could charge creators for hosting and bandwidth costs. If I set up a website, I pay for it, not you. Why should video be the other way around?

YouTube knows it needs to attract creators by being the free, public platform with one hand, but as soon as it gets that content it uses it to extract money from users with the other.

Any of these things would be good:

* YouTube goes private like Netflix,

* YouTube acts like a video host and charges uploaders for the service like any other web host,

* YouTube accepts they are like Wikipedia and cuts their costs by using technology like P2P and/or make the market absorb the costs by negotiating better peering deals (ie. push the bandwidth costs on to internet subscribers).

But masquerading as the free, public internet video platform then expecting to get paid for it by users who now have no other choice? Forget it.

YouTube attracts creators by giving them free hosting as well as paying them. If you've thought of YouTube as a Wikipedia, you've had the wrong impression. But how can you continue with the wrong impression while being aware that they don't want people like you?

Paid and ad-supported video has been around for decades, there's nothing strange about it. If you're used to going to the soup kitchen for free meals, few are going to sympathize when you're going to the restaurant of your choice and demand free meals. "But they don't have the salad that I like at the soup kitchen, I have no other choice!". Maybe the restaurant should start charging the chefs for their usage of kitchen equipment so that you can get the free meal of your liking? Maybe it's their fault for letting you in and now they owe you a free meal? They could have been members only like the fancier restaurant on the other side of town.