Exactly!

Now, how do you think these millions of content creators get paid for their content? And why do you think they willingly upload the content to <insert here your streaming platform of choice -- YouTube, Twitch, Nebula, etc>?

Putting YouTube aside -- in the end of the day there's three options for content monetization:

1) we all pay for content

2) somebody else pays for it (like advertisers), in exchange for something they need (e.g. visibility, sell you products)

3) you freeload folks in #1 and #2 for as long as you get away with, until you become the majority, and things start crumbling apart.

People will continue to make and share videos regardless of whether they get paid for it. There are countless channels that have less than 1k subscribers (Google's threshold to pay you anything at all), that upload semi-regularly and often have interesting content. (I subscribe to those via RSS, just to make sure I don't miss an upload.) People made content long before YouTube was able to pay anyone anything at all.

People make their videos even though YouTube basically guarantees them nothing in terms of promoting/driving traffic (btw even if you have a million subscribers, you have to continue to game the algorithm, please remember to upvote this comment!). Even after that, your payout is a cut of Google's ad/premium income, not "pay per view".

Finally, people make sponsored content, set up tip jars, sell merch, etc because ads alone can't fully support a high-effort channel.

More importantly, YouTube has been generating losses for a heck of a long time (including after being acquired), which again - considering that it is a de facto public service, makes me think that it should've been publicly funded. (By whom? Excellent question. Maybe tax some of those billionaires who poured VC money to kickstart it.)