I don't want to use it. I only view because others exclusively host content there.

If people hosted video elsewhere, I would gladly never visit youtube again.

Creators are not going to start paying for uploads when they can push their costs to the viewers.

I've always paid for cable without complaining, but the adtech surveillance reality that was innovated by the tech industry makes me less willing to support them.

There's a long tail of people who don't use YouTube frequently but click play on videos embedded on other sites, or on videos linked.

So of course they're never going to pay. That's the problem advertising solves -- infrequent users can be monetized.

YouTube already has an option to pay to avoid ads, for frequent users. And lots of people subscribe to it.

What if Google didn't horde whatever data it could about me from the analytics systems that it has installed on a myriad of websites without my consent?

What if Google wasn't a monopoly who amassed insane amounts of capital to do this?

What if Google didn't lobby governments around the world for special treatment?

If people were just paid for services that used them and manipulate them with tracking and behaviour profiles

The only reason people use YouTube is because it has had a de facto monopoly on video distribution for the last 15 years.