I think there are numerous different attempts at this already including steemit itself. Just none of them have hit mainstream attention yet and the mainstream average user doesn't seem to care too much so they keep feeding into the current system and giving life to it. And I do think money is an issue, to be able to host free file sharing for everyone is very expensive and one reason sites like dtube and others have struggled. YouTube and Facebook and others are usually funded by intelligence agencies and government at least partly and they don't really have the same fears of not having enough resources. We do have some wealthy people in the liberty movement though you'd think we could do better.
And yes I do think there is a lack of leadership for sure.