Good points indeed.
For me personally, I do try and support putting my content up on other places other than YouTube (such as on LBRY).
The issue is that, being that I only live off my crypto investments/YouTube channel, there is literally no way I could fund my channel solely through alternative means. As you noted, most of the audience is on YouTube. This means YouTube can afford to pay more to creators, since they get most of the online streaming advertising, for user hosted videos.
If there was a competitor that I saw which came in any way close to providing the monetary incentive that YouTube does, I would immediately switch to that. The problem is that nothing comes close, and without YouTube, my channel would not be a serious business, any longer. I'd have to dedicate more of my time to a "real" job (although being a content creator is definitely not easy), which would take away the bulk of time I spend researching, seeking/hosting interviews with thought leaders, and educating, to the best of my ability. Just being able to do content creation for a living is extremely humbling, but more and more difficult to achieve, for those just starting off, so there is definitely a void that is growing bigger and bigger. I do think the landscape will be different, and we are on the bumpy road to switching over to something else-- but the fact is, that we're just not there yet.
The only way it works, currently, is when a certain company can pay a creator like PewDiePie, or Joe Rogan, a HUGE upfront fee to switch. And this is usually only temporary, as we can see with Rogan's Spotify terms, or how PewDiePie left DLive to go BACK to YouTube.
At the end of the day, you have to at least observe the trend. The trend I see is that YouTube is making both creators and viewers unhappier with every change they implement, for the benefit of advertisers. This is going to come back to haunt them. Changes don't happen in a single day...usually.
"Nature knows not good or bad, but only consequence"
Great post, btw! Really appreciated hearing your nuanced and balanced perspectives, hence the motivation to leave a comment here. Cheers