It feels like most YouTubers know and have vocalized their issues with YouTube, but lack any viable alternatives. The benefits they get with YouTube with the large audience already using the platform and potential help the 'Suggestions' system on YouTube gives them outweigh the freedom they'd get from switching platforms.
I agree, there is about to be a large market gap for streaming content creators. If someone had the team, the skill, and the funding they could effectively roll out a viable competitor to YouTube.
I'm not sure how it would go exactly, but their advertising could very easily be centered around dodging the wrongs of YouTube.
There's also the high barrier to entry due to bandwidth and storage: you're not going to be able to compete with YouTube if you don't offer at least 1080p streaming which means you have to have a pretty hefty infrastructure in place before you can launch.
And then the legal issues: as a scrappy new website, you're unlikely to be able to protect your users from large copyright holders, which in practice means new YouTube competitors will be even more quick to take down fair use videos than YouTube to prevent being sued out of existence.
I've been thinking about building something like that for a long time, but I just don't see how it would be feasible in the current copyright system.
The only solution I see would be sites like Dropout or Nebula(? not too familiar with it), where the platform is effectively the same as the content creator. This of course is inaccessible to the vast majority of smaller creators.
People have been talking a lot about how Twitch streaming is eating YouTube. Content creators are finding it more lucrative to stream on Twitch than create monetized content on YouTube. With VODs and such in Twitch they're really eating up that segment of YouTube.
I'm not sure how much YouTube notices though, they still have all the rest of their HUGE pie.
