YouTube didn't produce the content(except sometimes when they do actually pay content creators), but they pay massive amounts(billions of dollars per year), not

YouTube didn't produce the content(except sometimes when they do actually pay content creators), but they pay massive amounts(billions of dollars per year), not peanuts, to build the hosting and discovery infra that lets people get these views, which is why very few huge creators host their content on, say, Vimeo, or by themselves, or on peertube. On top of that, creators have ways of monetizing their videos which completely leave YouTube from getting any kind of a cut, such as Patreon, sponsorships, in-video ads, etc.