Unless somebody was bookmarking your video directly (does that really happen, as opposed to a HTML page / app), this IS what the video hosts offer, just at a higher level. Vimeo isn't a social video platform the way YouTube is, it's just a video host for the most part, including whitelabeling options. What is the vendor lock-in concern?
At the last educational place I worked for, we hosted our videos on YouTube, Vimeo, our own host, and a few other places. Nobody ever knew or asked which was which, except the YT and Vimeo videos were smoother experiences. They were all whitelabeled or else unlabeled.
I'd argue that for most content producers and users, YouTube (for the social network and the wide compatibility across devices) and Vimeo (for the ridiculously cheap pricing and ease of use) are the best choices AS CDNs. Both offer superior developer/producer experiences than a self-hosted stack too.
> had a high degree of control over my platform and could even develop some on-premises customizations that would be simply impossible had I relied on third-party, internet-only solutions.
But I'd love to hear about these cases. What justifies that complexity for you?