Being able to compensate someone for their work is a complex process. Most Youtubers and or media publications would not exist if they asked for a fee upfront.
Whole generations have existed without YouTube videos. Perhaps we could exist as well?
I’m not trying to be “get of my lawn”. I’m saying much of the content we have now could not exist and humanity would be no worse off.
Example:
OpenRTB + VAST chain (standards used for targeted advertising) required to display an ad on the site involve dozens of parties the user has no knowledge about. In fact before an ad is displayed on the page, there's no way of knowing who and how will be involved in processing your data. The consent is implied and opt-out is enforced poorly to put it mildly. That's the complexity I'm talking about.
The alternative (for instance) would be an automatic system distributing the $$ I pay YT among the creators I watch. That's significantly less complexity for the end-user and the content creator.
So youtube red instead? They split the creator portion of your subscription between the creators you watch (assuming they've setup the ability to get paid by YT). Worth quite a bit more than ad views too, last I heard.
I should've used more examples but tried to keep it terse. Thanks for pointing this out.