The main reason youtube has no competitors is because people want free (no ads, no subscription) content. And people will gleefully ad-block your service.

Look up the story of Vid.me

It exploded in popularity around 2015-17. Many youtube creators moved to it.

Then they went bankrupt because no one wanted to pay a subscription, and no one wanted to view ads.

Internet users desperately need to look in the mirror to figure out why so many services have strangleholds and why so many services plain suck for users - the users aren't paying for anything in any form, and they celebrate that fact.

There is no paying by users - which is replaced by ads. But in my experience the number of ads on YouTube sky-rocketed. I had no problem watching 15 seconds of an ad, skipping and then watching the rest of the video. But I used to watch long-form videos - and now I have skip ads every 7-8 minutes.

I almost stopped watching YT. In the few instances I watch I will for a8 minutes or so and at the first ad I am leaving. I am wondering if behavior like this explains the drop in views, but the fact that revenue stayed the same....

On Youtube you also have a choice between watching ads or subscription, I don't see the difference. Yes you can use an ad-blocker, but they're making it harder and harder.

Youtube has no competition because it's a winner-takes-all market, and they won.

Creators go where viewers are. Viewers go where creators are. Rinse and repeat, and sooner or later you end up with a monopoly.