>they had no ad revenue sharing with video creators
This is the one point that makes YouTube so difficult to shake. The money is attractive to creators and YouTube offers the most money with the largest audience. YouTube themselves actually gets 45% of the revenue, while the creator gets 55%.
vimeo has a $55/month cost for 5T of videos. Most youtube channels that are businesses make way more than $55 per month, and youtube keeps way more than $55 of their ad revenue.
I dont think the major reason creators choose youtube because it's "cheap" - it aint. It's the only game in town where there's sufficient advertiser demand to pay out money. And youtube knows this, and thus, can charge the 45% split. The "free" aspect is also keeping out new competitors - the business moat is huge. There's a reason why microsoft or amazon isn't getting in the game.
Advertiser demand may be part of it, but there's also discoverability.
Turning up around YouTube must be extremely valuable. If your content is only on Vimeo, your odds of being chosen by the mighty YouTube algorithm are 0%.
> microsoft or amazon isn't getting in the game
You're right really, and it's not really the same thing, but they do both offer free file-storage services capable of streaming video to the browser.
This is the one point that makes YouTube so difficult to shake. The money is attractive to creators and YouTube offers the most money with the largest audience. YouTube themselves actually gets 45% of the revenue, while the creator gets 55%.