Most of the channels I know ask for donations via patreon or other funding platforms. I don't think youtube pays much except for maybe the top 1% of slop channels.

In most cases, not all that much. YouTube is mainly useful for getting views and building an audience. It’s a combination of revenue sources like sponsors, merchandise, donations, etc., that really make it worthwhile for creators.

I go to my son's house, and start browsing through his streamers, and he's got all kinds of stuff I never see. They keep me boxed into the algorithm they've assigned to me, and wont let me see anything else, so I keep picking from their choices for me, which only locks me harder into their box.

Peer tube uses webtorrents, which for many reasons haven't caught on. It's still mainly centralized nodes with massive hosting costs. Torrents are the fully decentralized answer.