Honestly. Not as much as you might think. A lot of YouTubers are trying to get away from the algorithm and the rat race that is YouTube monetization. That is the more established ones for sure. The smaller ones still definitely rely on it at this point. But it isn’t sustainable either. And a lot of people are looking for a way out. Many of them now rely more on patreon than anything. And with services like Patreon as long as they can get the content out to satisfy people they will still get paid no matter how they get it out there. Though there are still gaps that could be monetized perhaps.

As far as copyright content, has that ever stopped them from uploading it to YouTube? It’s going to happen. There are still Napster like services out there for music piracy as well. If you know where to look. I would think instances that do that sort of thing will probably be pretty isolated. But they will exist. Likely in nations with lax copyright laws and enforcement. But the copyright wars as they currently exist are not sustainable long-term. They need to find ways to get the content to the people that want to see it for a reasonable compensation. Yes there will be people who will always want something for free. But they would also be plenty of people willing to watch commercials etc like the old days to see the content as well. Peer tube honestly could be a next step towards arriving to something like that. But only time will tell.