[veridies]

I think that you’re fundamentally describing BitTorrent, which allows very wide distribution of large files with very low bandwidth costs. If one’s only goal is hosting videos with minimal bandwidth usage, BitTorrent (and maybe a scheme to prioritize uploading to peers that upload more themselves) works perfectly, and there exist browser plugins to enable in-browser torrent streaming. The problem, of course, is that there’s no way to monetize that, but honestly the vast majority of YouTubers don’t make any money anyway.