"Google pays creators 55% of the ad revenue, so yes Google has to pay for those videos."
Google does not have to pay for videos. If a video brings google enough ad revenue, they willingly give some of it to the channel that made the video. They do not pay a fixed or up-front cost, and assume none of the risk/effort in creating videos. To be fully pedantic, Google doesn't pay for videos in any sense, they pay for the resulting attention.
"People upload to YouTube because YouTube gives them plenty of ad revenue. They don't upload to sites without a lot of ads since that would reduce their ad revenue."
The videos people want to watch are only on Youtube -> Viewers only use Youtube -> Content creators only upload to Youtube -> Repeat...
Google's centripetal force prevents competitors from competing.
"the only reason this is upsetting to people is because it seemed to be free for so long"
The issue, at least to me, is that Google has a sort of monopoly on >99% of content on Youtube. They provide virtually nothing[0] to content creators other than free†⸸ video hosting, and in return they get to gatekeep the content itself. All of the cost is offloaded onto the consumer, and there is little to no incentive (arguably negative* incentive) for the people producing the value (videos) to move off youtube.
"It costs to make and it costs to deliver."
It costs to make, but it's not Google that has to pay. It costs to deliver, but why should Google be the only party who gets to deliver other people's content?
If the situation was "watch video on youtube with ads, or watch video on Peertube, or watch video on Odysee" I don't think many people would be complaining about mandatory ads on Youtube, but because it's "watch video on youtube with ads, or don't watch the video", people resent the dilema.
[0] The most tangible, by far, value Youtube provides is the huge audience, but that's just a feedback loop, not due to quality or effort. Actually, it's probably due to the fact that many people who make great content have historically only put it on Youtube, because of the huge... and so on.
Rocket's documentation and overall 'dev experience' are very pleasant. In the past, I felt like I was making a significant tradeoff when using Rocket over more actively developed frameworks (Axum and Actix Web). With v0.5 (finally) coming out, and the Rocket Web Framework Foundation, that feels like much less of a concern.
A great example of Rocket in use is the official Rust website, which is open source.
Google does not have to pay for videos. If a video brings google enough ad revenue, they willingly give some of it to the channel that made the video. They do not pay a fixed or up-front cost, and assume none of the risk/effort in creating videos. To be fully pedantic, Google doesn't pay for videos in any sense, they pay for the resulting attention.
"People upload to YouTube because YouTube gives them plenty of ad revenue. They don't upload to sites without a lot of ads since that would reduce their ad revenue."
The videos people want to watch are only on Youtube -> Viewers only use Youtube -> Content creators only upload to Youtube -> Repeat... Google's centripetal force prevents competitors from competing.