I don't think YouTube will go away completely. It might stop being the biggest player but I do think it will remain a big player even if that happens (just not the biggest). I'm not saying it won't go down because you can't know that and people said MySpace would be the last social media and would be the biggest thing and now it is hardly used and it is only really used by musicians from what I can tell but beyond seeing people using it professionally, you don't really hear anything about MySpace nowadays. It is possible something could overtake it but even despite all the shit they have put people through I don't think YouTube will go under completely and I don't think another website taking over will happen with great speed.
However that doesn't mean I have faith in the platform to work for me. Far from it. You should never put your eggs in one basket. If people are hoping to make money from their content, they should be looking at other avenues than just adsense such as patreon and affiliate programs etc (and making steem if they're on here). I wouldn't rely on just YouTube for the videos itself either. I have both a YouTube channel and a Vidme channel and it is good even beyond just some piece of mind as there are differences between the two and pros and cons of each and I'm finding where one lets me down, the other is good most of the time so the combination of the two is meeting my needs well at this point (not financial needs but the other demands I have of the platforms).
While Steemit itself might give YT a run for it's money, I don't that's where steemit is at. IT seems more of a place to share your content you host on places like YouTube to me in terms of that side of things and socially it reminds me of reddit but self promo is allowed and encouraged. I have found people on here to be open to discussion and wanting to discuss things like how reddit is most of the time. To me, personally, Steemit is like reddit with a love for people sharing their work, rather than a general discouragement of it, moreso than it is like a video platform.
I agree that I don't think YouTube will ever go away completely just because of its hulking size in comparison to anything similar to it right now. I do think it's possible that it could lose its spot as the largest as long as it keeps making the mistakes it's currently making and someone else takes advantage of those mistakes and doesn't miss their window. I'm not able to state in absolute confidence that YouTube will become irreverent (I don't think it ever will) or even drop from being #1 on what it does to be honest. I'm trying to make the assumption that if they continue to neglect aspects of their site they leave that door open for competition to close the gap between say YouTube & Steemit. I think you're right in saying YouTube won't go under completely due to its size and it always has Google above it.
I agree that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket but what other platform is comparable to YouTube in service and viewership? I can't think of anything as large as YouTube or as unique as YouTube (something fitting both those criteria is what I'm getting at.)
I also agree with your last paragraph being that Steemit is very different than YouTube and it's kind of its own thing all together not really comparable to many other social media sites. Steemit seems like Reddit almost in terms of how you share your content you've posted on YouTube. Especially since Steemit doesn't have any form of repository for videos in the first place. I just found it an interesting topic being someone whose only been on Steemit a week and I've already made double what I've made on YouTube. It got me thinking what if Steemit decided to compete to some extent with YouTube in the future. Could they compete? I believed yes because of the monetary gain people have the potential to achieve & the fact that the community is so warm to most people new & veteran!
Thank you for your comment, mate. It really let me think about my article from another view point and kind of see it in a new light! I hope my response allowed you to understand what my intentions were with the article as well as reply to your thoughs! :)