Would an independent YouTube be less susceptible to these requests?
Or imagine YouTube were to split into two; YouTube the distribution platform and YouTube the recommendation engine. Imagine Youtube the platform had to license content publicly. Now it is much more likely to have competition emerging and end users benefiting from it.
Before, industry players, YouTubers, and users largely didn't mind. Now, there is a systemic chilling effect in the form of demonetization, algorithm shenanigans, and banning.
To recover revenue under this new paradigm, YouTube is catering to "brand-safe" corporate media productions and surfacing their videos much more highly than those of independent creators. There's likely media money involved as well, much like how Yelp and food delivery apps rank restaurants.
We don't know if it has ever been profitable at all.
...but ideally, we would have multiple YouTube competitors, that would allow content creators vote with their choice to use Google.
One of them is even a heavyweight - Facebook. Did you not realise that Facebook hosted videos? Maybe you're unaware that Instagram has Instagram TV section...
You would almost certainly need something like the Paramount Consent Decrees to structure the marketplace correctly and to foster the kind of competition that would prevent a single player from being in such a vulnerable position.
