Think of it like you're a street musician. You put a basket on the floor, play your music, people go by, some might pay you, most won't.

Is it wasted time? That's up to you to decide, then choose whether you want to keep doing that or not.

If you want to charge for it directly, then sell tickets for a concert (put videos on Patreon).

It's not stealing. It's using. I have no obligation under any legal framework to use their content the way they wish I would. Trust me, or pay a lawyer to learn the same truth at considerably more cost.

If it's costing YouTube so much, then they can freely switch to showing no videos to non-paying users at all. But they won't do that, because people watching without paying is what got them to where they are.

As for the creators, it's up to them to decide whether they want to publish under these terms and risk having their content viewed without being paid for, or not put it on YouTube.

It's not stealing; no one is deprived of anything except rent.

If anything the cost of making the video is sunk by the creator just once and then rapidily payed off.

Once that happens it's just hosting costs and Moore's, Kryder's and Koomey's Laws are brining that down exponetially.

Funnily enough though you never see the amount of avertising shown getting shorter to represent the lower costs involved eh?