Nothing about any of that couldn't happen on a decentralised/federated network. The drama could obviously happen, though likely about different issues to those on YouTube. The discoverability could happen on a decentralised system, as could ad money/subscription payments, recommendations or anything else.
Nothing about what makes someone successful on a site like YouTube needs it to be centralised to be possible.
Nothing about what makes someone successful on a site like YouTube needs it to be centralised to be possible.