Someone have to pay for the storage & distribution for things like this to work.
Who should pay? YouTube have advertisers pay it for you, by selling your info.
Pro: Viewers can watch content easily without paying upfront. (low viewer friction is great for spread & vitality)
Con: They keeps the right to centrally decide what's to be censored or not both directly and indirectly by algorithmic shaddowbanning.
I think the answer to the question "Who should pay?" should be left semi opened, and answered with: Those who want the content to be distributed.
Ideally a protocoll let anyone pay from any source. Viewers could pay the seeders, but so could creators if they want. Also, seeders could distribute at their own cost. Flexibility and freedom in the protocol would be ideal. The important upgrade from regular torrent must however be for seeders to be able to set a minimum sat/byte price and a mechanism for users to pay that price while downloading.
Feel free to join in on brainstorming this topic.