It's not about people "trying to make money", it's about viewers wanting to see high quality videos.
High quality videos just cost a lot of money and labor to produce. There is simply no way around this. Any platform which doesn't let creators monetize effectively will be stuck with what people produce in their free time. Which will essentially always be worse, because the competitors will have creators with actual budgets and time to work.
They don't necessarily. e.g. I'd consider Ravi Vakil's Algebraic Geometry videos[0] among the highest quality videos on youtube, and its just him talking over a screen share. Fields medalist Richard Borcherds likewise has posted a ton of lectures of him just talking while he writes on paper.
In fact, I'd expect the highest quality videos to have a relatively low viewership. Most people seem to want Mr Beast or whatever.
[0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=WTEZjR5aNjw&list=PLoaXcYRr65txn8...
High quality doesn't just mean production values, it can relate to any aspect of the video. High quality could simply reflect the quality of content. I would much prefer if PeerTube became a far easier to browse version of Archive along with creators producing items of creative and knowledge value. We don't need to replace YouTube as it likely can't be replaced. However switching a significant number away with a different approach to what is hosted there would be a positive.