I switched over since I heard it was more privacy friendly than YouTube and have been using the platform for a while without issues, but this cookie banner just popped up. You can opt-out of things like "Access precise geolocation data" but a lot of other information is still shared by third parties and not opt-outable.
It seems "Reject All" is the correct choice here, but I'm not sure if it is the best choice for browser users who have to constantly log back into their accounts.
Are there any alternatives I should consider? PeerTube seems really empty so I'm not sure what I should switch over to.
There are no other big platforms. There was a very extensive discussion about it recently. Making a service like YouTube is extremely expensive and not even very profitable. YouTube exists because Google has the resources to maintain it and it's too important for everyone to shut it down.
You can either use YouTube with a ton of privacy hardening (using a private browser or a VPN) or host videos on your own website.
Content creators have to earn money somehow. But the fediverse seems very against capitalism, so I don't know how it will attract people who want to make a living creating content if everybody tells them it's wrong.
There's nothing stopping creators from doing sponsored videos and/or sharing their liberapay/opencollective/patreon on peertube, they even provide a dedicated place for it.
Most of the youtubers I follow claim YouTube's direct compensation makes up very little of their overall income, especially since YouTube keeps lowering the compensation/demonetizing everything. Most of their income comes from sponsored videos, patreons, and merch sales. Maybe it depends on the youtuber but it seems consistent with those I follow.