What do you mean by direct-to-content-producer? I can’t find it on Google. Are you suggesting the viewers pay the content creator and the content creator pays YouTube for hosting?
Subscription is a reasonable funding method. It’s also reasonably priced. I think the bigger problem is companies that refuse to offer subscriptions, because Facebook knows no one is dumb enough to pay $15-20 a month, but that is what they make off the ads so offering the service for anything less would cause them to lose money. Merely offering the subscription shows users how much Facebook really makes off of them.
YouTube is also very generous with how much they spit revenue with creators. I don’t like that they exist as a monopoly, but at least they aren’t parasites like the other half of the web.