It does not cost much. why cant we beat youtube. Nothing is impossible. Its good, if you are planning to start, but dont fail it in development.
Well it might be possible if you have a few milion dollars to invest in advertising and similar.. YouTube are the giants, it's like saying why can't a little clothes shop be bigger than Nike? Because Nike have been around for a long time and have millions of loyal customers, and it's the same for Youtube.
Well for you to describe it as a "youtube site" means that youtube is so big people use it as a description for such sites meaning you dont really have a chance unless it's very specialised.
I woudn't do it...If I were going to do it, I would attempt to approach a niche like was said before, but my videos in my niche all go on youtube....The competitors in different niche's are always smaller and often not as good.