What's the best way to monetize an app that provides users with free video contents?

I think it might be interesting to create a small economy on the platform.

1. You run high quality educational ads (say paid courses, mentorship etc.). A part of the ad revenue goes to the creator and a part to you. If people dislike ads, then give them the option to take a paid subscription.
2. You give video uploaders the ability to sell the "ownership" of their video to people on the platform. The person who owns the video reaps the rewards from the ad and subscription revenue. You as the platform owner can take a fixed percentage for every transaction which occurs.

Although I do think you need a very capable team to work on a robust video platform and also introduce an economy.

I would recommend implementing a subscription that offers more content or features.
If you decide to go this way, our product (https://www.iaphub.com/) is helping developers selling in-app purchases 🙂

Agreeing with Mihai down below, advertisements absolutely kill the free experience of applications. Check our Spotify as a free member, every 30 minutes you get ads and it makes you want to find a streaming service without them. Same goes for YouTube. I'm so sick and tired of all the advertisements I see and I've gotten used to just pushing them out of my mind at this point when viewing.

If someone could replicate these platforms and make them profitable without ads, they'd have a killer product.

It would be awesome if you could stay away from ads. Maybe this would actually make your product different.

Take for e.g. https://nomadlist.com/ - the main product is totally free. However, there are paid memberships to be part of a community, a lot of tools/extensions that can also be paid and I think also sponsorships.

Depending on what content will be shown, you can also implement some kind of affiliate links - if there are products or businesses involved.

However, if you end up using ads, please make them smooth and not "violent" for the end user.

Advertising is still the most popular app monetization strategy indeed. You can go with the following types:

• Banner Ads. These are the original app advert.
• Interstitial Ads.
• Native Ads.
• Affiliate Ads.
• Reward ads.
• Summary of ads.

I have implemented a subscription model in the WBE Space and I am really happy with it.