Would Youtube be as popular without Minecraft as it is today?

When the first Minecraft videos and Let's plays were uploaded at that time, Youtube became more and more popular, before you could see almost exclusively any cat videos and so on.

Yes, I can well imagine that the whole Lets player scene has contributed to the increase in awareness. At that time, there was no other way for private people to simply put videos on the net

The whole thing has definitely helped to transform Youtube from a pure short video website, to a commercial service. But other content categories have also played a role

Clear. Shortly thereafter, there were some lifestyle Youtubers and songcovers, and so on.

I guess so. For if the Minecraft videos had not become popular, other videos would have come in large numbers and YouTube would have grown anyway. But I can imagine that YouTube would not have developed into a mainstream, but to a special platform for certain videos, such as cat videos.