India, June 20 -- Most of YouTube looks nothing like the YouTube we know.

Dive below the surface layer of gaming clips, music covers, challenges and dares, product placement and stunt philanthropy, and one finds. Indian construction workers talking about how much they miss home, moving tributes to lost pets, children showcasing amateur but delightful rap skills through songs about the many moons of Neptune.

There are also intimate home-video-style vignettes of birthday parties, travel velfies, heartfelt messages to friends and raw footage from dashcams.

"YouTube is the default video arm of the internet, in large parts of the world," says Ryan McGrady, senior researcher at the Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure (IDPI) of the U...