There are tubes and tubes. Nothing against tubes in general. A tube using sponsor clips up to 5 mins is totally different than using full length videos, especially without having a license to use it.
The comment you mentioned shows that these tubes don't have a good reputation here due to several reasons and doesn't mean trading with tubes isn't ok.
In general, linktrades are always useful in order to get better SE ranking. But I doubt that you will get a hardlink from the big tubes. Check if the site you will get a link from has a value for you. If yes, happy trading
