Unfortunately, it takes extraordinary effort by the math teachers to make Mathematics interesting to students. Even if some of the teachers are willing to put the effort in teaching this wonderful subject in a way that makes sense to students, it's not possible to turn all mathematics teachers into teachers who understand how mathematics MUST be taught.
I hope all these books, YouTube videos, and websites can help in making students curious about mathematics and explore further on their own. It is hopeless to even expect the school systems in US and a lot of other countries, to change the way their school systems work - teachers are not given enough time to spend on the topics in mathematics. It takes lot of extra effort by the students.
The actual reality is most students don’t have the cognitive horsepower for much past long division. I’ve seen adults struggle with basic algebra: “but what is X?” And so on. And that’s fine. Billions of people are going to live satisfying and fulfilling lives without ever knowing the chain rule.
I think you inadvertently highlighted what I suspect is the real issue; a ruthless focus on the path to calculus to the detriment of other useful maths.
I think I disagree! Calculus is great and all (truly), but logic, boolean algebra, probability, statistics, even linear algebra all have really interesting and useful insights and are very approachable. I'm sure there are other maths I've never encountered that can also be enjoyed with minimal pre-requisite knowledge, though that might be more in the 'abstract and difficult' territory.
The bits you need from calculus to approach those other subjects is also very minimal and approachable relative to the content of a calculus pre-req (where applicable).
I hope all these books, YouTube videos, and websites can help in making students curious about mathematics and explore further on their own. It is hopeless to even expect the school systems in US and a lot of other countries, to change the way their school systems work - teachers are not given enough time to spend on the topics in mathematics. It takes lot of extra effort by the students.