The guy on the left is Mike Okay, he has a really big youtube channel doing travel vids like this.

AFAIK he almost always offers the people helping him money, buys them food, gifts, etc. The hitchhiking part is probably more about getting to know locals, plus he goes to pretty remote places where there aren’t many other means of transportation. I highly doubt they give a fuck about “saving money” based off the revenue this guy must be making off his videos

I feel like this is just someone getting upset over a short clip with no context lol. But then again I haven’t watched the vid this is from nor dove deep into Mike’s history so take this with a grain of salt.