If no one pays for YouTube how can they keep supporting their insanely costly infrastructure? Hosting all those videos is not free. Far from it.
I’m perfectly fine paying for YouTube if that means I can continue to have access to awesome creators under a easy to use platform. It would be a very sad day if Google decided to shut down YouTube due to not being able to cover it’s costs.
The only other company that could potentially take over would be meta. Which would probably be even worse. At least YouTube provides an option to pay to disable ads.
I would be fine if YouTube crumbled and was put into second place by a better platform or two.
Yes it’s the best option currently which is why they can do such ridiculous practices.
But once they have actual competition, I expect them to bend over backwards for my attention. Because if they don’t change the current trajectory, they’ll go the way of the other digital giants of the past.
Do not worry about having a viable platform in a future without YouTube. I am 100% sure there will be one.
Good. Let them close it.
They won’t, because it’s still making money hand over fist. This is all because tech profits are down a smidge now we’re all getting back to normal after COVID, so they’re all cranking up the enshittification dial to compensate.
None of these companies are “losing” money. They’re just making very slightly less than they were before. Fuck 'em.