I’ve been using YouTube far more than any of my paid services for years. However I’m ready for a switch. If the YouTubers who I follow switched platforms I’d go with them in a second.
YouTube defended their monopoly by running for free. They murdered the growth of legitimate competitions like Vimeo that had healthier business models... Because they didn't try to run for free.
And now that they've saturated the market and killed off all of the serious competition it's time to profit
Do you know why there are no good competitors to YouTube? It's fucking expensive.
They have a monopoly but for what? They don't turn a profit. The losses they take on the platform are public knowledge because shockingly, hosting hundreds of TB of data being uploaded per minute isn't cheap.
The only sites that even spit in their general direction is like, Pornhub and oh boy don't try to tell me that 'ad experience' is better Lol. Youtube has shit policies and even worse moderator decisions but it is widely a fucking charity and I think they have some right to turn it into a business instead.
I look forward to the updated source you have on hand. They weren't profitable in 2009, weren't profitable in 2015, and the only things to change since then were Premium subscriptions and more ads. What could they have done to turn a profit?
Edit: as I'm not sure you'll look at the graphs. I want to point out that since 2015 the "what could they have done to turn a profit" question is answered in the graphs
Unfortunately, revenue and profit are not synonyms. Revenue is money made before taxes and expenses. Yes, their revenue has increased because their userbase has increased. Users who are served advertisements. If users block advertisements, revenue decreases* while expenses increase due to more traffic and data storage required, reducing profit. Since YouTube doesn't flop their dick out on the table often, we don't know exact numbers for expenses but in 2015 when they did whip it out, it was at a loss. In your own link, the only methods it cites for Youtube 'profiting' are advertisements and premium. A userbase is only valuable if you can advertise to them, sell their data, or get them to pay a subscription.
Revenue technically doesn't "decrease" in this instance but just fails to "increase" because advertisements aren't being served to users that otherwise would receive them.
If enough people block ads, it widens the margin between cost and revenue which can lead to "negative profits" or a loss.
I'm well aware revenue and profit arent 1:1. You're "source" is a "Google person says they break even" in 2015. I give you graphs showing revenue growing at almost 4x the rate of users since 2015. Are they making 800% more profit, obviously not. But they sure as hell aren't losing money on YouTube anymore.
It wasn't profitable. And it was free. It killed competition by losing money.
And now, by your concession, they are turning it into a business.
That's a fundamental change in the service. Fuck that. Either it was always their intent, in which case they were lying scum the whole time. Or it wasn't their intent and they've just decided spontaneously to prioritize profit, in which case it's greed and betrayal.
.. Yes. The strategy of expanding at a loss in order to recoup it later is a... business strategy. What? It's not even an underhanded one because it carries substantial risk. They ate losses and are now trying to collect on what users like you and I have been enjoying on their dime. Adblockers was to staunch the bleeding and clearly it's not working well enough so they're trying new ways.
You're confusing greed with typical business practices. The grocery store isn't greedy, they're trying to keep the lights on and pay employees. This isn't "Walmart selling items at a loss until local businesses shut down and ramping them back up afterwards" - the data storage needed for this shit is beyond what most companies can do. Amazon with their AWS infrastructure is the only thing that has a shot in hell. The only reason Youtube can do it is by the sheer fact rich ass Google owns them.
Businesses typically collect this thing called money to keep supplying the service you enjoy. Adblockers remove the very essential part of this exchange in which you pay for the thing you're using. You've been stealing groceries and are mad you're now being told to pay for them.
The reason while they have all the content, is precisely because they can generate revenue for channels. I much prefer payment through subcription and ad views to annoying in video sponsors and product placements
But on YouTube you get both. If I could pay and not get in video sponsorship along with no ads, then I might consider it. But I will not pay to be advertised at.
Sponsorblock is an extention which can help. It doesn't detract from the money the creator makes and you don't see ads for shit you dont want or can't afford. If you don't have premium and block ads though, you're definitely hurting the creator and platform as a whole.