Netflix has 250m subscribers and made $4.492B in net profit.
YouTube has 2.7 billion users.
If YouTube paid per user what Netflix did they would go broke.
So it isn't as simple as "Netflix does okay".
Especially since you say these changes make you want to leave the platform. Why would you expect YouTube to cause that kind of damage earlier than necessary?
I don't claim they need this to survive, just that it is hard to know how profitable they are without any real numbers.
The Netflix to YouTube comparison is an apples to oranges one.
I would compare TikTok and/or Facebbok to YouTube before I make comparisons to Netflix because their business models align... attracting as many eyeballs as possible. That's it. Numbers for its sake.
Through our efforts - they did just that. They were successful in attracting over 2.5 billion active monthly users. That was their main goal.
It was up to them to monetize it in a way that didn't chase users away. They did that for nearly 17 years. There were no complaints at any time.
It was sort of like Microsoft's monopoly on Operating Systems. They rather we pirate their OS than take the chance we would get comfortable using another OS. Well, Google was the same. They rather some of us use ad-blockers than possibly use another service - ie, keeping those eyeballs only on their site.
I do not see Google doing anything to keep me (and many millions of others) from leaving. Quite the opposite. Nowadays, I have basically moved over to TikTok - their actual competitor. Their hardball tactics mean little to me. They may also be losing an entire younger generation (too tired to source this).
Maybe they just resigned to losing the numbers game and are trying to segue into increasing revenue. I don't know. Netflix/Disney/Amazon are there the same way Facebook was there when they tried Google+. TikTok is also there for the short-form, creator stuff. YouTube is surrounded...
Google seems to not understand the market anymore but they're trying to keep investors happy with revenue growth.
It really makes no difference to me what Google does. I shrug. Their only hope to fend off TikTok is government intervention. Attempts, as is common knowledge, have already been made.
You vastly overestimate the impact these changes will make IMHO. Unless there are numbers backing up that they lost users there isn't proof that locking down had negative impacts.
I don't care how you feel about Google, I am just pointing out that "they made a lot of money" has an asterisk.
YouTube has 2.7 billion users.
If YouTube paid per user what Netflix did they would go broke.
So it isn't as simple as "Netflix does okay".
Especially since you say these changes make you want to leave the platform. Why would you expect YouTube to cause that kind of damage earlier than necessary?
I don't claim they need this to survive, just that it is hard to know how profitable they are without any real numbers.