Would you take a free mountain lift ride to the top if you happened to come across one during a climbing trip?

would I read the summary of a book expecting the same thing as reading the book?

no

and if the person who offered you the lift was so obliging to stop at any view you find appealing along the way for how long you desire?

somehow I still think it would be a "no" form you, because it's not really about the views

there is a point where the analogy breaks.

Yes, when it comes to irl mountains you could have a lift that stops along the way. And when it comes to irl books, there is no way to bypass the journey, so to speak.

Also, just a note: it's usually not fun, nor interesting, to quibble and nitpick analogies, that's not what they're there for.

Youtube premium users on average give creators more revenue per view than non-premium users. 55% of the premium revenue is split between the creators you watch.

Monetizing your marketplace monopoly with 45% rents is even more egregious than the App Store which people complain about at 30%.

In fact, it might be the highest monopoly tax in all of tech. Even Spotify only takes 30% from the same musicians who post the same music videos on each platform.

Streaming video requires excruciatingly expensive infrastructure. It's one of reasons why there are no competitors to be seen.

It requires less expensive infrastructure than AI, and AI has tons of competitors.

YouTube simply enjoys a classic network effects monopoly, and that’s why their margins are high compared to any other business in the S&P500.

There will be no competitors if one of the player in the field does it for free for enough time. We'd call that "dumping" if it was a manufacturer.

It would be dumping if they took much less than 55%, but they actually do make profits so its not dumping.

YouTube has been in the red at least until 2010 under most estimations.

For reference that's around the point Vimeo started pivoting to different strategies and blocking long content as they couldn't pay for the infra.

That's also around that time that Dailymotion went down the pipes with the French gov stepping in to save the remains.

YouTube thrived from there as creators and advertisers had nowhere else to go at that point. That's the dumping part.

Video especially with high-bit rates is most expensive medium to deliver and store. Well, I suppose Youtube could move to model where they charge for creators for both of those and drop their cut to 30%...