[gruez]

> 20 years from now Youtube might have 100x more content to store on their servers but it probably won't be getting 100x the views.

Why can't they start deleting old videos?

[ghaff]

Certainly one plausible future is that, if your video isn't making them money after some period, you either pay them some ongoing fee to keep it live or they delete it. After all, that's the model for most other hosted content.

That YouTube is a free hoster for video content wasn't inevitable and isn't guaranteed going forward into the indefinite future.