[sjy]

youtube-dl needs to be regularly updated as streaming sites add new countermeasures to block it. If those updates can no longer be crowdsourced from a popular, reputable site like GitHub, the tool has a good chance of dying.

[Chirael]

This is the crux of it; finding something that is both DMCA-proof and trustworthy/reputable enough to allow auto-updating will be a huge barrier :(