[mullingitover]

Was YouTube losing money before they made this change? Their monetized content more than covered the bills for the content that wasn't monetized, and that free content their users gave them kept viewers on the site and watching ads. YouTube wasn't running a charity before they made this change, that free content they were given was valuable. They're just hoping that if they squeeze the golden goose harder it will lay more eggs.

[izacus]

They're a for-profit business, so again, why do you expect your content to be hosted at a complete loss while you monetize on external channels? Seems a bit entitled to expect corporations to give you things for free because other people pay for it.

[mullingitover]

> They're a for-profit business, so again, why do you expect your content to be hosted at a complete loss while you monetize on external channels?

This is begging the question that hosting non-monetized content is actually a net loss for YT. I'm saying it's actually not, instead the aggregate volume of free content keeps viewers on the site longer, and the higher viewership numbers result in a significant net profit.

More likely, YT decided that this arrangement, while profitable, wasn't making enough money for them, and because they must show their investors ever-increasing profit margins they decided to mildly poison their user experience in exchange for higher profits.