[015a]

My guess is far more benign: YouTube operates one of the world's largest CDNs. It takes time to saturate that CDN, but it's necessary in order to serve many of the largest content creators. If a small video, from a historically small content creator, gets too popular, too quickly, they likely, simply, aren't ready at an infrastructure level to serve the video.

And, a moron of a product manager was responsible for trying to word that into an error message that a billion people can understand.

[gowld]

Why would you assume that the person who is paid to do this professionally has less of a clue than you who just... read a reddit comment

[015a]

My default assumption when interfacing with anything created by YouTube is that the people working on it have, naturally, as much of a clue as anyone, but observing them act with wisdom on that clue is a rare event given the carbon monoxide leak which affects every floor of their headquarters. Except the one home to the team that designs the algorithm recommending pregnant Disney character kidnapping videos to children; the air on that floor is pristine, as their metrics are so high they shattered the ceiling to bring in some fresh air.