[jillesvangurp]

Google went for premium content with Youtube many times. And it flopped every time. That's the point: they've been trying to make more of it and they have failed over and over again. Ads are what drives the revenue because in the end that's the only thing they know how to do. Youtube itself is indeed a good business; it's a nice business. And with an ad blocker I find it very enjoyable. Great acquisition more than 15 years ago.

[acdha]

I think that’s the key problem: the ad money makes it hard to see other models as viable because nothing they do now will be anywhere near as profitable over the very short timeframes they evaluate product or personnel performance. If you give up almost immediately, you have nothing waiting to help the company in a dark time for the primary revenue stream – and each time they’ve made it harder for a new product to be successful because people expect it to be cancelled.