[CuriouslyC]

Let content creators figure that out with their audiences. YouTube should just be a batteries included public video hosting service, with video creators as the customer. Creators with video views passing a threshold would need to pay google or have their videos downgraded to 240p, then temporarily disabled if they continued not to pay. Users would get some amount of space and bandwidth as part of a free tier to help them get started. It'd be like AWS but for video content creators, instead of like a shitty cable network.

[jeroenhd]

Can you imagine some small time Roblox Youtuber blowing up and ending up with a sudden bandwidth bill in the hundreds of thousands? Popups with "this month's watch count has been reached, please ask @contentcreator to pay for more views"? Making uploaders pay would absolutely destroy the platform.

[CuriouslyC]

The only person hurt under that scheme would be just that, people who go viral out of nowhere. Other users could re-upload the video to mirror it though, so there's an easy workaround.

Seems like a small price to pay for a YouTube with integrity that respects both creators and viewers and treats both fairly without trying to exploit anyone.

[MBCook]

“I don’t want to pay $15/mo.

But if a creator I like gets a big bill, I’ll take their video and re-upload it without their permission to mirror it and cut down their bandwidth bill.

Now I only pay $400/mo!”