[GaryNumanVevo]

YT doesn't have a monopoly, it has market share because 99% of the users watch content for free (via ads). If they made everyone pay or the ads were unbearable you'd see the market shift to other youtube front ends or other streaming sites entirely.

Personally, I pay for YT premium since it's a slightly better way to support creators (that I don't directly pay via Patreon) and I get Youtube Music. If they raised their prices unreasonably, I'd just enable my youtube-dl script on my plex server and watch for free there.

[gentleman11]

Where exactly are YouTube’s competitors? It has none for 99% of the content I watch, although udemy is good for beginner courses

[GaryNumanVevo]

Directly: sites like Twitch are close. Indirectly: Netflix, HBO, etc. all compete for screen-based entertainment.

I also watch a lot of Youtube, outside of a couple of good movies and TV shows that I stream from my plex. So YT premium makes a lot of sense for me

[skinnymuch]

Do you use Twitch? I don’t really see the direct competition besides YouTube’s small amount of live streamers that directly compete with Twitch streamers.

[GaryNumanVevo]

Tiktok is probably a better direct competitor, but I see twitch and youtube as fairly comparable

[jfdbcv]

TikTok.

Also - just because it doesn't have the content that you, personally, watch, does not make it not a competitor.