[ghusto]

I pay creators directly all the time (for all media, not just videos), so this confusingly common sentiment is irrelevent to me.

With that out of the way; I would gleefully see YouTube disappear before I paid them a cent. Throwing money at something until all of your real competition goes out of business is exactly the kind of behaviour you would expect of the type of company that then takes advantage of their new position to screw people over.