Listen, I don’t think we would lose anything of value if YouTube suddenly stopped paying creators because of either end of the platform or change in business strategy.

People who made valuable videos would still make them and the rest was always just cheap lowest grade entertainment, fun but like no one will notice if it is gone and forget in 2 days it ever existed.

Even Netflix would not be a huge loss let alone YouTube clips. Truth is Netflix tv series are nowhere near artistic and cultural value of movies like Peter Jackson lotr etc… it’s just another form of cognitive McDonald.

If whole McDonald went bankrupt overnight we would be ‘oh well shame let’s go to McBurger’ and forget it ever existed in few days. If an extremely good and cozy local restaurant closed down we would mourn it for months. I even mourn loss of quality in such restaurants a year after opening which is unfortunately common… it’s so sad to order your favourite state of the art food and realize it is a far cry from the perfection of the original dish. It’s lost, forever possibly. It’s like suddenly someone erased Beethoven from existence.

youtube pays you even if the content isn’t worth getting paid for

if alphabet’s shareholders heard this, they would take them to court. it can’t be true. and if they’re willing to pay, someone else will be, too.