YouTube is a great resource…it just seems weird how precarious it is. You have all these creators who have spent countless hours creating high quality content for them (and even more low quality content!) and all of it could go away in an instant depending on the whims of a large corporation. Sure, some people have managed to make a lot of money from their YouTube content…but not as much as Google has! They can change the rules any time they want and most of their creators have no recourse.
YouTube could disallow this kind of script any time that they wanted and what could Tom Scott do about it? I haven’t watched this video in a while, but I seem to recall it ties in with his thesis.
High quality creators (of which, Tom Scott is one) need to find ways to own their own distribution or at least get firm contractual control over the terms of its distribution. They are the engine that drive the YouTube economy and my guess is that most do not get to share in anything but crumbs of the revenue they bring in.
I think that kbin is very promising, but I feel like it is early days yet. Even if they don’t end up being the dominant platform, I feel like some of the features they are working on will persist.