I don't see YouTube being primarily a social network, if that's what you mean. It is a different thing. I happen to post a lot on YouTube to share with friends

I don't see YouTube being primarily a social network, if that's what you mean. It is a different thing. I happen to post a lot on YouTube to share with friends and family, but I have a grand total of one friend who does the same. Aside from meeting them via YouTube (his YouTubing/skateboarding daughter commented on a video of my daughter skateboarding, back when comments were even allowed on kid-oriented channels), that's not how we communicate. If a competitor to YouTube arose, I could easily switch over and it would be no big deal. I just use YouTube because it is convenient and free. Basically, being a "social network" isn't a binary thing. YouTube is nothing like Facebook, the latter of which is a primary way many people keep in touch with friends and family. YouTube is far more one directional, with the vast majority of users being passive consumers, and the vast majority of content they watch is posted by people they don't know in real life. That said, I'm all for breaking up all of them, to be honest. Or at least forcing them to open their platforms in various ways. I think we'd all be better off, and even their stockholders would be better off in the long run. But Facebook, in my opinion, is the one with the strongest network monopoly in play. Google's browser isn't controlled in the same way as Facebook controls Facebook. It is open source and Microsoft is able to make a version of it (Edge) that strips out the Google specific stuff, and there is Brave, etc. Also, if you use a completely different browser such as Firefox, you can use YouTube just fine, you can use Google search just fine, you can use it for any other purposes and you aren't "left out" as you often are if, say, you use some non-Facebook social network. Apple really pisses me off with their walled garden BS, but still, I think Facebook's monopoly is more actively harmful to competition. Partly because the Android platform does provide competition to Apple in mobile devices and apps.