This problem may be surmountable, but eventually it seems likely that youtube will be closed to hackers and freeloaders. It's sad in the general sense -- but of

This problem may be surmountable, but eventually it seems likely that youtube will be closed to hackers and freeloaders. It's sad in the general sense -- but of course Google is free to modify their services however they like. Hosting all that video is not free and currently they support it via advertising. This means that any consumer of Youtube should expect that eventually Youtube may stop working for them -- and perhaps all the content they love on Youtube will eventually become unavailable.