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Diminishing returns. I think most people would agree that 1Mbps 1080p AV1 looks ok (https://demo.bitmovin.com/public/firefox/av1/ https://demo.bitmovin.com/pub

Diminishing returns. I think most people would agree that 1Mbps 1080p AV1 looks ok (https://demo.bitmovin.com/public/firefox/av1/ https://demo.bitmovin.com/public/firefox/av1/ -- use the quality selector and wait a while) and the vast majority of "content" doesn't warrant cinema quality anyway. There's always some push for more quality but that doesn't mean the audience requires it. Youtube itself had horrible quality and outdated codecs for a long long time yet and that didn't stop it from getting popular. Video snobs are a bit of a niche that youtube has historically not catered for.

SilverRed 5y ago
As far as I know, youtube has always been pretty close to the top for free video streaming quality. Sites like facebook and such compress the video far more than youtube ever has. So yeah they were not the best video possible to create but they were the best for the internet at the time and still are. You can upload 8k HDR 60fps videos which are sized at multiple GB right now. Once youtube has it, people are not going to tolerate 720p video from an alternative.