I think a lot of that is the (musical) artists/businesspeople demanding a higher - most reasonable - cut, so we all get more ads. Just think how expensive YouT

I think a lot of that is the (musical) artists/businesspeople demanding a higher - most reasonable - cut, so we all get more ads. Just think how expensive YouTube would be if artists started demanding royalties for works that match their video fingerprints (in addition to the payouts according to audio fingerprints that YouTube pioneered). Encoding, moderation, storage, and bandwidth cost money. I'm sure the YouTube financials and margin are posted. A video streaming service can afford to operate without ads only if: _____. You understand this if you've ever tried to host (multiply-reencoded) video on a shared hosting service with a bandwidth quota for $10-$20 a month. https://WebMonetization.org/ https://WebMonetization.org/ is one proposed solution to advertising-supported media.