>>1172307I can answer this question: Youtube never made money.
I'm serious.
The company, when bought by Google, was actually on the verge of bankruptcy.
https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-turns-five-years-old-but-without-google-it-would-be-bankrupt-2010-2The site has NEVER made money. It has only lost money, even with all the advertising and social media scams and information harvesting that Google provides. It's STILL losing money. It will always be a hole in Google's pocketbook.
But
That's why Google keeps it around. Video streaming is expensive, and we're not to the point yet where infinite bandwidth can be given to just anything for free and have it succeed. The problem isn't that a free speech competitor to Youtube can't exist, it's that a competitor to youtube can't exist. They would literally have to be someone with infinite resources and money that they would be happy to burn a portion of just to keep it online. Like with Google and Youtube.
