If one day YT sets a "minimum requirements" page on their website to access their content, they've immediately ceded market share to the next upstart. Imagine if they broke viewing for all of the countless cheap (and e-waste) phones, tablets, low end IOT devices, "smart TVs", and so on because they place a requirement that the device cannot meet. Those users will not throw away their hardware - they'll migrate to the first available alternative way to watch content.
This all incorrectly assumes that there exists any viable competition to switch to. YouTube ran at a net loss for over a decade to get the reach they currently have, only because Google was one of the very few companies who could feasibly afford to do so. And most of the content people access YouTube for is only found on YouTube, so those hypothetical users aren't going to switch to a new platform, they're going to either just flat-out stop watching or will replace their devices.
Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 hours ago
Users replacing their devices isn’t feasible in many parts of the world, especially outside of the west.
You are correct that a service similar in scale and scope would not appear out of the aether due to the cost, but to say nothing would make a grab for those underserved users would be foolish.
Again - the entry level cost conscious users do constitute a large part of Youtube’s userbase, so even if they are burdensome to support (due to ad blocking rates, required legacy features to upkeep, and so on), they are a core part of the audience that youtube serves. In an economic environment where people cannot afford to abandon their hardware, there is no chance they will opt out of receiving information and entertainment entirely because of their devices being unsupported by google’s sites. They will move to the next service in the chain, either existing or new. To google’s investors, that shrinkage in userbase may be untenable.
MITM0@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
PeerTube or LBRY (The protocol, not Odysee) might help in that. As in decentralized instances focussing on specific content. All connected via hubs/open-protocols.
Basically Decentralized or dustributed networks are key. The next hurdle is populating those platforms with content.