Especially considering YouTube has no production costs. It’s all user-generated content.

YT may not have “production costs”, but they certainly not only have huge costs for hosting video, but they also have to pay for staff to develop and support their software, support content creators and sell ads that make their whole business model make sense. YouTube just isn’t a company that has little to no expenses and larger content creators will tell you just as much. And again, video hosting is fucking expensive at any scale and their scale is actually insane.

I’m not defending YT Premium, I just unsubbed after they increased the price because it’s not really worth it to me at the moment, but the fact that it’s not as expensive as HBO, which by the way will undoubtedly will increase in price like everything has in part because endless VC money is drying up, is not the only factor determining how much a service costs to a consumer. I think we might have to start looking at these things a little more objectively and start weighing how much these services actually cost to run now that maybe businesses can’t just operate in the red forever while shiny teethed confident people convince others that they can and then you.

For a lot of people that will probably come with a realization that you’re not actually willing to pay for some of these things at all.