this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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I think it's a question of drawing a line between "commercial right" and "public good".
Mathematical theorems automatically come under public good (because apparently they count as discoveries, which is nonsense - they are constructions), but an artist's sketch comes under commercial right.
YouTube as a platform is so ubiquitously large, I suspect a lot of people consider it a public good rather than a commercial right. Given there is a large body of educational content, as well as some essential lifesaving content, there is an argument to be made for it. Indeed, even the creative content deserves a platform.
A company that harvests the data of billions, has sold that data without permission for decades, and evades tax like a champion certainly owes a debt of public good.
The actions of Google are not those of a company "seeking their due", for their due has long since been harvested by their monopolisation of searches, their walked garden appstore, and their use of our data to train their paid AI product.
A public good? Like roads, firefighters, etc? You want the government to pay for your Youtube Premium subscription?
Less snarky, if you're arguing that Youtube has earned a special legal status, a natural consequence is that Google gets to play by a different rulebook from all other competitors. That's quite a dangerous direction to take.
Your snark was actually closer to the mark than you think.
Let's say YouTube vanished overnight, what would the impact be? Sarcasm might suggest "we'd all be more productive" but let's take a deeper look.
A lot of free courses (or parts thereof) would vanish. (A key resource for poorer learners)
Most modern tech repair guides would be gone (no machine breakdowns, no guides on fixing errors on old hardware)
A lot of people's voices would be silenced (YouTube is an awful platform, but for some people it's one of the only ones they have)
Seems to me, it would do a lot of public harm. Probably more harm than removing a freeway or closing a fire station.
As for letting Google "play by a different rulebook", it does so already. The OP has indicated that they're undertaking an action in an illegal way, and yet no-one much cares to stop them. Yes, they could do the same thing via legal channels, but that's rather like suggesting there is no difference between threats of violence vs taking someone to court when trying to collect money.
Would you grant an insurance company similar legal indemnity? How would you feel about your local barber peeking in your window and selling what they see? Google has long played by a different rulebook, and thus different expectations are held.
Your arguments would only work if you'd argue for breaking up or nationalizing YouTube.
As long as they are a for-profit company you can't deny them the right to legally earn money the way they see fit, doesn't matter how big they are or what other revenue streams they have. Forcing them to offer a service for free is nonsense, and attacking them on a technicality that is probably easily circumvented is just a waste of everybody's time and money imo.
If we really want to do something about this then we have to break their monopoly, same as any other huge company that's f*cking with consumers.
Honestly if I were a politician I would support legislation restricting permanent bans from major websites from being given out willy-nilly because too many of them are ubiquitous enough to qualify as a public good.