It's crazy to me how entitled people are and how completely blind they are to how the ad supported model works.

Then these same people complain that youtube has no competitors. Yeah, no shit, who in their right mind would invest in a customer base like youtubes? Oh, that's right, Vid.me, and they went bankrupt in a year. Wonder why...

I'm a firm believer in the issue being one of pricing, not that the consumer is willing to pay nothing at all.

I have this view because we've already seen how users flocked to iTunes, then Spotify/Apple Music and Netflix/other streaming services when the pricing was right. We are also now watching as people depart streaming services and return to direct sales and P2P file-sharing due to incrementally higher prices.

To me that's a sure indicator of price being the problem, not an insatiable appetite for zero cost.

The math largely makes sense too. Particularly in music if you're the type that has a taste for a genre of music, rather than just wanting to listen to the top 40.