I misspoke. It can't imagine that YouTube is going to want to force a subscription model and then set up a pay service for every region of the world.
Since you mentioned Spotify, don't they have different levels of services? YouTube would just continue the ad-supported model and then offer a premium package, for a monthly fee, that doesn't have any ads.
Ah, okay. My bad dude, I should have been able to figure that out, ugh. Sorry!
I believe that this is what they're looking at doing now, making the ad-based version optional, but the thing is... I don't think it's profitable at all. Streaming media is a losing investment. It just is.
I just want to throw out there one more time that Google is first and foremost an information broker. They deal in you, the viewer to they, the advertiser. Subscription models only ever work for convenience over piracy. Transitioning to a subscription only model would be an enormous mistake and is totally not in line with where Google is going. Subscription only YouTube will push viewers elsewhere, which harms the Google information monopoly. This is a supplemental income source and nothing more.
I don't think anyone's arguing against that point, but again it relies on advertisements actually making it from the advertiser to the user. If we block all those ads, it doesn't matter how much information they have. The monopoly doesn't really help out when the advertisements aren't actually reaching the consumers.
The only reason for Google to even CONSIDER instituting a pay model is that the ad-based version by itself isn't working. If they were earning enough through it, then they'd leave it be. Whether it's a good idea to scrap the free subscription depends on whether or not the amount of money they'd lose by lost YouTube customers is more or less than the money currently being lost from having them.
Besides, even if YouTube literally vanished, Google's information empire is not going anywhere. Do you use Chrome? Well then Google knows what you're doing regardless of your video service. Search with Google? Done. How about Gmail? Got an Android phone? YouTube is just one head of the hydra.
Like I said before, maybe this is all flim-flam. Maybe they'll try the pay model and don't like the response. Maybe they'll find a way to get around Adblock. Or (and this is honestly feeling the most likely), the people who will pay are US, not viewers. If our videos aren't earning their weight in advertisement imprints, then it's probably in their best interest to have content creators pay for more features (more storage space, higher resolutions, annotation types, channel layouts).
TBH that's what feels like it'll happen. It would solve a lot of Google's woes. The more professional channels won't have a problem paying because they're already sinking money into things, and the hobbyist/student channels won't use up as much bandwidth or take up as much storage space. Then channels will continue to earn via ad revenue and from a USER perspective nothing changes.
I could see there being free, pro, and enterprise levels depending on how much storage space you want and how many features you anticipate using.
