That’s the point. They started their own game studio when Stadia was launched and shut it down about a year later.

They also paid a lot of money for some of the licenses they got in the early days of Stadia. And then someone a pay grade or two above decided to stop this and suffocate the little bit of momentum the platform had gained.

It’s an ok price if you use YT Music for streaming music.

So the law works.

Yet there is some truth to the comment. If we want a better less ad-dependend web we will have to address the topic of financing the infrastructure.

I think at least for me it would be cheaper to rent or “buy” movies à la carte on YouTube and similar platforms than subscribing to that amount of services.

I think things could get a lot more interesting if other software that is more like classic bulletin boards and forums would implement ActivityPub. I mean, such online forums are still able to thrive in their respective niches. If such forums would become compatible with Lemmy, Kbin or Friendica, it could bring a whole new dynamic to this part of the Fediverse. At the same time, it would help these niche forums get more attention (even though I’m not sure if all or even most of them are interested in that).