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Comment by gopiandcode | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue that it's unfair for Google to use their market power in search to subsidise their video hosting products, thereby limiting the number of competitors, and then start forcing people to participate in their unethical privacy invasive ad network to consume video content online. Using services like this is a way to protest that injustice.

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How is it unfair that they invest their legitimately obtained profits into a new business? The people who are unsatisfied with this don’t know how hard it is to launch a search engine and plan wisely for the future they enjoy today. Just start a new search engine and then you can spend your money as you want, as you too are entitled to the sweat of your brow, just as Page and the other giants of our time are.

Replacce “unfair” with “detrimental to the ecosystem” then. We’ll never get good alternatives if they have to compete with a player with infinite money.

IRL dumping is illegal, arguably we are in a similar situation.

The term for this is "predatory pricing" and was a big part of e.g. legal cases against Standard Oil who used it to crush competitors.

The distinguishing quality of predatory pricing is that it's an unsustainable tactic used to push competitors out of the market before raising prices at a later time. It's not predatory pricing if the price never changes and in the case of YouTube the price to consumers has always been free, even before it was owned by Google.

Not really, with ads the price has changed, you just pay with your eyeball/brain time. From videos starting instantly, to waiting twice for 8-seconds pre-roll (minimum). Or you can pay $12€ / month.

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