That might work for YouTube, but how many companies have the deep pockets of Google to ride it out long enough for technology advances to make their product profitable?

There is no way the vast amount of free, professionally made, high-quality content we have available online now continues without some sort of tradeoff in either cost, increased ad exposure, or reduction in quality. The transition period the internet is in right now has to end sometime, and I'm pretty sure it will come down squarely on the side of the content providers/producers.