I doubt they put up Ducktales content on Youtube expecting hundreds of millions of view and a ton of advertising money. It's more to have the IP consumed and fresh in kids' and parents' minds for when a new Ducktales movie or toy comes out to support the reboot. The reboot is more of an ad for future monetizable products than anything else.
Which is one of the reasons to make free or essentially free content available these days. The flipside is that, when there are free or essentially free distribution channels, there's a lot to be said for making some content freely available rather than making an inconsequential amount of money off it, if it's tied to other things you can monetize more effectively.
That may explain why Disney put so much high-value content on Netflix recently ... and then announced they're going to yank it all to a new & devoted streaming service. Bait viewers to the near-free content, then tell them "it moved over there" where it can be far better monetized.
Yes, they are setting up a sales funnel for all future duck tales content. People should understand that Disney makes a lot of long-term moves like this one.
You are exactly right. If you don't have a kid between the ages of about 3 and 6, I imagine it's possible to underestimate the kinds of quirky (and incredibly effective) advertising that's being cooked up for the little ones.
