>Free to consumers is generally a net good, since it gives them access to things they wouldn't otherwise have.
Unless "access to things they wouldn't otherwise have" is free and fair market competition.
There's a very good reason that anti-dumping laws exist in almost every nation in the context of international trade, and the one and only reason reason a company dumps a product (selling it below 'normal' price) is to kill any local competition that might arise.
YouTube, as far as I'm aware, is offered at a price that doesn't meet its full cost of production, and as such should constitute illegal dumping in any country that has or wants to have a tech industry of its own.
The laws of trade just haven't caught up to this yet; of course, there's nothing stopping countries from updating their laws and banning YouTube and similar sites- unfortunately for them, banning services "sold" in this way would end up causing massive civil unrest, since its citizens now have a bunch of time to deal with the government who took their primary source of entertainment away and aren't as concerned about what the local tech industry might look like in 10 years without unfair competitive practices. Also, the US would take a very dim view of countries that modernize their trade law in a way that restricts how its most valuable companies make their money.
> YouTube, as far as I'm aware, is offered at a price that doesn't meet its full cost of production, and as such should constitute illegal dumping in any country that has or wants to have a tech industry of its own.
This an big misconception that I've seen before of HN. I don't know why that is.
Youtube standalone revenue is $15B/year[1]. Netflix is around $20B/year, but Netflix spends about $15B/year producing professional content and yet still produces around $1B/quarter in profit[2].
There's nothing at all to indicate that Youtube isn't actually highly profitable.
Unless "access to things they wouldn't otherwise have" is free and fair market competition.
There's a very good reason that anti-dumping laws exist in almost every nation in the context of international trade, and the one and only reason reason a company dumps a product (selling it below 'normal' price) is to kill any local competition that might arise.
YouTube, as far as I'm aware, is offered at a price that doesn't meet its full cost of production, and as such should constitute illegal dumping in any country that has or wants to have a tech industry of its own.
The laws of trade just haven't caught up to this yet; of course, there's nothing stopping countries from updating their laws and banning YouTube and similar sites- unfortunately for them, banning services "sold" in this way would end up causing massive civil unrest, since its citizens now have a bunch of time to deal with the government who took their primary source of entertainment away and aren't as concerned about what the local tech industry might look like in 10 years without unfair competitive practices. Also, the US would take a very dim view of countries that modernize their trade law in a way that restricts how its most valuable companies make their money.