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I love that the view count is included in the minimalist UI. I came across one with zero views, and there's something so intimate and exciting about being the first person to watch an ancient home video (even if it's shaky handycam footage of a horse, narrated in Russian).

As an aside, hats off to Google to being able to serve an 11 year old video with no noticeable delay from what must be the coldest of caches.

I'm really anxious Google will also kill this aspect of Youtube one day.

As soon as it gets split off from google and they no longer have the money machine to fund them and have to fight on a level regulatory-monitored ground for ad revenue you can bet your ass it will.

AFAIK youtube is profitable now. It was not for years, but is now.

Yes, but it could perhaps be more profitable, if they cut spending on this aspect?

For every year that passes, storage becomes cheaper, but the total size of youtube's video repository grows. I wonder what the net effect of all that is in the end. Ever increasing costs? Or maybe it kinda evens out.