Only enthusiasts can truly be trusted with archiving culture.

Compare what.cd to iTunes. Compare Karagarga to Netflix, people actually go out of their way to create the best version of a movie, maybe the western release has incorrect hardcoded subs and awful picture quality. Someone goes out of their way to find the best version of it which may be something obscure like a Japanese laserdisc, rip it, fix subtitles and audio etc and release it for no monetary gain just the pure love of the media.

People actually being paid to release this stuff care far less about it than enthusiasts.

red isn't doing too badly though

I'm a YouTube Red subscriber, and I also use youtube-dl to allow for offline listening on various devices. Since I'm paying Youtube, and not redistributing my downloads, I don't feel this is any different from DVR-ing a TV show or the old (and legal) practice of copying a vinyl LP to cassette tape so I could listen to it in my car.

Except the content makers aren't getting revenue since YouTube Red pays for engagement. I LOVE YouTube Red I only use youtube-dl for special use cases.

It seems likely that the gp is talking about what.cd successor redacted.ch, not the "YouTube Red" paid streaming service.

Red is great, but if we want to preserve our musical heritage, we can't need to hide as we do it. I think that secret libraries are not as resilient as public archives.