what? that's a wild strawman, but I think it's instructive -- I think this is actually a blind spot for a lot of techies. Point blank: I don't care if their business model is viable or not, I care about the service they provide to society. the service they provide (video hosting for free for anyone) is incredibly valuable, almost incalculably so for the amount of creation that it has inspired. the fact that kids can see it is just a side effect of the core value, and so they should provide tools for users to help them protect their children from content they don't want to see. But does that mean that they need to hire an ARMY of humans to do that? No, in fact even if they could afford it, that would be terrible!

They might profit if automated modification of videos to insert covert advertising was permitted.