Right - my point was YouTube can just not show the videos to viewers in Spain. The company isn’t based there - it can forget about it if it wants. What would Spain do about it?

Are you suggesting Youtube stop showing their videos outside the US? You're probably not aware that Youtube has far more users internationally. They will get crashed.

It would be a pretty effective deterrent against foreign governments attempting to collect tax revenue on views from within their own jurisdiction.

Not sure that anyone will do so, but I think this is what GP is saying.

At the same time, giving up a market will give another competitor a golden oppurtunity which could come to bite them. And countries could probably somehow force Google to continue operating Youtube there by threatning other Google products.

I kinda doubt it. Youtube's "moat" against competition is the fact that storing, processing, and serving video is insanely expensive. Google can only afford to do it to begin with because they are the world's largest digital advertising company.

It would have to be another player willing to invest a ton upfront, and continue burning ludicrous amounts of capital over many years before they could actually compete

I mean the competitor could also be large company, for example, dailymotion.com could take over from Youtube without any major hassle. And EU would probably love it since dailymotion is local company.

This would be great, could lead to creation of several national level alternatives.

Google has offices and/or servers in almost every country. Spain could simply say "your data moves through our cables, pay up".

That's not a bad thing. It's also probably not onerous for a company with the resources of Google to deal with. The technical work is already done to handle the US.

Nobody made any money from Spanish viewers... they made money from YouTube.

You are hellbanned btw.

They are making money from Spanish viewers - Spanish YouTube premium and Spanish advert impressions.

YouTube makes money from Spanish YouTube Premium subscribers and Spanish companies buying ad slots. Spanish YouTubers make money from YouTube.

YouTube is operated by Google Ireland Limited, which is not in the US, so your base argument is flawed...

I don't know which Alphabet subsidiary the payments to creators actually come from, but YouTube itself is headquartered in San Bruno, California; not Ireland.

I believe the HQ location has no bearing on the entity you're doing business with. The one in the YT terms & conditions as of now is Google Ireland.