>There was also a network level curator like PBS, Nickelodeon or Disney.

That's kind of the point of YT though is to completely bypass the network curation. Nobody has what you want on or won't put your stuff on? Screw 'em! We bring you YouTube. The You was the big deal that bucked the network concept.

So no, there's never going to be a human curator for all of YT. If channels want to curate themselves, then they may or may not be rewarded for that with a larger subscriber base.

>That's kind of the point of YT though is to completely bypass the network curation.

Instead we have algoautoplay.

I'm describing opt in playlist producers. Why couldn't there be a level of "playlist curators" who exist not as channels. "Bob puts together really good playlists, whitelist all Bob approved videos." I subscribe to 10 curators and bobs my uncle. I want to follow bob for the videos he suggests not the ones he makes.

The idea of a channel curating itself is the anthesis of someone picking the best from many channels. Pop radio run by Taylor Swift would turn into her playing her album on repeat? How is that more useful than the album itself.

The evolution of the MTV VJ. It could even have an audio reaction track layered over the top of the playlist that can be toggled on off. They could add intro/outro commentary.

I would expect the people that would be good at doing that would not actually be interested in it since they would not really be able to monetize the viewers. The original owners would get the ad sales. Now, if they added ads to view while viewing the channel, maybe they could earn from those ads, or some smaller portion of the ad sales go to the list curator while the main still goes to content creator?

This is actually a brilliant idea and Youtube almost supports it. Channels can have playlists that have any videos, not only their own. All that's missing is to be able to restrict an account to certain playlists.

The other part is how to incentivize the creation of the playlists.

And a way to rank, score, sort, browse playlists. Currently the only way to stumble upon a playlist is to get linked to it from elsewhere or from an authors page?

Might break a little once Bob is popular enough to be offered money (or some other reward) for featuring videos they wouldn't otherwise pick. I do think it's a good idea though.