To give everyone else who hasn't done these things a harsh reminder of the damage it could bring if you don't.

The grandparent’s post sounds like it was written towards the OP, though, not everyone else.

If that weren’t the case, I agree with you, it’s a good message to spread.

Maybe leave out the harsh?

If even one person sees that comment and pulls their content out of the google ecosystem, then the comment was helpful.

Run this:

youtube-dl https://youtube.com/c/MyChannel

and have a snack while it finishes. You'll thank yourself later.

Should not creators already have local copies of videos they upload to YouTube?

They should. And if they don't it is clear the video have no future value for them. So why should it have for anyone else?

I know plenty of people who say, "Well, it's on YouTube, it's not gonna shut down any time soon" so they delete their local copies, unfortunately

Many people have a naive trust of free services. If your livelyhood/business depends on uploaded files, do not trust Facebook, Youtube, Gmail, Google docs, etc to store it forever.

I think it's important to mention that such trust is misplaced and risky, ALWAYS make backups. Sure it's generally common sense for many, but the OPs story is a nice example.

> Many people have a naive trust of free services.

I don't think that that's particularly true of HN readership though.

If GP's comment was on a more mainstream forum e.g. Reddit, then I would agree with you, but as it stands it feels a bit gratuitous.

I'm not sure OP has realised this, with remarks like "indicating cyber bullying".