[manjushri]

>But when "refraining from censorship" ends with advertisers (your main source of income) pulling out, your options become "censor videos" or "shutdown the service".

False dichotomy, there are other business models that don't require selling out to the whims of advertisers.

[Klathmon]

And YouTube is trying out those other business models, however the extreme vast majority of users don't want to pay, and the content creators already have the option to self-host, self-fund, or even use YouTube un-monetized and setup and run their own in-video ads.

YouTube is mainly an ad supported product, and just because other business models exist doesn't mean that you can call curation of the content "censorship".

This would be the exact same situation if say a website used a "subscription" model where you paid per month, then the credit-card processor decided that the content was "unethical" and dropped the video service as a customer. And that's not theoretical, it's happened to many porn hosting websites out there.

"Not playing the game" isn't an option, no matter what at the end of the day you need to "censor" some stuff (even if just to avoid getting in legal trouble), and that "censorship" will always be more strict than absolutely necessary, as the risk for a "not removed but bad video" far outweighs the downsides of a "removed but ultimately not bad video".

We are in the golden age of information in my opinion. It has never been easier to self-host and self-fund your own content in a way that is basically uncensorable. Use it! But don't go trying to change or destroy other platforms that explicitly don't want that content, or want to pursue another business model. This isn't a zero-sum game.