It sure works well with YouTube.
Unfortunately I can't argue with you and the other posters, in that it doesn't matter what they charge. If it's not seen as a positive career move to work on a given product at Google, its future is always going to be iffy. And Google is an advertising company at the end of the day, not a video streaming company.
And it's certainly true that the more someone is willing to pay to avoid ads, the more valuable to advertisers that person's attention is going to be.
I would think that Google execs are looking at Apple’s new push for integrated services and that they will compete hard.
I am a happy customer of both Apple and Google but if Apple continues to come through with quality integrated services, I can see myself just living in Apple’s ‘walled garden’ in the future if they also keep supporting privacy.
Most Youtube users dont pay yet Google has to pay bandwidth costs for those free users.