It probably wasn't even a choice some person at Google made, it was just a computer program deciding that this show is over.

There's no sign at all that Google has the slightest interest in its many years of abusing its customers and users.

When true competitive choices arise to Google products, people will jump at them.

The real outcome here is that Google must offer creators the ability to backup/download their videos. Does that exist already?

There might be an opportunity for a startup to create a service that downloads YouTube videos as backups for the owners of the channels.