Users don't have a right to use YT. They have to privilege to use the website in the terms YT offers it. Users have the right to try to "cheat" the system, and YT has the right to make the cheating difficult.
Users should have a right to use a client that doesn't serve up ads.
A monopoly like Google/YouTube should't be allowed to block users on a right that they should have, to control their client and a right to privacy. In many countries they are parts of contracts that are simply not enforceable because they are overwritten by legislation.
YouTube is, by the way, basically a monopoly on user-created videos (except perhaps for shorts) and network effects prevent true competition. The argument that users should "go elsewhere" is pretty distasteful if you ask me. I like to be a part of culture and if someone sends me a link to a YouTube video I should be able to watch it. Copyright reform and P2P liberalisation would really help in this regard.
Furthermore while I don't necessarily agree that users have a "right" to Youtube, I do believe that sensible antitrust enforcement would require Youtube to make its service client-agnostic, and prohibit this current practice of bundling a proprietary client with the service.
The question here is not whether they have a right to use it, but whether they should have a right. All rights are invented, created essentially out of thin air, to protect things people care sufficiently about. All rights were at some point not rights.
Things that could more easily be argued to be important would be stuff like academic content or news content.
At this point Youtube is a part of the broader internet infrastructure (as are many other large social networks), and you can make an argument that it's a bit like any other utility (roads, phone lines, fiber op cable, GPS satellites, etc).
government offers schooling. if you wish to seek additional, that is offered in other ways. when i went to school, YT didn't exist. yet, i still sought out additional resources that were available outside of school. this argument carries no weight with me.
news content is available in other places. these news sources choose to offer their content on YT because that's where the audience is. if YT were to no longer exist, the news content would still be available elsewhere. again, no weight here either.
considering YT part of the infrastructure means to me that you are very confused on what infrastructure is. YT utilizes that infrastructure. if YT didn't exist, it does not mean that the internet wouldn't work. it would not prevent anyone from accessing other resources utilizing the actual infrastructure of the internet. so either, this word has a confused meaning for you, or you're just beyond hypothetical and not realizing it. i realize some people would feel like the internet was broken if social media sites were down, but they'd eventually get over it if they were to never come back
There is plenty of academic literature which explores the concept of social media as infrastructure. I didn't come up with the idea, I only pointed to it.
I won't point to any specific document, but there is plenty of related material here: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=soci...
Or, take a look at the wiki page for "infrastructure" to get a rough sense of how broad the concept really is.
What more do you want? I essentially sent you to the entire corpus of human knowledge lol.
Great!
Go back to school and let us know what you find? Yes, school is important, and schools from time to time lean on YouTube content (from authoritative sources, generally, because not all videos are from internet randos).
Government announcements, instructional videos by governments (e.g. for voting), educational content for children, etc.
Governments should really be banned from putting that kind of stuff on a site like YouTube. That aside, the point on criticality is not really a good one, it is important for any sort of cultural content to be widely accessible and not behind walled gardens.
We certainly do impose certain responsibilities and duties even on non-public airwaves - for example we require them to distribute emergency content to viewers even if this interrupts the ordinary revenue operation/broadcast schedule (as it usually does).
That’s precisely a taking of private property for governmental purposes and public utility.
I would agree that the network as a whole might comprise a public resource, although I would also disagree vehemently with letting the government regulate speech on it like the FCC, but not individual sites and platforms.
I don't think the scarcity is the most important feature, I think it's the "public nature" of the thing. But how do we decide what is of a "public nature"?
There is no "public nature." Simply allowing the public to use a service doesn't make it public. MacDonald's will let anyone walk in and order food, and it's ubiquitous, but that doesn't make it a public utility.
Which I'm reasonably confident (despite not being a lawyer) is not a thing in the US. At least not yet.
Also I said “and license” which is effectively all the third party content. Syndication is one of the oldest network models.