You're right, it's expensive and needs to be funded.

Suppose I had an alternate funding model. Also suppose I wanted youtube to change it (note: I never said that). How does that invalidate the bad things I pointed out with the current model?

You never said whether or not you agreed with my original points.

It definitely doesn't invalidate the problems with the current model, I'm just saying that for all our talk of how bad YouTube is, no one has yet come up with a way to fund an alternative that keeps the good qualities without the bad ones.

So the question really just becomes: is the good of YouTube worth the bad?