>I disagree that build your own YouTube is a “high” bar, outside of money. (...) It is just ridiculously expensive.
I'm not sure what you mean. That it's not rocket science? Well, yes, it isn't. It's not the technology: money (and to a second extend, entrenchment and network effects, and ties with Android, and many other non-tech things) IS of course the huge, sky-high, bar, to building an alternative YouTube.
>Castles, mercenary armies, and conquering land are comparable much, much more difficult.*
Well, it was quite a lot of mobility in the feudal ranks. Any competent mercenary could rise to be a higher ranking soldier, and any compenent and cunning higher ranking soldier could, and often did, take on some existing feudal lords, and get their own smaller or bigger fiefdom. After some point, even succesful merchants could get their own armies and castles and be feudal "nobility". Tons of stories from the feudal times (that was what all of cross-feudal fighting was about), and thousands of castles and fiefdoms - and that's just in Europe.
Whereas Youtube? That's one service of its size/scale in the world, covering multiple billions of people.
That would be more like trying to get something competitive not to a feudal lord (which were a dime a dozen), but to the whole of an empire.
I'm not sure what you mean. That it's not rocket science? Well, yes, it isn't. It's not the technology: money (and to a second extend, entrenchment and network effects, and ties with Android, and many other non-tech things) IS of course the huge, sky-high, bar, to building an alternative YouTube.
>Castles, mercenary armies, and conquering land are comparable much, much more difficult.*
Well, it was quite a lot of mobility in the feudal ranks. Any competent mercenary could rise to be a higher ranking soldier, and any compenent and cunning higher ranking soldier could, and often did, take on some existing feudal lords, and get their own smaller or bigger fiefdom. After some point, even succesful merchants could get their own armies and castles and be feudal "nobility". Tons of stories from the feudal times (that was what all of cross-feudal fighting was about), and thousands of castles and fiefdoms - and that's just in Europe.
Whereas Youtube? That's one service of its size/scale in the world, covering multiple billions of people.
That would be more like trying to get something competitive not to a feudal lord (which were a dime a dozen), but to the whole of an empire.