You joke but like, they are already pushing a twitch style sub model pretty hard already with the youtube “private sub” system that creators can do, it grants you access to videos that the creator marked as a subscription only, which is basically the same thing, as it shows you the video, and a tiny “sub only” label, and when you try to open it it brings you to the sub page.

I forsee in the future youtube moving to a fully monetary model with only brand issued content being “free” and everything else requiring youtube premium