Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can work, just depends. DuckDuckGo is an example of a success doing this. For things like YouTube it's much harder. Content creators go where the consumers are, and consumers don't know about or care about these types of policy things until it effects content they watch. TIDAL tried this as a Spotify competitor and have basically failed.
Tidal’s still trying. I see ads for it every so often. But you’re correct: they haven’t “broken through” yet like Spotify and Netflix did. First mover advantage?
Yeah I was thinking about this -- when you try to innovate via policy, do you basically start at the bottom? That is, do you have to more or less a) match features with the incumbent, b) baseline need to meet the incumbents user volume (or a substantial fraction) and c) be able to benefit from the scale that the incumbent already benefits from?
Or can you throw money at it until you have those? TIDAL seems to be trying the "throw money at it until it's winning" strategy...