If it’s monetized, I doubt many users would get it. There’s already many web based YouTube downloaders (that are free); Just Google “download youtube”. Sure, youtube-dl supports a hell of a lot more than just YouTube, but not everyone knows that.

I assumed that most of the web based ones were using youtube-dl behind the scenes.

I think there’s a massive legal risk from monetizing something that exists to download mostly copyrighted content.

If you're downloading so you can watch it and not for rebroadcast there's literally no difference functionally or legally between clicking a link and opening it in a browser and using youtube-dl . The upside is when someone's account gets terminated for whatever reason you can still watch the content.

How did you reach that conclusion from your premise?

I read it as half-sarcastic.

A sincere half is that technical users can't quite understand what less-technical users would appreciate.

The tongue in cheek half of "why not just..." will always smell a bit like the infamous comment discussing how DropBox doesn't provide value, since anyone could set the same kindof thing up themselves.