Xando:

YouTube (and Flickr for that matter) both use a client/server model. This places enormous costs on the person who controls the server.

But there is an alternative - peer-to-peer. Anyone who watches that nifty boob-grab stores a local copy, and there is no reason that we can't have them commit a fraction of their bandwidth to spool it to the next fellow in line.

Unlike pirating the latest Wolverine movie, corporations can easily maintain static nodes to ensure that there is never a disconnection in peer-to-peer service.

Indeed, if you're looking for the next 'Web revolution', expect that revolution to come from people figuring out how to reliably use P2P for everything from posting pictures on the web to storing your company's database in the 'cloud'.

I agree with your basic premise, although I'd add that there are a lot of privacy concerns with p2p. Plus if it is p2p, whose content is it anyway?