In recent weeks, Google has been court ordered to hand over terrabytes worth of user viewing data to Viacom in a lawsuit that could present the biggest challenge to the online video giant yet. Viacom is claiming that not only is YouTube not trying hard enough to remove copyrighted material from their site, but that they are also making money from this infringement by having ads displayed adjacent to Viacom’s content. By forcing YouTube to hand over so much data to Viacom to comb through, the courts actually feel that there may indeed be enough reason to side with Viacom in this billion dollar lawsuit that could effectively take YouTube down permanently.

We are a long way off from this case ever being decided but, just for pretendzies, would you care if YouTube lost? Currently, YouTube is one of, if not THE, most trafficked sites on the Internet. It hosts over 83 million videos and boasts almost 4 million user channels. But practically speaking, how would your life be different if the site disappeared tomorrow?

Personally, I don’t think I would care or even notice. I hardly ever go to the site these days. Honestly, I can’t stand the crap that constitutes 99.9% of YouTube’s content anyway. There’s only so many ball-in-crotch videos a guy can take, I don’t care about your video blog, and all the good stuff (copyrighted material) is likely being shown on the owner’s site - legally and in better quality.

Additionally, Google should be thankful for the forced shut-down of YouTube. The site has never made a profit and racks up nearly $1 million a day in bandwidth alone. Take into account legal fees and employee costs and YouTube may in fact be the single biggest black hole for money in the online world. However, since YouTube has such a large userbase it would lose some serious face if they simply shut down of their own accord due to profit margins. This could be the perfect opportunity for Google to play the victim and get their neck out of the noose at the same time.

Lastly, other companies with more specific niches (and better business models) would instantly fill the large hole left by the giant. See Hulu.com, Seesmic.com and 12seconds.tv for some examples. The fall of YouTube could be a virtual goldrush with countless companies jumping at the chance to legally and profitably fill the many roles that YouTube played to so many people

There is no doubt that YouTube changed the face of the Internet (and we thank it). However, there is a chance that it has overgrown its own usefulness and viability. Hopefully, at this point in time, we wouldn’t mourn too long.