I get where you are coming from, however it's important to remember that big players are not equal - they have really, really different people in the leadership. Elmo is just a too-big-to-fall clown with insane ego, spez is a manchild who took VC money like there's no tomorrow and in the end had no idea how to provide ROI, but youtube is ran by very competent people with solid track record and deep pockets.

Maybe they are not too innovative business-wise recently… but they are good at catching up (except live streaming - screen layout is dogshit and nobody wants to get hyped in their tiny chatbox from a fucking google account with family photo as an avatar) and at leveraging what they already have, which is quite a lot, tbh.

Yt makes a series of bad decisions

It's not like it's making any bad decisions right now. Pretty calculated, I'd say - they feel safe market-wise, so they can increase amount of ads/fight ad-blockers/push people to buy subscription.

the funny thing is actual ability to pay is varying from business to business. AAA development with in-house engine is simply inferior as a business compared to mobile gamedev or producing shitty battle royale clones with Unity. If some business can't compete with big tech or low-effort money grabbers, does it mean it has to go?

Just because you're paid well doesn't mean others are not being mistreated

FTFY
without unions there could be a huge salary disparity between devs in the same role, in the same company, even in the same project. I've personally witnessed more than 2x, heard about even more.

Sometimes it's more than justified with individual's performance and impact, sometimes it's not. Some people are just better skill-wise, some people are better at applying pressure on their employer, holding business-critical knowledge hostage or simply negotiating.

Point here is - while unionizing might make things better on average, there would be a very real pushback from people who are benefitting from current system and this is not necessarily management. For management in some cases it would be even a net benefit, since they don't have to deal with primadonnas and someone tying things to themselves just for leverage.