VidCon may only be a four year old conference, but this year’s industry track was packed with major players and big thinking around the future of online video. Here were my major takeaways from 48 hours in the room with a few of online video’s most notable professionals.

YouTube – love it or hate it – is here to stay.

Mark Suster, entrepreneur, angel investor and investment partner at Upfront Fentures kicked off VidCon’s industry track keynote with a tremendous presentation on the state of the video industry. Among his many takeaways was a discussion of the value YouTube provides its creators. Suster noted that many seem to take for granted the amazing unseen infrastructure YouTube supplies in terms of creator tools, hosting/storage capacity and costs, and a massive CDN (content delivery network).

That underlying framework coupled with YouTube’s massive audience makes for a great opportunity for ad sales. And to compete with the company’s scale is nearly impossible. Hence, why most of YouTube’s contemporaries try to supplement the site rather than engage it in a head-to-head competition.

But everyone knows (or at least expects) someone will eventually compete with YouTube, but who?

As pro-YouTube as Suster is, he also cautioned against the potential for Amazon – one of the few companies with the kind of infrastructure scale necessary to compete – to jump into the video industry full force. Sure, they have content available via Prime and they’re rumored to be working on an over-the-top (OTT) box, but the last step is turning on audience development with their hundreds of millions of users.

Is it a sure thing? No. But very possible and worth keeping an eye on? Definitely.

Conversely, in the packed panel titled “The Perfect Platform” moderated by Peter Kafka from AllThingsD, online video veteran Fred Seibert (of Frederator Studios) stated the next great YouTube competitor is hiding in the mind of a 15 year old kid who sees in plain sight some pain point we all take for granted. That seems unlikely to me given the issues around infrastructure, but hey, Seibert knows a thing or two about smart young founders.

The future for multi-channel networks (MCN’s) is still unclear.

As Suster put it, YouTube can ignore the MCN’s but the competition won’t. Would Maker or Fullscreen actually leave YouTube? Unlikely. But could new MCN’s spring up on top of Amazon’s infrastructure? You bet.

Among the crowd of creators, I met at least a few YouTubers who have thus far abstained from joining an MCN, though they all confessed their starting to consider a variety of partnerships. Meanwhile, YouTube’s M.O. seems to be “Who needs an MCN? We’ve got everything you need!” At least that’s what I got from the “MCN or Not?” panel, on which YouTube’s Courtney Lischke reminded the crowd they have all the tools you need.

YouTube to creators: Stick with us in the long run.

During YouTube’s closing keynote, they were two key takeaways.

The first came from YouTube’s Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Lucas Watson. “YouTube has a ton of scale, it’s still growing like hell across the globe, and we have a 12,000 person salesforce to help you make money,” he said. “So stick with us for the long run.” And by long run, he meant 15 years.