Users are not happy with the amount of ads on YouTube and are doing something about it. What YouTube does not seem to recognize is that if you take their ads, plus the sponsored videos on the platform, it is all WAY too much. Like way way way too much and thus they are fighting a loosing battle here.

The core issue here is that there are many players involved in a video that all need to get paid. You have the YouTuber, YouTube, and most of all, shareholders who legally demand a return on their investment and will squeeze every last cent they can, even if it kills the company which seems to be the path we are on.

There are decentralized alternatives for video like Lemmy is for discourse, but like Lemmy, most rather use a big, “safe”, corporate service so here we are. How far will we have by to fall before we recognize that centralized services with shareholders are a dead end? Based on the stagnant price of Bitcoin for the past year or so, it seems we prefer falling and being exploited. Not the smart people here though as we are not seeing any ads on Lemmy. Decentralization is the solution, but far too many are spending time installing and maintaining ad blockers versus just leaving for less exploitative decentralized alternatives.

Oh well. Human gonna human and YouTube is gonna be a corporation to ensure shareholders get their return as they have no choice. Like literally they have no choice as directors legally need to do everything they can to drive shareholder value, not customer value.

That felt good to write. Rant complete I guess.