Sucks for me. I use iOS (I’m sorry) and that’s the original reason I got YouTube Red (back then): they make iOS users pay for background playback. Most of my YT consumption is documentary / essay / spoken word stuff so I need that feature to treat it like a podcast player, basically. Most of the rest of my YT consumption is in my living room, where ad blocking isn’t an option (and I hear even if it was, they’re catching up fighting ad blockers).

I hate the Web 2.0 “enshitification” of platforms, and I hate advertisements, and I’m willing to pay for a good, useful service. But this is a mixed bag. It’s still ‘enshitified’ because most of what it serves me is algorithmic and nothing to do with the hundreds of channels I’ve subscribed to over the 13 years I’ve had this particular account. It’s still chock full of ads because videos do sponsor blocks these days.

And the worst of it is they’ve got you by the balls and there’s really nothing stopping them from being Netflix and just continuing to raise and raise the price. I was an OG Netflix Instant Streaming for Xbox 360 user…years later when they finally booted me off my own family plan, we were paying like…$23 a month? For what had at that point become the worst video service? What stops YouTube from bumping up to $19.99/mo a couple years from now? It’s the only game in town.

OH and they’re also selling all your metrics. That’s the other thing. If I’m paying (through the nose) for a service, it shouldn’t be double-fucking me by selling predictive measures of who I am and what I care about to filthy fucking “advertisers” (for-profit behavior manipulators).

YouTube (like every last piece of Web 2.0) was fun while it lasted. But it is now barely better than worthless.