this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2026
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[–] SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I get where you're coming from, but the issue isn't that YouTube makes money, it's how aggressively they're doing it simultaneously.

  • Charge advertisers? Fair enough.
  • Charge viewers a Premium fee to avoid ads? ....ok.
  • Quietly tighten the screws on ad-blockers while doing both? That's where it gets cynical.

The platform runs on creator content, yet payout rates, especially for smaller channels, have barely moved while YouTube's revenue keeps growing. They're squeezing every side of the equation at once while the people actually making the product worth watching see the least of it.

Ad-blocking isn't theft. It's a rational response to a platform that's decided unskippable ads are acceptable on top of an already profitable model. If the value exchange felt fair, fewer people would bother. Early days of streaming showed that people accept a fair deal. Enshittification has driven many of us back to the seven seas.