Few points:
1. To turn it on/off means they're still tracking it somehow regardless. I'm not logged into any google service on my machine right now, and yet disabling the features on the link above returned that it was turned off for this browser and device.
2. This was on by default
3. So it would seem that Google was tracking me even though I wasn't logged in as well as any other number of users; I wasn't using their services, yet I was generating data for Google without my consent at all.
4. I find your use of ethics here semantically deceptive; it's distracting the above actions of Google performing unauthorized collection of data on person(s) by discussing an action regarding the relationship of content creators and viewers.
5. Google's collection of data to personalize ads is unethical in that my data and my information, as well as the information of many others, without their explicit consent. In countries where GDPR is enforced, Google creates a full screen modal which does not allow you to advance without either blocking the element or agreeing to data collection, which is in direct violation of the letter and spirit of GDPR.
6. The discussion is not about whether ads are okay or not okay, it is about the system by which ads and data collected to sustain the ad system is generate is okay or not, which it is not for the above reasons and many more.
I cannot agree with any of your points as I see them as dismissive of the core issues and a justification of shady business practices that seek to simply gobble up information on all users regardless of whether they use Google's services or not.
These points you've raised do not address the behavior of Google nor the purposes of the application at all, and are only tangentially related to the comment on the ethics of modern advertising. The discussion about the content creators and the viewers is not Google's discussion -- Google is part of the system that hosts and pays the content creators, but the discussion about revenue streams for creators is one for the creators and their audience. Google trying to shoehorn themselves into such a discussion when alternate revenue streams exist that can be used. How creators want to handle that is their business. Arguably, Google has made this situation even worse for creators by:
- Reducing ad revenue for creators year after year
- Not providing contemporary features that other fast growing and dominant platforms have given their creators (see: Instagram, TikTok, and other contemporaries)
- By treating more substantial revenue streams for content creators aggressive until only very recently (previously it used to actively cut-off patreon links for small time channels that weren't part of the Partner system)
- By by providing the same level of tooling and control over works that other platforms do
- By aggressively demonetizing content creators that have any DCMA claim raised against them regardless of the validity of the claim
Google/Youtube and all of their partner items are aggressive towards consumers and abusive towards the content creators using its platforms. The actual good actors on these platforms suffer for minor clerical mistakes or because of aggressive automated systems that cannot be contested while bad actors continue to abuse the system and profit from it.
Users and content creators may have benefited from Google/Youtube and still have a dependency on its ad revenue, but it comes with extreme risk to rely on it now and with very sketchy behavior in order to support the system, all while Google and bad actors profit.
For the reasons above, I find your post extremely disingenuous, and your opinion on advertisements far too lackadaisical.