Am I super happy about paying for YouTube?
Even if I believed a for-profit model were appropriate for the largest repository of the world's video content, I wouldn't want AlphaGoogle to be the company implementing that model.
I actually think this is irrational, because reason google is forcing thru anti-consumer features is _because_ they can't get enough revenue out of youtube!
If you're skeptical about how/if massive corporations are able to leverage their market power and monopolization to generate monstrous profits and force through very anti-consumer features, I'd encourage you to read Goliath from Matt Stoller: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/...
I'm skeptical they even consider YouTube premium a real option internally or if it's just there for potential regulators.
I also don't like the trend to blame adblock, Google is losing money now because there's an advertising scandal where they lied to customers, that's not adblocks fault.
Maybe.
YouTube should have to police copyright for the little guys as strongly as they do for the big guys. Instead, YouTube is happy to flat out steal content from little guys while stomping all over fair use when the big guys are involved.
I don't wish to support that. I want YouTube to go under so we can maybe get a video site that doesn't suck.