I pay for YouTube premium, I see no ads and the content creators are supported. I’m glad Google is going to war with ad blockers in this context where there is a paid alternative.
At this point I may as well go back to regular cable and... Tivo. Yes I said it, Tivo.
There was a great 20 retrospective on CNN (24 years ago in June and no doubt put together by a thoughtful intern) that showed the CNN anchor talking about how being a paid cable news program meant they could be trusted not to be influenced by advertisers... then they cut to advertising!
But I’m not going to complain about something they haven’t done yet.
There is some price I wouldn’t pay but I probably watch 10-20 hours of great content a month on YouTube and that is worth $15 to me.
The whole thing is enshitification. YouTube is now making their product worse in order to push people to pay them more for it. Those who go along with this are likely to keep on paying as they gradually increase prices while reducing functionality.
Those who choose refuse to pay more to avoid having hour long unskippable ads and other nonsense are telling YouTube that this whole process will not be better for them in the long run. That they are fighting an unwinnable battle.
I get it when people were willing to pay before. Maybe they actually care about having YouTube Music, and they liked it as a convenient way to pay creators, and also chip in a bit for YouTube. What I don't get are those who choose to pay now that YouTube has started deliberately making their service worse by adding a ton more ads and now trying to keep you from blocking them.
And I very much do not understand anyone who is okay with any company going after adblock users, as you're just encouraging the Internet to get worse--either showing more ads or having to pay to access.