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The upper level of YouTube creators use direct product placement in their videos. This is direct content and ad integration that could be part of the content delivered via RSS as opposed to tracking systems and generic ad placement that cannot.

The recent @patio11 Complex Systems podcast lays out how it works:

https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/justin-kuiper...

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I agree (although I do find ad breaks in text to undermine the content more than visual mediums, for whatever reason).

But RSS made tracking very hard. And while I know that's your point (not wanting to be tracked), one reason it works in YouTube videos is there's a lot of analytics that can be used to advocate for rates (and track what's skipped, what's watched, etc).

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