Maybe I guess? People keep talking about Google selling user data but that is one thing they explicitly DON’T do. User data is their competitive advantage, not their product. They sell advertising, and advertisers can be explicit in who they target. If Google sells the data, they lose the value they hold to advertisers.

So Google is almost certainly still recording what I do and what I watch. But if I’m not seeing ads related to it, am I paying twice? What makes it different from, for example, Netflix keeping track of my watch history to recommend other shows?

I suppose that the videos I watch might inform the ads I see on search, so in that sense you could say I pay twice. But I don’t use Google for search anyway so it kind of doesn’t matter.

I’m under no obligation to watch advertisements. They can try to advertise to me if they want, I can avoid it however I want. Did you ever grow up with linear TV? Did you just eventually piss yourself because it would have been unfair to the commercial broadcast company to not pay attention to the ads? You mook.

They get paid by YouTube regardless, and YouTube makes enough from data harvesting alone.

Content creators don’t make as much from ads as you think. Apparently selling merch and sponsorships is where most comes from.

Imagine thinking content uploaded to a proprietary platform is still yours

Every single one of the content creators I watch who has said anything about ad blocking has encouraged their viewers to use ad block.

They all do in-video sponsorships and run patreons, as anyone serious about making money off video content does.

Beyond the absolutely abysmal ROI for content creators on Youtube ads, Youtube has repeatedly made sudden extreme changes to their monetization rules. They also have some of the worst support for creators when videos get arbitrarily demonetized, or when backend issues cause a creator’s ad revenue to be direct deposited to someone else’s account for literal years. This has lead most creators to not be able to rely on Youtube monetization as an income stream.

Again I need to emphasize that literally every single one of the content creators I watch who has said anything at all about ad blocking has encouraged their viewers to use ad block, including against the creators’ own content. Most creators want Youtube competitors to rise.

Youtube has never made a profit since its inception almost 20 years ago. Google makes money hand over fist off of the user data it collects on me and others through analytics and analysis, regardless of the ads I may or may not allow it to display to me, and clearly has found Youtube a worthwhile return on investment for it to have been allowed to continue existing for as long as it has. Google does not baby any of their platforms or systems, and they regularly shutter things that seem far better business ventures.

This crackdown is not the actions of a company scrambling to make something profitable lest that thing be put under existential threat.

I am not looking to get content for nothing. I am arguing that the price has already been paid, otherwise Youtube would have been shuttered by Google many years ago.

I understand that Youtube may not exist if every single user blocked ads. Thankfully for Google, that is so unlikely to occur as to be effectively impossible. That’s also not my responsibilty to look out for.

I’d argue that any singular person believing that their individual actions could make an impact on Youtube or Google needs to find better causes to spend their time on, and should work on their ego.