1) I do think fondly of the "good ole days" where advertising hadn't destroyed most of the internet, but I concede the cats out of the bag; we're never going to see that again.
2) I think the only benefit of ads is that it staves off the alternative: widespread shilling. inb4 people with binary outlooks tell me that shilling already exits. I'm well aware. But if you plug the advertising hole (somehow), the same garbage is going to come out through another opening.
3) I pay for YT premium as well (which increased in cost substantially this last year). I love their music service, and I love that I dont get YT ads. However, I think this service should also skip over content-creator-placed ads (since they get more $ per view from subscribers like us). Furthermore, I'm starting to see "subscriber only" videos - essentially pay-per-view - which I view as an erosion of the contract. Just like there was erosion in the number of ads in TV over the decades, I think we can expect further erosion where "premium" means you just get "one or two (quite often two !)" ads before a video starts, and the "free" version will just be a cesspool or rate limited to N-number ad-infested videos per hour.
Ref shilling: I think there should be a very straightforward test for whether someone should hit "publish" on a piece of content, or a comment, or an ad bid.
Two questions: "is the place where I am about to publish this content/ad or cause this content/ad to be published by a third party my company's own website?" and then "could I reasonably expect this action to result in a net financial or traffic gain for my company?". If the answers are "no" and "yes" respectively, you should be about to incur a fine which is a double digit percentage of gross revenue for the last financial year, with no opportunity to appeal or reduce. 100% if that revenue was under six figures, to immediately exterminate startups who think advertising is OK.
This deals with shilling, astroturfing, "disclaimer: I work for X and recommend" comment section crap, YouTube sponsors, advertising, blogspam, Substack, Medium, and all the rest. Cause an advert, namedrop, or traffic driver for your company to appear on any site that isn't your own? You just lost your entire profit for last year and then some.
Kick the corps offline, give the internet back to the hobbyists, the enthusiasts, and the academics
2) I think the only benefit of ads is that it staves off the alternative: widespread shilling. inb4 people with binary outlooks tell me that shilling already exits. I'm well aware. But if you plug the advertising hole (somehow), the same garbage is going to come out through another opening.
3) I pay for YT premium as well (which increased in cost substantially this last year). I love their music service, and I love that I dont get YT ads. However, I think this service should also skip over content-creator-placed ads (since they get more $ per view from subscribers like us). Furthermore, I'm starting to see "subscriber only" videos - essentially pay-per-view - which I view as an erosion of the contract. Just like there was erosion in the number of ads in TV over the decades, I think we can expect further erosion where "premium" means you just get "one or two (quite often two !)" ads before a video starts, and the "free" version will just be a cesspool or rate limited to N-number ad-infested videos per hour.