If you take off the hate-tinted glasses and think about YouTube without prejudice, then I think you could come to another conclusion. YouTube is one of very few places were an independent or small-time creator can publish their content just in the way they please and get paid for it without having to do anything else aside for publishing their work. That's incredible. That gives so many people a chance to make a living by their creativity. Compare with Spotify, which is the only other comparable platform that exists. They pay peanuts to their creators in comparison to YouTube. Instagram, Facebook and all other social media pay nothing at all.
It would be cool if some other platform appeared, that paid creators better. But YouTube is the only platform letting anybody be a paid creator that exists for video. Expecting creators to set up their own distribution channel and payment platforms would mean that only creators who are also web developers deserve to be paid.
YouTube in 2024 is also completely different to YouTube in 2014. It has much more quality content than all other streaming platforms combined, just because of the immense of amount of content there. If you set up your subscriptions right, it is a good experience.
Why should we let content creators off the hook, if the money they make is tainted and originally gained from a company that exploits user data and used its capital to outspend the competition until they were no more?
Why is that only YouTube can pay so much? If no competitor can come close to them, does it occur to you that perhaps this is a problem?
Of course you don't have to let them off the hook. If you don't like them, don't watch them. That's how boycotting works. You don't need to pay them any mind at all. There is plenty of room for competition against YouTube, as evident by YouTube not even being the largest service in the sector. That is still Netflix and cable TV. And they pay their content creators much more than YouTube do, but only the content creators that they choose for you to watch.
They are not entitled to their business model. If a content creator wants money to let me watch a video, then they either make this explicitly by forcing a transaction or they make their content public with the hopes that a percentage of them will convert into ad views or sponsors. What they can not do is force me to watch the video on their terms or expect that the extensive distribution guarantees them an income.
Simply "boycotting" won't do much here. The idea is to find a way to signal to content creators that relying on Youtube is a losing proposition.
Why not? They're not forcing anybody to watch their videos. You know this. And they're explicit about ad-blockers not being welcome. YouTube is not a losing proposition, it is the only platform accepting everybody as content creators. You haven't provided an alternative.
But I hope that the entire platform becomes premium only and ad-free. That would be a fair solution for everybody.
> They're not forcing anybody to watch their videos. (...) You haven't provided an alternative.
They operated their business at a loss until they were the only alternative.
Remember Joost? Remember Vimeo? Again, why do you think that no other competitor managed to compete with YouTube? What is more likely to happen: Google has created a product so inherently good that no one can even come close to it, or Google has cheated its way into a winning position?
> They're explicit about ad-blockers not being welcome.
"Not being welcome" is not something they can enforce in a contract and there is already legal action against them in the EU, because they can not discriminate against users of ad-block without collecting user data.
> But I hope that the entire platform becomes premium only and ad-free. That would be a fair solution for everybody.
I wish that as well, but it would require them to willingly stop with their (unethical) practices that put them at an advantage. Do you realistically think this is going to happen?
Let me put another way: what odds do you give for them closing down YouTube for non-paying customers in the next 3 years? If we make a bet where I pay $10.000 that they will not close, and you have to pay $1.000, do you take it?
If you actually read my comment, I haven't predicted anything about YouTube's business model. I wrote that I hope they would paywall their entire catalog (like Netflix). That's what I would personally prefer, nothing more. And it's not out of the question, things are changing quite rapidly now that we're a few years into a global economic depression. Once honest advertisers realise how low the return of online advertising has become, it will become more difficult for Google, Meta and others to attract them. Left will be the scam advertisers (who are already a large part of online ads), driving customers away from the product and maybe even start attracting the interest of the law. I'm surprised that all these tech giants haven't yet been prosecuted and fined billions for allowing outright scams on their platforms.
What is the real value in YouTube? It's the videos, and there's a much greater amount of videos and a much greater amount of the highest quality videos on YouTube than on any other platform. Yet, many more people pay for Netflix and cable. As long as YouTube has the free, ad-supported tier, many people will not pay for the product. Only because of psychology and the way that "free" messes with people's reasoning. If YouTube became paid only, I think a lot of consumers would rethink.
You went from arguing that people must comply to YouTube terms if they want to watch the videos to "I hope they paywall their catalog, but I don't think they would do it" while being "surprised they haven't yet been fined billions for allowing outright scams on their platforms".
You really don't see a problem here? Do you think that people should not react to this complete disregard for ethics? Do you think that people should just accept that content creators (who are in on it and stand to gain from that) are just victims in this system and should still be protected?
If they don't, someone else will.