You do know that there were static ads on the pages, right? And the whole aggregate viewer data thing? They were never producing the service for free; they had regular old advertising and metrics to sell to fund it.
What they didn’t have were garbage intrusive unskippable video ads before and during the video I wanted to watch.
I received this thing which costs money for free for years and I am entitled to continue receiving it for free.
(If yt was publicly funded or essential service I would agree. It is not.)
You do know that there were static ads on the pages, right? And the whole aggregate viewer data thing? They were never producing the service for free; they had regular old advertising and metrics to sell to fund it.
What they didn’t have were garbage intrusive unskippable video ads before and during the video I wanted to watch.
And times change. No one is paying top dollar for a static ad.
What they also didn’t have was positive cash flow.
And decent video quality, do we want to go back to the days of 240p?, cause that’s the only resolution a static banner ad model can support.