This is a good discussion point, rather than an arms race discussion of ads vs adblockers.

Some key points to make are that Google is making a crap ton of money from ads, they are keeping most of it so creators must resort to sponsorships and patreon. Google additionally makes money by selling your profile data.

It’s not like I have a true answer to your question, but a “workable” system should consist of: Google makes money Creators make money Customers are reasonably private The concept of making money isn’t about making the entire system worse, just so you pay for it not to be

My problem with Google is they don’t really care. They’ll burn it all if it makes them money until it’s dead.

There could be some key features that get implemented on a paid tier, but paying is just ads vs no ads.

An equally valid question would be, what can YT do to incentivize you to pay? They could ad features only available to subscribers, but they really don’t.

I would make it a semi walled garden, with free and premium content. Subscription tiers would be for customers and creators alike. Vimeo has a good system (though not perfect) with feature sets only available certain tiers. There’s incentive to upgrade if you want those features.

Here’s a big differentiator though. YT has this magic algorithm that feeds you what it wants to. Creators have no say in that (nor do customers). But if I post a video you like, I want you to watch more of my videos, not videos from somebody else similar to me. YT takes full control, and sends people away just as fast as sending them in. Why would I pay for that?

Platforms like Vimeo don’t do that (I’m not advocating vimeo, they’re just the example I think is most comparable). Wouldn’t having some level of control over that as a viewing customer and content creator have value? No, let’s just slap ads on it.

I can also argue that this goes against my final criterea point, that YT just made things worse with their algorithm and this is just paying to remove it. There was a day where subscribing to a channel meant you got to see their videos. No bell ringing needed.

And I’m sorry I just vomited my brain into these thoughts and wall of text. If you made it this far, bless you.

But this is why I don’t use YT directly. I was with vanced but ended up with newpipe, because its a simple scraper. That fact not only removes ads, but it gives me control of what I watch with my time (which has value). That is the lesson YT forgot, and the root of why any of this is an issue.