YouTube viewers will soon have to sit through even longer ads, with Google rolling out new 30-second unskippable spots on a popular app.
YouTube viewers will soon have to sit through even longer ads, with Google rolling out new 30-second unskippable spots on a popular app.
That used to be a fair deal. We know better now and even have a word for what will happen to us once we’re locked into the system, enshittification. Just about every subscription model eventually leads to squeezing as much as they can out of us without a corresponding increase in value.
I agree in general, but when it comes to YouTube and the creator economy I do partially disagree.
You aren’t locked into anything, you can just go somewhere else. It isn’t like Netflix and the other million subscription services where they hold all of the power, that’s the beauty of independant online video creation; the creators have the power. If YT becomes enshittified enough, creators will leave to somewhere else. As it is, I currently watch some videos on PeerTube, some on YouTube, some on Nebula, and some on other platforms. People do struggle with using multiple websites across the internet, preferring to stick to a core few websites, but for their favorite creators I believe they’d branch out.
I guess there are some examples of that happening with places like patreon, floatplane, twitch, kick, etc. It’s hard to fathom anything coming along that can even approach the reach of youtube without backing from another big tech company and eventually following the same enshittification pattern.
It really is hard to fathom, but I think it has a high likely hood of happening some day. I also think it’s why YouTube hasn’t been enshittified more than it has been, they know that it’s a possibility.