content: My (initial) thoughts are along the same lines, but one major issue is that Google has been anything but upfront about it. Switch and bait to an extreme degree as far as I can see. And even when it comes time for them to force monetization or GTFO, they are not honest, clear or direct about it. If they had been (or are currently) upfront about it, there wouldn't have been much issue regarding it. I wonder if this silence is in part in order to maintain their huge market share regarding video sharing by trying to hide the potential problems and issues of using or even relying on Youtube. That said, I still consider monetization through ads problematic. Partially because the vast majority of advertising today strongly encourages toxicity, breaking people psychologically bit by bit and extreme manipulation. Partially because it gives many tools to (extreme) manipulation and indoctrination among other. And partially because it makes it (in the short term and relative to other options, at least) very profitable to make or have people being more destroyed, wretched and incapable of defending themselves (against advertising, among other) and therefore easier to profit from regarding most advertising). I still don't like using or depending on services where it is not obvious what the other part gets out of it, but while I am OK at avoiding such things, it is definitely something I could be better at avoiding. There is the somewhat old saying: "If you are not the customer, you are the product".