What the actual heck is happening to the internet. It feels like it is being destroyed at a breakneck pace.
The corporatization of the world feels like it’s coming to a head. You’re not allowed to own anything anymore. Everything is a subscription and it’s impossible to afford property. You just rent everything putting you on constant edge until you die.
“The 2030’s are going to be a reckoning for how much of the 21st century was built on the back of low interest rates.” See Adam Conover’s interview with Dan Olson of Folding Ideas.
This is the fallout from the technology industry shrinking and coming to terms with itself. See the crash of the Silicon Bank recently as an example. Basically as the positive outlook toward these kind of businesses and pursuits continues to mellow out we’ll see these companies look inward to squeeze as much money out of their products as possible.
I feel like this is the best outcome because we’ve seen people address what really matters to them. People are switching to more local solutions. Engaging with communities they actually care about.
I think companies have seen what happened with Twitter and it has convinced them that they can try more drastic revenue generation strategies with little repercussion. They have all become strong monopolies in their respective domains and users who have grown up with the current offerings are not willing to put up with lesser alternatives.
The internet is basically ~10 websites for most people, only occasionally veering off the path to find some one off information. The casual user sees no reason to put up with the growing pains of alternatives and will put up with a lot from Google and friends if it means not having to create a new account on another website with no content.
How can you possibly replace YouTube and Reddit? Their value is in their user base and it’s impossible to replicate that type of “success” overnight.
I pay for YouTube premium, and use a YouTube blocker. I’ve been seeing weird issues. It’s pissing me off. I feel like this is nearly lawsuit territory if they don’t resolve it.
if youtube could win against adblockers, they wouldn’t need to get manifest v3 to destroy their functions. firefox users stay winning
And so the global enshittification grows…
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How exactly are they going after Invidious?
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Thanks for the link👍
ah, ok, i will simply not watch youtube videos.
Fuck em. I’ll use nebula.
Begun the ad wars have
I guess this will be an unpopular opinion, but YouTube is justified in doing this imo. Video hosting isn’t cheap, especially providing 4K & 8K. They’ve gotta be able to support costs somehow, and if you’re not paying for Premium, you should be paying with ads. You’re also preventing the content creators from being compensated for content that you find valuable, useful, and/or entertaining.
I know ads are annoying, and I hate them just as much as you do. But a big reason why we have people who make super niche videos that help you learn how to fix something on your car or those regular videos that you watch every week is because the creators are able to get compensated for their work. Are you really saying that utility and entertainment isn’t worth 30 seconds of ads and it’s better to not support them at all?
Part of the reason we’re in this enshittification era of social media is because of the expectation of social media to be free. We need to learn from our past mistakes. It’s not sustainable.
Yeah, I kind of agree on this. The real question is: is YouTube currently profitable, and they’re trying to squeeze even more out of users?
It would be nice if companies could look at a tidy profit and just say “that’s enough” and leave it be. Alas, that’s not how capitalism operates…
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May I ask why? That seems unsustainable to expect to be able to get the same amount of entertainment and utility from creators without helping compensate them.
Also, I would argue monetization has had to increase because of people using adblockers and the Silicon Valley mentality of “grow first, make money later.” Now that interest rates are high, social media companies are being forced to make money wherever they can since money isn’t cheap anymore.
If this is purely companies already being profitable and trying to just suck as much money as possible from their user base, then I would agree with you. But Twitter has been rumored for months to be close to having their lights shut off, and Reddit apparently isn’t profitable. Idk about YouTube, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not profitable and/or wouldn’t be able to exist without Google being its parent company today due to their other businesses diversifying their revenue streams.
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That makes sense. Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective.
I agree, a lot of the creators on YouTube make these great videos and channels because of the financial compensation they are receiving.
But there should be other video hosting platforms to break the monopoly of Youtube, so that Google would not be willing to do moves like this, for fear of losing viewers to other competitors.
They’ve never really made money through the AdSense payments though, and it’s not because of adblockers. YouTube is notorious for demonetizing videos for more or less no reason and for false DMCA claims that allow trolls to hijack AdSense from the video’s creator. Most money being made by YouTubers is being made through sponsorships or direct support through Patreon/Ko-Fi/etc
the rise of the ad blocker blocker blockers begins.
Not… So… Fast… We shall counter with our ad blocker blocker blocker blockers!
