LogFAQs > #980038408

I think its mostly just a sort of cognitive dissonance or mental resistance to the casual slide YouTube has been doing from being marketed/perceived as a video sharing, quasi-social media platform, to an on-demand video streaming platform.

For the first part of its existence YouTubes emphasis was on the You part. It was a platform when you could upload videos to share with friends, family, and the whole world. Users were both creators and consumers, similar to contemporary social media platforms like MySpace, Facebook, etc.

Although users are still nominally able to upload and share whatever they want, the actual use-case for YouTube has shifted into that of a more traditional streaming platform: users are categorized into either creators or consumers, with marketing and financial models put in place to encourage and foster both populations (skimming enough money off of consumers via ads or subscriptions and paying just enough to content creators to keep them churning out content).

In this way YouTube is no longer different than any other ad-supported streaming service. The difference is that YouTube used to function more like traditional social media, and still has some social media identity since anyone can upload to it. I think people would respond similarly, for example, if they started getting pop-up notifications on Instagram and Facebook asking you to pay $15 a month to not get ads while scrolling through Reels. And given how many of these user-driven social media platforms are quick to follow YouTubes lead (see the Tiktok creator fund), it wouldnt be surprising to see stuff like that happening more and more in the future.

Grim stuff.