Honestly, these are ads that actually support the content I watch. So that's why I keep the adroll by default. AFAIK Google isn't getting any cut of it and that makes me feel good.
> Are you buying a product with a tracking code? If not, it's not supporting anyone
The YouTuber gets the ad money, even if the video is not watched. Though that does not mean you should skip the ad, because the videos have heatmaps and no one would advertise if the segment was always "cold". Though what the OP is saying is you can send strong signals (to both the advertiser AND the YouTuber) as to what ads you're willing to watch and not. In fact, in this way, it is a great tool for making a more efficient market as it increases information quality. But only under the assumption it is both pervasive and not used bluntly.
Remember in all advertising funded models that you are always the product. The market is for "high quality" (i.e. profitable) viewers, not high quality videos.
Google has probably already well overextended it's reach and made thousands off data without my consent. And will probably make more without my consent from Gemini. They have so many cash glows that I couldn't care less about plugging one of the holes up. They've long burned their good will points.
Meanwhile, I am an aspiring indie dev and I've overtime gotten rough ideas of how and what other creators on YT are paid. I honestly feel bad knowing some of these people arguably work 5 times harder than I do selling their brands while making maybe half (if they are a really established creator, maybe 500k+ subs) of what I make just walking to my computer and typing into a codepad. Some can barely afford their rent despite this hard work, and potentially hundred of hours of entertainment given to me. And those are "big" (but not Huge) creators. Someone with 50-100k subs may still not be able to do their work full time, or they do it on the very edge of viability.
I can't do much. I subscribe to some crowd funds, but not all. being able to at least watch their ad rolls is some form of appreciation in my mind. So call it guilt or call it an odd emotional attachment.
I just want to try and pay it forward, knowing I may be on that seat one day.
There's no bigger waste of bandwidth than ads, by the way. Ads are noise that's deliberately added to the signal just because it makes somebody somewhere money. These are actually the most charitable words I can use to describe ads.
>You're just watching your favourite creator say how much they love ExpressVPN through gritted teeth.
Which one of us likes every aspect of our job? Or every order/request of a customer? Gotta do what you gotta do.
Attention is not a valid currency or payment method. Their service is literally free of charge. They did it that way hoping we would look at the ads. We're not obligated to do so. They have only themselves to blame for their risky business model that gambles on the idea that people might look at irrelevant content they didn't ask for.
They need to charge us up front if they want us to pay. If they send us ads, we'll delete them before they're shown. Nothing they can do about it. And we won't lose a second of sleep over it.
But I'm subbed to 30 channels and probably "watch every video but am not subbed" to 10-15 others. I'm not quite at a point where I can support everyone I want to support.
If you indiscriminately watch or block that is a signal. Watch communicates potentially more because there's a secondary effect of some of those people buy the product. But by indiscriminately watching or not watching, we provide information about an interpolation along what was binary before. It is more complex to read, but now we can communicate that we don't dislike this add more than our willingness to support the channel. And on top of that, again our conversion rate. In a way, the discriminating information tells us something about the likely conversion rate. This is just more information, though that doesn't mean we are good at measuring it.
> The market is for "high quality" (i.e. profitable) viewers, not high quality videos.
To make it clearer, there are in fact ads that I do enjoy. This is true for all of us because an ad is so vaguely defined. During a political campaign I appreciate some ads because I want to know the candidates positions, when they are debating, and so on. Too much of it pisses me off, but that's different.
I also like ads that make me aware of certain things that provide utility to my life, but maybe not yours and this can be based on timing.
So stop rejecting this and recognize that these are all attempts at communicating these other factors. It's another variable in a system of equations.