YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

As a consumer they are the most hostile platform to consume a video the way I want. Not the way they want me to. I am also required to use an adblocker to disable all shorts.

I also need to use ReVanced on my Android phone so I can hide all Shorts-related things.

As a creator, they are also the most hostile platform, randomly removing video with no point of contact for help or fully removing channels (with livelihoods behind them) because of "a system glitch" but again, not point of contact to get it fixed.

I don't mind the ads as much as all the mandatory meta-baiting. Not the MB itself, but the mechanisms behind it.

Even if you produce interesting videos, you still must MB to get the likes, to stay relevant to the algorithm, to capture a bigger share of the limited resource that is human attention.

The creators are fighting each other for land, our eyeballs are the crops, meanwhile the landlord takes most of the profits.

There is much data to support that asking for likes and subs actually increases likes and subs.

That is my entire point. The creators fight each other in a pit, for the Emperor's amusement.

Pretty much every creator I follow has complained about something being removed without any clear explanation or the ability to contact anyone and ask questions.

Say what you want about Microsoft, but if I have a problem with something I've pretty much always ended up getting support for that problem. I think Google's lack of response adds to their "mystique".

But it also creates superstitions since creators don't really understand the firm rules to follow.

Regardless, it is one of the most dystopian things about modern society - the lack of accountability for their decisions.

YouTube is “riding a tiger,” and the moment creators realize they hold the real power, the game is up. I believe the platform purposely creates a fear of the unknown with intermittent reward–punishment cycles. Random rules enforcement, videos taken down, strikes, demonetization, throttling... The algorithm becomes a sort of deity that people try to appease and they turn into cultish devotees preforming endless rounds of strange rituals in hopes of "divine" monetization favor.

Youtube needs a far greater amount of bureaucracy than it has, despite how scary that word is to tech people. Google's automated approach is clearly not capable of keeping up with the scale and nuance of the website.

It's worth stating, though, that the vast majority of youtube's problems are the fault of copyright law and massive media publishers. Google could care less if you wanted to upload full camrips of 2025's biggest blockbusters, but the powers-that-be demand Google is able to take it down immediately. This is why 15 seconds of a song playing in the background gets your video demonitized.

Right, that's the issue. I really doubt that creators love having to spam the same "Don't forget to like/subscribe/comment!" message in every single video they produce, but Youtube forces them to.

As a viewer I certainly hate that crap and wish Google didn't intentionally make it this way.