The whole idea that it violates the terms of service of a company to not let them show things on my screen without my consent is insane. It’s like if every time you went to the grocery store, the employees held you down and force fed you a free sample, then banned you from the store when you started running away from them.
It’s not that bizarre. They don’t have to serve you the content without showing you the ads that make the platform profitable. The freedom goes both ways. I use an ad blocker too, but I don’t think that YouTube is really doing anything wrong here. (Other than possibly ruining their own platform, but that’s their problem that they’re making for themselves.)
If they weren’t a monopoly, I’d agree, they can do whatever they want.
But since they are a monopoly, its a de facto the equivalent of a town square, and they are policing people’s speech, and broadcasting annoying public announcements that nobody wants to hear.
A privately owned platform cannot serve the public good. There will always be conflicts of interest.
A proper public square should be funded by a competent government (but those are rare) or decentralized.
The whole idea that it violates the terms of service of a company to not let them show things on my screen without my consent is insane. It’s like if every time you went to the grocery store, the employees held you down and force fed you a free sample, then banned you from the store when you started running away from them.
It’s not that bizarre. They don’t have to serve you the content without showing you the ads that make the platform profitable. The freedom goes both ways. I use an ad blocker too, but I don’t think that YouTube is really doing anything wrong here. (Other than possibly ruining their own platform, but that’s their problem that they’re making for themselves.)
If they weren’t a monopoly, I’d agree, they can do whatever they want.
But since they are a monopoly, its a de facto the equivalent of a town square, and they are policing people’s speech, and broadcasting annoying public announcements that nobody wants to hear.
A privately owned platform cannot serve the public good. There will always be conflicts of interest. A proper public square should be funded by a competent government (but those are rare) or decentralized.