OPINION:
YouTube is banning ad blockers and forcing its users to choose between watching ads and paying nearly $14 a month for a “premium” fee that allows them to watch ad-free.
Is most of that money going to certain political causes? Not everyone on YouTube shares the platform’s political beliefs.
As long as it is free, this state of affairs can be tolerated (with complaints).
Creators who do not share the platform’s beliefs have been demonetized, suspended and even terminated for presenting views the platform designates as “misinformation” or politically offensive.
To be forced to choose between wasting one’s most precious resource — time — watching useless ads and giving ever-increasing amounts of money to support issues one may find deeply offensive presents a nightmarish choice between the lesser of two evils.
YouTube has become a pusher of free drugs — and now it wants money from the addicts it has hooked.
ROBERT HAGEDORN
Berkeley, California
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