Imagine if a (physical paper) newspaper could block you from reading an article because you didn't spend enough time looking at the ads.
After the content gets delivered to my browser, it's up to me how I want to consume that content. Anything that happens beyond that point is client-side. If I choose to pay attention to ads on purpose, that's my choice. If I accept the webserver's response and choose to view only parts of what I got, then that's my choice, too.
Imagine if a newspaper could block you from reading an article because you didn't spend enough time looking at the ads.
I don't have to imagine. Many newspaper websites are exactly like that; or at least require an upfront payment in the form of a subscription to read. Just like a real newspaper.
Imagine if a newspaper could block you from reading an article because you didn’t spend enough time looking at the ads.
That's a bad comparison. Newspapers cost money, so you either buy one or you don't read the articles. Even in the case of free ones, they're littered with ads. You don't need to watch them, but they're still there.
I hate what youtube is doing just as much as the next guy, but I'm yet to hear a convincing argument as to why it should be free. Many of the people complaining about this are gladly paying for Spotify and Netflix. Why not demand those for free too?
Could we stop saying they sell user data? That's not what's happening. They collect that data because it's useful. Their business model relies on not selling your data. The way it works is they collect and hoard your data and then use that data and their algorithms to target you with ads. Ad companies pay them to target demographics like women between the ages of 18-25 or men between the ages of 40-60 with ads based on things they watch on YouTube, emails they send or receive, other ads they've clicked on, and most importantly items they have searched for. In conjunction with data from the phones around you (other people you visit or live with etc).
This is about ad companies paying google to target you with ads. It absolutely is not about google selling your data. That data is valuable to them because of their business model. And they literally need to hoard it. Amazon and Apple and Microsoft do the same thing.
All these platforms like youtube, facebook, twitter don't make any sense from a financial standpoint. Their model was fucked from the start and only now are we seeing the consequences.