I guess it's the way of the world, but the introduction of heavy monetization has definitely influenced the kind of content YouTube carries.
Content which doesn't get made without sponsorship wouldn't get made even if sponsorships didn't exist.
People want to get rewarded for they work, you know. Do you also want your plumber to work for free?
The same applies to web and blogs; the ability to monetize them by ads (and I do remember the "old web" before it was the case) increased the content but drowned out viewership for the true enthusiasts running things in their spare time, which IMHO were more valuable and I think that regime was better; again, losing 90% or 99% of the content wouldn't be bad in my mind, there still would be more than enough for anyone to ever "consume".
Sure, but then how is this any different from TV? Eg I’ve seen a few videos dramatically overblowing the certainty of life on Mars lately, presumably for views. If I wanted half truths based on lack of context, I could just flip on the news.
> Content which doesn't get made without sponsorship wouldn't get made even if sponsorships didn't exist.
Sponsorships raise the money invested into videos, which raises viewer expectations, suppressing the likelihood these videos would ever be seen. You basically need sponsors for your videos to go anywhere these days because people expect professional editing/lighting/etc. The “I watched a Premier tutorial and filmed on a cellphone” approach won’t cut it anymore.
> People want to get rewarded for they work, you know. Do you also want your plumber to work for free?
I don’t want it to be work, I would prefer it was done by hobbyists. There are tons of thriving hobby communities full of people only getting personal satisfaction.
You're missing the point entirely, the content I refer to as more interesting is stuff people made for fun or on principle not because of financial incentive
Imagine if people only commented on hn because they were expecting a paycheck for it