YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

I don't really understand either side of the equation here.

So, on the one hand you have people who use ad blockers. The first retort that comes to mind here is: Well, we'll take our business elsewhere. Which is odd because without ads they aren't paying and them leaving is the goal.

Of course on the other hand ... when I read the title my thoughts weren't that I would be okay because I don't ad block youtube. My thought wasn't that I should buy youtube premium to avoid ads. My thought WAS that if I ever get falsely flagged, then I'll just buy a nebula subscription (or whatever) and never use youtube again.

In fact I went over to nebula to check it out.

Somebody has to pay something for youtube to be viable. But youtube got big via offering a free service and now if feels like they're trying to pull up the ladder behind themselves.

Until a competitor devices a revenue stream that is just as profitable as advertising and data capture (obviously it won't be a subscription model) then we're stuck in the perpetual cycle of "enshittification" as companies move to protect their revenue.

This doesn't really affect me since I subscribe to premium, but something that a lot of ad-based services don't seem to grasp is why people block ads.

It's because they've become increasingly obnoxious. Nobody blocked ads when they were a simple column of links in the gutter or maybe an animated GIF banner with 3 frames. No, adblockers became popular because ads kept getting more loud (both visually and audibly), in your face, and resource hungry (remember those flash ads that'd keep your CPU pegged?). The web became unusable if you didn't have a blocker installed.

Web advertisers seem like a classic case of taking miles when given an inch.

They're completely within their rights to try to enforce their policies. On the other hand there's an approximately 0% chance I'll go back to watching Youtube with ads. People seem to like Youtube Max or whatever they call their subscription fee. On the other hand it's hard to get me to pay for something I already had by taking it away and making me pay to get it back. I bet I'll end up paying them someday, but I think I'll try just not going to Youtube anymore first and see if that sticks.

If Google had the power to implement a device that forced your eyelids open to look at ads they would do it. Their company is user hostile and we should move as far as possible away from their services.