There exists a massive, global network of websites that are all easily searchable through various means.

I look up and view similar topics to you and never use YouTube for them.

Try searching the internet as a whole!

"I want endless curated content for FREE! NO ADS. NO PAY. ONLY CONTENT."

This guy, probably.

Probably also thinks the minimum wage is theft.

Why be an asshole? Yes I like free I also make things for free. Not everything has to cost.

For ongoing series I like I support directly, like anyone else. Not the platform.

But to charge up front for who knows what? Nope.

Content creators. It's hard to host everyone's videos, and it benefits monopolists to imply that doing so is necessary, as it prevents new entrants. It's not nearly as hard to host your own server (or pay for it to be hosted). It becomes harder when you suddenly become popular, a situation which Peertube explicitly compensates for by sharing the distribution effort between viewers, which scales with popularity.

Signal makes it's own bed like YouTube by being a single centralised server for everyone. Nobody ever asks "who pays for the servers" when it comes to Matrix or XMPP

I've gotten that before too

so you'd pay if there was a free trial?

Uh, it's called a "library".

You clearly have absolutely no idea what infrastructure costs to run.

Reddit and Discord killed that, sorry, the Internet you're referring to is dying and almost dead.

Lol, OK.

That would be an improvement, how would I know I want anything in a store I have to pay before I even consume anything?

I have several subscriptions ditectly to people making things I like.

On the otherhand, I miss when people made things because they liked to. I still do that. I run several sites that has no ads, no charge, because I like the communities I am sharing with.

Then again, it's not my job so I am afforded that luxury I guess.

It also might be worth saying that watching people do things is not my favorite thing. I would rather actually do things.

Not exactly, but pretty damned close!

It is now a shortcut on my desktop!

Thanks for proving my point.

Libraries are paid for with taxes.

you think libraries are free?

most public libraries and librarians spend a great deal of their time applying for grants, asking for donations, and parsing out the meager state and federal funds they receive. You can tell that a lot goes on in a public library besides what patrons see!

Did you know that staff salaries, books, other library materials, office supplies, and utilities are funded primarily by city and county taxes? (link)

Taking this chance to say support your local libraries! Even just being a patron will show that it's a necessary resource that needs to continue. My partner and I just were talking about the library today and how we both used to go at least once a week back in the day but we've fallen off in the past decade.

Sure anytime.

A previous version of uBlock Origin (1.64.1b4) seems to work perfectly on Firefox, just in case.

I pay for YouTube premium so that I can leave the app and listen to videos. I still get ads even though I’m paying. I don’t think there’s a single surefire way to avoid them.

Having to wait with a black screen before the video starts is completely acceptable to me.
Having to watch Ads is not.

USE PORNHUB, Start uploading your content there.