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.

Newpipe may be of interest to you.

Get Revanced or Newpipe or something like that. You get the same benefits you're paying for, plus many that you aren't, and it's all for free. Not only that, but you're not giving you're money to Google.

I have revanced on my phone and adblock on my laptop so I don't see ads on youtube on them, but I can't get rid of the youtube ads on my smart TV so I'm forced to deal with the ads for now... and the contrast shows just how insufferable youtube has become. They're so fucking aggressive with the ads now. I'm starting to get a full minute of unskippable ads for a 2 minute meme video. It's completely ridiculous. Not only that but the number of skippable ads, short ads, or videos with just one ad are quickly decreasing. Youtube is destroying itself.

That's because of missing views though mostly, no? The ad revenue isn't big anyways I think.

I wish the videos were longer than 8 min on nebula.

Philosophy tube and jet lagged are both longer than 8 minutes, I think nilered is on there as well and is definitely longer than 8 minutes.

There's a ton of content that's much longer. There's no 8-minute limitation.

It's not for everyone, but I think it's reasonable to pay for a platform that pays its content creators fairly. I spend a lot of things watching videos, and even though my income is limited, some kind of payment for the service makes sense.

I don't mind blocking ads on YouTube because they used unfair practices (endless resources from Google) to destroy the competition and become the only video provider. They put us in a corner and deserve to be put in one too.