That's because even a decade ago (well, a decade and a half, factoring in recent memory), the internet was a fundamentally different, much more open place. Now

That's because even a decade ago (well, a decade and a half, factoring in recent memory), the internet was a fundamentally different, much more open place. Now probably 90% of traffic exists in increasingly siloed walled gardens, which all take measures to ensure their content (and more importantly, you) stay there. (Hell, a good portion of that traffic isn't even from some general-purpose browser, it's from an app.) And circumventing that is pretty much the letter of the (poorly worded) law when it comes to the DMCA. It's not really the people that have changed, it's the internet that has. (Sure, many parts of the internet are still open, but youtube isn't one of them.)