If it costs YouTube 2 cents to stream a video to you, and they get 3 cents for delivering the ads with it, let’s say they could pay you half a cent and keep hal

If it costs YouTube 2 cents to stream a video to you, and they get 3 cents for delivering the ads with it, let’s say they could pay you half a cent and keep half a cent of profit for themselves. For that to be worth it, you’d need to watch 2x the videos (and ads) for them to break even on the deal, and more than 2x for the deal to make more than the current deal today (you watch 1x and they keep the whole 1 cent). Would actually watch 2x more content to earn those pennies? These numbers are made up, but explain a possible model of why YouTube doesn't try to induce more views with a monetary incentive. > Otherwise they have polluted their value prop > Please. Don't "but you get something for FREE" me -- we're the product and that ain't right. I think the economic deal is clear to you. You don’t get something for free. You’re paying by watching ads (same as OTA TV broadcast for the last 60 years) and with the collection of your habit data (modern surveillance capitalism). In exchange YouTube serves you videos. If you don’t like the deal, and they won’t negotiate with you, then you should walk away. Personally I pay the $14/mo to not see ads; YouTube doesn’t produce content directly but they incentivize the production of a lot of niche content creators who otherwise would never get a deal from Netflix etc, and the YouTube mobile app is the most reliable one I use (better than Netflix, much better than Hulu).