Youtube let the other shoe drop in their end-stage enshittification this week. Last month, they required you to turn on Youtube History to view the feed of youtube videos recommendations. That seems reasonable, so I did it. But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don't get much from my choices. It still did a pretty good job of showing me stuff I was interested in watching.
Then on Oct 1, they threw up a "You're using an Ad Blocker" overlay on videos. I'd use my trusty Overlay Remover plugin to remove the annoying javascript graphic and watch what I wanted. I didn't have to click the X to dismiss the obnoxious page.
Last week, they started placing a timer with the X so you had to wait 5 seconds for the X to appear so you could dismiss blocking graphic.
Today, there was a new graphic. It allowed you to view three videos before you had to turn off your Ad Blocker. I viewed a video 3 times just to see what happens.
Now all I see is this.
Google has out and out made it a violation of their ToS to have an ad blocker to view Youtube. Or you can pay them $$$.
I ban such sites from my systems by replacing their DNS name in my hosts file routed to 127.0.0.1 which means I can't view the site. I have quite a few banned sites now.
Advertising is largely a cargo cult, with the "advertising/marketing is the most important thing" mindset being pushed by people with a vested interest in getting you to spend money on advertising. Actual, real businesses buying actual, real advertisements have said they saw basically no difference in revenue before and after buying the ad.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like there's no point in advertising--small businesses need it to jumpstart their client base, and medium/large businesses use it to make sure their products maintain mindshare so that a customer is more likely to think "I want a Coke" instead of "I want a soda." But in terms of directly influencing customer purchasing decisions, the biggest influence is old-fashioned word of mouth and direct customer experience, not advertising.