It's also harder to block the ads if they're woven into the video itself (in the form of endorsements / product placement, or in the form of commercial breaks in traditional TV broadcasts). Same with audio. Text-based media can emulate that somewhat, but (IMO) with nowhere near the same effectiveness.

Maybe it’s easier to make money from videos because they people actually like them?

No, the videos are distracting and seize the user's attention for ad delivery.

Imagine that I followed you around all day bumping into you, waiting for you to drop some money and then walk away without noticing, so I could pick it up. That's annoying and hostile to you, but profitable to be with sufficient automation. That's the modern commercial web.

sigh No, no it isn't. Not even close.

The fact of the matter is, people want to be paid for the stuff they create. That's how they're enabled to create more of that stuff. We learned a long, long time ago that people didn't want to outright pay for things. That doesn't leave many options.

Well, you could force people to pay you at gunpoint. There are plenty of options, it's just a matter of how far down the ladder of morally reprehensible alternatives you are willing to go. Actively manipulating people into wasting time to make a buck from your particular diversion-of-many by exploiting their curiosity is already low enough as far as I'm concerned.

We need to discern between unrelated videos for an article or the content being in the video. Because I know that many, many people prefer content in video form (I absolutely hate it and only watch them as a last resort).

Remember that in advertising, they scam each other as much as they scam their users. Videos may or may not be actually more effective, but that's irrelevant if they can be spun as more effective to those who pay for the ads.

People do like them: they have a lot stronger emotional impact than text.

They are also (considered as a single or primary channel) a much worse mechanism for actually effectively communicating anything other than emotion (though they can be a useful accompaniment to text.)

No, because they are easier to produce

Writing an article takes a lot of time

Writing a good one, is not for everybody

But making a video is really easy

I dont know why this was downvoted. I heard this exact thing from coursera teacher and some youtubers - that they found making video was significantly less time then equivalent writing.

I would not say it is really easy for everyone, it would not be easy for me. But it is easy for people accustomed to talk a lot.

I agree. videos of product features are much easier to make than written documentation about those features.