I'll bite.

Google bought YouTube in 2006 which was ~1 year after it spawned.

The _idea_ of being social on the internet then -- apart from forums et al -- was very new. I was using YouTube as an 11 year old and all that was really being posted were cat videos, blogs, Fred, and these kind of low-budget home videos. People were still figuring things out. It was an exciting time because it was a new thing; but _precisely_ because it was a new thing that's what was exciting.

The content on YouTube now is orders of magnitude more diverse than then and still includes the stuff of yonder. Let's leave hyperbole out of it.

I always hate when people say stuff like "things were better back when..." specifically for the internet stuff. There are a lot of people that wax nostalgic about how "it was a better era" but in reality, it was god awful video quality, low effort or simple content, creators that made stuff when they felt like it, and much harder to use youtube as a search engine as opposed to just an entertainment machine.

The internet pre-today was just garbage. The issues with being tracked and Facebook...blah blah blah are all minor in comparison to it's convenience it's brought. Remember when you ACTUALLY had to make a forum post and engage with others online to maybe get the answer you were looking for? What about online shopping? Did you really like relying on some sketchy website that someone whipped up and didn't bother to secure your info with they're half-baked payment processing page?

The thing these people often forget is, that garbage content they think is so great is still there. They just don't actively look for it anymore. They just see the top promoted channels and go "oh wheres the good stuff!" but don't bother to search for it. They never sort by new I bet on any website.

no, I'm not being nostalgic. In the early days of youtube it was just content. Sure the content is crisper and more available, but there was no motivation to like & subscribe. There was no drama with demonitization. There were no ads. All of this was brought on by google.

is youtube still a decent product? Sure

You don't have to have ads on your youtube site. This is what happens when people go with the path of least resistance and don't host things themselves or at least utilize someone elses video player while they host the video.

I don't have sympathy here because these people are playing on Googles platform. Google is trying to navigate these waters with as much automation as it can. Unfortunately it can't do a good job of it just because there is an absurd amount of content given to them every second.

If you're livelihood is based around someone who does the corralling, you can't get upset they weren't perfect. You should've been aware of this from the get go seeing as you are not the one in control.

You mean back when content like this wasn't on it?