But if Youtube didn't monetize, presumably with the rise of the Youtube star, content creators wouldn't make enough money and would not publish there. So if you think of it from this angle, Youtube needs to go to war with ad blockers simply because their content creator, the users adding value, require them to do so.

I also wonder if the rise of the "this video is sponsored by xyz" segments in people's videos have cause more harm. That ad money that is circumventing Youtube entirely, paid directly to the content producer. So Youtube might be "jealous" of this revenue and wants to encourage its content producers to let them run ads only? because it's easier that way?

I think this is exactly right, but what's missing from the story is that YouTube created this problem. I'm mostly on educational YouTube, and in that sector creators turned to sponsorships because the alternative was to constantly wonder whether your next video would be demonetized and lose out on all the revenue (while still showing ads on the videos!) Sponsorships are a much more predictable revenue stream.

If YouTube wanted to support creators better, they wouldn't do it by adding more and more ads (to the point where my wife is finally approaching me to ask about ad block), they would do it by actually addressing creator concerns about reliability of their revenue streams.

Demonetized is often a misnomer in this case. The actual term YouTube uses is "limited monetization", which shows the limited ads on the video, and still earns the creator money from those ads. The issue comes from those ads being super cheap because no one wants to put ads on those videos, and therefore the creator makes a fraction of the usual revenue. Found at least 1 post from 3 years ago saying 1% [0]

> they would do it by actually addressing creator concerns about reliability of their revenue streams.

Until users are more willing to pay for YouTube, YouTube will continue to have their own concerns about their revenue streams, which is the same ads. Basically giving the ad companies all the power in this ecosystem. I've heard plenty of creators advocate for Premium because it is also a more predictable (and profitable) revenue stream [0] .

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/PartneredYoutube/comments/ipkrxv/co...

[1] https://mas.to/@TechConnectify/111319895234933188 from just a few hours ago.

> ... addressing creator concerns about reliability of their revenue streams.

Right, exactly. That's the core of the issue. Very insightful.

They may not all be valuable to each individual person, but all together they form the YouTube experience.