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>You are able to turn these ads off, but only individually by editing the videos one by one. I spent hours going through my backlog of videos disabling ads I didn’t place.
This is like my Google Wallet where I have hundreds of old boarding passes that can only be deletion d by editing each on. No delete all, no multi select. I consider this malicious compliance, where Google sees a way to store your history (travel in this case) despite having all other location history off.
Media distributors have always exercised control over the content they deliver—editing for length, compliance, or audience standards is nothing new. The confusion often comes from viewing YouTube as a neutral hosting service, like Dropbox, rather than as a full-fledged media distributor. Once you recognize that YouTube operates more like a broadcast network than a storage platform, its behavior - curating, monetizing, and enforcing content policies - looks far less unusual.
What feels different today is the scale and automation: traditional networks relied on human editors and clear standards, while YouTube uses opaque algorithms that can affect visibility and revenue in ways creators don’t always understand. That shift makes the control feel more intrusive, but the underlying principle - 'the distributor sets the rules' - has been part of media distribution for decades.
By stitched2gethr 2025-11-200:431 reply I'm surprised there was no mention of shorts which take attention away from long form content. It's all they a pushing these days. In my feed I regularly see 6 shorts, then a video, then 6 more shorts. TikTok is not the ideal model for everyone.
