There's a lot of double think around here that resolves around the call to do your bit and support Google's model. I should know better but I still find it breathtaking. Capitalism's benefits are brought to fruition through competition, and hard nosed decisions on all sides. I was raised by a capitalist believer. That is what he instilled in me. The willingness of the consumer to exercise choice is paramount. As such, I rail against the fatalism that we must pay, and not find ways to not pay.

Good grief, no. That 9$ is urgently required in order to purchase healthy food at spiralling prices, and to pay for the requirements for healthy activities.

Google? The last people i am concerned about. Content makers, that's an interesting story. SV and others rips them off, and crushes the business models that supported their livelyhoods. But now I have to be concerned about the youtube content makers?

Think about it. People do things without recompense all the time. It's called joy, or something. It is a fact. If that's not possible, they could investigate setting up patreons.

What YT have somehow done is repackage their business model in vivo in your head. It's not Yt's business model at all. It is a moral obligation to creators.

The obvious call concern is that Google are emotionally exploiting you. As the services are addictive by nature, that is par for the course.

Consumers with a moral concern for the world rather than just passing emotional whims are supposed to allow themselves to recognise how hard nosed the investors and executives are.

This is all business. All transactions. Forget the selling of attention and data. Your presence and interest in a thing is advertising, and affirms it as something of value.

I'm respectful of the desire to support people who create things of value for us, but it's absolutely vital to realise that one of life's great joys is doing so for free.

Frankly sometimes when I feel there's also an air of desperation around this discussion. If the transition from free to paid service can't be normalised, a lot of people on here would seem to stand to lose or face uncertainty.

I wish I could impart upon people there is a great need to frequently revisit and exploring our moral, ethical social contracts - and to realise how flimsy our justifications are, and how limited we are in being able to concieve of the realities involve. There's something childlike about it. It's hard to know when just to leave that alone, as entire point is that life might not offer any certainty whatsoever as to the 'goodness' inherent in the act or any protection against it unwittingly - in the final analysis - proving to be a terrible thing for all involved, if only we understood (but we can't).

Basically... uhhh.... we could stand to be hard nosed consumers. Not cynical, but perhaps not avoiding the "realist" view that there are huge and unavoidable ambiguities and contradictions in everything we are engaging with, and pretending otherwise is not about being a wise adult, it's about silly and childish ideas such as good and evil.

I think it's important to remember life was fine for everyone long before Google, and would be just fine if they vanished in the next two decades.