I use Youtube through Piped (https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped) to preserve privacy, block ads, and prevent getting sucked in by the algorithm.
The only part of Youtube that I find valuable is the content. Not the UI, not the comments, algorithm. Free content hosting is nice, but it's not the only platform hosting videos for free.
If I wanted to pay for a streaming service, it'd be Nebula (https://nebula.tv/), because I know it benefits creators.
But I'm never turning off the adblocker, thank you.
Maybe it's just my bubble, but it is often I hear that "Our Nebula subscribers fund this show, we couldn't do this with youtube revenue alone" or "Signing up to Nebula with my link gives me a steady source of income that youtube just cannot provide".
> it's not the only platform hosting videos for free.
You're only looking at this from your own point of view. The content producers are looking for monetization options, and youtube is the only game. Nebula might be sufficient for some small amount of content producers, but it's unlikely to hit mainstream, and not enough people want to pay.
It's unfortunate, but ads are the only game in town on the internet atm.
On top of that, in my experience both CuriousityStream and Nebula's search functionality is pretty bad: I got fed up of the number of times I searched for something mentioned in a spoken "advertisment" by users like Mustard on youtube who said they have extra content on those services and then I can't find it or find out how to list all videos by those users, I stopped my subscription to them...
Piped is a great web-based service, but since tvOS does not support web browsers on the Apple TV, to block YouTube ads, you either have to stream Piped videos to the Apple TV from another Apple device using AirPlay screen mirroring or use a workaround like the one described in TFA.
I'm using NewPipe (https://newpipe.net) on Android TV which provides an ad-free YouTube experience just like the Android phone version of NewPipe. Piped would also work on an Android TV browser like TV Bro (https://github.com/truefedex/tv-bro).
The legitimacy of ad blocking is well-established. People have been using DVRs, VHS players, and tape recorders to capture and consume ad-free broadcasts for decades.
The only part of Youtube that I find valuable is the content. Not the UI, not the comments, algorithm. Free content hosting is nice, but it's not the only platform hosting videos for free.
If I wanted to pay for a streaming service, it'd be Nebula (https://nebula.tv/), because I know it benefits creators.
But I'm never turning off the adblocker, thank you.