And yet many people don't want to pay for YT Premium. YouTube wouldn't exist if targeted ads didn't exist, and I imagine such a predicament isn't what most people envision. (and, if Google can't convert all viewers to paying customers, I don't see why another subscription-only social video platform would work either).
I'm fine with them showing ads or even contextual (based on youtube content, blog content, etc) ads or targeted geography (based on ip address, which is already public) ads which don't need surveillance at all.
It’s a myth that targeting users is needed - it makes more profit, and creates a moat for the ad market, but that’s all.
DuckDuckGo shows this is the case.
Is that actually true? Did pre-google YouTube have the level of targeted ads that we have right now? I would be incredibly surprised if the level of surveillance at that time was anywhere near what we have now. Granted, Youtube would almost certainly not be as profitable as it is right now, but I do think it would be possible.
That said, I don't think you're wrong; things would be pretty different, but I also think this might lead to more competition in the video sharing space. As it stands right now, no one can compete with the market dominance of YouTube, particularly because of their insanely good recommendation system.
There isn't really any way to have a video streaming service that mainstream without ads.
Even if I don't like them, I can live with contextual ads (e.g. I'm watching a video about video games and I see an ad for a Switch).
0: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna15196982
1: https://sites.google.com/a/pressatgoogle.com/youtube5year/ho...
The internet and ads have existed long before YouTube, and all three can exist without tracking your life.
What they can’t do is put up ads for vacuum cleaners because you were searching for them on another site or emailed somebody about them.