Given that Revanced patches the YouTube app, Monsieur Vonau is most certainly wrong.

Manuel Vonau

From his bio on that site (https://www.androidpolice.com/author/manuel-vonau/):

Manuel studied Media and Culture studies in Düsseldorf, finishing his university career with a master's thesis titled "The Aesthetics of Tech YouTube Channels: Production of Proximity and Authenticity." His background gives him a unique perspective on the ever-evolving world of technology and its implications on society. He isn't shy to dig into technical backgrounds and the nitty-gritty developer details, either.

So he's a marketing guy with possibly zero tech background beyond watching YouTube videos, who isn't afraid to discuss "nitty-gritty developer details" despite apparently not actually understanding them.

I don't know any apps that work like that. I'm pretty sure even the YouTube is just an app

Headline: "THING IS HAPPENING"

Body: "Here's 1000 words unrelated to the headline. Here's some ads. Here's interviews with three people saying nothing of interest. Here's the thing you clicked under the headline for and it adds a bit of nuance to the headline along with a bunch of waffling and uncertainty. Here's a pointless anecdote. More ads! Here's a recipe for chicken wings and a bunch of pictures of celebrities. Oops! Article ended a full screen ago. Nothing down here but clickbait and more ads."

Gee, I wonder why people just take the headline at face value.

companies that pay for the ads don't care if you think you are immune to propaganda. they want you to watch.

They don't pay for ads just to waste my time. They buy ads to sell products.

Forced advertising does not work on the kind of people who already do everything they can not to watch ads.

if you think you are immune

I'm literally not watching my phone if YouTube or other stream goes into ad mode. I do not see the ad.

The imaginary part is that Google gets paid just as much for showing ads that don't work as they do for showing ads that do work.

Forced advertising is good for Google. It's not good for the users nor the companies who pay Google.

The majority of ads are toxic on a medical need level for me. I’d sooner build an ai to prewatch and live record videos. Cutting out the cursed segment.’

On the other hand, they are spending real money on development time to fight against an army of independents doing it for fun or personal satisfaction. That's throwing money into a hole they can never fill up

Well, that part is working really well. I've been using YouTube less and less every time they've worsened the free service. I don't even bother with the revanced loopholes, I'll just don't use YouTube to find stuff. Most of the content is made for monetisation purposes anyway.

I'm not saying they shouldn't do it, or that I don't understand why. It's just a prime example of the internet going to shit.

If you give thumbs ups and add comments, you're still providing user generated content that increases the value of the content you watched, so they're still getting something out of it. Your contributions could go on to drive someone else to watch the video which could end up seeing the ad you blocked.

It's a question of what that value is that you've provided to the service. It's the same question Reddit will be finding out the answers to over the next couple months.

Rerevanced

I remeber the girls at school listening to bootlegged YouTube videos from shitty rip off apps from the appstore

That could have been yesterday or like 15 years ago

I nuked a food app recently because instead of opening so I could give them money in exchange for food they decided to police my phone for PCAPdroid by way of refusing to run beyond showing a message stating that I can't have PCAPdroid installed and closing after a 5 second timeout.

Fuck you, Papa Murphy's. What's your app doing that you're afraid I'll be able to see? You're blacklisted for life now.

In that case the premise of the entire article is wrong then.