That was a dismissive and disrespectful comment. I told you what my attitude is, so don't just ignore that and then proceed to tell me what my attitude is. No, using Wikipedia as we all do is not a "much more mercenary attitude", it's just commons, as all globally shared infrastructure should be. Your morality is just inconsistent.
You don’t build a business with real infrastructure without money and a value proposition.
YouTube isn’t a non-profit, and society isn’t entitled to take what they want from it without acknowledging and respecting the terms YouTube makes its infrastructure available. There are other outlets for more “commons”-like tube experiences, notably PeerTube.
The value is in YouTube though, and I know that bothers some people, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m not screwing myself by paying them for a subscription: it’s called trade. They have stuff I want, I have stuff they want. If I value something, I pay for it or trade for it (e.g. Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, all private property by the way, somebody owns their servers too, they’re just a different type of corporation).
I think it is fairly mercenary to take a moral stance against paying money for something that you like. I know that there are people I watch who make their livings through YouTube, some of whom are buying houses or getting married because they’re able to with this income; and for others, it’s just a side gig or a hobby. They’re not getting paid when you Adblock, but they are getting paid for the aggregate views that I and others give them.
If you think our views aren’t un-reconcilable, don’t tell me that I’m being irrational or that I’m “screwing myself” by paying for something I want to see continue to exist simply because I’m not bothered by the idea of people taking profits. If you can’t do that, then take my offer to agree to disagree. I’m not bothered by your outlook, but I don’t share it in common with you.
Wikipedia itself is commons, regardless of what private property it's served on (which is 100% fungible.) This isn't the case with YouTube, which is the problem. When you pay someone running Wikipedia or IA, that's what you're paying for. When you pay for YouTube, you're just paying stockholders and executives, their costs are more than covered, and on top of that you have no rights and no control. I'm sorry that you can't see the difference and why that's wrong and makes your behavior irrational.
Yeah, and donations go towards sustaining the Executives and Staff of Wikipedia more than they do the servers, but without any staff Wikipedia as we know it would cease existing. A like project could replace it and its data, but that wouldn’t be Wikipedia anymore, that would be something else. Maybe better, maybe worse? Dunno, and I’m not sure I want to find out.
Getting back to YouTube: when I pay for a service, it’s called a trade. $11.99/month or $143.88/year nets me a service I rely on. I don’t particularly care where the money goes to after I pay it, but the correct answer is probably a revenue account owned by YouTube. Where that money goes after it lands on their Balance Sheet isn’t my business, because money that has left my hands is not mine anymore. I walk away feeling like I’ve gotten a good deal, and I never have my time wasted by Google Ads anywhere in the service on any device I control and some that I don’t, and I’m not limited to a specific browser setup. Your inability to see the benefits to my life does not make it irrational, nor wrong to do so.
That’s true for every service or product that you or anyone pays for: you got a product or service. You didn’t maintain any equity in the dollars or euros or yen that you paid in exchange. Nor do you possess equity in any items you barter away.
