Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company) is the largest technology company by profit and among the world’s most valuable companies. ~ Wikipedia
Google has recently upped the ante in its fight against ad-blockers, targeting YouTube users with a new round of anti-ad-blocker pop-ups. I received this pop-up very recently while browsing YouTube:
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At the same time, Google has announced that it will be increasing ad content in its Premium Lite subscription plan, an obvious attempt to push subscribers into the more expensive YouTube Premium plan.
It’s been said many times that Google is essentially an advertising company, and that assertion is becoming more and more apparent. I cannot even bear to watch YouTube on my TV (in the absence of any ad-blocker) as the ads are plentiful and frequent. I can barely get through a few minutes of video without an ad break. And these ad breaks can occur at any time, not just at the start and/or end of a video clip, but often slap bang in the middle of a critical moment.
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Furthermore, Google search results are no longer predicated on closest matches to the user’s search term but rather on whoever pays for the privilege of topping the list of results.
I just performed a Google search for Best Free Portable Screen Capture Tool, which matches the title of one of our published articles verbatim, and the listing for Dave’s Computer Tips is buried deep into page 6 of the results.
It seems that, as far as Google is concerned, there is no such thing as enough money; the company’s greed knows no bounds.
I have never been a Google fan, which, if you’ve read up to this point, is probably pretty obvious. My original beef with Google was always about privacy (or lack thereof), and now I can add Google’s policy of saturating its offerings with ads to the equation.
There are methods available to avoid YouTube ads, but that is not really the point of this dissertation; it’s more about the ongoing greed of an already mega-wealthy company. By the way, I can add Meta into this discussion, yet another mega-wealthy company whose greed knows no bounds.
I will never pay Google even one cent for an ad-free experience, not because I cannot afford it, but rather based purely on principle.
Is Google the greediest company on the planet? As usual, your thoughts are welcome via the comments.
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