I suspect it has in most households -- even boomer ones.

The problem is that nobody wants YouTube to be just like broadcast and cableTV was. The thing that made YouTube so compelling and so popular was its authenticity and variety -- but the management at YouTube are carefully killing the very thing that made it great.

Ever-growing levels of ever-more intrusive advertising. Ads that are (at times) 90 percent scams. Ads and content that are low-value AI-slop which, once the novelty value wears off, will drive people off the platform rather than onto it. Endless spambot comments on videos. -- all these things are slowly souring the formula that made YT what it is today.

Creators are complaining, viewers are complaining and pretty soon, advertisers will be complaining because viewer numbers will decline.

Many creators (such as myself) are now switching to self-hosting via a federated network of servers that we host ourselves (PeerTube or similar). Doing this frees us from the tyranny that is YouTube's arbitrary and unchallengable AI content moderation and it's unwillingness to deal with bogus copyright claims and strikes.

We have reached "peak Youtube" and just like so many companies that have become a huge part of our ever-day lives, it will now begin an ever-steepening decline.

If YouTube doesn't deliver what viewers and creators want they will find an alternative and the self-hosted federation of servers overcomes the single largest hurdle to creating a YouTube competitor -- the problem of matching the company's vast storage, processing and bandwidth capacity.

Watch this space... things are about to get exciting again!

That's right... you don't *really* think YT is giving you a choice do you?

I do not make shorts, I do not want shorts but without using plugins I can not avoid shorts. Successful companies are generally built on tailoring their offerings to match the needs/wants of their customers so YT once again proves that WE are not the customers, we are the product!

Just as with their AI deepfake detection system, YouTube has once again created a problem (Shorts addiction) so that it can deliver a solution (this auto-turn-off function).

I'd actually prefer that it didn't create the problems in the first place.

YouTube is a trainwreck right now and mid-tier creators are not valued at all. Just look at what they have to put up with

YouTube creates a problem (by integrating VEO3 into its platform) and then offers a solution -- but only if you surrender your government ID to them.

This is dystopian.

If you're stupid enough to buy a bed that goes berserk when the Net goes down then you deserve to wake up vertical and sweating!

Why on earth would such a contraption require cloud-based support for its core functionality?

This subscription-based model has gone way too far when, if the internet goes down or you don't pay your subscription, you can't even get a good night's sleep.

Hey, I'm still waiting for the year of the LAN and the paperless office to arrive. Linux on the desktop... that's a long way off (says the guy who's been using Linux as his go-to OS for nearly 20 years and has no regrets.

The overwhelming majority of people are happy with the standard phones from Apple and Samsung- it's just the ultra-slim versions that aren't selling well- and they haven't stopped making one for the other.

Because it didn't actually sell very well. You may want a smaller screen size on your phone but the majority of people don't.

The iPhone and iPhone Pro are double the thickness of the iPhone Air and do give you a lot more battery life- so you do have a choice.

The problem is that overweight people are more likely to come from lower socioeconomic levels. (i.e.: obesity rate are high among poorer people).
So you're putting additional financial burden on people who are already struggling financially.

I agree on the "cultural" problem part, though my own impression is that the insane-level of car-centricity also plays a role.

contrast: I also have a high education and a computer desktop job. I do spend 1 hour commuting each day by bicycle. Here around it's much more bike-able than in the US. Lots of parents here around have cargo bikes, kid seats, etc. to bring their kids (and I'll probably invest into something similar once our daughter is old enough for after-school activities). Whenever my wife plays tennis, she travels to the sports terrains on inline skate. Cars do exist here around, but they are absolutely not a necessity.
(and not exactly car, but still same philosophy: my university building is not a skyscraper, it has a mere 10 floors in total from basement to roof-top cafeteria, so climbing stairs up and down when going to other floors is trivial to do).
Whenever I am not at the keyboard I am moving.
Whenever the titular 70% US adult is moving, it's just a couple of steps between their desk and their car.

Sad I used mine to buy pizza :-(

Who said I wasn't vaxxed? I did get vaxxed because I crunched the numbers and weighed up the risks and uncertainties. At 68 years of age I figured I'd be better off being vaccinated, even if there were unforeseen risks associated with the vax that may surface ten years down the road. My point was that others may have different risk factors so for them the results may be different. It's about freedom of choice.

As for "putting others' lives in danger" -- we were all told that vaccination would protect us so why would we be worried about unvaccinated people in the general population eh? Unless we were being lied to?

Yeah, and what about channels such as one of mine that still has a community "warning" on it, simply because I made a video in which I suggested that the decision whether or not to get vaxxed should be an individual one, based on one's own risk profile and other factors. Apparently that was "medical misinformation". I refuse to take the "training" program required to remove that warning because that would be effectively accepting that I was in the wrong -- when I strongly believe I was not in the wrong and my post was *not* medical misinformation. A man without principles is not a man at all.

What the hell are they smoking?

Numerous very experienced people have correlated a great number of the so called "drone" sightings with the ADSB tracks of legitimate aircraft and not one shred of evidence has been presented that these "sightings" are actually drones operated by Russia or other bad actors.

Remember New York and New Jersey last year when the skies were filled with "mystery drones" that turned out to be simply scheduled night flights of passenger jets and helicopters?

Then there was a spate of "drone" sightings over US Military airbases in the UK. These turned out to (once again) be misidentified manned aircraft, including F15s from the base itself!

So now exactly the same hysteria is sweeping across Eastern Europe with unskilled observers claiming to be seeing "drones" when in fact they're simply seeing lights in the sky that are navigation lights from aircraft and even balloons smuggling cigarettes.

If the Germans open fire on these "mystery lights" then there is a huge potential for tragedy here because they really won't listen to people much smarter than them who on two previous occasions (NY/NJ and Lakenheath) provided all the information needed to debunk the allegations of "drones".