25% is certainly a shocking stat, and may well be something that the US market has been accustomed too.
For me, 0 ads would be acceptable, but can go with say 1 min per 20 min if bills need to be paid, so long as I can do the equivalent of TV, where I’d start watching later than the advertised time once I hear the opening credits, and leave the room for a slash at the 15/30min ad break. Being 2 mins in and 3 ad slots done, and the vid barely even getting to actual content, and I’ve forgotten why I’d even hit play in the first place.
And for ads by the actual content creator (sponsored stuff), those are acceptable so long as it is clear they are sponsored and not too excessive and actually relevant (ie not NordVPN, Surfshark, which are blatantly not entirely factual, or the near whole takeover of a vid to shill Chinese e-bikes with fat tyres, clearly the wrong size / one size fits all with the saddle right down).
It would be interesting to see the stats of the losses incurred by innocent small businesses as a side effect of Youtube’s actions. I know they are just trying to make their system actually financially viable too. I think I saw that it’s some paltry amount like 11% of Google’s revenue that comes from the massive spamming of youtube and with 45% commission rates too. They are only as viable as they are because they are a practical monopoly and other business areas within Alphabet/Google compensate.
When I finally have to pay, I’ll simply do the same that I did with Twitter.
