I Just Wanted To See How To Do The Task, Not Sit Through 3 Ad Breaks 😭

YouTube's monetization strategy has officially reached dystopian levels. You just want to watch a 4-minute tutorial on how to center a div, but first you need to sit through two unskippable ads about car insurance, then another mid-roll ad for a mobile game you'll never download, and finally a sponsor segment where the creator spends 90 seconds talking about NordVPN.

Meanwhile, sketchy piracy sites that look like they were coded in 1997 are somehow providing a better user experience. No ads, instant access, and the only risk is accidentally downloading a crypto miner. The irony is so thick you could deploy it in a Docker container.

Welcome to 2025, where the legal option is more annoying than sailing the high seas. YouTube Premium is looking real tempting right about now, isn't it? That's exactly what they want.