I wonder if they saw a large enough down tick is user traffic to realize that endlessly badgering people with 5 ads to watch a 30 second clip is driving away their user base.
I know my YouTube consumption has decreased by a factor of 10. I used to use it for almost all of my streaming entertainment. In conjunction with other streaming services’ password sharing crackdown, I am spending more time reading and going outside than I have in the past decade. That’s a trend these providers don’t want catching on.