In an attempt to become "BlandTube" YouTube is losing its edge and quickly becoming banal to keep or bring in big corporate dollars. I think one of the biggest misconceptions about YouTubes demonetization policies and what has now become a channel purge is that it's a war of ideology. I don't believe that YouTube cares about creed as much as it covets money. It's become a megalithic corporation and a slave to the status quo despite rising to the prolific status by creating a platform where individuals could express themselves freely by knocking each other out or other means of expression.
Mainstream media is dying, and YouTube is selling their soul to become the mainstream itself. With that revered status, megalithic brands will be willing to pour in billions of dollars but not before there is a banal ecosystem free of scandal. Unfortunately, truth and common sense tend to be significant disruptors that advertisers fear. If lies are profitable, then truth must be crushed at all costs.
Recently YouTube has hired approximately ten thousand thought police to strike and ban offenders of the status quo. The infamous "community guideline strikes" have been coming down hard with jackboot authority. All in the name of becoming safe for advertising. Disguised as policing hate speech in a virtuous crusade to destroy the intolerable YouTube is flexing its authoritarian muscle to purge controversy and sterilize its content.
One might argue that YouTube is actually in a battle for the truth, by policing "fake news" and banning conspiracy theorists. This authoritarian view is an insult to reason and presumes people don't have agency over their thoughts and cannot disseminate truth themselves. One might also argue that YouTube has the right to curate and publish whatever content they deem appropriate. That may be a sound argument regardless of the irony of the name "You"Tube.
YouTube does have the right to curate, monetize, and publish any content they choose but that doesn't necessarily make it right. YouTube is currently a monolith where the meritocracy of content created by individuals has built their brand. It has helped usher in a new age of reason and has been a battleground of ideas challenging its users as well as entertaining them. This once free ecosystem of content has been responsible for what I would call a meteoric rise of the public intellectual. It's ease of use and reach has been helping humanity move forward but that proliferation of progress is now under threat. Luckily there is hope and alternatives are on the rise.
Blockchain and Dtube may be the light at the end of the tunnel as far as free speech and individual rights are concerned. Decentralized platforms are bottom-up meritocracies devoid of coercion. Luckily we now have a decentralized platform free from the tyranny of megacorps and voodoo economics that justify misplaced moral beliefs. Steemit is the ultimate meritocracy and I consider myself lucky to be able to contribute to this grand experiment.