If I could pay creators directly and anonymously with only money and not my data and viewing habits and agreeing to let random third parties try to manipulate me, I would.
For now the only creators I can support with privacy are on LBRY.
"If the grocery store allowed me to pay via gold bullion, I would pay rather than shoplift."
I'm sympathetic to "I would pay for this if I could" argumentation when it comes to digital goods. But at some point the conditions you're setting become so unreasonable that nobody can reasonably fulfill them, and it becomes clear you're only doing it to get free stuff and stiff the creators.
You don't want to see ads? YT already gives you that option. You don't want YT data to be used for ad targeting? YT already gives you that option. But you additionally want to pay in gold bullion and only to the farmer rather than the grocery store that actually provided you the service. It's not very reasonable, is it?
You talk as though a refusal to compromise privacy is unreasonable. We all need privacy to protect ourselves and each other.
What happens when your searches for a medical condition are sold to your insurance company? Or when your political searches are used to inform new gerrymandering lines? Or when an anti-choice state gives Google a warrant demanding the identity of everyone who has made searches for abortion information? What about someone in China or Russia searching for content that casts their government in a negative light?
Laws change and politicians change. History has taught us over and over that centralized personal data will always eventually end up in the hands of those who will weaponize it.
Those of us with influence in technology must demand privacy. Privacy is not negotiable. Content hosts will either offer privacy or continue to see tool after tool emerge to make it easy for people to circumvent their surveillance capitalism models.
LBRY/Odysee has already proven it is totally possible to support video creators online without with anonymous microtransactions.
I have hope more creators sick of ads and censorship will mirror their content to privacy preserving systems that allow direct monetization.
Sure, it'd be extremely reasonable for you to not compromise your privacy, and only view content from creators that allow you to pay with your favorite cryptocurrency. But I thought that wasn't your stance; instead you will view the content anyway, but just make sure the creators are not compensated.
That's not a very principled defense of privacy, is it? It's just taking stuff for free because you can.
(If your real concern really is with search / watch history, those can be disabled. But two posts ago your real concern was with ad targeting, until I mentioned that it can be disabled. This makes your objections appear like excuses rather than the actual root cause.)
Most content in the world is provided exclusively on privacy-hostile platforms.
We either suggest people remove themselves from modern culture entirely, or we suggest they use tools that let them continue to partake in culture while rejecting harmful surveillance capitalism models.
In both cases the surveillance capitalists do not get any data or money, but the latter case at least privacy concerned citizens see the content, are still a part of society, and can buy merch or offer anonymous tips to creators directly in the instances they are given the chance via conventions, or anonymous tip-jar donation systems.
I choose the option better for users and creators. The surveillance capitalists get starved of revinue but if it hurts them enough they will be forced to change models just like the music industry did.
People pirated music to avoid DRM but still became fans and bought concert tickets.
For now the only creators I can support with privacy are on LBRY.