[Nextgrid]

It works well for the viewer if the content lends itself to sponsorships - your friend's example is a perfect one, he has a cooking show, needs cooking equipment and the sponsors provide it - win-win!

But this model doesn't apply to every channel. If I'm on a science/physics channel, I'd tolerate scientific/test equipment sponsors but that's rarely what we see (turns out most quality goods sell fine without polluting YouTube videos), so instead you get VPNs, crappy Chinese earbuds, website builders, etc.

[JCharante]

Yeah that's fair and to be honest a lot of it is due to greed. Youtube would be better if it returned to people doing it for fun rather than for money. Yes even if it means only being able to put up a video twice a week beacuse they only have time for it on the weekends.