---
title: "True Life: I’m Addicted to YouTube – Part 2."
id: "11633"
type: "post"
slug: "true-life-im-addicted-to-youtube-part-2"
published_at: "2026-07-16T10:05:48+00:00"
modified_at: "2026-07-16T10:09:25+00:00"
url: "https://nerdsleaze.com/true-life-im-addicted-to-youtube-part-2/"
markdown_url: "https://nerdsleaze.com/true-life-im-addicted-to-youtube-part-2.md"
excerpt: "True Life: I'm Addicted to YouTube → The reality is that many of us are not actually addicted to YouTube. We have replaced our normal streaming like Netflix, Hulu and others for YouTube, but it just feels like an addiction..."
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---

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##### Table of Contents Hide

1. [True Life: I’m Addicted to YouTube. However, you’re actually not addicted to YouTube, so why does it feel like you are?](#true-life-im-addicted-to-youtube-however-youre-actually-not-addicted-to-youtube-so-why-does-it-feel-like-you-are)
2. [The Replacement](#the-replacement)
3. [The Illusion](#the-illusion)
4. [The Hotel California](#the-hotel-california)
5. [You’re the fucking problem.](#youre-the-fucking-problem)
  1. [The Answer isn’t a VPN or BetterHelp, it’s your wallet.](#the-answer-isnt-a-vpn-or-betterhelp-its-your-wallet)

6. [The Sweet & Sour Chicken Deal](#the-sweet-sour-chicken-deal)
7. [Your Money = Leverage](#your-money-leverage)
  1. [The YouTube Black Experience](#the-youtube-black-experience)

8. [The User Experience](#the-user-experience)
9. [The Creator Experience](#the-creator-experience)
10. [The Odeum Matrix: No Pools, Just Direct Tolls](#the-odeum-matrix-no-pools-just-direct-tolls)
11. [The Monetization Flip](#the-monetization-flip)
  1. [Oh, and we can finally cancel Netflix.](#oh-and-we-can-finally-cancel-netflix)

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## **True Life: I’m Addicted to YouTube.** However, you’re actually not addicted to [YouTube](https://youtube.com) , so why does it feel like you are?

[This is a follow up article to the original True Life: I’m Addicted to YouTube article that can be found here.](https://nerdsleaze.com/true-life-i-had-a-youtube-addiction/)

![True life: i'm addicted to youtube](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABAQMAAAAl21bKAAAAA1BMVEUAAP+KeNJXAAAAAXRSTlMAQObYZgAAAAlwSFlzAAAOxAAADsQBlSsOGwAAAApJREFUCNdjYAAAAAIAAeIhvDMAAAAASUVORK5CYII=)    True life: i’m addicted to youtube## The Replacement

For many of us, YouTube slowly replaced television, streaming services and other media. You click a video, you get about ten minutes or more of content, you get to check out for a moment while enjoying your favorite creator, learning something or keeping abreast in specific landscapes.

This happened because YouTube is easy to access if you are on a mobile device such as your tablet or phone and even more so on your desktop. It doesn’t ask for a password, you are always logged in. Some of us even watch YouTube on our actual televisions because you aren’t ready to commit to show or Netflix hasn’t dropped anything worth watching so you click into old faithful YouTube.

## The Illusion

You start off great watching a video or a few videos without any issues, but then every video you click on is more trashy than the one before. You either listen to it all because you don’t want to sit there and sift through garbage or you keep clicking out of the current video because the creator’s voice was annoying and then current video the creator’s voice is much nicer, but you can barely hear them, then you click out and go to another and voice is perfect, but they aren’t saying anything more than the previous seventeen bad videos that you just saw.

If you complain about this anywhere, the feedback is never helpful because everyone online has a superiority complex and you just made it too easy for them to tell you that you’re stupid, they never have this problem, and everything is wonderful.

You’ve just been beautifully gaslight and now since your problem wasn’t shared you begin to do what most people tend to do. You blame yourself and think you have an *addiction to YouTube* when in fact you do not.

1. You’ve replaced your normal viewing experience with YouTube chaos.
2. YouTube doesn’t behave like television, it forces you to constantly manage your consumption like a baby on a teet.

## The Hotel California

Your favorite creator doesn’t care about you, point blank period. They can say it. They can even feel it. However, when has a youtuber ever really taken a serious interest in their audience except for when suddenly they feel they have been shadow-banned?

The answer is most likely never. The creator is not only a salesman they are also the appraiser and the auditor. If 61% of the audience likes this they pivot to it even if you prefer the other content. Additionally, there’s something you should know.

Despite, feeling like you have no control, you do. The creators rely on people clicking on their videos, the platform relies on the ads, and all of us out here just clicking for a fix are leaving unfed when the hotel has an overflowing buffet.

However, it seems like the company, YouTube itself wants to actually take a swing at the plate against the other streaming services and guess who is starring? Your favorite creators, but here’s the catch… You’re never going to receive the type of experience that Netflix delivers because you most likely are in the 95% of users who refuse to pay for Netflix which means…

## *You’re the fucking problem.*

The creators do not care about you because as long as someone watches, as long as someone clicks, they get paid. YouTube pays them. Their sponsors pay them. You just paid them in time and by clicking the ad because you were trying to close it.

The monetization threshold on YouTube is far lower than most platforms and they pay the most because everyone is on YouTube, either uploading, watching or commenting. We even use YouTube videos for sources and for educational references.

This is why everyone is on YouTube, they need money to pay bills and it is easy therefore you get slop and this time it’s not AI slop, it’s human generated so here’s a pleasantry to soften it. We will just say they are trying their best.

### The Answer isn’t a VPN or BetterHelp, it’s your wallet.

Many of you are paying $9.99 for Discord Nitro because you might one day decide to chat or start a server but you haven’t logged on for months, some of you are paying for Crunchyroll because you really want to have access when you barely have to watch anything there, and then you pay for Netflix just incase a show goes viral you can say you too watch the craziest true crime case.

so why are you not paying to watch your so-called favorite creators?

Are you lying when you say you love their content? Their personalities? Or is that you feel that the content that is on a platform with more video content than Netflix could ever churn out is just not that valuable.

Be honest. The content on YouTube is gas station sushi, but every creator makes you believe you are dining at P.F. Chang’s.

## The Sweet & Sour Chicken Deal

Your options are to stop watching YouTube, get a Peacock subscription, start hanging out in libraries, play dungeons & dragons and turn them into horrible books like Brandon Sanderson, but you don’t want that you want to relax. So, why don’t you just pay? It’s quite simple.

If you started paying for YouTube Premium you no longer have to wear your fingers out trying to dodge ads, you receive YouTube Music which is amazing and the creators you pretend to love get a tiny little fairy dust of your subscription, but also then the creators wouldn’t have to date sponsors all the time.

That is an infuriating thing, to pay for YouTube and then the creator spends fourteen minutes telling you about Native deodorant and which scent is who’s favorite including their pet dog and the raccoons outside eating their trash.

Right now, the company is looking at the data and getting rich because no one is complaining and even if so you’re a free user, what are you going to do? Go to TikTok and scroll more? Actually watch Netflix when no one is talking about it? That’s laughable.

Now come back so that I can tell you why adding a payment method to your YouTube account is leverage even though it hurts.

You’re Watching YouTUBI and calling it enlightenment, but for more money than most of us care to pay for we could get our sanity, time, actual content and maybe even hire Sarah McLachlan for our plight.

![Image](https://nerdsleaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/youtube-80x53.jpg)## Your Money = Leverage

If more than 50% paid for YouTube, we would be able to actually fully and whole-heartedly enjoy what we are watching instead crafting a queue. Here’s how this would work out ideally in a perfect world where all parties are protected.

### The YouTube Black Experience

To differentiate from the current YouTube Premium service, we are calling our proposed idea YouTube Black which is a spin on when YouTube Premium was called YouTube Red.

YouTube Black would include three things:

- YouTube: Normal YouTube content, the Tubi of it all
- YouTube Music: Music & Music Videos
- YouTube Odeum: Creator-created high production shows and movies.

## The User Experience

If you are a free user everything stays the same. However, if you are a YouTube Black (Premium) subscriber everything stays the same, but your subscription just elevated.

Instead of opening the app to a garbage truck, you would have the same luxury experience that you receive with Netflix, with recommendations based on your taste, what is popular, and when you click on the content you want to view it would be highly produced quality that rivals actual streaming services.

- The ideal content would be no less than 30 minutes.
- High production, no bedrooms, no Ikea bookshelves.
- No long intros, no apologies, no sponsorships, period.

*This is cinema, television, Seinfeld doesn’t tell me he loves Honey Bunches of Oats, his cabinets do.*

## The Creator Experience

You can still post content to the main YouTube feed with ads, sponsors, merch and whatever else. Remember most of the people watching this content are free users, give them everything that benefits them and you.

## The Odeum Matrix: No Pools, Just Direct Tolls

We aren’t doing the standard streaming “revenue pool” because pools are where good content goes to drown while algorithmic sludge floats to the top. Instead, YouTube Black uses the Direct Engagement Toll.

Here is the math: Your $25 subscription fee is broken down systematically:

- $5 goes to YouTube infrastructure (the delivery fee).
- $5 goes to the YouTube Music blanket licensing.
- $15 goes into your personal “Odeum Vault.”

Every month, that $15 is distributed directly and proportionally *only* to the Odeum creators you actually watched for more than 15 minutes.

If you only watched three high-end documentaries this month, those three creators split your $15 directly ($5 each). If you watched ten, they get $1.50 each.

Now, you may say well I watch way more than three creators, but think about the creator and the content they generate. Not every single one of them is going to jump to create a premium experience. I watch at most seven creators consistently, and I know that only about four of them would run towards this ideal solution.

## The Monetization Flip

Suddenly, the financial incentive completely flips. If an Odeum creator convinces 100,000 YouTube Black users to watch their 60-minute cinematic feature, they are clearing a guaranteed $50,000 from the premium tier alone—without a single sponsor read, without a single mid-roll ad, and without having to trick the free algorithm.

The free users in the Tubi feed can keep clicking the garbage truck videos, generating standard ad-cents for the lower-tier content. But the Odeum creators are now running a real premium studio network funded directly by the people who value their time.

As for how the creators join Odeum? The idea would be for YouTube to scout out the best creators out there based on their current content and give them a small deposit to elevate their content to the production value they are seeking and even offer additional expertise like script writers, screenwriters, or local videographers to assist.

These creators would be the founders of Odeum and then once people see and feel the experience other creators will jump onboard and even if not everyone ends up on “YouTube Black (Premium)” those of us who are can now ignore the Tubi feed and not have to use that 10% BetterHelp coupon from that random morality police creator.

### Oh, and we can finally cancel Netflix.

![Image](https://nerdsleaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/pexels-nida-kurt-5079840-10528838-80x116.jpg)

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