Source: Evan Shapiro: Media War & Peace
YouTube's commanding share of television consumption marks the effective end of the linear TV bundle as a binding force—what once required a cable subscription and a fixed schedule is now just another app competing for attention on the same device. The "enshittification" framing (degrading quality, invasive ads, algorithm manipulation) describes the actual mechanics: as YouTube's share grows and legacy TV shrinks, the platform has diminishing incentive to police its own experience, knowing viewers have already normalized ads-within-ads and algorithmic rabbit holes as the price of free video. Power has shifted away from networks and cable companies toward a single entity that now dictates content, advertising standards, and creator economics to an entire media ecosystem.