Reading through these comments, I can’t help but think there’s astroturfing happening here when every single comment seems to be saying the same thing nearly verbatim:

“This is a huge overreaction!”

“Most channels have excellent merch products!”

“I like seeing merch ads on videos I watch!”

It’s one thing to have links in the description or creators mentioning their merch in the video. It’s a whole other thing to have a banner in the client advertising products that take up nearly the same amount of screen space as the video itself. All these naysayers seemed to have been able to easily navigate to these shops and purchase merchandise before youtube started pushing it in our faces, so why is it necessary now, especially on accounts that are paying for premium? Should we also just accept additional ads outside the video from corporate sponsors since they also fund the channel directly? Where do you draw the line?