[ACow_Adonis]

Presumably for the same reason Google doesn't let you block or filter shit sites.

If you genuinely let user's preferences be taken into account, it's incredibly hard to make money from ads if the user's true preferences are not to be shown them.

The entire point of ads is to manipulate and change user preferences and behaviours.

So any preferences or customisation has to be minimal enough that their use can only partially implement user preferences. White listing is a step too far against the purpose of YouTube.

Thus Google will always be biased to not letting you implement full customisability and user control.

[glaucon]

Agreed but ElCapitanMarkla is paying for an ad free service so at that point (as far as I can see) there shouldn't be any reason they can't have what they suggest.

[oneeyedpigeon]

Whitelisting—and more user control in general—seems like such a valuable feature, that they could probably charge for it. Heck, I'd pay $10 a year if I could just customise certain aspects of YouTube and remove all the ads and suggested content.

Whether this is viable or not, I don't know. I'm not sure what the average take per person is from the current model.

[jorvi]

Well, that didn't or wouldn't have mattered when Google only had a top box and sidebox with sponsored sites.

Once they started masquerading ads as results, yeah any ability for user down or upranking became unworkable.

[kingnothing]

Try Kagi. You can filter out the shit sites. It's great!