

It kinda is a necessary evil, if you want free content at least. Especially for a website like youtube where you need to host millions of large videos 24/7. That shit ain’t cheap, and even google can’t make money out of thin air. Not that I’m defending youtube or anything, charging $8 a month for premium lite but still giving you ads is insane. Paid services should never have ads.
My problem isn’t with ads, but rather the type of ads used. Like I said a moment ago, I don’t think paid services should ever have ads of any kind. But for free websites, a few side banner ads are fine in my book, while ads in the middle of a page or popup ads or video ads (especially unskippable ones) are a no-go. Essentially anything that doesn’t interrupt what I’m doing is usually something I’m okay with.
The same person is currently working on rebalancing Halo 2 as well. I don’t follow it closely enough to have any clue when it’ll be done, but I’m excited to try it when it finally is. H2 had loads of problems when being developed, and I’d love to see the game properly balanced and with extra content.