If you read the article you would not have made this comment:
"..why on earth wouldn’t YouTube want people to click over to its app?
The short answer is money. Somewhat straightforwardly, YouTube has chosen to degrade the user experience of the embedded player publishers like Vox Media use, and the only way to get that link back is by using a slightly different player that pays us less and YouTube more."
>YouTube has chosen to degrade the user experience of the embedded player
How is my user experience "degraded" by not having a link back to youtube and/or missing the branding? Why would I ever want to go to youtube to view the video when I can already view the video on the first party publisher's site? Does the lack of a youtube link mean every site self-hosts their own video is similarly "degraded"? Are you really sure that if the status quo was reversed, that people won't be complaining that youtube adding their branding was some sort of "greedy" money grab or whatever?
