That might explain why my boyfriend couldn't easily show a video to his sister and niece yesterday when we were there for the niece's birthday. It kept acting up, and he blamed the Internet connection for it, but maybe it was YouTube itself. I'll mention that to him.

As for why they change...I could ask the same of Facebook, and probably a million other sites...I'm only guessing, but maybe it somehow makes money for them? Maybe big businesses are making deals with them somehow. It's usually about making money, or possibly about making things more convenient for the company (in this case, YouTube), or both. They don't care what the consumer wants...I don't think we're considered consumers if we're not paying to watch the videos, but maybe there's a way they get you to watch that leads, in some case, to purchases? Ok, that sounds paranoid, but I'm not really concerned that they might do something like this (companies want to make money and many will squeeze any pennies they can out of you, though, and that's a fact); I just know many would if they could.