I'm afraid I'm less positive about this development than most members seem to be. Healthline is, in turn, owned by some other company called: "Red Ventures", which is (it sounds to me from what little I've been able to find) what is typically referred to as a holding company. All these sorts of companies are interested in is profits.

I was on YouTube when Google bought it. Prior to that most of the members I knew had beautiful channel pages they had designed. First Google took those away & all members could decorate was the border around a large white space. Then they took that away & all you could have was a banner. The rest was simply white space again. Now, it appears, members can't even have a banner (which is okay with me, I prefer not to have one) unless you're a paying member of one sort or another. Oh, & yes you can get rid of all the ads, if you pay Google to take them away...which to me is sort-of like extortion. (Pay us or we'll fill your YouTube videos with ads.)

Anyway, I'm taking a wait-&-see attitude. But I have to say it makes me seriously uncomfortable to think about posting anything of a personal nature on a website that's owned & operated by some enigmatic corporate empire. But, then, I've never been on Facebook or Twitter or any of those sites either. So perhaps it's just me.