Their product is the platform. I’m not there to consume the platform. I’m there to watch videos uploaded by a third party. I could care less who hosts it.
If you want people to view your ads then don’t serve content using a protocol that have user agents that run on my machine where I am in control of what they do, or at least if you do, don’t be surprised when I run user agents that do what I want them to do.
Google's alternative is to embed the ads directly into the video at presentation time (which also won’t work so long as I can fast forward).
It's sheer hypocrisy that makes you think you're in the right. The platform costs money to deliver content to you.
You could care less who hosts it yet you care to type YouTube.com into your address bar to find the content you want.
In any case, if you think the company doesn't deserve your money, simply don't consume videos via their platform.
If you really mean it, simply stop using the service because the more you use it, the more they retain market share and get to serve more ads to other users. So effectively, you're contributing to their growth.
Live by your word and don't use YouTube if you detest Google that much.
Wonderful. So when, as an individual, I watch a company:
- evading most taxes,
- offering 0 support to users,
- breaking the user experience to force users through their “app funnel,”
- shutting down independent developers without recourse,
- bullying any small fish in their path,
- conspiring to depress labour salaries, and
- shirking any societal or moral obligations,
...that’s just business.
But then when, having observed their psychopathic behaviour, I decide that I don’t want to be part of funding this evil entity, now I’m holding a double standard by accessing the content this monopoly has become the sole gatekeeper for.
Give me a break.
(Leaving untouched the fact that their business model revolves around collecting as much private information as possible.)
You're okay with enjoying free food from an armed robber as long as you're not the one he's robbing even though you know the food is funded with proceeds of crime.
You're strawmanning ahmedalsudani's argument. They are not saying that Google is an armed robber, nor is using YouTube anywhere near as essential to survival as food, so this is a bad analogy.
They're effectively saying Google is an unethical company and yet they continue to use the platform of this unethical company, a platform whose existence is solely dependent on the unethical practices of Google (as it has been mentioned over and over that Youtube is running at a loss).
No, sorry. Don’t make your content freely accessible on the web if you don’t want to bear the cost of hosting it. Don’t serve it over a protocol that explicitly doesn’t require a user agent to mindlessly obey the commands given to it by virtue of running on someone else’s machine.
YouTube has operated the same business model as companies like Uber and Jet. They deliberately burn money and turn no profits in order to gain the most marketshare. Then, after they have dominated the marketplace, they start raising prices, showing more ads, etc, to start turning that around.
Give me a different path to the content, and I will gladly take it. The reason I take this roundabout route is that YouTube owns the monopoly on online video.
And Google still makes money off me because I can’t block their ads on Apple TV—I just don’t want to hand them money from my own accounts. They have become incredibly user-hostile once they felt secure in their monopoly position. That attitude completely turned me off.
Probably the same reason people used IE6 after it went stagnant. What was your choice? It's not like most YouTube channels have websites they publish stuff to as an alternative.
The real answer if you're working in the space is that users will take a free thing over a paid/ad thing any day. They'll usually come up with some rationalization (don't like DRM, don't like targeting, etc.) but the reality is they just don't want to pay.
Don't fall into the trap of ever trying to build for these guys. No money will ever arrive, only ever more obscure conditions for the money.
There are places where users will pay. Just make things for them instead.
> To preempt the question about content creators: I support the creators I want to support on patreon or by pledging on their website.
Every month, I happily fork over more money than my annual value to google. Only in one case is that money for paywalled material. The rest is purely to support content I enjoy. I would be equally willing to fund a platform that does not treat users and creators as cattle.
It’s true that many users have an inflated sense of entitlement. That has been created by the business model of offering “free” services in exchange for your data. Giving Google money now to get rid of the ads is rewarding them for building monopolies and then bilking their users.
Speaking for myself and not for the average user, I’m not about to fork over my data and my cash to the #1 beneficiary of the user entitlement that you’re describing.
Sure, but you're just one guy. I'm just telling that dude there's no point building for one guy. And you have this requirement on the data thing. The next guy is going to be like "Oh yeah, I do the same, but I give in Bitcoin" and the next guy is like "I only do it if the owner has a moustache on one side of his lip". There's no replicability. Like, I actually thought Patreon was pretty solid but it turns out they're not in a good place at all. Revenue is really low and growth isn't even that great.
Patreon never allowed porn but I wonder if there'll be a substitution effect with OnlyFans etc. We'll see. I just don't think catering to people like you is a good business. I'd stay out of it, honestly.
Understood, and I agree that most users will be part of the race to the bottom.
It has been encouraging, however, watching more and more creative people switch to a direct relationship with their fans and basically doubling their ad-based income when only a small fraction of their audience signs up.
If 1% of your audience pays you about the same as the revenue from the other 99% through ads, there might be alternative models that can work. Not massively scalable ones, mind, but ones that can still provide a sustainable living without turning the user and creator into the product.
I am holding out for those platforms. In the meantime, I directly sign up with the people I like, and I avoid feeding the beast, trivial as I am.
Hey, we all do the thing that lets us be true to myself. I offset my carbon 100%, a thing that does nothing on its own for climate change, so I can relate to your position.
I didn't know YouTube even had ads for several years. Family and I all use adblock. Then I watched a video on someone else's computer and it was like, where did all these ads come from?
