> I have no problem paying for services, even for premium tiers when free tier is available.
> I don't trust YouTube Premium enough to even try it.
These two statements seem to be mutually incompatible unless you're trying to argue that a premium tier doesn't really exist unless you can write the terms of service and audit the company providing it. It's also somewhat hard to follow the logic here: if you don't trust YouTube, why are you watching them at all? It's not like Google tracks you less that way and if you're under the impression that your ad blocker is helping there you can certainly subscribe to Premium while leaving the same blocker enabled.
No, YTP money is paid to creators based on time YTP subscribers spend watching their content. So if you watch small channels that's who will benefit from your subscription.
The money mostly goes to large creators simply because those large creators have way more viewing hours.
The nice thing about YT Premium is that you have a single subscription to manage, and it then helps support a wide number of creators, even ones who you only see a single video of. It'll go to helping way more people in total than you would ever get around to signing up for individual Patreon subscriptions for.
Looking at your posts here, to me it seems like you are actively searching for reasons not to pay. Like you’re trying to justify some sort of cognitive dissonance you have on the matter.
Either pay up or admit (to yourself, us, whatever) that you’re not willing to pay for services you can get in an ad-supported format instead.
I only started getting a proper income recently. How exactly was I supposed to pay when my YT Premium used to be 5% of my income?
I already pay for Spotify and Amazon Prime. I literally don't have more disposable income. (Unless I throw in the emergency cash reserve or investments) I still have to pay for dental surgery and an optometrist.
What is it with people like you telling us to "admit" some deep seated desire? Is it so hard to not assume things about my life and create your own fantasy?
The fact that we have to ask questions like this is indicative of google being a bad actor in this exchange. How much are they paying me for the data they steal?
They’re not stealing any data. You’re voluntarily giving it to them and if you don’t like the terms of the deal it’s trivially easy to stop by not going to YouTube.
That's a lazy rationalization which doesn't even make sense — either way you're getting the exact same sandwich, it's just a question of whether you pay for it directly or by watching ads.
This also doesn't make any sense from the negative way you're describing it: you're eating at Cockroach Joe's every day so clearly you don't really believe the food is bad. If you're using YouTube now, any negative which you can possibly imagine is already happening: they're tracking what you watch and where you watch it from, they're telling advertisers what kind of devices you use as a proxy for your likely spending habits, etc. There's a 0% chance they do that less when it's their only option to make money to cover your usage costs!
> That's a lazy rationalization which doesn't even make sense — either way you're getting the exact same sandwich, it's just a question of whether you pay for it directly or by watching ads.
It's an imperfect analogy. But point remains. Some places can offer bad and good experiences side by side, and have a long reputation of shitting up a few good products over time.
> eating at Cockroach Joe's every day so clearly you don't really believe the food is bad.
No. I know some X is bad, and some Y is good. It doesn't mean I hate X, I hate X that such and such makes.
It's like that scene in Spaceballs. Don't order the menu special.
If you think it’s a bad experience, why do you keep going? The fact that you’re concerned about avoiding ads means you must find the content interesting and that means you should pay for what you use, either directly or indirectly.
Many things can cause you to go to same place. Lack of meaningful choice, not being able to afford anything better, etc.
But YT premium on itself is bad value. I can replicate most of its value with... An ad blocker.
Why should I pay Google to solve problems it creates for me? That's just incentives them making more problems. Maybe they will add a solve a captcha every 5 min if not on Premium.
And lastly YT isn't above ruining it as well (see premium ads). History (see cable) teaches us, ads on premium is a matter of time.
Because it is designed for addiction? Is that up for debate? YouTube is top result because it is owned by Google. This is a standard business model.
People bet into slot machines. Put an entry fee into a room full of slot machines and see for yourself how many people come to play.
The only way for a casino to make sure people pay to play a slot machines is to keep a free entry option that is gets annoying quickly. It is creation of a problem to justify a paid solution. Ad blockers solve that problem for free and have to be blocked.
And people who are addicted to slot machines have their own favorite games that they play all day long. They might pay at a chance to play. Youtube doesn't actually want to have a competitor at the same time.
If you actually believe that you should be blocking YouTube, not just the ads. The excuses in this thread are like arguing that it’s okay to sneak into a casino’s free buffet because the gambling industry has plenty of money and is bad for people.
Problem is, if you want videos Youtube is most likely your only option. TikTok hosts only 5min snippets, it's better (or worse) at addiction explotation. Vimeo doesn't host videos you probably want. Nebula (and other subsrcibe services) are great but what if I want a conference talks?
To torture the analogy. This isn't sneaking in the free buffet. It's the option of only free buffet in casino offering stuff you aren't allergic to. But then forcing you to play some strip poker to get in. Sure you can pay to get in, but what guarantees I have they won't force gambling on paying customers or further deterioration of the free experience?
In other words, YouTube is giving you something you value but you don’t to follow the terms of the agreement. Just be honest and say that rather than trying to invent these weird narratives to try to make it sound more noble than freeloading.
"In other words" why not address their actual words? Youtube is giving us something we value, but that does not justify any given demand Youtube comes up with. There's nothing noble about blindly accepting the terms of a monopoly.
YouTube is not a monopoly and you can easily live a perfectly happy, normal life not using it if you hate ads that intensely or, since you clearly like it quite a bit and are not willing to consider alternatives, pay 1-2 coffees per month.
Since you took the liberty to replace slot machines with "casino's free buffet" - an especially disingenuous misrepresentation - I mean do you want to say that people go to casino for food, and when I specifically avoided using the word casino... Can I go ahead and say that you all are acting like addicts being called out? I mean, did I use say we should block YouTube?
Talk about the "lengths" people go to defend their addiction. This is my general impression of the lot here on HN. You guys are so deep into cult of bullshitting that normal argument feels like an attack and invites downvotes.
YouTube Premium is my most loved subscription, for what it's worth. I don't even use the Music element, but if I did that would be another reason. While all other subscriptions I pause on and off waiting for content, YouTube has always had solid stuff -- from mindless good stuff, content reviews, learning household chores, to full-on lectures/talks from Universities/Conferences.
If you're getting served McDonalds at the world's largest buffet, it's because that is what you enjoy.
Where are you getting steak from? YouTube premium is the exact same content you like only paid for directly instead of by advertisers. You must already be watching stuff on YouTube and enjoying it because otherwise you wouldn’t care about whether it has ads.
I don't make any excuses-- if the content is handed to me for free, I take it. They also hand me ads for free but I don't care for those, thanks.
It's really a strange concept that we're somehow cheating someone for not looking at an ad. And yet somehow it wouldn't be cheating if we poured over every ad but never bought anything in them.
But you are cheating someone. The creators of the videos you're watching don't get anything when you block the ads. That means you've cheated them of money, on top of cheating the company of money.
It's not handed to you for free, there's an implicit condition that you watch the content and the ads that are served with it. Too many people don't do that and that's why YouTube is now testing blocking ad-blockers. You reap what you sow.
>It's not handed to you for free, there's an implicit condition that you watch the content and the ads that are served with it.
No, there isn't. The web was designed from the beginning to allow the end user to have control over what content is and is not displayed. It isn't television, radio or magazines, the platform owner doesn't have complete control over the layout and display of the content they serve. There is no condition, implicit or otherwise, that the end user will pretend they're consuming an old media product just because web platforms can't move beyond old media models of revenue.
None of which require viewing, reading or listening to the ads, either. Ads have always been a gentleman's agreement.
>Too many people don't do that and that's why YouTube is now testing blocking ad-blockers. You reap what you sow.
No, Youtube is going to reap what it sowed, because no one is going to turn off their ad blockers. If their platform was worth paying for, everyone would have moved to the paid tier by now. Google bought a free video service and tried and failed to monetize it to the point of nearly ruining it for content creators with their puritanical rules, arbitrary demonitization, opaque to nonexistent support and restrictive algorithm, but no matter how much they squeeze the turnip, it won't bleed enough for them.
That's not our problem. We'll gladly support content creators directly through Patreon or other means, but Google can get fucked.
Which brings us right back to the article: don't be surprised when your ad-blocker stops working.
Serving high bitrate video is not cheap and YouTube is notoriously breaking even at best. Any alternative is going to be even less efficient and more expensive due to the lack of economies of scale that Google has. If that's what you want so long as it doesn't have Google's name in the corner, so be it, that's understandable.
>If their platform was worth paying for, everyone would have moved to the paid tier by now.
I disagree. I think people are inherently cheap and will exhaust other options of getting the same content for free first. We shall see I guess.
> don't be surprised when your ad-blocker stops working
Yes, it's an arms race, always has been. But it's more expensive for them to break the ad blockers than it will be for the ad blockers to inevitably update, so if it's a war of attrition, they will still inevitably lose.
The problem isn't that people aren't watching the ads, the problem is Google's business model doesn't work, not for Google, not for the consumer and certainly not for content creators, and the only solution they can come up with is trying to force people to watch ads - which never works.
>Any alternative is going to be even less efficient and more expensive due to the lack of economies of scale that Google has.
I mean, plenty of alternatives already exist, and content creators are starting to lead viewers to those alternatives, because of Youtube's arbitrary censorship and demonetization. Every social media platform hosts video now. There are decentralized platforms like Peertube. We're way past the point where "streaming video" is a hard problem that only Google-scale infrastructure can solve.
They're going to have to innovate or die like any other company, and disabuse themselves of the illusion that the web is a gravy train where the rules of supply and demand don't apply. This isn't innovation, this is desperation.
I don't know, but given the choice of watching slightly lower quality videos (which probably look the same on their phones anyway) and paying for a free service, most people will prefer lower quality videos.
This is the same argument people make about piracy. About potential revenue. The fact of the matter is, if I couldn't watch the video without either watching ads or paying for premium, I wouldn't watch it at all. So, the creator gets no money either way. Same thing when I pirate software or a movie or a game. I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, so the amount of money the creator gets is the same, zero.
So don't watch it then. Serving video is not cheap and you're increasing costs for everyone else. I don't get to jump the fence at a music festival just because I wouldn't have gone if I had to pay.
Sure we are. If you make your content available on a public platform, where it is both possible and legal to watch it for free, then we are entitled to it if we choose to utilize the tools that make it possible, until or unless it becomes illegal or impossible.
It’s possible but not legal, just unenforced. We understand that you feel entitled to use things without paying for them but don’t try to dress it up as anything more noble or pretend to be surprised if enforcement escalates.
Good news, they aren’t. Tons of content is on multiple services - if you really have a principled objection to Google, you should show that by supporting those services rather than boosting YouTube’s popularity.
"Tons of content on multiple services" =/= "Tons of alternative services"
There is only one viable alternative to Youtube that I'm aware of. I use it whenever I can, but that doesn't change the fact that Youtube holds a monopoly.
The videos are usually sponsored with the ads pushed by the streamer themselves. They’re getting paid just fine. YouTube freely steals my data so they’re doing just fine. I’m just being gaslit into thinking I’m a thief.
If you were actually worried about YouTube stealing your data, why do you keep giving it to them by using their service? Wouldn’t the smart move be to stop visiting?
It's a simple value estimate. Some things, at least in the moment, appear to be worth having some of your data stolen. Also there are measures that can be taken, such as using adblockers, that minimize the cost.
How is data being “stolen”? All of the data they collect is data which you are freely giving them by using their service, and ad blockers really don't prevent any of that: you're connecting to a Google server telling them where you live, what type of device you use, and what you're interested in. An ad blocker prevents you from seeing ads but it doesn't do anything to prevent resale of the data you volunteer.
You tell me, I was responding to your hypothetical question:
"If you were actually worried about YouTube stealing your data, why do you keep giving it to them by using their service?"
>An ad blocker prevents you from seeing ads but it doesn't do anything to prevent resale of the data you volunteer
True. That's why I still volunteer as little data as possible.
Anti-piracy folks love to use bullshit loaded terms (such as "piracy" itself) to justify some megacorporation taking over shit on my computer. Adblocking is now "cheating"?`
Speaking of loaded terms, what are they “taking over” by showing an ad along with the content? If you truly believed they posed the risk that incorrect terminology implies, why on earth would you continue using the site and giving them more opportunities to do so?
If I were to allow all ads but make it a rule to never actually watch them or heaven forbid, buy anything in them, would that be ok? I'm sure it would be ok with the content provider, because then they get their money and that's all that counts.
If I can't watch it without ads, I simply won't watch it. And I certainly won't pay for it if it still includes ads.
the purpose of an advertisement is to give advertisement companies something to sell to product makers, and to give product makers something to have media companies put in front of viewers in exchange for money.
it's a whole economy unto itself. money changing hands, jobs, all of it. almost no one buys something because they saw an ad for it.
Your use of the service is governed by the terms[0], which say "You are not allowed to:... alter, modify or otherwise use any part of the Service or any Content...". Even if you've never signed up for a Google account, it's implicit that YouTube doesn't actually serve anything for free, every video view and page load is a transaction for "youtube serves me content and I pay for it by having screen real estate taken up by ads". They do not have to serve the content if they think you aren't upholding your end of the bargain, which is this ad blocker block.
I am sorry, but the internet right now is bloated with ads that slow down everything and create an absolute distraction when one tries to browse, I do not care if they have problem modifying the appearance and behaviour of a webpage that I have loaded on my browser, but this goes to anything in the internet basically. I am not gonna compromise myself before they all fix the internet of the mess they have created.
I pay for the content that I think it is worth supporting, and that's it. I do not think youtube is worth supporting, and if quite often the only reason I watch things there instead of somewhere else is due to laziness. Same for many creators I follow probably. If they set adblock restrictions I will just stop watching and that's it.
> I'll eat at Cockroach Joe, but I won't pay. I also like to tell people I don't pay because it goes against my virtues. But I'll still go there to eat.
> I don't trust YouTube Premium enough to even try it.
These two statements seem to be mutually incompatible unless you're trying to argue that a premium tier doesn't really exist unless you can write the terms of service and audit the company providing it. It's also somewhat hard to follow the logic here: if you don't trust YouTube, why are you watching them at all? It's not like Google tracks you less that way and if you're under the impression that your ad blocker is helping there you can certainly subscribe to Premium while leaving the same blocker enabled.