Ah right, brilliant. Thank you!
Since YouTube started aggressively stuffing more ads into videos I've watched almost nothing on it.
YouTube advert inflation and Premium costs *spawn
- Thread starter DSoup
- Start date
Since YouTube started aggressively stuffing more ads into videos I've watched almost nothing on it.
I found asolution to not seeing any ads without paying
[Shift+N], [CTRL+(Left Arrow)]I found asolution to not seeing any ads without paying
I've long got into the habit of consuming YouTube content on the TV because that is super convenient. It's easier to block ads a computer but I'm rarely watching YouTube that way. YouTube wanting to charge more than Netflix does monthly, to removing ads from content produced by other people, utterly astounds me.I found asolution to not seeing any ads without paying
Dropping YouTube, just as I dropped Twitter, has given me more time to spend on others things.
Can you even begin to imagine the hardware required to support Youtube servers? It's wild to me that people really think Youtube should just be some public free service or something ran by pixie magic.
It's genuinely one of the wonders of the Internet, in my opinion. Not saying it's run perfectly, but dealing with ads seems like a fair tradeoff to get access to that insane amount of content. I easily watch more Youtube than any other TV/movie stuff combined nowadays.
Youtube is a tough one because they're actually run scam ads, which I find problematic. I still don't have an ad blocker, but they'll have ten minute ads and these weird ads that are crypto scams and these weird things talking about Elon Musk creating secret technologies and stuff. I don't understand how youtube allows any of that as advertisements.
I can imagine, I used to manage a server farm and I know what the hardware and the bandwidth costs.
You, and possibly Google, are coming at this from the perspective of what YouTube may cost Google to operate. However for me, and I'd wager most users, Google's business model isn't my concern nor my problem, particularly as it feels like their model is designed to encourage tens of millions of shite videos and pushing you to watch shit that isn't of interest - none of which is my job to subsidise.
As a user of any subscription service, I do that simple cost-benefit analysis of what I'm paying versus what I'm getting. I used to live with the occasional YouTube ads (of which next to nothing goes to creators, ad revenue dropped off a cliff two years ago and never recovered), only to have it ramp up, then to go with Premium, only to have that spike in cost twice inside a year, to just walking away from YouTube.
I'm really happy to vote with my wallet. Since my Premium subscription ended in October (when the last cost spike (£12.99/month) was incoming, Google have sent me two survey emails asking why I left Premium and what they can do to get me back onboard. Each time I provide the same answer and point out that for me, Netflix (£10.99/month) provides far greater content value.
This is what bothers me the most. They want to charge me more than Netflix does for the content they are getting for free. Netflix has to pay millions and millions of dollars for content and YouTube gets it for free. I am ok with occasional ads but they are being super aggressive with it. And I would pay for premium no ads but not that kind of money. It’s insane it’s one the most expensives services out there. Again with zero costs related to production of content.
Disgusting.
Yeah I even get AI generated ads, with celebrities like Elon mask being presented with AI voice and lip sync, supposedly promoting programs. Its disgusting.
Youtube is an example of failed economics. Just like news media and mainstream journalism that sells garbage and manipulates content to get the viewing going for the consumption of adverdisements. The quality and truth are thrown away in favor of money so they can exist.
Exactly.
But can't users monetize their own productions by taking a slice of that advertising revenue? I'm not sure exactly how it works but if that's the case then that's pretty reasonable. I don't know what the split between YT and content creators is though.
Well I mean, it is your concern, cuz it materially affects the service that you might want to use.
Should Youtube get rid of ads, they literally would have to shut the entire platform down.
You're kind of exactly proving my point - you expect that Youtube should be some free service ran by pixie dust. You dont care about the details, you just want something for free without having to think about how all that content is being supported and delivered in the first place. It's a childish mentality. It's straight up like a little kid not appreciating that their parents have to work to provide them snacks and meals and a home to live under. Sure, it's all provided to you for free, but it's not actually free.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I'm not sure you understood what he said. He never claimed YT should remove ads. He was fine with either a to him reasonable amount of ads or a reasonable to him cost of an ad free subscription.
What he and a lot of people are complaining about is the number, frequency, and content of the ads or the fact that a YT subscription is higher than a Netflix subscription. Server hosting fees should be relatively similar on a per user basis. YT shares a small amount of ad and subscription revenue with content providers while Netflix has to pay movie and TV studios. In addition Netflix also invests significantly large amounts of money to produce original content.
For anyone looking at this without being able to see the balance sheets, most people are going to conclude that Netflix should be the more expensive option.
For me the ads wouldn't bother me if Google had some kind of AI that would insert ads in non-content breaking moments. IE - currently it'll just stick ads right in the middle of a sentence that is being spoken. Either they need to have AI that can at least somewhat intelligently insert ads or they need to allow the content creators to insert breakpoints for ads that the system will be able to identify.
Of course, that last won't work if Google continues to increase the frequency and number of ads.
Regards,
SB
I understand fine. It really does boil down to "I want this for free, no questions asked". They even admitted themselves they dont care about any of the details of the financial aspects of how Youtube is actually supported.
And the idea that Netflix funds content, therefore deserves higher pricing is weird. Youtube creators are not all just out there making all this content for free. Youtube is still paying for basically every single semi-notable or above content creator. And they keep plenty of creators on via contract. It's not some purely voluntary service like it's being made to sound here. Take away any monetary incentives and Youtube falls apart.
And again, many people today are like me and get WAY more time and value out of Youtube than we do cable or subscription TV/movie services. Because it is genuinely a much bigger source of content and from a much wider variety of creators. It's nearly impossible to run out of things you 'want' to see on Youtube.
Yeah they can. Some of them, regardless of their quality or true value of content. Most of us are creating content but get zero.
If you bring enough viewing you will get a slice to keep you putting more so that ads will sell. You could be creating from the greatest to the most garbage degenerating content.
Youtube doesn't care about the content as long as it works.
If degenerating content gets the most views and tracks you that you watched them, your suggestions will fill you with both garbage content and a shitload of ads. As well as politically sponsored or corporate sponsored content.
Basically Youtube as an idea is freakin amazing. A lot of people are creating awesome content too.
Problem is, since money is part of the picture, your personal data are used, they are fed to algorithms and their partners, and it is trying to steal as much of your valuable time as possible, by interrupting your attention with more and more ads (unless you pay them more than you would pay for Netflix) and it is trying to glue you to it.
So while it comes with some benefits, it also comes with substantial indirect costs that are accrued over time for users that use it substantially. Same as social media which is a new serious addiction pandemic that it is not talked about.
Can you have a Youtube service with a pure aim to help quality content creation and protect it's viewers? It should, but it is not feasible.
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Flappy Pannus
Veteran
This is a bizarrely aggressive response to someone who has chosen to evaluate the merits of the product vs the cost being asked, and simply chosen to opt-out as he doesn't feel the content is worth the asking price. He didn't write a screed against monetization as a whole or direct people to a list of ad blockers to 'steal' content, he simply stated the ads are too much, and as such now no longer consumes the content. This is how selling products works, you do not have a moral compulsion to support any companies business model, especially one that relies heavily on misinformation as a revenue generator.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I really have a difficult time figuring out where you are getting this. Neither DSoup (whom you originally responded to) nor I have stated we want it free or else. I mean did you miss the part where DSoup said he was quite happily paying for YT and would have continued paying for it but discontinued paying for it when the subscription cost was raised to be higher than Netflix which he viewed as a more valuable service from his position as a consumer.
Neither of us nor many others is expecting it to be free. Sure there are people who want it to be free and they also pirate TV and movie shows that are offered on Netflix.
What some of us (granted not everyone) have been discussing is how Google's latest actions are driving away paying customers. If you have a beef with people that don't want to pay, that's fine. But you having a beef with someone who was paying for the service (DSoup) seems bizarre.
And yes, consumers in general don't give a flying fork what the cost for the provider of a good or service is. They buy things or subscribe to things only as long as they feel the product justifies the cost being asked.
Regards,
SB
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davis.anthony
Veteran
What resolution did DF say the YouTube UI was when they did a pixel count?
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Flappy Pannus
Veteran
It literally isn't. Google decided to structure their business model so that intrusive ads from dubious sources are necessary to provide the service at the profit level they deem acceptable. It's perfectly reasonable for a consumer to ascertain, as Dsoup did, that it's not their responsibility to care about the business structure crafted to maximize profit with the content end users provide to Google if they feel the asking price is too high.
Jesus man, we're talking about companies delivering a service for private profit, you are under no obligation to contribute to the wealth of shareholders. No one is making a libertarian argument that they should be exempt from all taxes because they consider themselves a sovereign citizen here. Google would not exist if they didn't generate massive amount of revenue.
No, it's someone evaluating a product and determining the cost isn't worth it so they're not using it, they are not advocating they deserve all content for free by circumventing any possibility of revenue being delivered to the creators while still consuming the product, they're simply not choosing to continue to consume the product. This is no more 'entitled' than someone waiting for a Steam sale.
It's a pure cost/benefit analysis that everyone makes with every product in a capitalist society, every day. You're making shareholder profits into a moral argument due to the 'wonder of the internet' like Google has been delivering a public service with no aim other than that, it's truly bizarre.
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Frame pacing is the real question.