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I've always assumed that Google ads subsidises everything else at Google. So my concern with a split would be YouTube increasing price or less investment in the
by loftsy 2y ago
I've always assumed that Google ads subsidises everything else at Google. So my concern with a split would be YouTube increasing price or less investment in the service.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoI'd pay a modest fee for a non-tracking, ad-free, non-enshittified YouTube though. Compete for my money!
- fph 2y agoLike Youtube Premium? https://www.youtube.com/premium https://www.youtube.com/premium
- nicce 2y agoDoes it remove tracking and returns the dislike button?
- talldayo 2y agoNo. It also doesn't make pigs fly, or put your pants on for you like in Wallace and Gromet.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoNo. I prefer newpipe
- carlosjobim 2y agoSo you wouldn't actually pay a modest fee.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoI would if YouTube were user respecting for paying users. I pay for a lot of other media fwiw
- wizzwizz4 2y agoWhen you're paying for a service, you generally expect something better than a third-party can achieve by deleting parts of your free offering.
- dimator 2y agoThis is moving the goal posts and completely arbitrary. There are many services that are ad supported and have a paid version without the ads. For some reason, free and ad free YouTube seems like a birthright to so many people.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoIf an entity takes measures to ensure that its service becomes the de-facto default in an area, that entity gives up its entitlement to dictate the terms of use of that service. We need something like this in our systems of ethics, or we permit Freedom Monsters (ref: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/259 https://existentialcomics.com/comic/259). Note that this isn't the only solution, but I expect other solutions to have the same shape. If Google didn't promote YouTube so heavily, permitted channels to migrate to other services (like how they permit Blogger blogs to migrate to other websites), bundled a generic streaming video player with Android (e.g. VLC) instead of the YouTube app… then maybe I'd be more sympathetic to the position of content blocker opponents. To convince me to pay for YouTube, you have to offer me something other than "we've locked a capability of your computer away, but you can get it back if you pay us!".
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y agoNotably, there's no need to move the goalposts, as they remain unmet; the original premise was > a modest fee for a non-tracking, ad-free, non-enshittified YouTube And YT Premium is [x] modest fee - I could argue that either way (is $14/mo really "modest"?), but let's allow it [ ] non-tracking - not that I'm aware of [~] ad-free - partially; right now YT itself won't add more ads, so you're just left with the ads that uploaders embed [~] non-enshittified - depends what you mean; ex. I believe it does restore the ability to play audio with the screen off, but not downvoting
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoCrazy expensive compared to what they actually make off of ads. Who can justify this?
- can16358p 2y agoNot for me, as long as its owned by Google, I'm not paying a cent.
- talldayo 2y agoThere are options for you, like Floatplane and Nebula. The problem is universal - their curated content has limited appeal. The YouTube model is more attractive to people, so more people upload content to a larger audience. I have no confidence that a paid-only platform could reach 1/100th of the traffic YouTube gets in a similar timespan. As a customer you really just have to ask yourself what you're willing to give up when paying for a YouTube analog. Content creators aren't going to engage in a mass exodus unless they're convinced their audience will follow them to other platforms.
- anticensor 2y agoNebula is more like Netflix for vlogs and explainers as it lacks comments and livestreams.
- stephenr 2y agoYou say "lacks comments" like it's a bad thing.
- Y_Y 2y agoAnd what would be the reason for this subsidy? Do they think YouTube is going to keep growing and it's worth waiting for them to become somehow more popular? Would it be catastrophic for Alphabet if other large players entered YouTube's market? And why would losing a subsidy mean increasing prices? As far as I can tell consumers think YouTube's offerings are overpriced as is and they could probably increase profit by lowering them, especially if it's not their parent's add subsidiary they'd be cannibalising.
- acedTrex 2y agoBecause google currently gets valuable ads data from youtube. So even if the product itself runs at a loss the net benefit is positive. If its spun off then the platform has to stand on its own and it would need to make more money.
- barumrho 2y agoYouTube ads generated almost $9B last quarter. I think that should be a viable business on its own?
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoI have a hard time imagining that youtube is subsidized given the ridiculous number of obnoxious ads you're forced to watch and the steep price of removing them. Surely if they were subsidized this wouldn't be worth the cost of ruining their product.
- WolfeReader 2y agoThe steep price of removing them: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoAt some point they'll just embed into the video stream. TBH I had assumed they were already doing this. EDIT: Still, point taken. I'll try to figure out how to install this on my home router—I don't ever watch youtube from my browser.
- dimator 2y agoThere's a different extension to auto skip the (community defined) ad segments in videos. There will always be a way.
- luma 2y agoThey have, and for that we have SponsorBlock https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/
- rvnx 2y agoAnd the irony is that if you pay for YouTube Premium, you still get these baked-in ads :/
- tzs 2y agoWhat's ironic about it? YouTube premium removes ads that YouTube adds to videos. Those sponsor ads in the videos are put there by the content creator who made the video.
- nicce 2y agoYoutube just had the revenue of $8.92 billion where the total was $88.27 billion. Not a small number. Is there any information how much is profit from that Youtube part?