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I wish I could upvote your comment more than once. We need to recognize companies like Facebook and Google for what they really are, ad companies. I fear that

I wish I could upvote your comment more than once. We need to recognize companies like Facebook and Google for what they really are, ad companies. I fear that Microsoft might start taking a similar path with what has happened with Windows 10. I wonder if the products that Google and Facebook offer would actually be of better quality if they actually charged a certain amount to access their services. They have become so essential that I believe in most markets they could charge $5 to $10 a month and still retain a significant amount of users. Then again, it gives them an excuse to not have to actually have a decent support staff.

RestlessMind 8y ago
I would like to challenge you on your belief - YouTube offers an Ad-free mode and the subscriber numbers are still considered to be abysmal [1], considering that it has 1B+ total users. What makes you think charging $5 to $10 per month would retain enough users? Moreover, Google made ~$15B in Q2 2018 in USA alone[2]. 86% came from ads, so let's assume Google made ~13B from ads in the USA in Q2-18. Even if we were to assume that each of the 240M internet users in the USA pays $10/mo to Google (an obviously false assumption), that is still only $7.2B for Q2-18, or half the revenue they are making from ads. [1] https://9to5google.com/2018/01/22/youtube-tv-300k-subscribers/ https://9to5google.com/2018/01/22/youtube-tv-300k-subscriber... [2] https://abc.xyz/investor/pdf/2018Q2_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf https://abc.xyz/investor/pdf/2018Q2_alphabet_earnings_releas...
- balls187 8y ago
  Getting users to pay for a service that was previously provided to them for free is probably the #2 hurdle for all Freemium products.
  - Moru 8y ago
    In retail it has long been known that when you sell a new product or service you allways start high and go down in price.
- bad_user 8y ago
  YouTube Red is still not available in my country. 3 years after launch, it’s only available in 17 countries. Also YouTube has all the music that people care about and given the success of streaming services I’m going to guess that its lack of success has nothing to do with people not wanting to pay.
- danShumway 8y ago
  I use Youtube Red. Part of the reason no one uses it is because it's not a very good service. Because I have Youtube Red I don't have ads, and I can download videos on my phone. Except I can't really download videos, I just kind of cache them in an inaccessible format that randomly fails. Seriously, it's very common for me to go back to older downloaded videos and have Youtube randomly tell me, "well, it's messed up, we'll have to redownload it later." On top of that, using Youtube Red means that I have extra ads for Youtube Red specific channels that I can't permanently get rid of. On top of that, using Youtube Red means that Google will occasionally decide that I'm not allowed to watch videos on my phone and computer at the same time, because that's "using the account in multiple places." What I should be doing is using youtube-dl to auto-download playlists without ads and then sync them to my device. But I'm still paying for it, because... I don't know why, I guess I'm lazy. But there's very little reason for anyone to purchase Youtube Red when they can get a better, more private experience by downloading an ad blocker. The problem is that Youtube offers both a free tier and a paid tier, right next to each other, with no signficant improvements to the paid tier. You're still getting the same algorithmic, eyeball-grabbing, buggy crap in Youtube Red. So I'm skeptical that this is a good comparison - if your goal with paying for apps is to get away from the dirty feeling of having someone watch you and manipulate you, Youtube Red is never going to satisfy that, because it's always going to be developed alongside the free version and it's always going to be reusing that codebase. Compare that to something like Netflix. Do you think it's a mistake that they don't offer a free tier?
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    Netflix offers free month trials. I think that's the right approach for them.
- andyn 8y ago
  I don't think there are so many ads on Youtube that it's enough of an annoyance to subscribe.
mnm1 8y ago
Microsoft has been there for awhile. What you fear has long come to pass. On the other hand, I think you're wrong about paid software being better quality. Here's an example: YouTube vs. YouTube tv. The former we all know about. When was the last time you clicked a YouTube video and it didn't work or played the wrong thing or it simply crashed? These are daily enjoyments with the $45 per month YouTube tv. Hulu tv is the same way. It seems the more you pay, the worse the software.

RestlessMind 8y ago

I would like to challenge you on your belief - YouTube offers an Ad-free mode and the subscriber numbers are still considered to be abysmal [1], considering that it has 1B+ total users. What makes you think charging $5 to $10 per month would retain enough users? Moreover, Google made ~$15B in Q2 2018 in USA alone[2]. 86% came from ads, so let's assume Google made ~13B from ads in the USA in Q2-18. Even if we were to assume that each of the 240M internet users in the USA pays $10/mo to Google (an obviously false assumption), that is still only $7.2B for Q2-18, or half the revenue they are making from ads. [1] https://9to5google.com/2018/01/22/youtube-tv-300k-subscribers/ https://9to5google.com/2018/01/22/youtube-tv-300k-subscriber... [2] https://abc.xyz/investor/pdf/2018Q2_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf https://abc.xyz/investor/pdf/2018Q2_alphabet_earnings_releas...

balls187 8y ago
Getting users to pay for a service that was previously provided to them for free is probably the #2 hurdle for all Freemium products.
- Moru 8y ago
  In retail it has long been known that when you sell a new product or service you allways start high and go down in price.
bad_user 8y ago
YouTube Red is still not available in my country. 3 years after launch, it’s only available in 17 countries. Also YouTube has all the music that people care about and given the success of streaming services I’m going to guess that its lack of success has nothing to do with people not wanting to pay.
danShumway 8y ago
I use Youtube Red. Part of the reason no one uses it is because it's not a very good service. Because I have Youtube Red I don't have ads, and I can download videos on my phone. Except I can't really download videos, I just kind of cache them in an inaccessible format that randomly fails. Seriously, it's very common for me to go back to older downloaded videos and have Youtube randomly tell me, "well, it's messed up, we'll have to redownload it later." On top of that, using Youtube Red means that I have extra ads for Youtube Red specific channels that I can't permanently get rid of. On top of that, using Youtube Red means that Google will occasionally decide that I'm not allowed to watch videos on my phone and computer at the same time, because that's "using the account in multiple places." What I should be doing is using youtube-dl to auto-download playlists without ads and then sync them to my device. But I'm still paying for it, because... I don't know why, I guess I'm lazy. But there's very little reason for anyone to purchase Youtube Red when they can get a better, more private experience by downloading an ad blocker. The problem is that Youtube offers both a free tier and a paid tier, right next to each other, with no signficant improvements to the paid tier. You're still getting the same algorithmic, eyeball-grabbing, buggy crap in Youtube Red. So I'm skeptical that this is a good comparison - if your goal with paying for apps is to get away from the dirty feeling of having someone watch you and manipulate you, Youtube Red is never going to satisfy that, because it's always going to be developed alongside the free version and it's always going to be reusing that codebase. Compare that to something like Netflix. Do you think it's a mistake that they don't offer a free tier?
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  Netflix offers free month trials. I think that's the right approach for them.
andyn 8y ago
I don't think there are so many ads on Youtube that it's enough of an annoyance to subscribe.

mnm1 8y ago

Microsoft has been there for awhile. What you fear has long come to pass. On the other hand, I think you're wrong about paid software being better quality. Here's an example: YouTube vs. YouTube tv. The former we all know about. When was the last time you clicked a YouTube video and it didn't work or played the wrong thing or it simply crashed? These are daily enjoyments with the $45 per month YouTube tv. Hulu tv is the same way. It seems the more you pay, the worse the software.