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I love YouTube and watch a ton of creative and technical content. I'm arguably the ideal customer for a product like YouTube premium. But I use an ad-blocker an

by ohazi 8y ago

I love YouTube and watch a ton of creative and technical content. I'm arguably the ideal customer for a product like YouTube premium. But I use an ad-blocker and pay creators directly via Patreon (whenever possible) instead. So why didn't I bother signing up for YouTube premium, even though I was excited to the level of shouting, "This! This is what I wanted!" when it was first announced? I have zero confidence that Google is willing to keep their experiments like this one alive for more than a year or two. This result seemed obvious and inevitable. Maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety, but I'm now far more likely to try out a random probably-not-going-to-be-around-next-year startup with a neat idea than an interesting looking Google experiment. Google used to have a reputation for being clever and innovative. It was fun to try out their new products. They had features that were original and helpful rather than gimmicky and "me too." Product updates added features without throwing away old functionality that was obviously still important. Products lasted longer than one or two promotion cycles. These days it's just frustrating.

ariwilson 8y ago
It's been around for 3 years now though??? How long does something have to last before it's worth trying out?
- ohazi 8y ago
  It's not about any one particular product. I used to be excited about Google products in general, and was eager to try them out. Now I'm not. This was genuine good will that the Google brand used to have, and they threw it away -- the blame here lies squarely with Google. The core principals of the company seem pretty firmly rooted now. There's everything related to the advertising and tracking side of the business, which nobody really likes and which they try to keep hidden, but that pays the bills a hundred times over. Then there's the "cool new technologies" side of Google, which used to be run by sensible intelligent people. This was the glamorous side of Google, so a lot of the attention seeking sociopaths ended up here. Most wannabe-Googlers are interested in this side of the company, not ads. So now this side of the company is full of bozo politicking PMs with no original ideas other than to make shitty clones of everything Apple does, and the smart people are either frustrated or gone. Google corporate dangles the most ridiculous, foot-shooting promotion structure anyone has ever seen, and so their non-ad product roadmap is a complete circus. So it doesn't matter that this particular product happened to be around for three years before getting axed. Google's non-ad product strategy is essentially that every product will get killed or replaced by a "new and improved" product, designed by a completely different team, that's demonstrably worse. Fuck that.
  - nraynaud 8y ago
    be careful it could be your age advancing that simply reduces your enthusiasm for new tech. (I'm the same, but I'm trying to be better that the other grumpy old men by simultaneously getting those pesky kids off my lawn and knowing that I do it because of the conflict of generations)
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Could be, but I'm not old and I feel the same way GP does. Google of ~8 years ago was about creating powerful new tools. Google of today is about bloating them, removing features, and ruining the UX with unnecessary redesigns. Yes, I am more cynical these days, but I attribute it to stopping paying attention to what tech could be, and instead observing what it is, and how it actually gets used.
    - xemdetia 8y ago
      I doubt it's really an ageism thing, Google sometimes acts like an extremely immature company when it comes to product lifecycles. Even IBM when it cuts products usually at least publishes a EOL date to rely on. All of Google's shutoffs are abrupt, sudden, and generally with barely enough time to scrape what you need from them before they disappear. A startup of the week at least is hanging its hat on the idea that they are trying to turn into a business and even if it evaporates you at least know the focus is there. Google's commitment to customer has always been generally terrible unless you are in the 1MM per annum and up club. Google's general radio silence when it comes to support/evangelizing these products is just crazy. I have more faith any day of the week using the latest and greatest toys from Amazon (AWS), IBM, and Microsoft compared to Google because they usually have clear EOL cycles and suitable warning periods for things going away if there is ANY level of interest. The only products I feel like are going to be there in six years is Search (because it keeps the lights on) and Gmail (because it is entrenched, popular, and enterprise pays for it).
  - dreamcompiler 8y ago
    A thousand times this. This is why Google maps suck even though they didn't five years ago. This is why Gmail sucks while it didn't a year ago. At Google, you don't get promoted for maintaining a good product. You only get promoted by pissing on a good one and ruining it.
creato 8y ago
> So why didn't I bother signing up for YouTube premium, even though I was excited to the level of shouting, "This! This is what I wanted!" when it was first announced? > I have zero confidence that Google is willing to keep their experiments like this one alive for more than a year or two.... This seems like really silly logic. It's not like youtube premium is a big commitment, and there's zero chance that google is going to actually just rob your money and not give you the product you paid for. So what if you get ad-free YouTube for just a few years and then it goes away? You're back where you started with no real loss. It's not like they cancelled a service that has stickiness (e.g. e-mail history, chat network effects). On the other hand, I think it's good to buy things that are actually good. Anyone that allows me to pay for content at a reasonable price instead of seeing ads is a good thing and I'll buy it (if I use it of course, which I do use youtube).
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  > This seems like really silly logic. It's not like youtube premium is a big commitment There's an emotional component. People are upset that Inbox is going away, that Hangouts is going away. Google Reader was a bigger commitment, since it required you to curate a list of feeds, so that doesn't really count. But honestly at this point using Google services is like letting your third-time-rehab cousin live above your garage. He's not hurting anyone, but you're just waiting for that moment when your uncle calls to tell you he's going to be gone for another 30 days... > there's zero chance that google is going to actually just rob your money and not give you the product you paid for. I don't know, remember when Hulu didn't show ads?
scarejunba 8y ago
Would you mind sharing how many distinct subscriptions and the total sum you’re paying per month on Patreon?
- ohazi 8y ago
  It's usually around $20-30/month. 5-10 in total, I think?
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Thank you!

by ohazi 8y ago

ariwilson 8y ago

It's been around for 3 years now though??? How long does something have to last before it's worth trying out?

ohazi 8y ago
It's not about any one particular product. I used to be excited about Google products in general, and was eager to try them out. Now I'm not. This was genuine good will that the Google brand used to have, and they threw it away -- the blame here lies squarely with Google. The core principals of the company seem pretty firmly rooted now. There's everything related to the advertising and tracking side of the business, which nobody really likes and which they try to keep hidden, but that pays the bills a hundred times over. Then there's the "cool new technologies" side of Google, which used to be run by sensible intelligent people. This was the glamorous side of Google, so a lot of the attention seeking sociopaths ended up here. Most wannabe-Googlers are interested in this side of the company, not ads. So now this side of the company is full of bozo politicking PMs with no original ideas other than to make shitty clones of everything Apple does, and the smart people are either frustrated or gone. Google corporate dangles the most ridiculous, foot-shooting promotion structure anyone has ever seen, and so their non-ad product roadmap is a complete circus. So it doesn't matter that this particular product happened to be around for three years before getting axed. Google's non-ad product strategy is essentially that every product will get killed or replaced by a "new and improved" product, designed by a completely different team, that's demonstrably worse. Fuck that.
- nraynaud 8y ago
  be careful it could be your age advancing that simply reduces your enthusiasm for new tech. (I'm the same, but I'm trying to be better that the other grumpy old men by simultaneously getting those pesky kids off my lawn and knowing that I do it because of the conflict of generations)
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Could be, but I'm not old and I feel the same way GP does. Google of ~8 years ago was about creating powerful new tools. Google of today is about bloating them, removing features, and ruining the UX with unnecessary redesigns. Yes, I am more cynical these days, but I attribute it to stopping paying attention to what tech could be, and instead observing what it is, and how it actually gets used.
  - xemdetia 8y ago
    I doubt it's really an ageism thing, Google sometimes acts like an extremely immature company when it comes to product lifecycles. Even IBM when it cuts products usually at least publishes a EOL date to rely on. All of Google's shutoffs are abrupt, sudden, and generally with barely enough time to scrape what you need from them before they disappear. A startup of the week at least is hanging its hat on the idea that they are trying to turn into a business and even if it evaporates you at least know the focus is there. Google's commitment to customer has always been generally terrible unless you are in the 1MM per annum and up club. Google's general radio silence when it comes to support/evangelizing these products is just crazy. I have more faith any day of the week using the latest and greatest toys from Amazon (AWS), IBM, and Microsoft compared to Google because they usually have clear EOL cycles and suitable warning periods for things going away if there is ANY level of interest. The only products I feel like are going to be there in six years is Search (because it keeps the lights on) and Gmail (because it is entrenched, popular, and enterprise pays for it).
- dreamcompiler 8y ago
  A thousand times this. This is why Google maps suck even though they didn't five years ago. This is why Gmail sucks while it didn't a year ago. At Google, you don't get promoted for maintaining a good product. You only get promoted by pissing on a good one and ruining it.

creato 8y ago

> So why didn't I bother signing up for YouTube premium, even though I was excited to the level of shouting, "This! This is what I wanted!" when it was first announced? > I have zero confidence that Google is willing to keep their experiments like this one alive for more than a year or two.... This seems like really silly logic. It's not like youtube premium is a big commitment, and there's zero chance that google is going to actually just rob your money and not give you the product you paid for. So what if you get ad-free YouTube for just a few years and then it goes away? You're back where you started with no real loss. It's not like they cancelled a service that has stickiness (e.g. e-mail history, chat network effects). On the other hand, I think it's good to buy things that are actually good. Anyone that allows me to pay for content at a reasonable price instead of seeing ads is a good thing and I'll buy it (if I use it of course, which I do use youtube).

pavel_lishin 8y ago
> This seems like really silly logic. It's not like youtube premium is a big commitment There's an emotional component. People are upset that Inbox is going away, that Hangouts is going away. Google Reader was a bigger commitment, since it required you to curate a list of feeds, so that doesn't really count. But honestly at this point using Google services is like letting your third-time-rehab cousin live above your garage. He's not hurting anyone, but you're just waiting for that moment when your uncle calls to tell you he's going to be gone for another 30 days... > there's zero chance that google is going to actually just rob your money and not give you the product you paid for. I don't know, remember when Hulu didn't show ads?

scarejunba 8y ago

Would you mind sharing how many distinct subscriptions and the total sum you’re paying per month on Patreon?

ohazi 8y ago
It's usually around $20-30/month. 5-10 in total, I think?
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Thank you!