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I signed up for Premium before the situation got as bad as it currently is. The worst ads I had seen by that point were either 5-30 second unskippable, or 15-12

I signed up for Premium before the situation got as bad as it currently is. The worst ads I had seen by that point were either 5-30 second unskippable, or 15-120 second skippable. Even at that point, signing up for Premium felt like a fantastic deal. I never felt gaslight or manipulated into it, it just felt like paying an acceptable price for a very attractive set of features. It feels like you have a counterproductive set of principles if they keep you from paying a reasonable price for a good set of features. Premium also gives a much bigger chunk of money to creators, which makes the situation seem even better to me.

WorldMaker 4y ago
I'm happy for you that you've been lucky so far in your relationship with YouTube. It does not invalidate my experience of the relationship. I've chosen to spend the equivalent money (and more) more directly in Patreon and Bandcamp relationships with the creators I follow. I know a much bigger chunk of that money makes it to creators, and I have a good idea directly how much creator sees per dollar I spend, not just some assuaging stats from some Google algorithm that it is supposed to go to creators. (Getting back to: this relationship I have with Google/YouTube has trust issues, and that's also something that I have difficulty trusting, that Premium actually gives more money to creators.)
- delecti 4y ago
  I watch a pretty broad variety of youtube, and also browse randomly. It's not really feasible to personally give money to each channel I happen across videos from. If your intake is limited to a narrow and consistent array of channels then maybe that's a different consideration. And here's a pretty methodical breakdown of how much more a view counts with a Premium subscription (then called Youtube Red). Youtubers make in the ballpark of 2-5x as much per minute viewed with Premium than with ads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Hr0H7TwAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Hr0H7TwAo
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    Again, it's a big stretch to think your single subscription gives money to each channel you happen to watch videos from. I don't have any illusions/trust that even ad revenue is split to every single channel I see ads on. But more importantly, yeah I absolutely feel that I have to curate the channels I follow to as small as possible and as explicit a set as possible and cannot trust YouTube enough to just broadly browse randomly. I don't trust YouTube's recommendations algorithm at all (and have had many problems with it over the years), disable YouTube's Autoplay "feature" in almost every way that I possibly can, and generally try to use other streaming services as much as possible and curated media outside of YouTube to guide my discovery of the few channels that I do watch on YouTube. (The recommendations algorithm adds its own distrust to my relationship with YouTube. It's certainly not as bad as the dark patterns: dark patterns imply an intent to deceive. The recommendations algorithm suffers from the exact opposite: there's no intent there, just a intentless/mindless casino with bad odds and worse incentives.)

WorldMaker 4y ago

I'm happy for you that you've been lucky so far in your relationship with YouTube. It does not invalidate my experience of the relationship. I've chosen to spend the equivalent money (and more) more directly in Patreon and Bandcamp relationships with the creators I follow. I know a much bigger chunk of that money makes it to creators, and I have a good idea directly how much creator sees per dollar I spend, not just some assuaging stats from some Google algorithm that it is supposed to go to creators. (Getting back to: this relationship I have with Google/YouTube has trust issues, and that's also something that I have difficulty trusting, that Premium actually gives more money to creators.)

delecti 4y ago
I watch a pretty broad variety of youtube, and also browse randomly. It's not really feasible to personally give money to each channel I happen across videos from. If your intake is limited to a narrow and consistent array of channels then maybe that's a different consideration. And here's a pretty methodical breakdown of how much more a view counts with a Premium subscription (then called Youtube Red). Youtubers make in the ballpark of 2-5x as much per minute viewed with Premium than with ads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Hr0H7TwAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Hr0H7TwAo
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  Again, it's a big stretch to think your single subscription gives money to each channel you happen to watch videos from. I don't have any illusions/trust that even ad revenue is split to every single channel I see ads on. But more importantly, yeah I absolutely feel that I have to curate the channels I follow to as small as possible and as explicit a set as possible and cannot trust YouTube enough to just broadly browse randomly. I don't trust YouTube's recommendations algorithm at all (and have had many problems with it over the years), disable YouTube's Autoplay "feature" in almost every way that I possibly can, and generally try to use other streaming services as much as possible and curated media outside of YouTube to guide my discovery of the few channels that I do watch on YouTube. (The recommendations algorithm adds its own distrust to my relationship with YouTube. It's certainly not as bad as the dark patterns: dark patterns imply an intent to deceive. The recommendations algorithm suffers from the exact opposite: there's no intent there, just a intentless/mindless casino with bad odds and worse incentives.)