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> For me, the platform has always been more of a resource than a habit. I only go to it for specific content and nothing more. Unlike die-hard YouTube consumers

> For me, the platform has always been more of a resource than a habit. I only go to it for specific content and nothing more. Unlike die-hard YouTube consumers, I don’t subscribe to multiple channels and follow each and every video they put up. So paying to remove ads, watch YouTube in the background, or use the multiple other features a YouTube Premium subscription offers didn’t really make much sense to me. This hits the nail on the head for me. So much internet-based subscription marketing is purely targeted towards heavy users. That makes good business sense, of course - heavy users are more likely to pay up. But positioning your product solely towards these users trashes the user experience for people who still want to use it, just less frequently. Adobe Creative Cloud is another case in point. I use Illustrator a couple of times a month, no more, for a few legacy freelance gigs that don't pay very well. Before CC, the Illustrator pricing model worked quite well for users like me: only update every few years and you were fine. Now? It's £240pa whether you're the heaviest of heavy users, or just an occasional user like me. I can't justify that, so I'm still eking out an old copy of CS6. I remember visiting the original Legoland in the mid-90s and being impressed that they offered cheap tickets from mid-afternoon onwards. The London Boat Show used to do something similar. As the inexorable move to subscription models continues, I'd like to see more of this "lite" pricing.

duxup 4y ago
>But positioning your product solely towards these users I mean they want to pay for it. Should Youtube be about people who don't want to pay?
- Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
  Like I said, I'd like to see greater adoption of "lite" pricing for light users.
d23 4y ago
The better comparison seems to be if Adobe were to offer an ad-supported version of illustrator and their other offerings. I'd be fine with that. (I'm in a similar boat to you. $30+ a month just isn't worth it for the hobbyist use cases I have. $10 or $15 was something I could muster.)
dredmorbius 4y ago
It's "whale" economics. Common also in gambling and gaming (particularly "loot boxes"), as well as other "high roller" activities. Among other issues, whales may themselves have addiction or other psychological issues and be manipulated into participation, and content and interactions become modified with time to increasingly appeal to them. There should be more literature on this, though this article is a fair introduction: "What it means to be a ‘whale’ — and why social gamers are just gamers" <https://venturebeat.com/games/whales-and-why-social-gamers-are-just-gamers/ https://venturebeat.com/games/whales-and-why-social-gamers-a...> More on loot boxes: <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306460321000368 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03064...> And whales, gambling, and advertising: <https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/washjolta15&div=12&id=&page= https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/...> The in-app purchases problem: <https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-95346-1_156 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-95346-1_...> This Google Scholar search seems to give some relevant results: "whales" ("big spender"|"high rollers"|gambling|gaming) economics <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=%22whales%22+%28%22big+spender%22%7C%22high+rollers%22%7Cgambling%7Cgaming%29+economics&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=%22...>

duxup 4y ago

>But positioning your product solely towards these users I mean they want to pay for it. Should Youtube be about people who don't want to pay?

Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
Like I said, I'd like to see greater adoption of "lite" pricing for light users.

d23 4y ago

The better comparison seems to be if Adobe were to offer an ad-supported version of illustrator and their other offerings. I'd be fine with that. (I'm in a similar boat to you. $30+ a month just isn't worth it for the hobbyist use cases I have. $10 or $15 was something I could muster.)

dredmorbius 4y ago

It's "whale" economics. Common also in gambling and gaming (particularly "loot boxes"), as well as other "high roller" activities. Among other issues, whales may themselves have addiction or other psychological issues and be manipulated into participation, and content and interactions become modified with time to increasingly appeal to them. There should be more literature on this, though this article is a fair introduction: "What it means to be a ‘whale’ — and why social gamers are just gamers" <https://venturebeat.com/games/whales-and-why-social-gamers-are-just-gamers/ https://venturebeat.com/games/whales-and-why-social-gamers-a...> More on loot boxes: <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306460321000368 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03064...> And whales, gambling, and advertising: <https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/washjolta15&div=12&id=&page= https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/...> The in-app purchases problem: <https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-95346-1_156 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-95346-1_...> This Google Scholar search seems to give some relevant results: "whales" ("big spender"|"high rollers"|gambling|gaming) economics <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=%22whales%22+%28%22big+spender%22%7C%22high+rollers%22%7Cgambling%7Cgaming%29+economics&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=%22...>