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>It seems like you're saying that people are mainly using adblockers because the recommendations aren't good enough, and if the recommendations were improved th

>It seems like you're saying that people are mainly using adblockers because the recommendations aren't good enough, and if the recommendations were improved they'd respond by turning off the adblock? I can see how what I said could be understood this way, but that's not what I meant. Yes people use adblockers to block ads, but if there was a better recommendation mechanism one could pay for and that paid service also blocked ads people like myself might pay for it. >Oh, no! The people who are not willing to pay for the service and who are blocking ads are going elsewhere! How can the platform and the creators possibly survive without that $0 in revenue? The value of a person's attention is not zero, even if that person blocks ads. First if people use your service for free, they aren't using the competition. You aren't making much money, but at the same time you're taking away potential revenue from the competition. Imagine all these people that use ad block would get up and go somewhere else? More people that watch ads would follow in short order. Then there are other things these people do. Patron payments, even just popularising certain creators has value to these creators, finally simple engagement like comments etc have value that they create data that can be used to improve the service and so on.

jsnell 3y ago
> I can see how what I said could be understood this way, but that's not what I meant. Yes people use adblockers to block ads, but if there was a better recommendation mechanism one could pay for and that paid service also blocked ads people like myself might pay for it. Fair enough, sorry for misunderstanding! The problem I see with that idea is that whenever YouTube tries to differentiate Premium via features (e.g. background play, downloads, better video quality) people complain about that too. You can see an example of this as the top voted comments of this submission, about "[making] the original product so awful deliberately only so they can shove subscription down your throat". > The value of a person's attention is not zero, even if that person blocks ads. First if people use your service for free, they aren't using the competition. You aren't making much money, but at the same time you're taking away potential revenue from the competition. They're people who aren't willing to pay or watch ads: they'd generate no revenue for another service either. There's a limit to how much "data to improve services" one can use before running into diminishing returns. Network effects are of course a possibility, but I don't know that viewers would follow other viewers to a new platform that directly. This is a two-sided marketplace so in principle you'd expect a feedback cycle: viewers go where the creators are, the creators go where the viewers are. Except here it's not the case that all viewers are equal. Some of them won't be generating any revenue for the creators. Why would the creators chase that audience?

jsnell 3y ago

> I can see how what I said could be understood this way, but that's not what I meant. Yes people use adblockers to block ads, but if there was a better recommendation mechanism one could pay for and that paid service also blocked ads people like myself might pay for it. Fair enough, sorry for misunderstanding! The problem I see with that idea is that whenever YouTube tries to differentiate Premium via features (e.g. background play, downloads, better video quality) people complain about that too. You can see an example of this as the top voted comments of this submission, about "[making] the original product so awful deliberately only so they can shove subscription down your throat". > The value of a person's attention is not zero, even if that person blocks ads. First if people use your service for free, they aren't using the competition. You aren't making much money, but at the same time you're taking away potential revenue from the competition. They're people who aren't willing to pay or watch ads: they'd generate no revenue for another service either. There's a limit to how much "data to improve services" one can use before running into diminishing returns. Network effects are of course a possibility, but I don't know that viewers would follow other viewers to a new platform that directly. This is a two-sided marketplace so in principle you'd expect a feedback cycle: viewers go where the creators are, the creators go where the viewers are. Except here it's not the case that all viewers are equal. Some of them won't be generating any revenue for the creators. Why would the creators chase that audience?