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No, they're not going to leave money on the table. Eventually you'll be seeing ads too. This is just a hook period. I don't understand how we as a culture haven

No, they're not going to leave money on the table. Eventually you'll be seeing ads too. This is just a hook period. I don't understand how we as a culture haven't learned this already. This is at least the fourth or fifth generation of this with media. How things actually work should be common sense by now.

Shekelphile 3y ago
It seems to me that all of google's most successful services (search, youtube, gmail and gsuite, maps/earth, android) are next to impossible to monetize profitably and have significant utility to the general public. It feels like these are services that governments should be building and funding themselves. Youtube specifically has a plethora of useful information made by normal people. You can find hundreds of thousands of videos, in most languages, about doing most basic and complex repairs for almost any model of car made in the last few decades, for example. It is essentially a giant public library.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  I trust (with regards to privacy, censorship and bias) governments even less than Google to be honest.
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    Any sufficiently-dominant corporation is indistinguishable from a government.
    - somat 3y ago
      It is deeper that that, corporations literally are governments. When you form a corporation you are creating the government that your organization will now operate under. usually this will require a license from whatever larger governmental structure you find yourself in. Sometimes this is a publicly tradable for profit endeavor, sometimes it is private or perhaps non-profit(all profits have to be distributed back into the corporation), or even an actual public corporation(often called a town or a city,
    - musictubes 3y ago
      That is insane. No corporation has the ability to incarcerate you or kill you. No corporation can round up your family. What, precisely, is the “threat” that Google presents that does not rely on a government to be the muscle. Are they going to cancel your Gmail account? Cut you off from YouTube? Surely if they actually are as powerful and dangerous as you think they are you wouldn’t use their stuff at all. But then I guess they wouldn’t be all that powerful if you could just stop using them…
      - CamperBob2 3y ago
        (Shrug) Insane, whatever. All I know is, when I call the IRS, I can get a human on the phone who actively wants to help. Try that with Google, PayPal, Amazon, Apple, or any number of other companies when an error they've made but refuse to even explain, much less fix, threatens to wreck your livelihood. To redress grievances with my government, I don't need to make the front page of HN or go viral on Twitter. We don't go a week around here without another front-page lamentation to appeal for noblesse oblige from one of these intentionally-faceless megacorps. That's not how you should have to deal with a company you're doing business with... but it is how you deal with a dictator who leaves you no other choice.
        dahfizz 3y ago
        "megacorps have bad customer support" is a wildly different assertion than "megacorps are indistinguishable from government"
        CamperBob2 3y ago
        Ask the next person who comes on here begging for someone to unlock their account or restore their data so that they can make payroll.
        dahfizz 3y ago
        There is a really simple flow chart to figure this out: "Does entity X have a monopoly on violence?" If yes, they are a government. If no, they are not. Whether X is nice or mean, important or unimportant, is irrelevant.
elif 3y ago
I've been using premium for almost a decade now, since before it was rebranded from YouTube red. I'll let you know when it's safe to remove your tinfoil hat. Oh and I'll be downloading my videos for offline viewing and listening to ad free unrestricted music as well.
- tnbp 3y ago
  So am I, sans the paying part.
- bavell 3y ago
  Enjoy the tiny hole in your wallet? Weird flex. I enjoy the same benefits using uBlock origin and yt-dl. And it didn't take any tinfoil :)
  - dxxvi 3y ago
    Thank you for reminding me that yt-dlp also works with youtube music (didn't think of that). I just tried to list all the available formats of a song there: ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH │ FILESIZE TBR PROTO │ VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 233 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default 234 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default 599 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.05MiB 31k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 31k 22k ultralow, m4a_dash 600 webm audio only 2 │ 1.27MiB 37k https │ audio only opus 37k 48k ultralow, webm_dash 139 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.67MiB 49k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash 249 webm audio only 2 │ 1.86MiB 55k https │ audio only opus 55k 48k low, webm_dash 250 webm audio only 2 │ 2.44MiB 71k https │ audio only opus 71k 48k low, webm_dash 140 m4a audio only 2 │ 4.42MiB 130k https │ audio only mp4a.40.2 130k 44k medium, m4a_dash 251 webm audio only 2 │ 4.71MiB 138k https │ audio only opus 138k 48k medium, webm_dash Hm ... no mp3 (my car accepts mp3 only) and the bit rate is not very high. Is youtube music that bad?
danmaz74 3y ago
But the only reason to pay for Premium is not to see ads, so that wouldn't work.
- musictubes 3y ago
  Not seeing ads is a benefit of the service. Paying for premium is to support the video makers and, yes, the service itself. Paying for things you use is how you signal you like the product. The insane contortions people resort to in order to justify piracy boggles my mind. You either pay by watching ads or you pay the premium price. No one is entitled to YouTube. YouTube has to be paid for in order for it to exist and the creators to make stuff. That is the reason to pay for premium.
  - 418tpot 3y ago
    Or you can do what I do and support the creators on patreon and continue to use adblock on YouTube. That way you can consume content without feeling guilty and not support Google's monopoly at the same time.
- guerrilla 3y ago
  For now.

Shekelphile 3y ago

It seems to me that all of google's most successful services (search, youtube, gmail and gsuite, maps/earth, android) are next to impossible to monetize profitably and have significant utility to the general public. It feels like these are services that governments should be building and funding themselves. Youtube specifically has a plethora of useful information made by normal people. You can find hundreds of thousands of videos, in most languages, about doing most basic and complex repairs for almost any model of car made in the last few decades, for example. It is essentially a giant public library.

quickthrower2 3y ago
I trust (with regards to privacy, censorship and bias) governments even less than Google to be honest.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  Any sufficiently-dominant corporation is indistinguishable from a government.
  - somat 3y ago
    It is deeper that that, corporations literally are governments. When you form a corporation you are creating the government that your organization will now operate under. usually this will require a license from whatever larger governmental structure you find yourself in. Sometimes this is a publicly tradable for profit endeavor, sometimes it is private or perhaps non-profit(all profits have to be distributed back into the corporation), or even an actual public corporation(often called a town or a city,
  - musictubes 3y ago
    That is insane. No corporation has the ability to incarcerate you or kill you. No corporation can round up your family. What, precisely, is the “threat” that Google presents that does not rely on a government to be the muscle. Are they going to cancel your Gmail account? Cut you off from YouTube? Surely if they actually are as powerful and dangerous as you think they are you wouldn’t use their stuff at all. But then I guess they wouldn’t be all that powerful if you could just stop using them…
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      (Shrug) Insane, whatever. All I know is, when I call the IRS, I can get a human on the phone who actively wants to help. Try that with Google, PayPal, Amazon, Apple, or any number of other companies when an error they've made but refuse to even explain, much less fix, threatens to wreck your livelihood. To redress grievances with my government, I don't need to make the front page of HN or go viral on Twitter. We don't go a week around here without another front-page lamentation to appeal for noblesse oblige from one of these intentionally-faceless megacorps. That's not how you should have to deal with a company you're doing business with... but it is how you deal with a dictator who leaves you no other choice.
      - dahfizz 3y ago
        "megacorps have bad customer support" is a wildly different assertion than "megacorps are indistinguishable from government"
        CamperBob2 3y ago
        Ask the next person who comes on here begging for someone to unlock their account or restore their data so that they can make payroll.
        dahfizz 3y ago
        There is a really simple flow chart to figure this out: "Does entity X have a monopoly on violence?" If yes, they are a government. If no, they are not. Whether X is nice or mean, important or unimportant, is irrelevant.

elif 3y ago

I've been using premium for almost a decade now, since before it was rebranded from YouTube red. I'll let you know when it's safe to remove your tinfoil hat. Oh and I'll be downloading my videos for offline viewing and listening to ad free unrestricted music as well.

tnbp 3y ago
So am I, sans the paying part.
bavell 3y ago
Enjoy the tiny hole in your wallet? Weird flex. I enjoy the same benefits using uBlock origin and yt-dl. And it didn't take any tinfoil :)
- dxxvi 3y ago
  Thank you for reminding me that yt-dlp also works with youtube music (didn't think of that). I just tried to list all the available formats of a song there: ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH │ FILESIZE TBR PROTO │ VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 233 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default 234 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default 599 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.05MiB 31k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 31k 22k ultralow, m4a_dash 600 webm audio only 2 │ 1.27MiB 37k https │ audio only opus 37k 48k ultralow, webm_dash 139 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.67MiB 49k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash 249 webm audio only 2 │ 1.86MiB 55k https │ audio only opus 55k 48k low, webm_dash 250 webm audio only 2 │ 2.44MiB 71k https │ audio only opus 71k 48k low, webm_dash 140 m4a audio only 2 │ 4.42MiB 130k https │ audio only mp4a.40.2 130k 44k medium, m4a_dash 251 webm audio only 2 │ 4.71MiB 138k https │ audio only opus 138k 48k medium, webm_dash Hm ... no mp3 (my car accepts mp3 only) and the bit rate is not very high. Is youtube music that bad?

danmaz74 3y ago

But the only reason to pay for Premium is not to see ads, so that wouldn't work.

musictubes 3y ago
Not seeing ads is a benefit of the service. Paying for premium is to support the video makers and, yes, the service itself. Paying for things you use is how you signal you like the product. The insane contortions people resort to in order to justify piracy boggles my mind. You either pay by watching ads or you pay the premium price. No one is entitled to YouTube. YouTube has to be paid for in order for it to exist and the creators to make stuff. That is the reason to pay for premium.
- 418tpot 3y ago
  Or you can do what I do and support the creators on patreon and continue to use adblock on YouTube. That way you can consume content without feeling guilty and not support Google's monopoly at the same time.
guerrilla 3y ago
For now.