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> It's not currency to pay for services with. Tell that to the people who need to watch a YouTube video and don't want to punch in their credit-card info. Unle

> It's not currency to pay for services with. Tell that to the people who need to watch a YouTube video and don't want to punch in their credit-card info. Unless someone is picking up the hosting and delivery costs, advertising will always make the most sense. Now, don't get me wrong; ad-free YouTube at no cost would be great! It's not a business though, and without advertising arguably none of those services would exist. I don't know what you are proposing if not completely tearing-down our relatively accessible status-quo.

matheusmoreira 3y ago
> people who need to watch a YouTube "Need" is too strong a word. Nobody "needs" to watch a YouTube video. Maybe they want to watch one. > without advertising arguably none of those services would exist Then let their existence cease. They're corporations. They don't have human rights. They aren't entitled to life. > I don't know what you are proposing if not completely tearing-down our relatively accessible status-quo. It's exactly what I am proposing. A status quo where mind rape is normalized for the sake of convenience should not be allowed to exist.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > "Need" is too strong a word. Nobody "needs" to watch a YouTube video. Circumstantially, maybe not. In high school and college, I had plenty of homework assignments that involved a YouTube video. After classes, YouTube continued to be the biggest asset to my professional development. Having access to conference talks and long-form tutorials changed my life. For the sake of argument, let's just say I'm fixing my sink and the first result on 5 search engines is a YouTube video. What do you expect the average person to do next? > It's exactly what I am proposing. Well, good luck with that. I'm very curious to see who shows up to pick up the bill in your new world. It sorta sounds like your mental model feigns the existence of capitalism and free will, though.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    > I'm very curious to see who shows up to pick up the bill in your new world. I will pick up the bill for my own consumption. I have less than zero tolerance for advertising but I still buy a lot of stuff. The difference is I do it on my own terms. I won't have them actively advertising to me. When I want something, I'll ask them. When I actively seek out their products it's not advertising but information.
- jasode 3y ago
  >Nobody "needs" to watch a YouTube video. Maybe they want to watch one. Youtube's giant selection of people demonstrating every DIY repair topic (car repair, appliance repair, iPhone battery replace, etc) you can think of -- that's available nowhere else -- has literally saved me thousands of dollars (no exaggeration). I guess one could twist that into "you didn't really _need_ to save thousands of dollar$, you just _wanted_ to." Youtube is much more than frivolous music videos and you're too dismissive of how it helps people. EDIT REPLY TO: "Doesn't justify their advertising." I wasn't responding to the advertising business model. My issue was the "nobody _needs_ to watch a Youtube video" is way too dismissive. >There's always other sources of information. There's always better sources of information. Not always. Last week, I needed to replace an oxygen sensor on my truck and wanted some guidance on how to do it. Yes, a pdf of a vehicle service manual has diagrams etc but that book doesn't show a video of someone actually doing it. I need to see somebody actually put a wrench on the the bolts and unplug the sensor cable. I watched 5 different mechanics do it and I'm glad I did because there are some tricky issues that my inexperience would not have solved on my own. Vimeo and other video services didn't have this car repair content. Only Youtube.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    YouTube videos have helped me a lot as well. Doesn't justify their advertising. There's always other sources of information. There's always better sources of information. I make it a point to read books now. Libraries should be valued.
    - mdp2021 3y ago
      > Doesn't justify their advertising Doesn't justify their invasive advertising. > There's always other sources of information There are, sometimes, different sources of information (you would be giving up a massive amount of resources). > There's always better sources of information Not necessarily. Sometimes information is scarce and hard to find. > I make it a point to read books now. Libraries should be valued That is not an exclusive alternative.
omnicognate 3y ago
I would completely tear down the ad-driven status quo in favour of people paying for things. People shouldn't have to punch in their credit card info to access a youtube video and they shouldn't need to sign up for a subscription to youtube or any other site in order to access individual pieces of information. Payment should be only for content consumed and should be frictionless and consistent across all providers. It's a pipe dream now, with the exploitative business models and consumer addictions well established, but there's an alternative history of the internet where this could have happened.
- ParetoOptimal 3y ago
  > I would completely tear down the ad-driven status quo in favour of people paying for things. As someone that grew up poor but now works in tech, I'm very hesitant to say that people paying for things is better than the ad-driven status quo. A good portion of people just wouldn't be able to pay and likely have a worse life by their standards (not yours or mine).
  - omnicognate 3y ago
    I'd view extreme poverty as a problem for the state rather than advertisers, universal basic income (UBI) being one obvious approach, and access to information for those too poor to pay for it as a challenge that has been long addressed by public libraries. Solving these problems is neither an explicit goal of adverts nor something they achieve well as a side effect.
josho 3y ago
Customers have this expectation because VCs paid for growth. Then for another decade or so Google continued to give it away. Is it any wonder many people have a clear misunderstanding of the costs of software?

matheusmoreira 3y ago

> people who need to watch a YouTube "Need" is too strong a word. Nobody "needs" to watch a YouTube video. Maybe they want to watch one. > without advertising arguably none of those services would exist Then let their existence cease. They're corporations. They don't have human rights. They aren't entitled to life. > I don't know what you are proposing if not completely tearing-down our relatively accessible status-quo. It's exactly what I am proposing. A status quo where mind rape is normalized for the sake of convenience should not be allowed to exist.

smoldesu 3y ago
> "Need" is too strong a word. Nobody "needs" to watch a YouTube video. Circumstantially, maybe not. In high school and college, I had plenty of homework assignments that involved a YouTube video. After classes, YouTube continued to be the biggest asset to my professional development. Having access to conference talks and long-form tutorials changed my life. For the sake of argument, let's just say I'm fixing my sink and the first result on 5 search engines is a YouTube video. What do you expect the average person to do next? > It's exactly what I am proposing. Well, good luck with that. I'm very curious to see who shows up to pick up the bill in your new world. It sorta sounds like your mental model feigns the existence of capitalism and free will, though.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  > I'm very curious to see who shows up to pick up the bill in your new world. I will pick up the bill for my own consumption. I have less than zero tolerance for advertising but I still buy a lot of stuff. The difference is I do it on my own terms. I won't have them actively advertising to me. When I want something, I'll ask them. When I actively seek out their products it's not advertising but information.
jasode 3y ago
>Nobody "needs" to watch a YouTube video. Maybe they want to watch one. Youtube's giant selection of people demonstrating every DIY repair topic (car repair, appliance repair, iPhone battery replace, etc) you can think of -- that's available nowhere else -- has literally saved me thousands of dollars (no exaggeration). I guess one could twist that into "you didn't really _need_ to save thousands of dollar$, you just _wanted_ to." Youtube is much more than frivolous music videos and you're too dismissive of how it helps people. EDIT REPLY TO: "Doesn't justify their advertising." I wasn't responding to the advertising business model. My issue was the "nobody _needs_ to watch a Youtube video" is way too dismissive. >There's always other sources of information. There's always better sources of information. Not always. Last week, I needed to replace an oxygen sensor on my truck and wanted some guidance on how to do it. Yes, a pdf of a vehicle service manual has diagrams etc but that book doesn't show a video of someone actually doing it. I need to see somebody actually put a wrench on the the bolts and unplug the sensor cable. I watched 5 different mechanics do it and I'm glad I did because there are some tricky issues that my inexperience would not have solved on my own. Vimeo and other video services didn't have this car repair content. Only Youtube.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  YouTube videos have helped me a lot as well. Doesn't justify their advertising. There's always other sources of information. There's always better sources of information. I make it a point to read books now. Libraries should be valued.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    > Doesn't justify their advertising Doesn't justify their invasive advertising. > There's always other sources of information There are, sometimes, different sources of information (you would be giving up a massive amount of resources). > There's always better sources of information Not necessarily. Sometimes information is scarce and hard to find. > I make it a point to read books now. Libraries should be valued That is not an exclusive alternative.

omnicognate 3y ago

I would completely tear down the ad-driven status quo in favour of people paying for things. People shouldn't have to punch in their credit card info to access a youtube video and they shouldn't need to sign up for a subscription to youtube or any other site in order to access individual pieces of information. Payment should be only for content consumed and should be frictionless and consistent across all providers. It's a pipe dream now, with the exploitative business models and consumer addictions well established, but there's an alternative history of the internet where this could have happened.

ParetoOptimal 3y ago
> I would completely tear down the ad-driven status quo in favour of people paying for things. As someone that grew up poor but now works in tech, I'm very hesitant to say that people paying for things is better than the ad-driven status quo. A good portion of people just wouldn't be able to pay and likely have a worse life by their standards (not yours or mine).
- omnicognate 3y ago
  I'd view extreme poverty as a problem for the state rather than advertisers, universal basic income (UBI) being one obvious approach, and access to information for those too poor to pay for it as a challenge that has been long addressed by public libraries. Solving these problems is neither an explicit goal of adverts nor something they achieve well as a side effect.

josho 3y ago

Customers have this expectation because VCs paid for growth. Then for another decade or so Google continued to give it away. Is it any wonder many people have a clear misunderstanding of the costs of software?