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Hot take as someone who pays for premium: All the complaints about ads are true, they suck, but how is content you enjoy supposed to be created and distributed

by ok_dad 3y ago

Hot take as someone who pays for premium: All the complaints about ads are true, they suck, but how is content you enjoy supposed to be created and distributed without money? Just pay for premium, or use something like PeerTube. It’s unfortunate, but you need to put your money where your mouth is. I hate ads too, a lot. I think they should be banned, but in not smart enough to know what can replace those ads for folks who cannot afford premium subscriptions so they can also watch important educational and not so important entertaining content.

Probiotic6081 3y ago
they could monetize differently, without ads. let creators monetize it like patreon tiers and let users make proportional donations to their favourite creators through a flattr-like system. take the ads out and a place like youtube only need like 5 guys to run.
- ok_dad 3y ago
  That is such a simplistic view, I don’t even know where to start with it. First, your final paragraph is faulty, five guys (insert overpriced burger joke) is not sufficient for running “YouTube without ads”. Second, how do people afford that if they have no disposable income? YouTube is unique in that it’s used for a lot of educational purposes; not just in school but people use it to learn how to tie a tie or do woodworking. Thanks for trying, but there isn’t a two step solution for everything.
  - Probiotic6081 3y ago
    of course they'd also need lawyers, content moderators and stuff like that. but they should just copy the files to a new server, run elasticsearch on it and give it a clean UI.
    - ok_dad 3y ago
      If up think that’ll work feel free to implement that :)
awesomeMilou 3y ago
> All the complaints about ads are true, they suck, but how is content you enjoy supposed to be created and distributed without money? From where do you take it that adsense revenue is the most major, most important revenue stream for YouTubers? Most content creators make their income on sponsorships and their own brands. Apart from that, it's not like content creators aren't starting their own streaming platforms. See Linus Tech Tips Floatplane for example. Regarding the distribution of content: Google has been more than happy to carry YouTube's operating cost from their quasi-monopoly on internet ads. In return, users gave them more detailed advertising profiles through the use of YouTube. I actually don't want to pay for premium. Google already gets my data - why should I pay for the privilege of handing it to them?
- ok_dad 3y ago
  So your answer is, “Google has always done this free tier so I’m entitled to it forever.” Were both know ZIRP ended, no need to try and ignore the economic climate just because you’re angry and Google sucks. I agree this sucks, but it’s not realistic to just ignore the issue until YouTube is shut down due to money loss. I would prefer a different solution, also, but like I said, I’m not going to say I know how.
  - awesomeMilou 3y ago
    > So your answer is, “Google has always done this free tier so I’m entitled to it forever.” Please don't try to put words in my mouth. My answer was perfectly clear and easy to understand. You implied that adsense revenue is a major income source for content creators - this simply isn't true. As for why or why I don't want to pay them for Premium: Premium does not convince me as an offering. Price is too high and there is a distinct lack of features. I will use YouTube until they stop servicing people with AdBlock, then I am going to stop using the platform. (blocking ads isn't illegal in my jurisdiction). > I agree this sucks, but it’s not realistic to just ignore the issue until YouTube is shut down I really _really_ don't care about the future of some Silicon Valley conglomerate. But I see nothing negative about YouTube shutting down or taking a blow - it would open up the market for new competitors such as floatplane. YouTube's MOAT is not with it's service offerings, but with it's content creators. These people will look for alternative providers if they experience a major drop in their audience due to this new monetization.
zht 3y ago
HN: “well I can just pay the creators directly” “Do you already?” HN: “no… but I could one day”
globular-toast 3y ago
The vast majority of the stuff I watch on YouTube would get made without any monetisation. I'm talking about people making videos of their hobbies or crafts etc. I have no interest at all in the videos that only exist because of the money (like mindless waste of bandwidth like Mr Beast etc). I don't want 4K, 3D or any of that crap. Blogs etc, including images, have been available for free for 20 years at least. I'm convinced that by now after decades of bandwidth improvements etc we'd have free videos in the same way. But Google went the monopoly route with YouTube. I will not reward them for that.
- ok_dad 3y ago
  Much the content I watch would not get created by the experts on those channels, they would be working a 9-5 job doing less interesting things, or just not make videos. Video in 4k or even 1080 is expensive in bandwidth, your arguments about 20 year old free blogs are dumb.
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    Then pay for your shit. "Your argument is dumb" is not a valid counter-argument.
    - ok_dad 3y ago
      I do pay for it. I could very well dismiss your argument as, “don’t watch YouTube and stop complaining if you won’t pay.” I’m not sorry you felt hurt that your ignorance was called out.
      - globular-toast 3y ago
        What ignorance? I've been downloading high resolution videos since before Youtube even existed. Are you perhaps the ignorant one?
- e63f67dd-065b 3y ago
  > I'm convinced that by now after decades of bandwidth improvements etc we'd have free videos in the same way. If you can figure out a way to serve petabytes of video every day for basically free, then you'd be rich. The simple truth is that bandwidth is not free. The numbers are, of course, not public, but Cloudflare published some stuff here https://blog.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-costs-around-the-world/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-costs-around-the-world... that we can use to guesstimate. Google likely has more peering agreements, but it still costs money. That's just bandwidth, serving video also costs compute (re-encoding the video in a bunch of resolutions is not free), and running the software to serve the video is also expensive, memory, storage to store said video, and generally just hundreds of datacenters around the world. You can serve a million RPS of static HTML on a crappy server in a closet for a few thousand dollars, but you absolutely cannot do the same for video.
tavavex 3y ago
Honestly, I wouldn't mind paying for Premium if it didn't cost as much as it does. I wish they'd rolled out the Premium Lite plan worldwide, but they just axed it instead, so it seems that it won't be coming back anytime soon. I understand having to pay for ad-free content, but there's absolutely no way I'm costing YouTube CA$13/month. If this was the case, they'd have to serve me hundreds to thousands of ads to come anywhere close to breaking even. The margins on this have got to be extremely lucrative. For that price, Amazon Prime provides their users with overnight delivery, something that's both limited and expensive to do - on top of access to many other services. Netflix and other streaming services fund their production teams to make new content, as well as pay to license third-party content. Meanwhile, YouTube just.. removes ads? I think that they could absolutely get away with a simplified $5/month plan (like what they did with Premium Lite), but instead found that being another one "just another $10 subscription!" company being more profitable.

by ok_dad 3y ago

Probiotic6081 3y ago

they could monetize differently, without ads. let creators monetize it like patreon tiers and let users make proportional donations to their favourite creators through a flattr-like system. take the ads out and a place like youtube only need like 5 guys to run.

ok_dad 3y ago
That is such a simplistic view, I don’t even know where to start with it. First, your final paragraph is faulty, five guys (insert overpriced burger joke) is not sufficient for running “YouTube without ads”. Second, how do people afford that if they have no disposable income? YouTube is unique in that it’s used for a lot of educational purposes; not just in school but people use it to learn how to tie a tie or do woodworking. Thanks for trying, but there isn’t a two step solution for everything.
- Probiotic6081 3y ago
  of course they'd also need lawyers, content moderators and stuff like that. but they should just copy the files to a new server, run elasticsearch on it and give it a clean UI.
  - ok_dad 3y ago
    If up think that’ll work feel free to implement that :)

awesomeMilou 3y ago

> All the complaints about ads are true, they suck, but how is content you enjoy supposed to be created and distributed without money? From where do you take it that adsense revenue is the most major, most important revenue stream for YouTubers? Most content creators make their income on sponsorships and their own brands. Apart from that, it's not like content creators aren't starting their own streaming platforms. See Linus Tech Tips Floatplane for example. Regarding the distribution of content: Google has been more than happy to carry YouTube's operating cost from their quasi-monopoly on internet ads. In return, users gave them more detailed advertising profiles through the use of YouTube. I actually don't want to pay for premium. Google already gets my data - why should I pay for the privilege of handing it to them?

ok_dad 3y ago
So your answer is, “Google has always done this free tier so I’m entitled to it forever.” Were both know ZIRP ended, no need to try and ignore the economic climate just because you’re angry and Google sucks. I agree this sucks, but it’s not realistic to just ignore the issue until YouTube is shut down due to money loss. I would prefer a different solution, also, but like I said, I’m not going to say I know how.
- awesomeMilou 3y ago
  > So your answer is, “Google has always done this free tier so I’m entitled to it forever.” Please don't try to put words in my mouth. My answer was perfectly clear and easy to understand. You implied that adsense revenue is a major income source for content creators - this simply isn't true. As for why or why I don't want to pay them for Premium: Premium does not convince me as an offering. Price is too high and there is a distinct lack of features. I will use YouTube until they stop servicing people with AdBlock, then I am going to stop using the platform. (blocking ads isn't illegal in my jurisdiction). > I agree this sucks, but it’s not realistic to just ignore the issue until YouTube is shut down I really _really_ don't care about the future of some Silicon Valley conglomerate. But I see nothing negative about YouTube shutting down or taking a blow - it would open up the market for new competitors such as floatplane. YouTube's MOAT is not with it's service offerings, but with it's content creators. These people will look for alternative providers if they experience a major drop in their audience due to this new monetization.

zht 3y ago

HN: “well I can just pay the creators directly” “Do you already?” HN: “no… but I could one day”

globular-toast 3y ago

The vast majority of the stuff I watch on YouTube would get made without any monetisation. I'm talking about people making videos of their hobbies or crafts etc. I have no interest at all in the videos that only exist because of the money (like mindless waste of bandwidth like Mr Beast etc). I don't want 4K, 3D or any of that crap. Blogs etc, including images, have been available for free for 20 years at least. I'm convinced that by now after decades of bandwidth improvements etc we'd have free videos in the same way. But Google went the monopoly route with YouTube. I will not reward them for that.

ok_dad 3y ago
Much the content I watch would not get created by the experts on those channels, they would be working a 9-5 job doing less interesting things, or just not make videos. Video in 4k or even 1080 is expensive in bandwidth, your arguments about 20 year old free blogs are dumb.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  Then pay for your shit. "Your argument is dumb" is not a valid counter-argument.
  - ok_dad 3y ago
    I do pay for it. I could very well dismiss your argument as, “don’t watch YouTube and stop complaining if you won’t pay.” I’m not sorry you felt hurt that your ignorance was called out.
    - globular-toast 3y ago
      What ignorance? I've been downloading high resolution videos since before Youtube even existed. Are you perhaps the ignorant one?
e63f67dd-065b 3y ago
> I'm convinced that by now after decades of bandwidth improvements etc we'd have free videos in the same way. If you can figure out a way to serve petabytes of video every day for basically free, then you'd be rich. The simple truth is that bandwidth is not free. The numbers are, of course, not public, but Cloudflare published some stuff here https://blog.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-costs-around-the-world/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-costs-around-the-world... that we can use to guesstimate. Google likely has more peering agreements, but it still costs money. That's just bandwidth, serving video also costs compute (re-encoding the video in a bunch of resolutions is not free), and running the software to serve the video is also expensive, memory, storage to store said video, and generally just hundreds of datacenters around the world. You can serve a million RPS of static HTML on a crappy server in a closet for a few thousand dollars, but you absolutely cannot do the same for video.

tavavex 3y ago

Honestly, I wouldn't mind paying for Premium if it didn't cost as much as it does. I wish they'd rolled out the Premium Lite plan worldwide, but they just axed it instead, so it seems that it won't be coming back anytime soon. I understand having to pay for ad-free content, but there's absolutely no way I'm costing YouTube CA$13/month. If this was the case, they'd have to serve me hundreds to thousands of ads to come anywhere close to breaking even. The margins on this have got to be extremely lucrative. For that price, Amazon Prime provides their users with overnight delivery, something that's both limited and expensive to do - on top of access to many other services. Netflix and other streaming services fund their production teams to make new content, as well as pay to license third-party content. Meanwhile, YouTube just.. removes ads? I think that they could absolutely get away with a simplified $5/month plan (like what they did with Premium Lite), but instead found that being another one "just another $10 subscription!" company being more profitable.