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If you have a VPN with a Ukraine location, you can set it to there and purchase YouTube Premium for ~$2.70/month. That's what I just ended up doing. I use Mullv

by m4jor 3y ago

If you have a VPN with a Ukraine location, you can set it to there and purchase YouTube Premium for ~$2.70/month. That's what I just ended up doing. I use Mullvad as my vpn provider.

thriftwy 3y ago
If you have a VPN with Russian location, you will get absolutely no ads at all. 24 February 2022 virtually gave the whole country YouTube Premium.
sneak 3y ago
Paying the ad company is not a good way to get to a place where there are fewer ads.
- gruez 3y ago
  "a place where there are fewer ads" requires some alternate form of monetization. If "paying for it" isn't acceptable to you, what's left?
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    We had the "old" internet and we had ads... a text banner here and there, and then an image or maybe a gif banner on the other side. Noone really cared, sites got ad views, users got content. Then ads moved to flash (security issues), popups, popups when you close the first popup, video was added, with sounds, two banners became 20, fixed location floating divs were added, and in the case of youtube, a 3 minute video of something contains 3 minutes of ads. So yeah... they had a chance, went way overboard, and now they complain that people block ads.
    - m4jor 3y ago
      dont forget popunders! the sneakiest of the sneaky.
      - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
        and the ones, where you click on a link, it openes in a new tab and the original tab gets replaced with an ad.. so you close an ad, and lose all your "back" history. Also, real-life ads need regulation too... like some limits of X square meters of ads per 1 km^2 of area... preferably X going slowly towards zero.
    - gruez 3y ago
      > We had the "old" internet and we had ads... a text banner here and there, and then an image or maybe a gif banner on the other side. Noone really cared, sites got ad views, users got content. The "old" internet was also run by hobbyists without a profit motive, and did not have sites that hosted your videos for free. A few static banner ads might be able to keep the "old" internet afloat, but it certainly would not be able to keep today's internet afloat.
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      The "old" internet was full of people fighting hot linking because a JPEG being embedded on a popular forum took down your website for a considerable time. Then the internet ran on an investor bubble that let companies serve content at a loss in hopes of a future acquisition. Now ads are proving to be the only reliable way to get income out of videos. There are affordable options out there, but because these services were once free everybody feels like they're entitled to free hosting and media.
  - sneak 3y ago
    I’m fine paying for content (I subscribe to Nebula and Spotify, for example); I am not fine paying to enrich organizations that engage in widespread surveillance and ad technology. Ads make the world worse. Creators make it better. Google’s problem is that their mission statement is fundamentally misleading. They aren’t here to organize the world’s information and make it accessible, they are here to maximize ad revenue. The information thing is a means to an end. For them, ads are the point, because content doesn’t generate revenue - ads do.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      > I’m fine paying for content I subscribe to Nebula and Spotify, > I am not fine paying to enrich organizations that engage in widespread surveillance and ad technology And you don’t see an issue with these two statements?
    - acdha 3y ago
      That’s a fair position, but shouldn’t you simply shorten it to not using YouTube? Your activity helps their ad system and using it tells creators that they get more views by putting things on YouTube.
    - MBCook 3y ago
      So because a company sells ads and you don’t like that, you refuse to pay them to not see ads? Only ensuring that they will try to show even more ads since not enough paying customers exist? Don’t you think that maybe if all the people in this thread being really righteous about not paying and “ad company“ or to actually pay it might show them there’s a better way?
      - f33d5173 3y ago
        They're a "give away a product for free for 15 years to gain market share then act indignicant when people won't pay whatever price you ask" company. I think that's what people don't want to support.
  - wardedVibe 3y ago
    Just wait ~5 years when they have to show more growth by adding newer tiers of subscription, and making the current one ad-lite.
    - gruez 3y ago
      Unless they totally remove the ad-free tier, I don't see how this is different than any other price hike. Or do you think that companies shouldn't have the right to hike prices?
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        A price hike on the ad removal option takes us further away from the goal of few ads. Regardless of rights. And especially when it's already pricey.
  - CuriouslyC 3y ago
    Let content creators figure that out with their audiences. YouTube should just be a batteries included public video hosting service, with video creators as the customer. Creators with video views passing a threshold would need to pay google or have their videos downgraded to 240p, then temporarily disabled if they continued not to pay. Users would get some amount of space and bandwidth as part of a free tier to help them get started. It'd be like AWS but for video content creators, instead of like a shitty cable network.
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      Can you imagine some small time Roblox Youtuber blowing up and ending up with a sudden bandwidth bill in the hundreds of thousands? Popups with "this month's watch count has been reached, please ask @contentcreator to pay for more views"? Making uploaders pay would absolutely destroy the platform.
      - CuriouslyC 3y ago
        The only person hurt under that scheme would be just that, people who go viral out of nowhere. Other users could re-upload the video to mirror it though, so there's an easy workaround. Seems like a small price to pay for a YouTube with integrity that respects both creators and viewers and treats both fairly without trying to exploit anyone.
        MBCook 3y ago
        “I don’t want to pay $15/mo. But if a creator I like gets a big bill, I’ll take their video and re-upload it without their permission to mirror it and cut down their bandwidth bill. Now I only pay $400/mo!”
- m4jor 3y ago
  I mean paying $2.70/m vs $13.99/m works for me.
NietTim 3y ago
Even if it was 10 cents in some other country, I'll never pay a single cent to google, they don't need and most of all don't deserve my money.
- francislavoie 3y ago
  Premium actually gives more money to creators you watch on YouTube than ads do. It's win-win IMO. Save yourself time, give them more money. Also comes with YouTube Music which is quite good (arguably worse than Google Play Music was but eh)
  - hh3k0 3y ago
    How about I don't watch ads and don't buy premium?
    - alsodumb 3y ago
      How about you stop using YouTube? Getting annoyed by ads is understandable, but server space isn't free.
      - toastercat 3y ago
        How about you stop using ad block/popup blockers altogether? Getting annoyed by ads is understandable, but server space isn't free on any website. In fact, how about we all rally together and start encouraging addings ads on HackerNews to help pay for the servers?
        alsodumb 3y ago
        I mean sure, I am fine with any service I am actively using either charge me money via subscription or monetize is some other form. If I don't want that to happen, I'd not use that service. If the costs of managing HackerNews is so high, sure let them sell ads or offer a subscription service. But if you are comparing HackerNews hosting costs to YouTube, you need a reality check. HackerNews probably costs less than 1000$ a month to host, everything included. I am sure YouTube spends more than that every second buying new storage servers. I don't think most people realize the scale of YouTube - it's offering anyone on this planet to upload as many videos as they want, in resolution as high as 8K, while also offering the ability to monetize their content for creators. I think that is pretty damn impressive. I use YouTube often, and I am totally fine with them making money off my data via ads (when I am not paying for YouTube premium).
silenced_trope 3y ago
do you have to keep using the VPN after doing this? Can i just use proton vpn to make the purchase at that price point? Or do I need to create a separate google account, and then keep accessing YT while using a VPN with Ukraine location?
- m4jor 3y ago
  Nope, just once when purchasing it.
vault 3y ago
not sure why youtube premium asks me `CA$12.99` (canadian dollars?) with mullvad & youtube location set to Ukraine
- lakomen 3y ago
  Dns leak
harrid 3y ago
That's fraud.

by m4jor 3y ago

If you have a VPN with a Ukraine location, you can set it to there and purchase YouTube Premium for ~$2.70/month. That's what I just ended up doing. I use Mullvad as my vpn provider.

thriftwy 3y ago

If you have a VPN with Russian location, you will get absolutely no ads at all. 24 February 2022 virtually gave the whole country YouTube Premium.

sneak 3y ago

Paying the ad company is not a good way to get to a place where there are fewer ads.

gruez 3y ago
"a place where there are fewer ads" requires some alternate form of monetization. If "paying for it" isn't acceptable to you, what's left?
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  We had the "old" internet and we had ads... a text banner here and there, and then an image or maybe a gif banner on the other side. Noone really cared, sites got ad views, users got content. Then ads moved to flash (security issues), popups, popups when you close the first popup, video was added, with sounds, two banners became 20, fixed location floating divs were added, and in the case of youtube, a 3 minute video of something contains 3 minutes of ads. So yeah... they had a chance, went way overboard, and now they complain that people block ads.
  - m4jor 3y ago
    dont forget popunders! the sneakiest of the sneaky.
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      and the ones, where you click on a link, it openes in a new tab and the original tab gets replaced with an ad.. so you close an ad, and lose all your "back" history. Also, real-life ads need regulation too... like some limits of X square meters of ads per 1 km^2 of area... preferably X going slowly towards zero.
  - gruez 3y ago
    > We had the "old" internet and we had ads... a text banner here and there, and then an image or maybe a gif banner on the other side. Noone really cared, sites got ad views, users got content. The "old" internet was also run by hobbyists without a profit motive, and did not have sites that hosted your videos for free. A few static banner ads might be able to keep the "old" internet afloat, but it certainly would not be able to keep today's internet afloat.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    The "old" internet was full of people fighting hot linking because a JPEG being embedded on a popular forum took down your website for a considerable time. Then the internet ran on an investor bubble that let companies serve content at a loss in hopes of a future acquisition. Now ads are proving to be the only reliable way to get income out of videos. There are affordable options out there, but because these services were once free everybody feels like they're entitled to free hosting and media.
- sneak 3y ago
  I’m fine paying for content (I subscribe to Nebula and Spotify, for example); I am not fine paying to enrich organizations that engage in widespread surveillance and ad technology. Ads make the world worse. Creators make it better. Google’s problem is that their mission statement is fundamentally misleading. They aren’t here to organize the world’s information and make it accessible, they are here to maximize ad revenue. The information thing is a means to an end. For them, ads are the point, because content doesn’t generate revenue - ads do.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    > I’m fine paying for content I subscribe to Nebula and Spotify, > I am not fine paying to enrich organizations that engage in widespread surveillance and ad technology And you don’t see an issue with these two statements?
  - acdha 3y ago
    That’s a fair position, but shouldn’t you simply shorten it to not using YouTube? Your activity helps their ad system and using it tells creators that they get more views by putting things on YouTube.
  - MBCook 3y ago
    So because a company sells ads and you don’t like that, you refuse to pay them to not see ads? Only ensuring that they will try to show even more ads since not enough paying customers exist? Don’t you think that maybe if all the people in this thread being really righteous about not paying and “ad company“ or to actually pay it might show them there’s a better way?
    - f33d5173 3y ago
      They're a "give away a product for free for 15 years to gain market share then act indignicant when people won't pay whatever price you ask" company. I think that's what people don't want to support.
- wardedVibe 3y ago
  Just wait ~5 years when they have to show more growth by adding newer tiers of subscription, and making the current one ad-lite.
  - gruez 3y ago
    Unless they totally remove the ad-free tier, I don't see how this is different than any other price hike. Or do you think that companies shouldn't have the right to hike prices?
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      A price hike on the ad removal option takes us further away from the goal of few ads. Regardless of rights. And especially when it's already pricey.
- CuriouslyC 3y ago
  Let content creators figure that out with their audiences. YouTube should just be a batteries included public video hosting service, with video creators as the customer. Creators with video views passing a threshold would need to pay google or have their videos downgraded to 240p, then temporarily disabled if they continued not to pay. Users would get some amount of space and bandwidth as part of a free tier to help them get started. It'd be like AWS but for video content creators, instead of like a shitty cable network.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    Can you imagine some small time Roblox Youtuber blowing up and ending up with a sudden bandwidth bill in the hundreds of thousands? Popups with "this month's watch count has been reached, please ask @contentcreator to pay for more views"? Making uploaders pay would absolutely destroy the platform.
    - CuriouslyC 3y ago
      The only person hurt under that scheme would be just that, people who go viral out of nowhere. Other users could re-upload the video to mirror it though, so there's an easy workaround. Seems like a small price to pay for a YouTube with integrity that respects both creators and viewers and treats both fairly without trying to exploit anyone.
      - MBCook 3y ago
        “I don’t want to pay $15/mo. But if a creator I like gets a big bill, I’ll take their video and re-upload it without their permission to mirror it and cut down their bandwidth bill. Now I only pay $400/mo!”
m4jor 3y ago
I mean paying $2.70/m vs $13.99/m works for me.

NietTim 3y ago

Even if it was 10 cents in some other country, I'll never pay a single cent to google, they don't need and most of all don't deserve my money.

francislavoie 3y ago
Premium actually gives more money to creators you watch on YouTube than ads do. It's win-win IMO. Save yourself time, give them more money. Also comes with YouTube Music which is quite good (arguably worse than Google Play Music was but eh)
- hh3k0 3y ago
  How about I don't watch ads and don't buy premium?
  - alsodumb 3y ago
    How about you stop using YouTube? Getting annoyed by ads is understandable, but server space isn't free.
    - toastercat 3y ago
      How about you stop using ad block/popup blockers altogether? Getting annoyed by ads is understandable, but server space isn't free on any website. In fact, how about we all rally together and start encouraging addings ads on HackerNews to help pay for the servers?
      - alsodumb 3y ago
        I mean sure, I am fine with any service I am actively using either charge me money via subscription or monetize is some other form. If I don't want that to happen, I'd not use that service. If the costs of managing HackerNews is so high, sure let them sell ads or offer a subscription service. But if you are comparing HackerNews hosting costs to YouTube, you need a reality check. HackerNews probably costs less than 1000$ a month to host, everything included. I am sure YouTube spends more than that every second buying new storage servers. I don't think most people realize the scale of YouTube - it's offering anyone on this planet to upload as many videos as they want, in resolution as high as 8K, while also offering the ability to monetize their content for creators. I think that is pretty damn impressive. I use YouTube often, and I am totally fine with them making money off my data via ads (when I am not paying for YouTube premium).

silenced_trope 3y ago

do you have to keep using the VPN after doing this? Can i just use proton vpn to make the purchase at that price point? Or do I need to create a separate google account, and then keep accessing YT while using a VPN with Ukraine location?

m4jor 3y ago
Nope, just once when purchasing it.

vault 3y ago

not sure why youtube premium asks me `CA$12.99` (canadian dollars?) with mullvad & youtube location set to Ukraine

lakomen 3y ago
Dns leak

harrid 3y ago

That's fraud.