6 ms·

I mean ads suck, but YouTube, unlike most of the web, is very happy to take your money in exchange for not showing you ads, so it seems entirely fair.

hypeatei 3y ago
I've never bought YT premium but from what other users have said, they still show ads anyway.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  negative. No youtube ads when using premium.
- wnevets 3y ago
  I've never seen an ad from YouTube with premium. Creators inserting ads into their own videos are outside of YouTubes control
  - hypeatei 3y ago
    Ah okay. Maybe there is confusion between their YT Music premium and the "video" premium. Some also seem to be saying that sponsored content is what they're referring to.
  - Modified3019 3y ago
    “Sponsorblock” is a crowdsourced tool that helps take care of creator ads: https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/ Yt-dlp can also make use of it.
    - wnevets 3y ago
      I just avoid any creator that is spamming their videos with sponsors. For example I have zero problem with how Gamers Nexus does their sponsor bits and it's just not worth trying to block them.
  - sophacles 3y ago
    Not really. YouTube can simply say "you must tell us when the sponsored ad starts and stops", and skip over those. Creators who don't do that can face demonitization and having their videos removed from the recommender for premium users. They have all sorts of rules that content creators must follow or it hurts the creator's bottom line - I don't see how this would be different.
    - wnevets 3y ago
      Is YouTube gonna compensate the creators for that lost in Revenue, drastically increase the price of premium or just force them to leave YouTube? Adam Ragusea has a good break down [1] of how making money with YouTube works and your plan ruins the economics of being a creator. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6pVD9Bya3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6pVD9Bya3E
      - brewdad 3y ago
        Maybe the world needs fewer career creators then.
        wnevets 3y ago
        then the usefulness of YouTube and its premium services deceases.
        taylodl 3y ago
        You always have the power to not watch those channels. If they lose viewership, and thus income, then there will be fewer creators.
- Tyr42 3y ago
  There isn't an option to hide shorts.
- hermannj314 3y ago
  I have YouTube Premium, and YouTube does not show me ads to serve me the content they host. I also get YT Music, so it is a great value. I am not sure where you have been misinformed. Content creators negotiate privately with companies and put relevant ads into their content. YouTube does not force content creators to do this and many do not. This has nothing to do with YouTube or YouTube Premium. I like that YouTube does not illegally suppress the right for content creators to negotiate these private contracts.
- savanaly 3y ago
  No, they don't. I have been using YT Premium for years and never seen a third party ad of the type I assume you're alluding to. It is true they don't seem to even attempt to prevent video creators from adding ads within the video itself (explicit or implicit product endorsements especially). These ads aren't as objectionable because the incentive is there for the video creator to ensure the ad doesn't drive you away from the video, and often they try their best to make the ad entertaining in the same way their video is. This would be impractical for YT to enforce since the line is blurry between ad and content, so I don't get too grumpy about it, but I would love to pay an additional amount of money to be totally free of the ads.
goalieca 3y ago
Pay money to watch video, video had sponsored content.
passwordoops 3y ago
As others are saying, if I pay for a service to be ad-free, I expect it to be ad-free. Instead they're just double-dipping
- celestialcheese 3y ago
  What? I pay for youtube premium and I never see ads on youtube. How are they double-dipping?
  - CubsFan1060 3y ago
    They are probably referring to ads that the video creators put in.
  - enragedcacti 3y ago
    Lots of people seem to feel like they are being ripped off that videos still contain sponsored segments when paying for YT Premium. I don't really get it but it seems common on HN.
    - brewdad 3y ago
      Maybe because those sponsored segments are literally ads. The whole value proposition of YT Premium was that I pay to remove ads and YT pays the creators I watch so they don't need to do that crap.
      - bananapub 3y ago
        you want YouTube to interfere with the content of videos even more than they do now? how much assurance do you want that a video doesn't have any sponsorship? a human viewing each video before it goes on to the CDN? affadvit from the poster that they didn't receive money from any VPN company before mentioning a VPN? why are you blaming YouTube for the poor quality content you're choosing to watch, instead of not watching it or blaming the creator?
      - enragedcacti 3y ago
htk 3y ago
Absolutely, I pay for YouTube premium and I think it's the best of all my streaming services. Ad Blocking, in this case, just reads like stealing cable.
- iAMkenough 3y ago
  Even stolen cable has ads
- antx 3y ago
  Funny you mention this. With cable, I used to be able to skip ads with my PVR (MythTV). And that's entirely my right to do so, nobody can strip it from me. My TV, my rules. Same thing with the web. My computer, my rules. But google of course is unhappy about it, and will try to frustrate as many users as it can until they can push their "web integrity" crap down users' throats.
  - BXlnt2EachOther 3y ago
    Isn't modern cable quite expensive, and not a direct comparison to ad-supported Youtube? Web suggests the average bill in the US exceeds $200 a month. I saw the streaming cable providers are up to $70/mo; they have gotten more expensive as they bundle more channels. I'm not sure if that's their choice or whether it's part of the bundling practices the cable providers do in negotiations (edit to correct: I meant content providers... though it's sometimes the same company) Technical curiosity: Can you still roll your own DVR? I know Plex has some functionality there, and CableCARDs are/were a thing but cable providers were trying to put an end to those. And I saw DRM for over-the-air is coming down the pipe with ATSC 3.0
- synergy20 3y ago
  same here,glad to get a family plan,it is valuable for the most part, it provides a service,thus you can be charged,you are not forced to use YouTube either,seems common sense to me yes it is not 100% tracking free, so are most if not all Internet services, all bad but YouTube does not stand out
acheron 3y ago
A huge part of the problem we have with it is the constant tracking and data gathering. Paying them isn't going to stop tracking. Hell, if you stay signed in (and give them a credit card to link to your account!) they're just going to track you even more.
- bananapub 3y ago
  Ah, so you're paying for Youtube Red and have found that your ad blocker doesn't work to block tracking cookies? Weird - have you filed a bug?
tinus_hn 3y ago
But not in exchange for not tracking you. If you pay, obviously you have to log in and in typical Google fashion have your viewing history tracked, associated with you and stored forever.
- enragedcacti 3y ago
  You can disable watch history pretty easily. Obviously you have to trust Google but I'd assume they would be breaking several laws in various jurisdictions if they were still storing history longterm after you opted out. Definitely not out of the question but its something. Anecdotally, the setting was thorough enough for me that it completely broke Youtube Music's recommendation engine. Every single source of recommended content would give the exact same songs in the exact same order no matter how many times I would listen.
  - Nextgrid 3y ago
    > I'd assume they would be breaking several laws in various jurisdictions if they were still storing history after you opted out Breaking privacy regulation is literally Facebook's business model and they've been very successful at that. It's dumb to think Google isn't doing the same.
    - enragedcacti 3y ago
      I completely agree that you shouldn't trust Google not to break the law, and there's no real way to prove they aren't storing and using that data somehow. They've almost certainly weighed the pros and cons of retaining and using that info and we don't have any clue how that shook out. All we can really do is guess whether or not they think its worth the risk and make our decisions accordingly. Personally, I think my chance of having my history tracked and abused is lower logged in + history off versus being logged out where I don't have the option and Google can still fingerprint me 17 different ways. There are obviously many more options for the more privacy conscious but that's where I'm at.
lxgr 3y ago
No, YouTube is happy to sell me a music streaming subscription I have no intention of ever touching together with the ad-free video streaming subscription I am willing to pay for. This also makes it completely opaque who gets my money at the end of the month, assuming I only use the video part: Only video creators? Or am I just paying into a global pot that is divided proportionally, i.e. would I end up paying x% for music despite neither wanting nor using that on YouTube? Imagine Steam making you buy a movie download with every game you purchase, or Amazon requiring you to buy a box of cupcakes with every Kindle book. (Actually Amazon requiring me to pay for a video streaming service for expedited deliveries isn't too far off... Not that I'm too thrilled about that.)
- mickeyfrac 3y ago
  I think the idea is you won’t listen to music and watch videos at the same time. So think of it like Google Content with 2 sub categories.
- delecti 3y ago
  I'm sorry, but those complaints are nonsense. Either the price is worth what you'd get out of it, or it isn't. My internet provider doesn't tell me the breakdown of infrastructure/profit/uplink costs. My Netflix bill doesn't tell me the breakdown of new content creation, content licensing, video game development/licensing, infrastructure costs, profits, etc. Should I complain about Netflix making a multi-movie contract with Adam Sandler because he happens to not be my taste? You're complaining about a fantasy you invented not existing.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    Well, it isn’t worth it for me, and I doubt that the inclusion of music is making the bundle cheaper than video by itself. The fact that there are other bundle-only deals available in the world, some of which are worth it for me and others which aren’t, has no bearing on the fact that I dislike this particular one, and Google is losing my business as a direct result of their bundling. > My internet provider doesn't tell me the breakdown of infrastructure/profit/uplink costs. A more appropriate comparison would be an ISP that also forces a Netflix or cable TV subscription onto you. In fact, my ISP offers both TV+internet bundles and internet only. If they would only offer the former, I’d switch to the competition unless it was somehow the same price as an internet-only competitor.
exabrial 3y ago
If they take my money, I expect 0 advertising and tracking me across the web, which they refuse to do, even if asked nicely. They're still tuning algorithms, training models and llms with my personal data and I don't want to be a part of that. So yeah, adblock for me all day long.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  I suspect you would always find a rationale to not pay. It is my experience that people who say "if they'd only change this one thing I'd pay for it" will never pay for it.
- bananapub 3y ago
  OK, so you don't actually want to pay for content, got it.
  - exabrial 3y ago
    Happy to pay for content, but I refuse to pay up in order to _not_ have my personal information used for their profits.
- paxys 3y ago
  "I want an option to pay and remove ads". YouTube adds that option. "Well content creators can still insert their own ads". YouTube adds a label on videos with sponsored segments, and lets you skip ahead. "Nope, it's too expensive, and they still track you." YouTube adds option to turn off all tracking and recommendations. "Nope, I don't trust Google, I'm never going to pay". People are going to find excuses forever rather than just pay $10 or whatever for a service they use for multiple hours every day. The same people who wouldn't think twice about spending that much on two cups of coffee which will last them 5 minutes. This is exactly why we will never have ethical monetization on the internet, and will be stuck with ads and tracking forever.
  - exabrial 3y ago
    > YouTube adds option to turn off all tracking and recommendations cough absolute pure fantasy unadulterated premium bullshit. I subscribed for YT Premium at one point. I watched one video on a subject and magically started seeing adds for it across the internet. Go re-read the terms of service carefully.
paxys 3y ago
Yup. YouTube Premium is exactly what everyone claimed they wanted, and when they released it (at a price of like one sandwich a month) no one wants to pay. This is a perfect example of why straightforward monetization on the internet will never work, and we will be stuck with ads and tracking forever.
- ixwt 3y ago
  It left a sour taste for many people when they gutted features from the YouTube app to put them behind the paywall. You used to be able to play videos with the screen off. But it is now required to be on to play videos, unless you have premium. I also don't believe that they make $14/month from that ads that I would have to endure to watch content otherwise. It strongly feels like a premium to not be assaulted with ads to enjoy content.
- kolbe 3y ago
  There is a middle ground that Google chooses not to take: reasonable amounts of ethical ads. I don't mind ads that inform people of products. I mind ones that actively seek to harm my life--whether it's by ripping me off or encouraging my use of drugs and alcohol--which is 90% of what I see. But if I (someone who has been alcohol free for over a decade) have to watch 30 seconds of people living a happy and prosperous life drinking whiskey, it's them trying to hurt me.
  - bananapub 3y ago
    > There is a middle ground that Google chooses not to take: reasonable amounts of ethical ads. where can I see an example of this sort of thing, using ads you approve of, that scales to generating tens of billions of USD a year (to cover the costs of running YouTube)?
    - kolbe 3y ago
      There's a reasonable way to ask this question without being a child about it. If you want to talk, we can. But I'm not going to engage someone resorting to absurdities like equating "ads I don't approve of" with ones that actively seek to harm their viewers.
martin_a 3y ago
Oh yeah, great idea! Let's pay YouTube/Google, so I can view "a note from todays sponsor" about VPN providers, PCB manufacturing services or some game item gambling site faster/more often.
- bananapub 3y ago
  Ah, so you'd prefer that YouTube had draconian rules about the content of videos, forbidding anyone from mentioning anything they have a commercial involvement with? Sounds very reasonable and easy to enforce and uncontroversial, good point. If you're unhappy with the content of videos then complain to the people that made the video? Or don't watch it?
  - martin_a 3y ago
    I'd very much like if gambling sites were not promoted to minors and there would be honesty about VPN providers and their talking points about anonimity and security, yes.
    - bananapub 3y ago
      so...you want youtube to interfere with the content of videos even more than it does now? and require each video to be approved by a human before posting? that seems like a completely different and unrelated service to what YouTube does.
      - martin_a 3y ago
        Well, it's up to YouTube to decide what to do, but they shouldn't tell me it's "ad-free" if the only change is that I only see one set of gambling ads and not two.
      - taylodl 3y ago
        They don't know what they want - we have some of the highest-paid people in the world here on HN who think content should just appear out of thin air for free. I'm so sick of this mindset that everybody else should work for free while I get paid a fortune for my work. Also, I can skip through a video that's doing a "word from their sponsor." I can't skip through I YouTube ad - YouTube determines how much I'm going to watch before I skip through.
ixwt 3y ago
I agree. I want to support YouTube. But it feels like we're having to pay a premium to not get shown ads, not an equivalent price. I don't agree with you about "most of the web". There are MANY places that will not allow you to pay them to not be bombarded by ads. Even then, to be able to not have to be bombarded with ads everywhere gets rather expensive, and in many cases not possible. I wish there were a simple way to be able to pay content creators (and by extension somehow the platform they are hosting their content on) for just the content. I know I'm in a VERY privileged position to be able to do so. I support a few creators on Patreon (which doesn't make up for using an ad blocker on YouTube, because YouTube still needs to get paid for hosting and providing the content). But many Patreon subscriptions feel ridiculously expensive for what they provide. I'm happy to send $1 to a creator once a month (in bulk through a single charge, to minimize the $0.25 + 2.#% cost that credit card processor extort), but some of these creators that create some content want $10/month for some of their exclusive content. Which is nearly what a Netflix or other streaming platform would cost, and have a significantly larger catalog of content to consume.
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  > I want to support YouTube. Why lol To me, that's like wanting to support the Kremlin. (Where Twitch is North Korea.)
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
Being signed in to YouTube? Yeah, lemme also implant a Google microchip in my C1 vertebra.
jantissler 3y ago
Not for $20 dollars/month. I’ve already watched less and less YouTube because of the ads. It was worse than old school TV in the end. I realized: There’s tons of other great content out there. I don’t need YouTube at all. For the few videos I still watch, I would never pay $240/year. For me this price is not competitive to other offerings online. Not even close.
- jantissler 3y ago
  Ah, I see: It's just $14/month or $168/year when I get it on desktop instead of the app. Still not competitive for me. But that's just me.
  - marcins 3y ago
    I just got an email that my YouTube Premium family membership is going from $AU18/mo up to AU$33/month - that's a ridiculous hike and I won't be paying that when it kicks in April next year.
tclover 3y ago
I don’t want to give money to this awful company. Alphabet is evil.

hypeatei 3y ago

I've never bought YT premium but from what other users have said, they still show ads anyway.

LegitShady 3y ago
negative. No youtube ads when using premium.
wnevets 3y ago
I've never seen an ad from YouTube with premium. Creators inserting ads into their own videos are outside of YouTubes control
- hypeatei 3y ago
  Ah okay. Maybe there is confusion between their YT Music premium and the "video" premium. Some also seem to be saying that sponsored content is what they're referring to.
- Modified3019 3y ago
  “Sponsorblock” is a crowdsourced tool that helps take care of creator ads: https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/ Yt-dlp can also make use of it.
  - wnevets 3y ago
    I just avoid any creator that is spamming their videos with sponsors. For example I have zero problem with how Gamers Nexus does their sponsor bits and it's just not worth trying to block them.
- sophacles 3y ago
  Not really. YouTube can simply say "you must tell us when the sponsored ad starts and stops", and skip over those. Creators who don't do that can face demonitization and having their videos removed from the recommender for premium users. They have all sorts of rules that content creators must follow or it hurts the creator's bottom line - I don't see how this would be different.
  - wnevets 3y ago
    Is YouTube gonna compensate the creators for that lost in Revenue, drastically increase the price of premium or just force them to leave YouTube? Adam Ragusea has a good break down [1] of how making money with YouTube works and your plan ruins the economics of being a creator. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6pVD9Bya3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6pVD9Bya3E
    - brewdad 3y ago
      Maybe the world needs fewer career creators then.
      - wnevets 3y ago
        then the usefulness of YouTube and its premium services deceases.
      - taylodl 3y ago
        You always have the power to not watch those channels. If they lose viewership, and thus income, then there will be fewer creators.
Tyr42 3y ago
There isn't an option to hide shorts.
hermannj314 3y ago
I have YouTube Premium, and YouTube does not show me ads to serve me the content they host. I also get YT Music, so it is a great value. I am not sure where you have been misinformed. Content creators negotiate privately with companies and put relevant ads into their content. YouTube does not force content creators to do this and many do not. This has nothing to do with YouTube or YouTube Premium. I like that YouTube does not illegally suppress the right for content creators to negotiate these private contracts.
savanaly 3y ago
No, they don't. I have been using YT Premium for years and never seen a third party ad of the type I assume you're alluding to. It is true they don't seem to even attempt to prevent video creators from adding ads within the video itself (explicit or implicit product endorsements especially). These ads aren't as objectionable because the incentive is there for the video creator to ensure the ad doesn't drive you away from the video, and often they try their best to make the ad entertaining in the same way their video is. This would be impractical for YT to enforce since the line is blurry between ad and content, so I don't get too grumpy about it, but I would love to pay an additional amount of money to be totally free of the ads.

goalieca 3y ago

Pay money to watch video, video had sponsored content.

passwordoops 3y ago

As others are saying, if I pay for a service to be ad-free, I expect it to be ad-free. Instead they're just double-dipping

celestialcheese 3y ago
What? I pay for youtube premium and I never see ads on youtube. How are they double-dipping?
- CubsFan1060 3y ago
  They are probably referring to ads that the video creators put in.
- enragedcacti 3y ago
  Lots of people seem to feel like they are being ripped off that videos still contain sponsored segments when paying for YT Premium. I don't really get it but it seems common on HN.
  - brewdad 3y ago
    Maybe because those sponsored segments are literally ads. The whole value proposition of YT Premium was that I pay to remove ads and YT pays the creators I watch so they don't need to do that crap.
    - bananapub 3y ago
      you want YouTube to interfere with the content of videos even more than they do now? how much assurance do you want that a video doesn't have any sponsorship? a human viewing each video before it goes on to the CDN? affadvit from the poster that they didn't receive money from any VPN company before mentioning a VPN? why are you blaming YouTube for the poor quality content you're choosing to watch, instead of not watching it or blaming the creator?
    - enragedcacti 3y ago

htk 3y ago

Absolutely, I pay for YouTube premium and I think it's the best of all my streaming services. Ad Blocking, in this case, just reads like stealing cable.

iAMkenough 3y ago
Even stolen cable has ads
antx 3y ago
Funny you mention this. With cable, I used to be able to skip ads with my PVR (MythTV). And that's entirely my right to do so, nobody can strip it from me. My TV, my rules. Same thing with the web. My computer, my rules. But google of course is unhappy about it, and will try to frustrate as many users as it can until they can push their "web integrity" crap down users' throats.
- BXlnt2EachOther 3y ago
  Isn't modern cable quite expensive, and not a direct comparison to ad-supported Youtube? Web suggests the average bill in the US exceeds $200 a month. I saw the streaming cable providers are up to $70/mo; they have gotten more expensive as they bundle more channels. I'm not sure if that's their choice or whether it's part of the bundling practices the cable providers do in negotiations (edit to correct: I meant content providers... though it's sometimes the same company) Technical curiosity: Can you still roll your own DVR? I know Plex has some functionality there, and CableCARDs are/were a thing but cable providers were trying to put an end to those. And I saw DRM for over-the-air is coming down the pipe with ATSC 3.0
synergy20 3y ago
same here,glad to get a family plan,it is valuable for the most part, it provides a service,thus you can be charged,you are not forced to use YouTube either,seems common sense to me yes it is not 100% tracking free, so are most if not all Internet services, all bad but YouTube does not stand out

acheron 3y ago

A huge part of the problem we have with it is the constant tracking and data gathering. Paying them isn't going to stop tracking. Hell, if you stay signed in (and give them a credit card to link to your account!) they're just going to track you even more.

bananapub 3y ago
Ah, so you're paying for Youtube Red and have found that your ad blocker doesn't work to block tracking cookies? Weird - have you filed a bug?

tinus_hn 3y ago

But not in exchange for not tracking you. If you pay, obviously you have to log in and in typical Google fashion have your viewing history tracked, associated with you and stored forever.

enragedcacti 3y ago
You can disable watch history pretty easily. Obviously you have to trust Google but I'd assume they would be breaking several laws in various jurisdictions if they were still storing history longterm after you opted out. Definitely not out of the question but its something. Anecdotally, the setting was thorough enough for me that it completely broke Youtube Music's recommendation engine. Every single source of recommended content would give the exact same songs in the exact same order no matter how many times I would listen.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  > I'd assume they would be breaking several laws in various jurisdictions if they were still storing history after you opted out Breaking privacy regulation is literally Facebook's business model and they've been very successful at that. It's dumb to think Google isn't doing the same.
  - enragedcacti 3y ago
    I completely agree that you shouldn't trust Google not to break the law, and there's no real way to prove they aren't storing and using that data somehow. They've almost certainly weighed the pros and cons of retaining and using that info and we don't have any clue how that shook out. All we can really do is guess whether or not they think its worth the risk and make our decisions accordingly. Personally, I think my chance of having my history tracked and abused is lower logged in + history off versus being logged out where I don't have the option and Google can still fingerprint me 17 different ways. There are obviously many more options for the more privacy conscious but that's where I'm at.

lxgr 3y ago

No, YouTube is happy to sell me a music streaming subscription I have no intention of ever touching together with the ad-free video streaming subscription I am willing to pay for. This also makes it completely opaque who gets my money at the end of the month, assuming I only use the video part: Only video creators? Or am I just paying into a global pot that is divided proportionally, i.e. would I end up paying x% for music despite neither wanting nor using that on YouTube? Imagine Steam making you buy a movie download with every game you purchase, or Amazon requiring you to buy a box of cupcakes with every Kindle book. (Actually Amazon requiring me to pay for a video streaming service for expedited deliveries isn't too far off... Not that I'm too thrilled about that.)

mickeyfrac 3y ago
I think the idea is you won’t listen to music and watch videos at the same time. So think of it like Google Content with 2 sub categories.
delecti 3y ago
I'm sorry, but those complaints are nonsense. Either the price is worth what you'd get out of it, or it isn't. My internet provider doesn't tell me the breakdown of infrastructure/profit/uplink costs. My Netflix bill doesn't tell me the breakdown of new content creation, content licensing, video game development/licensing, infrastructure costs, profits, etc. Should I complain about Netflix making a multi-movie contract with Adam Sandler because he happens to not be my taste? You're complaining about a fantasy you invented not existing.
- lxgr 3y ago
  Well, it isn’t worth it for me, and I doubt that the inclusion of music is making the bundle cheaper than video by itself. The fact that there are other bundle-only deals available in the world, some of which are worth it for me and others which aren’t, has no bearing on the fact that I dislike this particular one, and Google is losing my business as a direct result of their bundling. > My internet provider doesn't tell me the breakdown of infrastructure/profit/uplink costs. A more appropriate comparison would be an ISP that also forces a Netflix or cable TV subscription onto you. In fact, my ISP offers both TV+internet bundles and internet only. If they would only offer the former, I’d switch to the competition unless it was somehow the same price as an internet-only competitor.

exabrial 3y ago

If they take my money, I expect 0 advertising and tracking me across the web, which they refuse to do, even if asked nicely. They're still tuning algorithms, training models and llms with my personal data and I don't want to be a part of that. So yeah, adblock for me all day long.

mvdtnz 3y ago
I suspect you would always find a rationale to not pay. It is my experience that people who say "if they'd only change this one thing I'd pay for it" will never pay for it.
bananapub 3y ago
OK, so you don't actually want to pay for content, got it.
- exabrial 3y ago
  Happy to pay for content, but I refuse to pay up in order to _not_ have my personal information used for their profits.
paxys 3y ago
"I want an option to pay and remove ads". YouTube adds that option. "Well content creators can still insert their own ads". YouTube adds a label on videos with sponsored segments, and lets you skip ahead. "Nope, it's too expensive, and they still track you." YouTube adds option to turn off all tracking and recommendations. "Nope, I don't trust Google, I'm never going to pay". People are going to find excuses forever rather than just pay $10 or whatever for a service they use for multiple hours every day. The same people who wouldn't think twice about spending that much on two cups of coffee which will last them 5 minutes. This is exactly why we will never have ethical monetization on the internet, and will be stuck with ads and tracking forever.
- exabrial 3y ago
  > YouTube adds option to turn off all tracking and recommendations cough absolute pure fantasy unadulterated premium bullshit. I subscribed for YT Premium at one point. I watched one video on a subject and magically started seeing adds for it across the internet. Go re-read the terms of service carefully.

paxys 3y ago

Yup. YouTube Premium is exactly what everyone claimed they wanted, and when they released it (at a price of like one sandwich a month) no one wants to pay. This is a perfect example of why straightforward monetization on the internet will never work, and we will be stuck with ads and tracking forever.

ixwt 3y ago
It left a sour taste for many people when they gutted features from the YouTube app to put them behind the paywall. You used to be able to play videos with the screen off. But it is now required to be on to play videos, unless you have premium. I also don't believe that they make $14/month from that ads that I would have to endure to watch content otherwise. It strongly feels like a premium to not be assaulted with ads to enjoy content.
kolbe 3y ago
There is a middle ground that Google chooses not to take: reasonable amounts of ethical ads. I don't mind ads that inform people of products. I mind ones that actively seek to harm my life--whether it's by ripping me off or encouraging my use of drugs and alcohol--which is 90% of what I see. But if I (someone who has been alcohol free for over a decade) have to watch 30 seconds of people living a happy and prosperous life drinking whiskey, it's them trying to hurt me.
- bananapub 3y ago
  > There is a middle ground that Google chooses not to take: reasonable amounts of ethical ads. where can I see an example of this sort of thing, using ads you approve of, that scales to generating tens of billions of USD a year (to cover the costs of running YouTube)?
  - kolbe 3y ago
    There's a reasonable way to ask this question without being a child about it. If you want to talk, we can. But I'm not going to engage someone resorting to absurdities like equating "ads I don't approve of" with ones that actively seek to harm their viewers.

martin_a 3y ago

Oh yeah, great idea! Let's pay YouTube/Google, so I can view "a note from todays sponsor" about VPN providers, PCB manufacturing services or some game item gambling site faster/more often.

bananapub 3y ago
Ah, so you'd prefer that YouTube had draconian rules about the content of videos, forbidding anyone from mentioning anything they have a commercial involvement with? Sounds very reasonable and easy to enforce and uncontroversial, good point. If you're unhappy with the content of videos then complain to the people that made the video? Or don't watch it?
- martin_a 3y ago
  I'd very much like if gambling sites were not promoted to minors and there would be honesty about VPN providers and their talking points about anonimity and security, yes.
  - bananapub 3y ago
    so...you want youtube to interfere with the content of videos even more than it does now? and require each video to be approved by a human before posting? that seems like a completely different and unrelated service to what YouTube does.
    - martin_a 3y ago
      Well, it's up to YouTube to decide what to do, but they shouldn't tell me it's "ad-free" if the only change is that I only see one set of gambling ads and not two.
    - taylodl 3y ago
      They don't know what they want - we have some of the highest-paid people in the world here on HN who think content should just appear out of thin air for free. I'm so sick of this mindset that everybody else should work for free while I get paid a fortune for my work. Also, I can skip through a video that's doing a "word from their sponsor." I can't skip through I YouTube ad - YouTube determines how much I'm going to watch before I skip through.

ixwt 3y ago

I agree. I want to support YouTube. But it feels like we're having to pay a premium to not get shown ads, not an equivalent price. I don't agree with you about "most of the web". There are MANY places that will not allow you to pay them to not be bombarded by ads. Even then, to be able to not have to be bombarded with ads everywhere gets rather expensive, and in many cases not possible. I wish there were a simple way to be able to pay content creators (and by extension somehow the platform they are hosting their content on) for just the content. I know I'm in a VERY privileged position to be able to do so. I support a few creators on Patreon (which doesn't make up for using an ad blocker on YouTube, because YouTube still needs to get paid for hosting and providing the content). But many Patreon subscriptions feel ridiculously expensive for what they provide. I'm happy to send $1 to a creator once a month (in bulk through a single charge, to minimize the $0.25 + 2.#% cost that credit card processor extort), but some of these creators that create some content want $10/month for some of their exclusive content. Which is nearly what a Netflix or other streaming platform would cost, and have a significantly larger catalog of content to consume.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago
> I want to support YouTube. Why lol To me, that's like wanting to support the Kremlin. (Where Twitch is North Korea.)

shrimp_emoji 3y ago

Being signed in to YouTube? Yeah, lemme also implant a Google microchip in my C1 vertebra.

jantissler 3y ago

Not for $20 dollars/month. I’ve already watched less and less YouTube because of the ads. It was worse than old school TV in the end. I realized: There’s tons of other great content out there. I don’t need YouTube at all. For the few videos I still watch, I would never pay $240/year. For me this price is not competitive to other offerings online. Not even close.

jantissler 3y ago
Ah, I see: It's just $14/month or $168/year when I get it on desktop instead of the app. Still not competitive for me. But that's just me.
- marcins 3y ago
  I just got an email that my YouTube Premium family membership is going from $AU18/mo up to AU$33/month - that's a ridiculous hike and I won't be paying that when it kicks in April next year.

tclover 3y ago

I don’t want to give money to this awful company. Alphabet is evil.