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If YouTube launched today with ads and blocking adblockers, people wouldn't have the same reaction. Either they'd be fine with it, or they'd stop using it, and

by diggan 3y ago

If YouTube launched today with ads and blocking adblockers, people wouldn't have the same reaction. Either they'd be fine with it, or they'd stop using it, and a small minority would try to work around it. But people got used to YouTube first without any sort of ads at all, then a small bit of ads, then a lot of ads. Now another change from what people are used to is introduced, where they try to block adblockers, so of course people will have a reaction. Not saying it's "ethically OK" or whatever, just trying to reason about why people think like they do. I do understand it somewhat. Imagine if HN suddenly started having proper ads (not just job ads like today), then the community would also react to it, as we've built our expectations on how it is today.

piva00 3y ago
YouTube went slicing the salami to display more ads over time. It got to a point where I decided to pay them for the "Premium Lite" subscription since the only feature I wanted was "no ads", I didn't care about downloads, YouTube Music, or whatever other offerings they have, I just wanted no ads and was happily paying for it. Then they killed that subscription tier, I just got an email with 30-day notice that my Premium Lite subscription wouldn't exist anymore and I had to upgrade to Premium, that was the last straw and I'm happily using ad blockers and will continue using it for as long as they work. I tried to pay for it, they fucked me over, I have no ethical issues with using an ad blocker, it's the only power I have left. That's the core issue, they slowly degraded the experience to show more ads while also removing ways to pay for a no ads feature without the cruft of other unnecessary features, I won't pay for them.
- rychco 3y ago
  Completely agree. I would happily disable my Adblock (on YouTube only, general internet is still unusable without it) if I could pay a lower price just for this feature. I strongly suspect this is also the case for the overwhelming majority of current/potential premium customers.
3D30497420 3y ago
Agreed with this, but my main issue is the price. In Europe, the family plan is €23.99. In contrast, Netflix is €12.99 (2 devices, 1080p). Now they obviously have very different economics and features, but in my regular use I don't really care about that, I just see double the cost for YouTube. This is doubly annoying since most of the YouTube channels I watch earn almost nothing from YouTube and instead subsist on money from sponsors. YouTube is obviously providing "free" hosting, management tools, and traffic to these channels. However, YouTube also spends nothing on content creation and assumes none of the risk. Oh, and I'm also paying for YouTube Music, which I never use. So it just seems like an expensive, bad deal as a consumer. And my alternative is the "free" site which is has an appalling number of commercials and keeps getting worse. So bad deals all around.
- jnsaff2 3y ago
  Also I find it very hard to not be cynical about what google does my data even if I pay for Youtube. I would be surprised if they did not learn from my viewing history what my interests are and then try to sell my eyeballs outside of youtube for much more money. Also as a counter point to myself or actually rather to the whole targeted ads thing: where I can't block youtube ads (mostly iphone) I get the dumbest effing ads that I would never click or have zero interest in. About 80% are casino, gambling, betting, etc .. absolutely zero chance I would try any of that. Rest is either feminine products or served in a language I find offensive. They have the data on me but fail to do anything useful with it.
  - jsnell 3y ago
    You've almost certainly told them not to use the data (either any data, or just YouTube watch history, which have separate controls), and they're honoring that request. But you've now built some contorted mental model where you think they must obviously be lying about while also being completely incompetent at using said data. Just how hard is it to believe that they're not lying in the first place?
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
zelphirkalt 3y ago
There is a problem with this of course. It is like a bait and switch kinda thing. Creators uploaded their content to the platform that was without ads. Their contributions to the content of the platform is what makes or breaks the product. Now they see the platform being ruined. Maybe YouTube just needs to scale back a bit. Maybe it should never have gotten this big in the first place. Maybe a "community supports it" model would work, if it was smaller. But YouTube is now designed as a money grab (regardless of whether it is a net plus for Google in the end). In an alternative universe YouTube would run libre code and would be open to anyone looking at the code and deploying it on their own servers, community driven and financed project etc. I certainly will not feel sorry for a company like Google, when they run a platform that covers more dark pattern than most other websites combined and don't share what exactly happens with user data. Google extracts more than enough money out of unethically obtained user data. I don't think we need to be "afraid" that they could go out of business any time soon.

by diggan 3y ago

piva00 3y ago

YouTube went slicing the salami to display more ads over time. It got to a point where I decided to pay them for the "Premium Lite" subscription since the only feature I wanted was "no ads", I didn't care about downloads, YouTube Music, or whatever other offerings they have, I just wanted no ads and was happily paying for it. Then they killed that subscription tier, I just got an email with 30-day notice that my Premium Lite subscription wouldn't exist anymore and I had to upgrade to Premium, that was the last straw and I'm happily using ad blockers and will continue using it for as long as they work. I tried to pay for it, they fucked me over, I have no ethical issues with using an ad blocker, it's the only power I have left. That's the core issue, they slowly degraded the experience to show more ads while also removing ways to pay for a no ads feature without the cruft of other unnecessary features, I won't pay for them.

rychco 3y ago
Completely agree. I would happily disable my Adblock (on YouTube only, general internet is still unusable without it) if I could pay a lower price just for this feature. I strongly suspect this is also the case for the overwhelming majority of current/potential premium customers.

3D30497420 3y ago

Agreed with this, but my main issue is the price. In Europe, the family plan is €23.99. In contrast, Netflix is €12.99 (2 devices, 1080p). Now they obviously have very different economics and features, but in my regular use I don't really care about that, I just see double the cost for YouTube. This is doubly annoying since most of the YouTube channels I watch earn almost nothing from YouTube and instead subsist on money from sponsors. YouTube is obviously providing "free" hosting, management tools, and traffic to these channels. However, YouTube also spends nothing on content creation and assumes none of the risk. Oh, and I'm also paying for YouTube Music, which I never use. So it just seems like an expensive, bad deal as a consumer. And my alternative is the "free" site which is has an appalling number of commercials and keeps getting worse. So bad deals all around.

jnsaff2 3y ago
Also I find it very hard to not be cynical about what google does my data even if I pay for Youtube. I would be surprised if they did not learn from my viewing history what my interests are and then try to sell my eyeballs outside of youtube for much more money. Also as a counter point to myself or actually rather to the whole targeted ads thing: where I can't block youtube ads (mostly iphone) I get the dumbest effing ads that I would never click or have zero interest in. About 80% are casino, gambling, betting, etc .. absolutely zero chance I would try any of that. Rest is either feminine products or served in a language I find offensive. They have the data on me but fail to do anything useful with it.
- jsnell 3y ago
  You've almost certainly told them not to use the data (either any data, or just YouTube watch history, which have separate controls), and they're honoring that request. But you've now built some contorted mental model where you think they must obviously be lying about while also being completely incompetent at using said data. Just how hard is it to believe that they're not lying in the first place?
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago

zelphirkalt 3y ago

There is a problem with this of course. It is like a bait and switch kinda thing. Creators uploaded their content to the platform that was without ads. Their contributions to the content of the platform is what makes or breaks the product. Now they see the platform being ruined. Maybe YouTube just needs to scale back a bit. Maybe it should never have gotten this big in the first place. Maybe a "community supports it" model would work, if it was smaller. But YouTube is now designed as a money grab (regardless of whether it is a net plus for Google in the end). In an alternative universe YouTube would run libre code and would be open to anyone looking at the code and deploying it on their own servers, community driven and financed project etc. I certainly will not feel sorry for a company like Google, when they run a platform that covers more dark pattern than most other websites combined and don't share what exactly happens with user data. Google extracts more than enough money out of unethically obtained user data. I don't think we need to be "afraid" that they could go out of business any time soon.