5 ms·

You can keep bringing up Google, but you're still glossing over the part where you're not paying the people creating the content you're watching. Seems awfully

You can keep bringing up Google, but you're still glossing over the part where you're not paying the people creating the content you're watching. Seems awfully convenient.

baobun 1y ago
If enough people do it, monetizing on Youtube becomes untenable for most, driving creators to hopefully healthier platforms who might now stand a chance.
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  So if I don't like Visa and Mastercard, do I also get moral carte blanche to not pay anyone because hey I'm totally urging them to only use merchants that I prefer? Sounds like awfully convenient motivated reasoning.
  - spaceribs 1y ago
    Are you asking what we should do about this situation? Split up any and all monopolies, and nationalize what should provide a common good such as payment networks and internet infrastructure.
    - matwood 1y ago
      As a Google shareholder, I would love for YT to be spun out.
  - daniel-grigg 1y ago
    That’s how the market works. You avoid paying extra taxes than required right? Even though that denies the government extra funding. The only difference being one has been decided as wrong and the other is fine.
    - StackRanker3000 1y ago
      This is a weird framing Yes, society has deemed that it’s fine to make use of the avenues that have been explicitly created to reduce your tax burden - that’s why they were created. Society is also relatively fine with using unintended loopholes for the same purpose (although it is a lot more controversial and criticized), because we don’t tend to punish people for breaking laws, rules and regulations that don’t exist. When we end up caring a lot about them, we plug the gaps The other person was talking about straight up not paying for goods and services that are sold at a given price, which is stealing. The more apt comparison would be to tax evasion (actually breaking the law), which is a crime, widely considered wrong and punished accordingly
    - hombre_fatal 1y ago
      It isn't how the market works, and you absolutely don't take this line of reasoning when paying someone rendering services to you which is why you instead tried to analogize it with taxes. You only use this argument for Youtube content creators because it's trivial to avoid payment and then backsplain it with unique moral justifications.
  - m4rtink 1y ago
    Arent Visa and Mastercard defacto global monopolies that have had many controversies in the oast or bowed to outside pressure, refusing to handle payments for many perfectly legal businesses ?
    - Workaccount2 1y ago
      mono, like in monopoly, means single. They would be a duopoly. Which they aren't anyway because there is also amex and discover. So maybe a quadopoly?
      - baobun 1y ago
        Oligopoly, typically.
    - hombre_fatal 1y ago
      Yes. And they get some of your money in almost every transaction. Does that mean you are morally justified to dine out for free now?
      - beeflet 1y ago
        The metaphor doesn't work because I can still pay in cash. A better metaphor would be choosing not to tip the waiter because you don't believe in the custom of tipping
- rbits 1y ago
  Relying solely on YouTube monetisation is already untenable for many channels. That's why they do sponsorships and Patreon
mitthrowaway2 1y ago
No I'm not blocking the ads, I'm just avoiding YouTube as much as possible and desperate for someone to break their stranglehold. If I were blocking the ads, I wouldn't be aware of how bad it's gotten.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  Vid.me broke the stranglehold back in 2016-2017. Their story reveals that all these people hating on YouTube are actually just selfish children doing mental gymnastics. Their savior came, disrupted YouTube pretty deeply, then went bankrupt.
  - mitthrowaway2 1y ago
    That's a needlessly hostile remark. This is part of my point. A content platform is a two-sided market, and you can't unilaterally defect from a Nash equilibrium. Back in 2017, YouTube wasn't running unskippable investment-scam and tobacco ads. They were doing their best to attract content viewers and producers away from competitors by offering a good experience. Once they'd driven the alternatives to the ground and achieved network lock-in, they began twisting the screws, gradually running ever more intrusive and distasteful ads. Nebula might have a shot at breaking the stranglehold, and I support them, but it remains to be seen if they can do it. A lot of content creators would have to move there, and there's a lot of random stuff (recorded lectures, video instructions, music, etc) that probably never will because it doesn't fit their premium original content model.
    - charlie0 1y ago
      I used to pay Nebula precisely because they had premium original content, however they let in a lot of other creators to widen the (see the tyranny of the marginal user) type of content. I've since canceled my subscription because it's gotten bloated with too much lower quality content. The whole point of Nebula is NOT to become another YT, it's meant to be curated source of media.
      - 1y ago
BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
I give my favorite creators money through the ubiquitous patreons.
- cma 1y ago
  Patreon is also getting enshittified, grandfathering rates for the legacy people who give it a network effect, and then jacking them up on new creators to take advantage of their moat.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
    Unsurprising. I sort of feel this is just the natural cycle of the company structure, and that we have to hope any enshittifying service eventually gets bad enough to drive a large group to another platform earlier in its lifecycle. I’d support creators on any other platform if they offered to take money on it, but there’s only so much I can do as the person giving the money.
- hirvi74 1y ago
  Perhaps controversial, but I rather just have ads. Not that I do not think this is a preferable model, but rather, donates cost real money and ads cost nothing except time. While time is finite and valuable, if I am already on YouTube, then I have already committed to choice of wasting that nebulous amount of time in the first place.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
    I’d absolutely rather give money. For me there’s a lot less friction in that even if technically it costs time all the same. With a job I have control over how I convert time into money; not so with watching ads. As much as youtube can waste time, I also feel like I’ve been given genuine value by certain people on the site, so I wouldn’t say it’s simply wasting time.
    - hirvi74 1y ago
      I watch quite a large array of channels. I am not sure I could feasibly afford to donate a meaningful amount to all them. So then, I am forced into the dilemma of deciding which ones are more worthy than others, and that is not something I am particularly willing to do. If one's patreon did have perks associated with it, then I would be more inclined to 'donate', as well.
efdee 1y ago
I'm very much willing to pay for their content, but not in the way of watching ads during the videos.
- aprilthird2021 1y ago
  So you do pay for YouTube Premium then? Or are we not going to hear back from you?
  - efdee 1y ago
    I used to, but I don't consume enough YouTube videos anymore to make it worthwhile. Give me a top-up plan that I can use to pay for individual videos and I will definitely do it. But what's with the weirdly aggressive second part of your message?
- chii 1y ago
  Your individual willingness is irrelevant. There are not enough people with your willingness to make this mechanism work by itself. So the choice is either to have the content exist, but rely on ads, or not have the content exist. And it's not your choice - it's the content creator's choice.
  - notpushkin 1y ago
    If it’s not my choice, then there’s no problem if I block the ads, right?
  - lxgr 1y ago
    You can pay for Youtube Premium right now and the ads go away. For a long time, my criticism was that Youtube Premium is needlessly bundled with Youtube Music, which is redundant for me as a Spotify user and which I refused to pay for accordingly. Now, in at least a few countries, there's "Youtube Premium Lite", which is basically regular Youtube but without ads. If you live in one of these, in my view that's close to the ideal scenario: Everybody gets to choose between watching ads and paying.
  - 1y ago

You can keep bringing up Google, but you're still glossing over the part where you're not paying the people creating the content you're watching. Seems awfully convenient.

baobun 1y ago

If enough people do it, monetizing on Youtube becomes untenable for most, driving creators to hopefully healthier platforms who might now stand a chance.

hombre_fatal 1y ago
So if I don't like Visa and Mastercard, do I also get moral carte blanche to not pay anyone because hey I'm totally urging them to only use merchants that I prefer? Sounds like awfully convenient motivated reasoning.
- spaceribs 1y ago
  Are you asking what we should do about this situation? Split up any and all monopolies, and nationalize what should provide a common good such as payment networks and internet infrastructure.
  - matwood 1y ago
    As a Google shareholder, I would love for YT to be spun out.
- daniel-grigg 1y ago
  That’s how the market works. You avoid paying extra taxes than required right? Even though that denies the government extra funding. The only difference being one has been decided as wrong and the other is fine.
  - StackRanker3000 1y ago
    This is a weird framing Yes, society has deemed that it’s fine to make use of the avenues that have been explicitly created to reduce your tax burden - that’s why they were created. Society is also relatively fine with using unintended loopholes for the same purpose (although it is a lot more controversial and criticized), because we don’t tend to punish people for breaking laws, rules and regulations that don’t exist. When we end up caring a lot about them, we plug the gaps The other person was talking about straight up not paying for goods and services that are sold at a given price, which is stealing. The more apt comparison would be to tax evasion (actually breaking the law), which is a crime, widely considered wrong and punished accordingly
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    It isn't how the market works, and you absolutely don't take this line of reasoning when paying someone rendering services to you which is why you instead tried to analogize it with taxes. You only use this argument for Youtube content creators because it's trivial to avoid payment and then backsplain it with unique moral justifications.
- m4rtink 1y ago
  Arent Visa and Mastercard defacto global monopolies that have had many controversies in the oast or bowed to outside pressure, refusing to handle payments for many perfectly legal businesses ?
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    mono, like in monopoly, means single. They would be a duopoly. Which they aren't anyway because there is also amex and discover. So maybe a quadopoly?
    - baobun 1y ago
      Oligopoly, typically.
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    Yes. And they get some of your money in almost every transaction. Does that mean you are morally justified to dine out for free now?
    - beeflet 1y ago
      The metaphor doesn't work because I can still pay in cash. A better metaphor would be choosing not to tip the waiter because you don't believe in the custom of tipping
rbits 1y ago
Relying solely on YouTube monetisation is already untenable for many channels. That's why they do sponsorships and Patreon

mitthrowaway2 1y ago

No I'm not blocking the ads, I'm just avoiding YouTube as much as possible and desperate for someone to break their stranglehold. If I were blocking the ads, I wouldn't be aware of how bad it's gotten.

Workaccount2 1y ago
Vid.me broke the stranglehold back in 2016-2017. Their story reveals that all these people hating on YouTube are actually just selfish children doing mental gymnastics. Their savior came, disrupted YouTube pretty deeply, then went bankrupt.
- mitthrowaway2 1y ago
  That's a needlessly hostile remark. This is part of my point. A content platform is a two-sided market, and you can't unilaterally defect from a Nash equilibrium. Back in 2017, YouTube wasn't running unskippable investment-scam and tobacco ads. They were doing their best to attract content viewers and producers away from competitors by offering a good experience. Once they'd driven the alternatives to the ground and achieved network lock-in, they began twisting the screws, gradually running ever more intrusive and distasteful ads. Nebula might have a shot at breaking the stranglehold, and I support them, but it remains to be seen if they can do it. A lot of content creators would have to move there, and there's a lot of random stuff (recorded lectures, video instructions, music, etc) that probably never will because it doesn't fit their premium original content model.
  - charlie0 1y ago
    I used to pay Nebula precisely because they had premium original content, however they let in a lot of other creators to widen the (see the tyranny of the marginal user) type of content. I've since canceled my subscription because it's gotten bloated with too much lower quality content. The whole point of Nebula is NOT to become another YT, it's meant to be curated source of media.
    - 1y ago

BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago

I give my favorite creators money through the ubiquitous patreons.

cma 1y ago
Patreon is also getting enshittified, grandfathering rates for the legacy people who give it a network effect, and then jacking them up on new creators to take advantage of their moat.
- BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
  Unsurprising. I sort of feel this is just the natural cycle of the company structure, and that we have to hope any enshittifying service eventually gets bad enough to drive a large group to another platform earlier in its lifecycle. I’d support creators on any other platform if they offered to take money on it, but there’s only so much I can do as the person giving the money.
hirvi74 1y ago
Perhaps controversial, but I rather just have ads. Not that I do not think this is a preferable model, but rather, donates cost real money and ads cost nothing except time. While time is finite and valuable, if I am already on YouTube, then I have already committed to choice of wasting that nebulous amount of time in the first place.
- BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
  I’d absolutely rather give money. For me there’s a lot less friction in that even if technically it costs time all the same. With a job I have control over how I convert time into money; not so with watching ads. As much as youtube can waste time, I also feel like I’ve been given genuine value by certain people on the site, so I wouldn’t say it’s simply wasting time.
  - hirvi74 1y ago
    I watch quite a large array of channels. I am not sure I could feasibly afford to donate a meaningful amount to all them. So then, I am forced into the dilemma of deciding which ones are more worthy than others, and that is not something I am particularly willing to do. If one's patreon did have perks associated with it, then I would be more inclined to 'donate', as well.

efdee 1y ago

I'm very much willing to pay for their content, but not in the way of watching ads during the videos.

aprilthird2021 1y ago
So you do pay for YouTube Premium then? Or are we not going to hear back from you?
- efdee 1y ago
  I used to, but I don't consume enough YouTube videos anymore to make it worthwhile. Give me a top-up plan that I can use to pay for individual videos and I will definitely do it. But what's with the weirdly aggressive second part of your message?
chii 1y ago
Your individual willingness is irrelevant. There are not enough people with your willingness to make this mechanism work by itself. So the choice is either to have the content exist, but rely on ads, or not have the content exist. And it's not your choice - it's the content creator's choice.
- notpushkin 1y ago
  If it’s not my choice, then there’s no problem if I block the ads, right?
- lxgr 1y ago
  You can pay for Youtube Premium right now and the ads go away. For a long time, my criticism was that Youtube Premium is needlessly bundled with Youtube Music, which is redundant for me as a Spotify user and which I refused to pay for accordingly. Now, in at least a few countries, there's "Youtube Premium Lite", which is basically regular Youtube but without ads. If you live in one of these, in my view that's close to the ideal scenario: Everybody gets to choose between watching ads and paying.
- 1y ago