5 ms·

If you had a lemonade stand, and I came and drank one, told you it was bad and didn't pay, that's one thing. I'd probably not come back. If I kept coming every

If you had a lemonade stand, and I came and drank one, told you it was bad and didn't pay, that's one thing. I'd probably not come back. If I kept coming everyday, multiple times a day, and never paid "because its bad", it's extremely unlikely that I don't like the lemonade, and extremely likely that I just like that it's free as long as I complain.

mhuffman 1y ago
I am not sure that this example really works. Youtube is happy to give you all the "free lemonade" you want (from videos that aren't really monetizable) but the ones that are, they make onerous to use. I get 20+ ads per day right now from an Internet service that I already use, and get untold ads from products that I would never use. Some of the ads are up to 1 hour in duration. Granted, they mercifully offer a skip button, but it seems to me that the ad is being forced on you, not offered to you. That is the big difference. A funny, engaging ad is not a problem for nearly anyone.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  No, the ad is not being forced on you. It's your choice to go to youtube and watch the video. No one is forcing that on you. Youtube is a service that is offered. If you don't like youtube or the ads, you can not use the service. Just like no one is forcing you to go to the lemonade stand.
  - NewsaHackO 1y ago
    Or he can just use it and block ads :)
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
Telaneo 1y ago
If I drink your lemonade, you no longer have it. If I watch your video, you still have it.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  The cost to youtube is the overhead. Youtube doesn't even pay for the videos, but the infrastructure, delivery network, and service is very expensive. It's a very naive view to think that serving videos is a zero-cost endeavor because the video isn't consumed.
  - Telaneo 1y ago
    If they don't want people to watch without paying, they can put up a paywall.
- whatevertrevor 1y ago
  Ah yes the infinitely reproducible digital content fallacy. If you watch a movie at the cinema, they still have the movie, do you expect that to be free too? Products have more than just marginal production costs, especially true for digital ones.
  - Telaneo 1y ago
    > do you expect that to be free too? The seating and good screen and audio? No. The digital file? I don't expect Disney to provide that free of charge, or at all for that matter, but I do believe it should be free. Copyright has gone way too far of one end of the scale, and I'd like to pull it as far as possible to the other side, then hopefully we can meet in the middle in a position we can both respect. The current position taken by Society™ is one I don't respect.
    - whatevertrevor 1y ago
      I agree copyright goes too far, but that doesn't mean we should just delete everything. Creative content producers still need food to eat. We still need mechanisms to pay them for it, the more direct the better. The value of digital content comes from more than just the final sequence of bytes.
autoexec 1y ago
It's more like a lemonade stand which advertises a free glass of lemonade to anyone who asks for one, but every time someone comes up and asks for a glass the guy handing out cups gives a long-winded highly insulting sermon about how the person drinking should live their life. Then the lemonade stand guy feels entitled to bitch about it when more and more people start showing up wearing headphones because they don't want to hear his bullshit even though literally nobody came for his abuse, what they came for was just the free lemonade. The people still show up though because clearly people like the lemonade, they just hate the annoying guy who won't shut up about his rude opinions nobody asked for.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  If you go to the side table of the stand, you can purchase a lemonade, no hassle, no sermon. But people are incredibly opposed to this because they genuinely believe that they are entitled to this lemonade at no cost.
  - autoexec 1y ago
    > If you go to the side table of the stand, you can purchase a lemonade, no hassle, no sermon. But people are incredibly opposed to this because they genuinely believe that they are entitled to this lemonade at no cost. How dare people genuinely believe they are entitled to this lemonade at no cost, when it's got a huge sign that says "FREE LEMONADE"! Youtube has every right to take down the free lemonade sign and paywall off their service, but they wont because they know they make far more money luring in the people who come for the free videos, sucking up their personal data, and then increasingly abusing them until some number of suckers cave and start paying into their protection racket scheme. A racket is exactly what youtube premium is too. Never pay someone for protection against the very harms they're causing you. There's nothing to stop them from demanding increasing amounts of protection money whenever they feel like it, which is exactly what Google has done. Repeatedly. Most recently sticking their oldest suckers with a 62% hike in protection fees. (https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1jqzu4g/et_tu_youtube/ https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1jqzu4g/et_tu_yout...) Don't encourage or try to justify that kind of shit. Just put on a pair a headphones and enjoy the sweet lemonade Google chooses to offer for "free". Don't forget that even with those headphones, Google is still collecting every scrap of data they can get from you and your device while you're using their service and that they'll happily leverage all of that data against you in any way they can think of, any time they feel it might benefit them. That price is itself high enough, but for me still worth what I'm getting from the content I view.

mhuffman 1y ago

I am not sure that this example really works. Youtube is happy to give you all the "free lemonade" you want (from videos that aren't really monetizable) but the ones that are, they make onerous to use. I get 20+ ads per day right now from an Internet service that I already use, and get untold ads from products that I would never use. Some of the ads are up to 1 hour in duration. Granted, they mercifully offer a skip button, but it seems to me that the ad is being forced on you, not offered to you. That is the big difference. A funny, engaging ad is not a problem for nearly anyone.

Workaccount2 1y ago
No, the ad is not being forced on you. It's your choice to go to youtube and watch the video. No one is forcing that on you. Youtube is a service that is offered. If you don't like youtube or the ads, you can not use the service. Just like no one is forcing you to go to the lemonade stand.
- NewsaHackO 1y ago
  Or he can just use it and block ads :)
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]

Telaneo 1y ago

If I drink your lemonade, you no longer have it. If I watch your video, you still have it.

Workaccount2 1y ago
The cost to youtube is the overhead. Youtube doesn't even pay for the videos, but the infrastructure, delivery network, and service is very expensive. It's a very naive view to think that serving videos is a zero-cost endeavor because the video isn't consumed.
- Telaneo 1y ago
  If they don't want people to watch without paying, they can put up a paywall.
whatevertrevor 1y ago
Ah yes the infinitely reproducible digital content fallacy. If you watch a movie at the cinema, they still have the movie, do you expect that to be free too? Products have more than just marginal production costs, especially true for digital ones.
- Telaneo 1y ago
  > do you expect that to be free too? The seating and good screen and audio? No. The digital file? I don't expect Disney to provide that free of charge, or at all for that matter, but I do believe it should be free. Copyright has gone way too far of one end of the scale, and I'd like to pull it as far as possible to the other side, then hopefully we can meet in the middle in a position we can both respect. The current position taken by Society™ is one I don't respect.
  - whatevertrevor 1y ago
    I agree copyright goes too far, but that doesn't mean we should just delete everything. Creative content producers still need food to eat. We still need mechanisms to pay them for it, the more direct the better. The value of digital content comes from more than just the final sequence of bytes.

autoexec 1y ago

It's more like a lemonade stand which advertises a free glass of lemonade to anyone who asks for one, but every time someone comes up and asks for a glass the guy handing out cups gives a long-winded highly insulting sermon about how the person drinking should live their life. Then the lemonade stand guy feels entitled to bitch about it when more and more people start showing up wearing headphones because they don't want to hear his bullshit even though literally nobody came for his abuse, what they came for was just the free lemonade. The people still show up though because clearly people like the lemonade, they just hate the annoying guy who won't shut up about his rude opinions nobody asked for.

Workaccount2 1y ago
If you go to the side table of the stand, you can purchase a lemonade, no hassle, no sermon. But people are incredibly opposed to this because they genuinely believe that they are entitled to this lemonade at no cost.
- autoexec 1y ago
  > If you go to the side table of the stand, you can purchase a lemonade, no hassle, no sermon. But people are incredibly opposed to this because they genuinely believe that they are entitled to this lemonade at no cost. How dare people genuinely believe they are entitled to this lemonade at no cost, when it's got a huge sign that says "FREE LEMONADE"! Youtube has every right to take down the free lemonade sign and paywall off their service, but they wont because they know they make far more money luring in the people who come for the free videos, sucking up their personal data, and then increasingly abusing them until some number of suckers cave and start paying into their protection racket scheme. A racket is exactly what youtube premium is too. Never pay someone for protection against the very harms they're causing you. There's nothing to stop them from demanding increasing amounts of protection money whenever they feel like it, which is exactly what Google has done. Repeatedly. Most recently sticking their oldest suckers with a 62% hike in protection fees. (https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1jqzu4g/et_tu_youtube/ https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1jqzu4g/et_tu_yout...) Don't encourage or try to justify that kind of shit. Just put on a pair a headphones and enjoy the sweet lemonade Google chooses to offer for "free". Don't forget that even with those headphones, Google is still collecting every scrap of data they can get from you and your device while you're using their service and that they'll happily leverage all of that data against you in any way they can think of, any time they feel it might benefit them. That price is itself high enough, but for me still worth what I'm getting from the content I view.