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People won't pay a few bucks a month for YouTube. They won't pay to keep their favorite sites online. They won't pay for their news. Without ads, a lot of thing

People won't pay a few bucks a month for YouTube. They won't pay to keep their favorite sites online. They won't pay for their news. Without ads, a lot of things wouldn't exist.

wolvoleo 9mo ago
No I won't pay for premium because even if I pay for it I still get ads in the content itself. Fix that and then I'll pay. Until then I just block the ads and the sponsors.
- driverdan 9mo ago
  YT makes it easy to skip embedded ads now. They mark places where people skip past and shortcut it so you don't need to watch them.
  - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
    Sponsorblock exists as well.
    - driverdan 9mo ago
      Sponsorblock is great but only works in the browser. Most people view YT on other devices.
      - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
        Revanced Youtube's app support sponsorblock as well.
        wolvoleo 9mo ago
        Yes and Tubular and SmartTubeNext (Android TV!) and Grayjay too. Many options Tubular is a clone of Newpipe by the way, newpipe's devs didn't want to allow the sponsorblock plugin so it had to be forked.
- anthonypasq 9mo ago
  so you just dont think people making video content should make money in any way? if you hate ads that much dont watch any creators that have sponsored content. oh wait, the only way they can make videos that good is because they make money and are professionals. doh!
  - wolvoleo 9mo ago
    No, I think they shouldn't be double dipping. If I pay for premium I want no ads whatsoever. Not for the content creators to sneak some in anyway. And no I don't tend to watch many with sponsor crap in them because they aren't actually very good (think the low-quality crap from LTT etc). The best channels (EEVBlog is one notable one) don't have sponsors at all because they're made for love. What I am not doing is watching the sponsorship segments anyway. So yeah I use sponsorblock. And I use Ublock origin or revanced to remove the ads too because there's way too many now.
    - anthonypasq 9mo ago
      ok so you actually dont think they should be single dipping because you use ublock origin and sponsorblock?
      - wolvoleo 9mo ago
        No but if they weren't double dipping with the sponsors I'd pay for premium. It's just that as it stands it makes no sense to do so. I still get ads so there's nothing in it for me. And if I use sponsorblock I might as well go the full way. It's really on YouTube that they have let this situation be created. They should have stopped sponsor segments the moment they arrived.
- platevoltage 9mo ago
  I don't like ads either. Who does? I really don't mind unless they are hard-cut and aren't made by the creator themselves. What's your solution here? A new policy that prevents creators from doing sponsor spots? We all know what the result of that would be.
  - wolvoleo 9mo ago
    > A new policy that prevents creators from doing sponsor spots? We all know what the result of that would be. Well or not show the sponsors to premium users. They could simply upload a separate premium version. Don't forget, these content creators are already getting a lot more money from YT when a premium user views their vids. So they're not entitled. They can walk away but where would they go?? Besides, more and more people are using sponsorblock since it's become totally insane with these.
somenameforme 9mo ago
There are already numerous competitors to YouTube. Of course they have collectively like 1% marketshare, but that's because it's basically impossible to compete against YouTube right now. But if YouTube died, these sites would rapidly become fully competent replacements - all they're missing is the users.
- abenga 9mo ago
  How would they pay for the infrastructure required to support all those users? I can't stand ads, but when I was younger, no way would I have paid for YT Premium (though to be fair, ads are much, much worse now).
  - cons0le 9mo ago
    Let me pay usage based, with full transparency in hosting, infra, and energy costs. Like a utility. Subscription services are like hungry hungry hippos, you give them $10 a month and next year they want $100. I honestly think if everyone starts paying, it will only make them remove the free tier quicker. I think society is better with youtube free, even if ads are annoying.
  - somenameforme 9mo ago
    Bandwidth transit prices, peering, and other data for for ISPs and the like tend to be highly classified (lol), but it's very close to $0. Take Steam for instance. They are responsible for a significant chunk of all internet traffic and transfer data in the exabytes. Recently their revenue/profit data was leaked from a court filing and their total annual costs, including labor/infrastructure/assets/etc, was something like $800 million. [1] Enabling on site money transfers (as YouTube does) and taking a small cut from each transfer (far less than YouTube's lol level 30% cut) would probably be getting close to enough to cover your costs, especially if you made it a more ingrained/gamey aspect of the system - e.g. give big tippers some sort of swag in comments or whatever, stuff like that. It's not going to be enough to buy too many [more] islands for Sergey and Larry, but such is the price we must all pay. [1] - https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/valves-reported-profit-per-head-from-steam-commissions-is-out-there-and-at-usd3-5-million-per-employee-it-makes-apple-and-facebook-look-like-a-lemonade-stand/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/valves-reported-prof...
godshatter 9mo ago
This makes me wonder how the system makes any money. Presumably the same people that won't pay a few bucks a month for YouTube won't buy things from ads either. So how do the ad companies make any money on them?
SchemaLoad 9mo ago
They will actually. Youtube premium has had explosive growth after YT started pushing more ads and blocking ad blockers. People pay for streaming services quite regularly. And youtube has one of the strongest platforms/content bases to sell a subscription.
- dmix 9mo ago
  Youtube is more like modern Cable TV though, there's huge value there for the price. I like visiting Twitter and Reddit occasionally for news, I've been using both since they launched, but I wouldn't pay for either of those. I could easily make the choice to cut that out of my life.

People won't pay a few bucks a month for YouTube. They won't pay to keep their favorite sites online. They won't pay for their news. Without ads, a lot of things wouldn't exist.

wolvoleo 9mo ago

No I won't pay for premium because even if I pay for it I still get ads in the content itself. Fix that and then I'll pay. Until then I just block the ads and the sponsors.

driverdan 9mo ago
YT makes it easy to skip embedded ads now. They mark places where people skip past and shortcut it so you don't need to watch them.
- Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
  Sponsorblock exists as well.
  - driverdan 9mo ago
    Sponsorblock is great but only works in the browser. Most people view YT on other devices.
    - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
      Revanced Youtube's app support sponsorblock as well.
      - wolvoleo 9mo ago
        Yes and Tubular and SmartTubeNext (Android TV!) and Grayjay too. Many options Tubular is a clone of Newpipe by the way, newpipe's devs didn't want to allow the sponsorblock plugin so it had to be forked.
anthonypasq 9mo ago
so you just dont think people making video content should make money in any way? if you hate ads that much dont watch any creators that have sponsored content. oh wait, the only way they can make videos that good is because they make money and are professionals. doh!
- wolvoleo 9mo ago
  No, I think they shouldn't be double dipping. If I pay for premium I want no ads whatsoever. Not for the content creators to sneak some in anyway. And no I don't tend to watch many with sponsor crap in them because they aren't actually very good (think the low-quality crap from LTT etc). The best channels (EEVBlog is one notable one) don't have sponsors at all because they're made for love. What I am not doing is watching the sponsorship segments anyway. So yeah I use sponsorblock. And I use Ublock origin or revanced to remove the ads too because there's way too many now.
  - anthonypasq 9mo ago
    ok so you actually dont think they should be single dipping because you use ublock origin and sponsorblock?
    - wolvoleo 9mo ago
      No but if they weren't double dipping with the sponsors I'd pay for premium. It's just that as it stands it makes no sense to do so. I still get ads so there's nothing in it for me. And if I use sponsorblock I might as well go the full way. It's really on YouTube that they have let this situation be created. They should have stopped sponsor segments the moment they arrived.
platevoltage 9mo ago
I don't like ads either. Who does? I really don't mind unless they are hard-cut and aren't made by the creator themselves. What's your solution here? A new policy that prevents creators from doing sponsor spots? We all know what the result of that would be.
- wolvoleo 9mo ago
  > A new policy that prevents creators from doing sponsor spots? We all know what the result of that would be. Well or not show the sponsors to premium users. They could simply upload a separate premium version. Don't forget, these content creators are already getting a lot more money from YT when a premium user views their vids. So they're not entitled. They can walk away but where would they go?? Besides, more and more people are using sponsorblock since it's become totally insane with these.

somenameforme 9mo ago

There are already numerous competitors to YouTube. Of course they have collectively like 1% marketshare, but that's because it's basically impossible to compete against YouTube right now. But if YouTube died, these sites would rapidly become fully competent replacements - all they're missing is the users.

abenga 9mo ago
How would they pay for the infrastructure required to support all those users? I can't stand ads, but when I was younger, no way would I have paid for YT Premium (though to be fair, ads are much, much worse now).
- cons0le 9mo ago
  Let me pay usage based, with full transparency in hosting, infra, and energy costs. Like a utility. Subscription services are like hungry hungry hippos, you give them $10 a month and next year they want $100. I honestly think if everyone starts paying, it will only make them remove the free tier quicker. I think society is better with youtube free, even if ads are annoying.
- somenameforme 9mo ago
  Bandwidth transit prices, peering, and other data for for ISPs and the like tend to be highly classified (lol), but it's very close to $0. Take Steam for instance. They are responsible for a significant chunk of all internet traffic and transfer data in the exabytes. Recently their revenue/profit data was leaked from a court filing and their total annual costs, including labor/infrastructure/assets/etc, was something like $800 million. [1] Enabling on site money transfers (as YouTube does) and taking a small cut from each transfer (far less than YouTube's lol level 30% cut) would probably be getting close to enough to cover your costs, especially if you made it a more ingrained/gamey aspect of the system - e.g. give big tippers some sort of swag in comments or whatever, stuff like that. It's not going to be enough to buy too many [more] islands for Sergey and Larry, but such is the price we must all pay. [1] - https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/valves-reported-profit-per-head-from-steam-commissions-is-out-there-and-at-usd3-5-million-per-employee-it-makes-apple-and-facebook-look-like-a-lemonade-stand/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/valves-reported-prof...

godshatter 9mo ago

This makes me wonder how the system makes any money. Presumably the same people that won't pay a few bucks a month for YouTube won't buy things from ads either. So how do the ad companies make any money on them?

SchemaLoad 9mo ago

They will actually. Youtube premium has had explosive growth after YT started pushing more ads and blocking ad blockers. People pay for streaming services quite regularly. And youtube has one of the strongest platforms/content bases to sell a subscription.

dmix 9mo ago
Youtube is more like modern Cable TV though, there's huge value there for the price. I like visiting Twitter and Reddit occasionally for news, I've been using both since they launched, but I wouldn't pay for either of those. I could easily make the choice to cut that out of my life.