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Hacker News commenters: “I don’t like ads. They are evil” Also HN commenters: “I don’t want to pay for goods and services”

AlexandrB 9mo ago
I pay for plenty of goods and services. Just not YouTube. As others have noted, YouTube premium makes ads go away, but none of the other engagement baiting and user disrespecting anti-patterns. As far as I'm concerned, Google is in adversarial relationship with its users, whether your paying or not.
- phero_cnstrcts 9mo ago
  Does it make the sponsor sections of the videos go away too?
  - Nannooskeeska 9mo ago
    No, but SponsorBlock[0] is fantastic for that. I even have it setup on my home server[1] so it skips sponsor segments on my Apple TV, which is where we watch most of our YouTube. [0] https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/ [1] https://github.com/dmunozv04/iSponsorBlockTV https://github.com/dmunozv04/iSponsorBlockTV
  - Gigachad 9mo ago
    It makes them less annoying. With premium if you hit the scrub forward button once it jumps directly to the end of the sponsor section
- raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
  I don’t know. But most of the time when I don’t like a service, I don’t use it. I know that’s a crazy idea. I find YouTube like everything Google does a piss poor user experience. I’m forced to only use it to watch official AWS videos and those don’t have ads.
- sam_bristow 9mo ago
  I currently pay for YouTube premium but I'm strongly considering stopping again. For me it's a combination of prices creeping up (small part) and the worsening UX and engagement-bait (big part). It's the same reason I dropped Spotify a few years ago.
  - sidrag22 9mo ago
    i dropped spotify because i saw how terrible the non paid version of spotify is between payments, and was offended at how much i felt they used my library to hold me hostage. Im not interested in being held hostage to pay a company xx$ a month for literally my entire life. At least when a netflix subscription is over, its not crafting up ways to torture its users into feeling obligated to resubscribe. Not that i like the streaming video services much either...
AngryNPC 9mo ago
With the change in culture here, especially in the last 2-3 years, HN might as well be called Reddit News now. So it's not surprising that most people aren't consistent with their principles.
- shermantanktop 9mo ago
  Was HN known for consistency of principles before? I don’t remember that. Whenever an online community is anthropomorphized as an individual, it looks hypocritical. The only groups that don’t look hypocritical are monocultural backwaters of groupthink, permabans, and self-editing.
calmbonsai 9mo ago
I pay for plenty of other media (music, games, sports, comedy, books) and even do some Patreon for a few podcasts and YT channels, but I refuse to directly support a publishing monopoly that has had an actively user-hostile interface for over a decade.
- raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
  I do too. I don’t use YouTube with the one exception of official AWS videos. But those don’t have commercials.
dietr1ch 9mo ago
And how do I pay for a YouTube competitor that's libre or at least won't spy back without losing access to its monopolisticly large catalog?
- raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
  Yes I know that Google just reported YouTube’s revenue is larger than Netflix’s. But I really don’t find anything interesting on YouTube. Every time I try to find an interesting tutorial on for me AWS, if it isn’t produced by AWS itself, it’s usually subpar and I end up just paying for it on Udemy or using my company paid Pluralsight.
  - dietr1ch 9mo ago
    I find plenty of interesting videos, but I needed to slowly craft my following list. I started with some CS lectures, and conference talks and it was alright, but something I reached for out of necessity. Once I started watching videos out of curiosity I slowly ended up finding channels around my hobbies that filled my feed with pretty interesting stuff. There's good content out there beyond dense lectures, but also a lot of crap. I built my curated list of channels making videos worth watching and rarely watch something outside of those. Similarly to music discovery, once you find what you like keep an eye on neighboring artists. I stay curious, but I'm quick to reject.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
PlatoIsADisease 9mo ago
Normies who can't figure out the 3 buttons it takes to use ublock pay for such things. Its a tax on not being smart? I'm mostly kidding, but I just use ublock and I've never considered buying youtube premium. Try harder google?
Bender 9mo ago
Also HN commenters: “I don’t want to pay for goods and services” People became used to getting a thing for free then it slowly enshittified over time into the current blend of grift and bait. They also strongly promote via shorts the very things they discouraged because sex sells. Now they are promoting AI generated bait. As such they deserve any and all vitriol in my opinion. I personally would never pay for that hot mess. I watch a few popular channels because I can but probably not much longer. Eventually I will just watch the videos people copy over to Rumble until that platform follows the grift patterns of YT. It won't be long.

AlexandrB 9mo ago

I pay for plenty of goods and services. Just not YouTube. As others have noted, YouTube premium makes ads go away, but none of the other engagement baiting and user disrespecting anti-patterns. As far as I'm concerned, Google is in adversarial relationship with its users, whether your paying or not.

phero_cnstrcts 9mo ago
Does it make the sponsor sections of the videos go away too?
- Nannooskeeska 9mo ago
  No, but SponsorBlock[0] is fantastic for that. I even have it setup on my home server[1] so it skips sponsor segments on my Apple TV, which is where we watch most of our YouTube. [0] https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/ [1] https://github.com/dmunozv04/iSponsorBlockTV https://github.com/dmunozv04/iSponsorBlockTV
- Gigachad 9mo ago
  It makes them less annoying. With premium if you hit the scrub forward button once it jumps directly to the end of the sponsor section
raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
I don’t know. But most of the time when I don’t like a service, I don’t use it. I know that’s a crazy idea. I find YouTube like everything Google does a piss poor user experience. I’m forced to only use it to watch official AWS videos and those don’t have ads.
sam_bristow 9mo ago
I currently pay for YouTube premium but I'm strongly considering stopping again. For me it's a combination of prices creeping up (small part) and the worsening UX and engagement-bait (big part). It's the same reason I dropped Spotify a few years ago.
- sidrag22 9mo ago
  i dropped spotify because i saw how terrible the non paid version of spotify is between payments, and was offended at how much i felt they used my library to hold me hostage. Im not interested in being held hostage to pay a company xx$ a month for literally my entire life. At least when a netflix subscription is over, its not crafting up ways to torture its users into feeling obligated to resubscribe. Not that i like the streaming video services much either...

AngryNPC 9mo ago

With the change in culture here, especially in the last 2-3 years, HN might as well be called Reddit News now. So it's not surprising that most people aren't consistent with their principles.

shermantanktop 9mo ago
Was HN known for consistency of principles before? I don’t remember that. Whenever an online community is anthropomorphized as an individual, it looks hypocritical. The only groups that don’t look hypocritical are monocultural backwaters of groupthink, permabans, and self-editing.

calmbonsai 9mo ago

I pay for plenty of other media (music, games, sports, comedy, books) and even do some Patreon for a few podcasts and YT channels, but I refuse to directly support a publishing monopoly that has had an actively user-hostile interface for over a decade.

raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
I do too. I don’t use YouTube with the one exception of official AWS videos. But those don’t have commercials.

dietr1ch 9mo ago

And how do I pay for a YouTube competitor that's libre or at least won't spy back without losing access to its monopolisticly large catalog?

raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
Yes I know that Google just reported YouTube’s revenue is larger than Netflix’s. But I really don’t find anything interesting on YouTube. Every time I try to find an interesting tutorial on for me AWS, if it isn’t produced by AWS itself, it’s usually subpar and I end up just paying for it on Udemy or using my company paid Pluralsight.
- dietr1ch 9mo ago
  I find plenty of interesting videos, but I needed to slowly craft my following list. I started with some CS lectures, and conference talks and it was alright, but something I reached for out of necessity. Once I started watching videos out of curiosity I slowly ended up finding channels around my hobbies that filled my feed with pretty interesting stuff. There's good content out there beyond dense lectures, but also a lot of crap. I built my curated list of channels making videos worth watching and rarely watch something outside of those. Similarly to music discovery, once you find what you like keep an eye on neighboring artists. I stay curious, but I'm quick to reject.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

PlatoIsADisease 9mo ago

Normies who can't figure out the 3 buttons it takes to use ublock pay for such things. Its a tax on not being smart? I'm mostly kidding, but I just use ublock and I've never considered buying youtube premium. Try harder google?

Bender 9mo ago

Also HN commenters: “I don’t want to pay for goods and services” People became used to getting a thing for free then it slowly enshittified over time into the current blend of grift and bait. They also strongly promote via shorts the very things they discouraged because sex sells. Now they are promoting AI generated bait. As such they deserve any and all vitriol in my opinion. I personally would never pay for that hot mess. I watch a few popular channels because I can but probably not much longer. Eventually I will just watch the videos people copy over to Rumble until that platform follows the grift patterns of YT. It won't be long.