A much better idea would be to donate all that money to EFF or similar organizations. They'd fight to protect your privacy and security. Funding megacorps doing the exact opposite hurts everyone.
It's also worth mentioning that Youtube Premium will only help Google build better profiles of its subscribers. Subscribers will be required to surrender their contact information and be forced to log in before watching videos.
A much better idea would be to donate all that money to EFF or similar organizations
So how do you suggest we fund content creators? Or should they all just start working for free to entertain you without exposing you to those horrible dangerous ads?
False dilemma. I'm sure there are ways for content creators to make money without us getting spied on or served malware. It's also a poor excuse as most of them can't live off of what Google pays them to begin with. Not to mention that Google's bots can take away that revenue on a whim.
I'm sure there are ways for content creators to make money without us getting spied on or served malware
Name one. And please make sure your solution actually exists and isn't just a fantasy of how the world should work.
It's also a poor excuse as most of them can't live off of what Google pays them to begin with
It's not all or nothing. Creators can be incentivised to earn money even if it's not enough to live off of. And by the way, many do quite well, to the point where it replaces and surpasses their family income.
YouTube would not be what it is today without the money incentive.
Not to mention that Google's bots can take away that revenue on a whim
Agree but that's a risk they've determined is worth taking, again because of the money incentive.
You're effectively claiming that anything a monopoly does is fundamental to how the world works and anything short of that is equivalent to starving content creators.
What a ridiculous assumption. If you can't even agree that conducting mass surveillance or distributing malware should be off limits, there's nothing you can do to make me take your claims seriously.
It's not all or nothing.
Exactly, Google doesn't have to screw over people this hard to deliver ads. But they do it because they can.
And by the way, many do quite well, to the point where it replaces and surpasses their family income.
That sounds exactly like what you'd hear from a get rich quick scheme. Still doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of people aren't going to "make it." It's not a reliable source of income.
Agree but that's a risk they've determined is worth taking
Creators haven't determined anything, they just have no choice because network effects and barrier to entry is granting Google a monopoly.
I don't know what to tell you. Millions of people watch YouTube because they get something from it, ads or not. Creators put in a ton of effort to produce content for YouTube because they believe it's worth it for to them to do so.
Everybody has a choice.
You've decided to boycott Google (I'm assuming, otherwise you're a massive hypocrite), which is also a perfectly fine choice.
Looks like barely any content on there compared to YouTube. Probably an steep uphill battle for them to get to the point where creators can make anything close to what they can make today on YouTube. And I can only watch one video before I have to get my credit card out. Hard pass.
Patreon, Floatplane
I don't think the "subscription fee per content creator" model is a good comparison. We have subscription fatique already. Imagine if YouTube required you pay $/month per channel to watch anything. No way.
Patreon doesn't host videos. Each of the video creators I support on Patreon simply uploads their rewards as unlisted YouTube videos or uses a Vimeo integration.
Just like with songwriting, I’m going to keep creating and posting videos, whether or not there is any monetary compensation. People who do things for their own enjoyment will find a way to do it.
If it’s on a centralized site like bandcamp or YouTube/Vimeo, that’s fine. If not, I can host the files myself.
can't wait for your reaction 5 years in when they downgrade you to youtube premium lite "same advantages but with ads", if you want to keep the same advantages subscribe to premium++.
when looking at these thing you gotta ask yourself what would happen if everybody does it ? would the company be satisfied and say yes we got enough money, or would they just try to squeeze more juice out of you because where else would you go ?
The product is the videos. YouTube is just a tool. If your tool breaks and there's no compatible tool anymore, you lose your videos or bother to remake them with another tool. People aren't gonna continue to use a broken tool.
Nobody for 200,000 years prior had the need to pay off others in order to not be forced to endure crazed, blatantly manipulative, deceptive, and generally poor quality advertisements in order to access content not even made by the people enforcing this advertisement scheme. I'm not going to start now.
To be fair I'm sure any time after the agricultural revolution had performances or something.
Seriously, though, advertisement is a tumor on society. It's psychological manipulation we've allowed for profit purposes. I don't think we take it seriously enough. It's an addiction machine and a life waster, designed to ruin your brain slowly over time. I consider hyper-consumerism an addiction, but even if you look past that into food, tobacco, alcohol, and medicine you'll see "real" addiction.
Anyway, my pet theory is that if advertisement was simply banned we'd solve a lot of problems. Ones we don't even intend to solve.
It's sad that this is the most down voted comment. Do you all seriously expect to get massive amounts of content for free without ads? What is the solution here? Please do tell because I can't figure it out.
My problem is that I don't use YouTube to consume massive amounts of content. I use it to watch a single video every 3-4 months about how to replace a filter in my car, or adjust a valve in my sodastream. Ads are unacceptable, and premium is terrible value for me.
I don't consider any commercial advertisements in my life to be acceptable.
I feel strongly about that, and in general, I'm willing to pay to avoid ads, or to forego things that have unavoidable ads.
As far is the web goes, I've been blocking ads since ~2000 (using Intermute's AdSubtract at the time).
One time I took a plane flight where they began the flight by turning off the in-flight entertainment controls, playing some ads on the in-seat TVs, and piping the audio over the plane's PA system. I wrote to the airline as well as the advertisers to express my disgust for that practice. (Thankfully, that doesn't seem to have become a regular thing since then.)
The only ads I'm subjected to on any regular basis are highway billboards, and I write to my representatives every year or two to remind them that we should ban billboards, or at least hold a referendum so that citizens can decide whether we should be allowing them. (Which I expect would pass overwhelmingly, with a margin like the Alaskan ballot measure.)
So, yeah, that's how I feel about ads.
As I've said, the problem with YouTube Premium is just that it's bad value for my use... if I stop being able to access ad-free YouTube, it's probably cheaper for me to just stop fixing my own things (e.g. I'll pay the dealer to swap my air filters and I'll just throw out the sodastream and buy a new one.) I guess if I ever run into high-value things to fix myself, I'll just churn YouTube like people do other streaming platforms; sign up for Premium, fix my thing, (and save the video, assuming yt-dlp still works) and then cancel my subscription.
They're also ignoring the fact that content creators profit from the ads as well, which is obviously a huge incentive for them to produce good content.
I asked this elsewhere, I’m gonna ask you here again: if I pay for premium am I then going to be served a version of the video without the creator’s built in sponsor ad reads? No? Then most creators are also part of the problem.
Am I complaining? I support creators directly because it’s a more fair exchange imo. I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy in this whole situation when it comes to YouTube and paying for premium.
I support creators directly because it’s a more fair exchange imo
Ok that's nice. But what you're doing is an add-on, not a replacement for the original product being sold at the seller's terms (what you're complaining about).
If the creators you want to support choose to distribute their content exclusively from an ad-funded system, then you have no choice to but to either (1) watch the ads (2) pay to not watch the ads or 3) stop supporting the creator.
If you choose (2) and the creators still sneak ads into their content, then you have still the choice to (2a) watch the ads (2b) fast forward the ads (3) stop supporting the creator.
You're choosing (1) and then complaining that you have to watch ads, which doesn't make sense.
You're forgetting option 4) Use an adblocker, don't watch ads, contribute in other ways.
And again, I'm not complaining about anything. I run adblockers, my youtube consumption is probably < 30 minutes a year so it's not even an issue for me personally. I'm just pointing out the double standard applied to creators: we're hurting them when we block ads but we should be fine getting served ads from them even when we're paying for an ad free experience.
You're forgetting option 4) Use an adblocker, don't watch ads, contribute in other ways.
Well this thread is about how using an adblocker is becoming increasingly difficult, which is causing a lot of upset. And "contribute in other ways" is not really a solution. If everyone did what you do, YouTube would shut down.
I'm just pointing out the double standard applied to creators
I don't think it's a double standard. The creators are choosing to inject ads into their content because they want more money. If people like you were paying for Premium instead of blocking ads maybe they wouldn't feel the need to do this as often, who knows.
Either way, it's their choice and they're free to make their channel 99% ads if they think it will benefit them. As a paying Premium subscriber, I don't like injected ads either. If I see them I fast forward, and if that gets too annoying then I unsubscribe.
Absolutely, I'm just asking why they get a pass. If companies do it we're all enraged but if creators do it it's fine. It's just plain weird.
If I see them I fast forward
Would you do the same if youtube started showing you ads even though you're subscribed to premium? Would you just shrugh it out as a "well they want more money"? I'd bet no, you'd probably be pissed and rightfully so.
I agree, I don't know why people criticize Google but not the creators. Personally, I'm not criticizing either.
I'd bet no, you'd probably be pissed and rightfully so.
I'd be disappointed, and then I'd have to decide if I wanted to keep paying them or take my business elsewhere. I wouldn't be pissed, though. Because Google doesn't owe me anything.
Just like the creators, they're running a business, so it is what it is. I believe in free markets and if Google stops making a product worth paying for it will work itself out via a competitor taking market share or something else.
Come back when I can split up my subscription feed within a single account and don't need to use like three accounts to keep stuff in order. I'm not paying for three subscriptions because their ui is rubbish
Given a single Google account, you can create multiple YT brand accounts / channels. Each of them will have the Premium features enabled, each can have separate subscriptions, and you can switch between them with the account switcher without logging in/out.
So you can already do exactly what you want with just the single subscription. I'm sure you're delighted to hear this, and won't react by moving the goalposts.
Sorry! I was channeling frustrations of how multiple past discussions around this subject have gone, and shouldn't have. You were not involved in any of those, and definitely didn't deserve the snark.
I wouldn't be willing to bet on it either, but in this case I was very much delighted and am not gonna move the goalposts (ok, maybe a bit, now I want a migration feature to collect my channels into a single account)
YouTube Music in many ways is an alternative frontend to YouTube with a large supplementary collection of licensed audio.
Music videos, DJ mixes, live music streams, 10 hours of _____, classical for studying, etc. all pop up in Music.
It's actually kind of nice if you spend any time on things like lofi girl, DJ mixes, "___ Hours of ___ for ___", since Music's interface is more lightweight and those videos can be added to otherwise audio-only playlists.
Comments
Here's an easy workaround that's been pretty reliable for me: https://www.youtube.com/premium
A much better idea would be to donate all that money to EFF or similar organizations. They'd fight to protect your privacy and security. Funding megacorps doing the exact opposite hurts everyone.
It's also worth mentioning that Youtube Premium will only help Google build better profiles of its subscribers. Subscribers will be required to surrender their contact information and be forced to log in before watching videos.
So how do you suggest we fund content creators? Or should they all just start working for free to entertain you without exposing you to those horrible dangerous ads?
False dilemma. I'm sure there are ways for content creators to make money without us getting spied on or served malware. It's also a poor excuse as most of them can't live off of what Google pays them to begin with. Not to mention that Google's bots can take away that revenue on a whim.
Name one. And please make sure your solution actually exists and isn't just a fantasy of how the world should work.
It's not all or nothing. Creators can be incentivised to earn money even if it's not enough to live off of. And by the way, many do quite well, to the point where it replaces and surpasses their family income.
YouTube would not be what it is today without the money incentive.
Agree but that's a risk they've determined is worth taking, again because of the money incentive.
You're effectively claiming that anything a monopoly does is fundamental to how the world works and anything short of that is equivalent to starving content creators.
What a ridiculous assumption. If you can't even agree that conducting mass surveillance or distributing malware should be off limits, there's nothing you can do to make me take your claims seriously.
Exactly, Google doesn't have to screw over people this hard to deliver ads. But they do it because they can.
That sounds exactly like what you'd hear from a get rich quick scheme. Still doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of people aren't going to "make it." It's not a reliable source of income.
Creators haven't determined anything, they just have no choice because network effects and barrier to entry is granting Google a monopoly.
I don't know what to tell you. Millions of people watch YouTube because they get something from it, ads or not. Creators put in a ton of effort to produce content for YouTube because they believe it's worth it for to them to do so.
Everybody has a choice.
You've decided to boycott Google (I'm assuming, otherwise you're a massive hypocrite), which is also a perfectly fine choice.
Patreon, Nebula, Floatplane
Looks like barely any content on there compared to YouTube. Probably an steep uphill battle for them to get to the point where creators can make anything close to what they can make today on YouTube. And I can only watch one video before I have to get my credit card out. Hard pass.
I don't think the "subscription fee per content creator" model is a good comparison. We have subscription fatique already. Imagine if YouTube required you pay $/month per channel to watch anything. No way.
Patreon doesn't host videos. Each of the video creators I support on Patreon simply uploads their rewards as unlisted YouTube videos or uses a Vimeo integration.
How would that support the platform that's hosting the videos I'm watching and the creators of the videos?
Just like with songwriting, I’m going to keep creating and posting videos, whether or not there is any monetary compensation. People who do things for their own enjoyment will find a way to do it.
If it’s on a centralized site like bandcamp or YouTube/Vimeo, that’s fine. If not, I can host the files myself.
can't wait for your reaction 5 years in when they downgrade you to youtube premium lite "same advantages but with ads", if you want to keep the same advantages subscribe to premium++.
when looking at these thing you gotta ask yourself what would happen if everybody does it ? would the company be satisfied and say yes we got enough money, or would they just try to squeeze more juice out of you because where else would you go ?
I've had my subscription for over 5 years already.
The ole pay off the mafia approach
The ole pay for a product approach?
Slowing down the user's device with malicious ads isn't going to make them pay for the product.
The product is the videos. YouTube is just a tool. If your tool breaks and there's no compatible tool anymore, you lose your videos or bother to remake them with another tool. People aren't gonna continue to use a broken tool.
Nobody for 200,000 years prior had the need to pay off others in order to not be forced to endure crazed, blatantly manipulative, deceptive, and generally poor quality advertisements in order to access content not even made by the people enforcing this advertisement scheme. I'm not going to start now.
Cable and satellite TV cost far more than a YouTube Premium subscription, and their advertisements don't even include a "skip" button.
You're right, they didn't - they just didn't have the content at all.
To be fair I'm sure any time after the agricultural revolution had performances or something.
Seriously, though, advertisement is a tumor on society. It's psychological manipulation we've allowed for profit purposes. I don't think we take it seriously enough. It's an addiction machine and a life waster, designed to ruin your brain slowly over time. I consider hyper-consumerism an addiction, but even if you look past that into food, tobacco, alcohol, and medicine you'll see "real" addiction.
Anyway, my pet theory is that if advertisement was simply banned we'd solve a lot of problems. Ones we don't even intend to solve.
"It'd be a shame if something happened to your nice UX."
It's sad that this is the most down voted comment. Do you all seriously expect to get massive amounts of content for free without ads? What is the solution here? Please do tell because I can't figure it out.
My problem is that I don't use YouTube to consume massive amounts of content. I use it to watch a single video every 3-4 months about how to replace a filter in my car, or adjust a valve in my sodastream. Ads are unacceptable, and premium is terrible value for me.
Being forced to watch one or two ads every 3-4 months is unacceptable?
I don't consider any commercial advertisements in my life to be acceptable.
I feel strongly about that, and in general, I'm willing to pay to avoid ads, or to forego things that have unavoidable ads.
As far is the web goes, I've been blocking ads since ~2000 (using Intermute's AdSubtract at the time).
One time I took a plane flight where they began the flight by turning off the in-flight entertainment controls, playing some ads on the in-seat TVs, and piping the audio over the plane's PA system. I wrote to the airline as well as the advertisers to express my disgust for that practice. (Thankfully, that doesn't seem to have become a regular thing since then.)
The only ads I'm subjected to on any regular basis are highway billboards, and I write to my representatives every year or two to remind them that we should ban billboards, or at least hold a referendum so that citizens can decide whether we should be allowing them. (Which I expect would pass overwhelmingly, with a margin like the Alaskan ballot measure.)
So, yeah, that's how I feel about ads.
As I've said, the problem with YouTube Premium is just that it's bad value for my use... if I stop being able to access ad-free YouTube, it's probably cheaper for me to just stop fixing my own things (e.g. I'll pay the dealer to swap my air filters and I'll just throw out the sodastream and buy a new one.) I guess if I ever run into high-value things to fix myself, I'll just churn YouTube like people do other streaming platforms; sign up for Premium, fix my thing, (and save the video, assuming yt-dlp still works) and then cancel my subscription.
I'm not sure your math is adding up! A YouTube Premium subscription is only $13.99 per month, or $139.99 when billed annually.
Right, but I don't even use YouTube on a near-monthly basis, so the cost per video is more than the cost per month if I'm subscribed full-time.
They're also ignoring the fact that content creators profit from the ads as well, which is obviously a huge incentive for them to produce good content.
I asked this elsewhere, I’m gonna ask you here again: if I pay for premium am I then going to be served a version of the video without the creator’s built in sponsor ad reads? No? Then most creators are also part of the problem.
Ok then if the creators are bad and the platform is bad then it should be pretty easy for you to stop supporting them (and stop complaining).
Am I complaining? I support creators directly because it’s a more fair exchange imo. I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy in this whole situation when it comes to YouTube and paying for premium.
Yes.
Ok that's nice. But what you're doing is an add-on, not a replacement for the original product being sold at the seller's terms (what you're complaining about).
If the creators you want to support choose to distribute their content exclusively from an ad-funded system, then you have no choice to but to either (1) watch the ads (2) pay to not watch the ads or 3) stop supporting the creator.
If you choose (2) and the creators still sneak ads into their content, then you have still the choice to (2a) watch the ads (2b) fast forward the ads (3) stop supporting the creator.
You're choosing (1) and then complaining that you have to watch ads, which doesn't make sense.
You're forgetting option 4) Use an adblocker, don't watch ads, contribute in other ways.
And again, I'm not complaining about anything. I run adblockers, my youtube consumption is probably < 30 minutes a year so it's not even an issue for me personally. I'm just pointing out the double standard applied to creators: we're hurting them when we block ads but we should be fine getting served ads from them even when we're paying for an ad free experience.
Why that double standard exists? No clue.
Well this thread is about how using an adblocker is becoming increasingly difficult, which is causing a lot of upset. And "contribute in other ways" is not really a solution. If everyone did what you do, YouTube would shut down.
I don't think it's a double standard. The creators are choosing to inject ads into their content because they want more money. If people like you were paying for Premium instead of blocking ads maybe they wouldn't feel the need to do this as often, who knows.
Either way, it's their choice and they're free to make their channel 99% ads if they think it will benefit them. As a paying Premium subscriber, I don't like injected ads either. If I see them I fast forward, and if that gets too annoying then I unsubscribe.
Absolutely, I'm just asking why they get a pass. If companies do it we're all enraged but if creators do it it's fine. It's just plain weird.
Would you do the same if youtube started showing you ads even though you're subscribed to premium? Would you just shrugh it out as a "well they want more money"? I'd bet no, you'd probably be pissed and rightfully so.
I agree, I don't know why people criticize Google but not the creators. Personally, I'm not criticizing either.
I'd be disappointed, and then I'd have to decide if I wanted to keep paying them or take my business elsewhere. I wouldn't be pissed, though. Because Google doesn't owe me anything.
Just like the creators, they're running a business, so it is what it is. I believe in free markets and if Google stops making a product worth paying for it will work itself out via a competitor taking market share or something else.
Come back when I can split up my subscription feed within a single account and don't need to use like three accounts to keep stuff in order. I'm not paying for three subscriptions because their ui is rubbish
Given a single Google account, you can create multiple YT brand accounts / channels. Each of them will have the Premium features enabled, each can have separate subscriptions, and you can switch between them with the account switcher without logging in/out.
So you can already do exactly what you want with just the single subscription. I'm sure you're delighted to hear this, and won't react by moving the goalposts.
Actually, I very much am delighted to hear that. I will stand by their UI being rubbish though
Sorry! I was channeling frustrations of how multiple past discussions around this subject have gone, and shouldn't have. You were not involved in any of those, and definitely didn't deserve the snark.
I want to say this snark is unjustified, but I also wouldn't be willing to bet on it.
I wouldn't be willing to bet on it either, but in this case I was very much delighted and am not gonna move the goalposts (ok, maybe a bit, now I want a migration feature to collect my channels into a single account)
I already do that. You can create multiple Youtube accounts on a single Google account.
I don't want to pay for Music. Seems anti-competitive to bundle those. Price is also pretty steep, guess it depends on how much you use it.
YouTube Music in many ways is an alternative frontend to YouTube with a large supplementary collection of licensed audio.
Music videos, DJ mixes, live music streams, 10 hours of _____, classical for studying, etc. all pop up in Music.
It's actually kind of nice if you spend any time on things like lofi girl, DJ mixes, "___ Hours of ___ for ___", since Music's interface is more lightweight and those videos can be added to otherwise audio-only playlists.
None of content i watch on youtube has any presence in youtube music
can i get a referral to google?
on a serious note, i can't reproduce with firefox maybe it's not rolled out yet
It doesn't take a Google salary to afford a YouTube Premium subscription, it's actually pretty affordable.