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Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

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Re: Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

#81

Post by jitl »

tomrod wrote: post #75
jitl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they do that? No reason. You get paid with the video stream. That’s your payment.

Why do they get all the negotiating power in this arrangement? They should pay me to watch ads. I'd watch more videos. Win-win for them. Otherwise they have polluted their value prop -- to be a video sharing platform, and my content that I share, your content that you share, and all your watching patterns data, which has value, is stolen without recompense. Please. Don't "but you get something for FREE" me -- we're t…

If it costs YouTube 2 cents to stream a video to you, and they get 3 cents for delivering the ads with it, let’s say they could pay you half a cent and keep half a cent of profit for themselves. For that to be worth it, you’d need to watch 2x the videos (and ads) for them to break even on the deal, and more than 2x for the deal to make more than the current deal today (you watch 1x and they keep the whole 1 cent). Would actually watch 2x more content to earn those pennies?

These numbers are made up, but explain a possible model of why YouTube doesn't try to induce more views with a monetary incentive.

> Otherwise they have polluted their value prop

> Please. Don't "but you get something for FREE" me -- we're the product and that ain't right.

I think the economic deal is clear to you. You don’t get something for free. You’re paying by watching ads (same as OTA TV broadcast for the last 60 years) and with the collection of your habit data (modern surveillance capitalism). In exchange YouTube serves you videos.

If you don’t like the deal, and they won’t negotiate with you, then you should walk away.

Personally I pay the $14/mo to not see ads; YouTube doesn’t produce content directly but they incentivize the production of a lot of niche content creators who otherwise would never get a deal from Netflix etc, and the YouTube mobile app is the most reliable one I use (better than Netflix, much better than Hulu).

Re: Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

#82

Post by TheLoafOfBread »

masukomi wrote: post #41

You know there aren't ads if you actually pay for it right? I agree the ads are obnoxious, but hosting YouTube is incredibly expensive, and online ads are incredibly cheap so... Even if they _weren't_ being greedy there would need to be A LOT of ads to compensate for the hosting & engineering costs. Like... If you hate the ads THAT MUCH, but want to continue using the service, why not just pay for the service? (side…

Are you sure that there won't be any ads in the future? Because it already repeatedly happened that that paid subscription was without ads, until it wasn't.

Re: Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

#83

Post by thefz »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #74
thefz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I the only one that is a little turned off by how everything nice on Earth needs to be monetized to death? Do you have an idea about how much does it cost to run a website like YouTube?

Yes, and those costs are covered already. We're talking about squeezing additional profits out of the product in order to make the shareholders happier.

How is Google already paying for YouTube?

Re: Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

#84

Post by HDThoreaun »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #82
masukomi wrote: post #41

You know there aren't ads if you actually pay for it right? I agree the ads are obnoxious, but hosting YouTube is incredibly expensive, and online ads are incredibly cheap so... Even if they _weren't_ being greedy there would need to be A LOT of ads to compensate for the hosting & engineering costs. Like... If you hate the ads THAT MUCH, but want to continue using the service, why not just pay for the service? (side…

Are you sure that there won't be any ads in the future? Because it already repeatedly happened that that paid subscription was without ads, until it wasn't.

Why does that matter? Youtube premium isn't locking you into anything. If you decide you no longer like the service you can get rid of it.

Re: Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

#85

Post by HDThoreaun »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #70
infecto wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its a good argument to say "because x is profitable they should not do y". Sure I can dream of a world where actors do not try to extract profit where possible but its not realstic. Whats the alternative?

State funded services. By now it's clear that platforms like YouTube and Twitter are integral parts of our lives, even used by institutions to release official statements and by media to publish news. Why then should we leave such important services in the hands of a handful of investors who's only interest is increasing the profit margins?

I've used state run websites. They generally do not work. Incentives matter, if you want good products you need to incentivize making them.

Re: Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

#86

Post by TheLoafOfBread »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #84
TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure that there won't be any ads in the future? Because it already repeatedly happened that that paid subscription was without ads, until it wasn't.

Why does that matter? Youtube premium isn't locking you into anything. If you decide you no longer like the service you can get rid of it.

It does matter a lot. If I do not want ads but get them later, even as a paying customer, then there is no reason to pay for no ads.

Re: Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

#87

Post by ericfrazier »

masukomi wrote: post #41

You know there aren't ads if you actually pay for it right? I agree the ads are obnoxious, but hosting YouTube is incredibly expensive, and online ads are incredibly cheap so... Even if they _weren't_ being greedy there would need to be A LOT of ads to compensate for the hosting & engineering costs. Like... If you hate the ads THAT MUCH, but want to continue using the service, why not just pay for the service? (side…

It's a dark pattern of getting people hooked on free then moving to a pay only model even though they still make all their money off your data.

Re: Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

#88

Post by HDThoreaun »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #86
HDThoreaun wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does that matter? Youtube premium isn't locking you into anything. If you decide you no longer like the service you can get rid of it.

It does matter a lot. If I do not want ads but get them later, even as a paying customer, then there is no reason to pay for no ads.

But you won't get them as a paying customer, because you'll stop paying if they try to show you ads...

Re: Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

#89

Post by pastacacioepepe »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #85
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State funded services. By now it's clear that platforms like YouTube and Twitter are integral parts of our lives, even used by institutions to release official statements and by media to publish news. Why then should we leave such important services in the hands of a handful of investors who's only interest is increasing the profit margins?

I've used state run websites. They generally do not work. Incentives matter, if you want good products you need to incentivize making them.

Some countries/cities manage to have excellent public transportation infrastructure. Why shouldn't they be able to build an excellent public digital infrastructure?

> Incentives matter, if you want good products you need to incentivize making them.

Speaking about incentives, for-profit products have the worst ones. Would you rather use a twitter-like product built by people earning the more time you spend on it, or by people who keep their jobs if they manage to achieve a positive societal effect?

No, I don't think incentives are the issue here.

One issue is probably the slowness of public institutions in embracing change, which is also a good thing in some cases, but doesn't help when the goal is to build new tech products that enable societal change. It seems that private initiative works best when it's about inventing stuff, but not when it's time to implement it in a society. Although that could be changed, if governments weren't so hellbent on delegating so much to private initiative.

Re: Show HN: Tell YouTube Ads to Fuck Off

#90

Post by [deleted] »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #82
masukomi wrote: post #41

You know there aren't ads if you actually pay for it right? I agree the ads are obnoxious, but hosting YouTube is incredibly expensive, and online ads are incredibly cheap so... Even if they _weren't_ being greedy there would need to be A LOT of ads to compensate for the hosting & engineering costs. Like... If you hate the ads THAT MUCH, but want to continue using the service, why not just pay for the service? (side…

Are you sure that there won't be any ads in the future? Because it already repeatedly happened that that paid subscription was without ads, until it wasn't.

[deleted]
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