Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

bleepingcomputer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 1001 posts

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#531

Post by seventytwo »

Veserv wrote: post #514
crop_rotation wrote: post #126

YouTube premium perfectly showcases why ads dominate the internet, because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay (And I am not talking about too broke to pay cases). Serving an infinite video catalog is very expensive in terms of all resources (And yes Netflix is not comparable, unlike YouTube, Netflix can highly leverage cache boxes at ISPs). Vime…

No, it perfectly showcases that people do not want to pay 1000% more money for the privilege of paying a monthly subscription. Youtube Premium costs $12/month [1]. Ads average something like $2 per 1000 views to the creators (in some of the most common categories) [2]. Youtube takes a ~45% cut, so Youtube makes ~$4 per 1000 views from ads. So, to reach $12/month, you would need to average 3000 views per month. At a a…

But what’s my time worth, not sitting through ads each month? If I make $12/hr, and I have to watch 120 30sec ads in a month of watching YouTube, I’ve broken even.

I think most of us make a bit more than 12/hr… so it quickly becomes worth it.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#532

Post by RestlessMind »

Veserv wrote: post #514
crop_rotation wrote: post #126

YouTube premium perfectly showcases why ads dominate the internet, because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay (And I am not talking about too broke to pay cases). Serving an infinite video catalog is very expensive in terms of all resources (And yes Netflix is not comparable, unlike YouTube, Netflix can highly leverage cache boxes at ISPs). Vime…

No, it perfectly showcases that people do not want to pay 1000% more money for the privilege of paying a monthly subscription. Youtube Premium costs $12/month [1]. Ads average something like $2 per 1000 views to the creators (in some of the most common categories) [2]. Youtube takes a ~45% cut, so Youtube makes ~$4 per 1000 views from ads. So, to reach $12/month, you would need to average 3000 views per month. At a a…

Apart from the excellent points raised by u/12907835202 in a sibling comment, another important consideration is that YT premium consumers are disproportionately rich compared to the entire YT consumer base. So if you are taking averages, you have to multiply them by at least 3x (i.e. 300%) to account for higher CPMs due to higher conversion values expected from such demographics.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#533

Post by xkbarkar »

lostmsu wrote: post #469
kerkeslager wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said it before and I've said it again: ad-based content and pay content are incompatible business models. YouTube Premium fails because the content isn't worth paying for. The content is not worth paying for because it's been designed from the ground up to sell ads . When a website designed to sell ads fails to sell content, that's not evidence that selling content doesn't work, it's evidence that selling conten…

This is spot on. People assume Vimeo is the only competitor to YouTube, but that's wrong. Reddit is a perfectly fine competitor to YouTube in a sense that people don't really need the content to come in form of video.

No, just no. Reddits poor quality commentaries that are mostly bots and teen trollers, do not compare to millions of hours of content from verified experts amd amateurs alike showcasing or explaining something of interest to the viewer.

Thats like compairing backroom gossip to news. Sure both have their biases and inaccuracies, but at least one of them holds a resemblance of accountability as opposed to the other that can spew anonymous bogus crap at will. With zero consequence.

Reddit has very poor quality content. And it keeos on getting worse. Its just too riddled with bots. Imagine youtubes comment section without the videos. Reddit in a nutshell.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#534

Post by ehnto »

crop_rotation wrote: post #126

YouTube premium perfectly showcases why ads dominate the internet, because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay (And I am not talking about too broke to pay cases). Serving an infinite video catalog is very expensive in terms of all resources (And yes Netflix is not comparable, unlike YouTube, Netflix can highly leverage cache boxes at ISPs). Vime…

The trouble with YouTube premium is that there are still ads. Every YouTuber I watch does paid promotions, submarine marketing or self-promotion. That happened when YT ad revenue was reduced but even if ad rev went back up, it will continue. The marketing relationships are there now and who would turn down exrtra cash.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#535

Post by Veserv »

seventytwo wrote: post #531
Veserv wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it perfectly showcases that people do not want to pay 1000% more money for the privilege of paying a monthly subscription. Youtube Premium costs $12/month [1]. Ads average something like $2 per 1000 views to the creators (in some of the most common categories) [2]. Youtube takes a ~45% cut, so Youtube makes ~$4 per 1000 views from ads. So, to reach $12/month, you would need to average 3000 views per month. At a a…

But what’s my time worth, not sitting through ads each month? If I make $12/hr, and I have to watch 120 30sec ads in a month of watching YouTube, I’ve broken even. I think most of us make a bit more than 12/hr… so it quickly becomes worth it.

Obviously, that is why I specifically framed it in terms of Youtube's revenue generation. Youtube provides a ad-supported option and a paid option, except they charge 10x the rate for the paid option. Yet for some reason, the argument is always that nobody likes paid options or "microtransaction" models when the obvious problem with almost every scheme that companies try is that they always try to markup by like 1000% at a minimum.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#537

Post by anothernewdude »

tzs wrote: post #338
anigbrowl wrote: post #92

Maybe people wouldn't be locking your ads if you didn't have them jacked up to saturation level. I sometimes watch on a console and the number of ads is ridiculous, even worse than broadcast TV. Sometimes you get ads in the middle of songs.

From what I’ve seen YouTube actually has fewer ads than broadcast TV and the ads are mostly shorter. It just seems like they have more because of the timing. Broadcast TV generally syncs the ads with act breaks in the show. YouTube generally doesn’t seem to do any syncing with the content, so ads can suddenly happen in the middle of someone speaking. That’s way more disruptive.

I keep forgetting people still live in countries where people watch broadcast tv.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#538

Post by anothernewdude »

bagacrap wrote: post #410
userbinator wrote: post #155

What's next, "YouTube tests pausing videos when you look away from ads"? This is a slippery slope that I definitely do not want to be going down. At that rate, "drink verification can" is not far off. When I used to watch the actual TV I changed the channel, muted, or left the room during ads. My eyes, my ears, my brain. I will not be forced to consume.

Isn't slippery slope a logical fallacy? Let's wait until Google does something actually insane before claiming that what they're doing is insane.

If you take the slippery slope fallacy too far, you'd never be able to notice trends at all.

Google is like climate change - they keep pushing for more money, and ruining the experience for their users. There's no reason to expect this to stop. It's not a slippery slope.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#539

Post by brewdad »

dialogbox wrote: post #488
rolenthedeep wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to pay YouTube I'm happy subscribing to creators' patreons or Kofi or whatever because almost all of my money goes to them. Whereas on YouTube, most of my money or ad-generated money goes to Google. YouTube pays creators very little and treats them very poorly. There's a new adpocalypse every few months where YouTube will randomly change the rules, retroactively demonetize and delist videos, while offeri…

You and your creators use yt as a service. Their servers and network. Payment and others. That services don't come for free. If you don't give them any money, why Google need to provide the services? If you don't like that, you can build your own server and steam from that.

My state has given Google a truckload of tax breaks to build data centers here while raising my tax rate consistently over the past half decade.

Forgive me if I don’t shed a tear for their hosting costs.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#540

Post by spiderice »

trogdor wrote: post #507
denkmoon wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YT premium is my only paid streaming and I'd simply stop watching youtube over going back to ads. I watch 2-3hrs of youtube a day and I'm glad that creators feel that YT premium revenue is a good source of revenue for them. Not their biggest, but a reasonable chunk.

I’m a full-time YouTuber. On a per-view basis, I earn slightly more from Premium views than from ad-watching views. (We’re talking tiny fractions of a cent, but they add up.) Also, demonetized videos are still eligible for Premium revenue.

> demonetized videos are still eligible for Premium revenue.

Wow, TIL.

So you make more per view for a Premium subscriber. What about in total. What percent of your monthly profit is from Premium viewers vs Ad-watching viewers.

Post reply on HN