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YouTube might terminate your access if not profitable for Google

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: YouTube might terminate your access if not profitable for Google

#11

Post by mic47 »

This might be actually a good thing. Say that you are a user, which uploads a LOT of large videos that almost nobody is watching, apart from your small cabal, and you restrict ads on them (AFAIK was possible in past, not sure if it is now). In such case, you get quite good service for free, and you cost YouTube quite a lot of money for storage.

I see that YouTube have following options: 1.) Show more ads elsewhere (so other people will pay the price). 2.) Terminate your account. 3.) Charge you money.

From those, actually 2/3 seems like the best (and being able to do #2 will give them leverage for you to pay #3).

Re: YouTube might terminate your access if not profitable for Google

#13

Post by jowsie »

ianai wrote: post #6

What does termination of your account mean? Are we talking losing your email/gmail account?

If the Markiplier situation is any indication, then your entire google account, gmail and all.

https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1193216884197314560

Re: YouTube might terminate your access if not profitable for Google

#18

Post by windexh8er »

nissarup wrote: post #3
justforfunhere wrote: post #2

How does one become "no longer commercially viable" for youtube?

Adblockers.

This doesn't make sense. Anyone can watch YouTube without an account. So even if they terminated a consumer using adblocking it wouldn't change anything for Google. This is likely targeted at users publishing a lot of low quality video that get few views. If they enforce this my guess is we see backlash around free speech and the like. This seems like a perfect way for Google to curate "good" content in the eyes of themselves and potentially at the downside of people speaking out against Google, their products or videos promoting a competitive alternative. Google could deem things "not commercially viable" for almost any reason. It appears to have the advantage of being a perfect scapegoat.

Re: YouTube might terminate your access if not profitable for Google

#19

Post by alpaca128 »

jowsie wrote: post #13
ianai wrote: post #6

What does termination of your account mean? Are we talking losing your email/gmail account?

If the Markiplier situation is any indication, then your entire google account, gmail and all. https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1193216884197314560

So in other words it's the Google counterpart of Amazon banning users for too many returns but without disclosing how some algorithm determines what is too many.

I can see some unfortunate users learning the hard way why reliance on these huge cloud services can backfire. And some people may just create a lot of secondary accounts so they can continue uploading whatever they want, so I'm not sure Google will actually get improvements from this TOS.

Re: YouTube might terminate your access if not profitable for Google

#20

Post by AdrienLemaire »

grenoire wrote: post #4

Is this a recent change? I'm not sure if it's just another 'firing your customers' clause or something more sinister.

These are the new ToS that will take effect on December 10th.

I cannot find any related clause in the current ToS https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms

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