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You Are the Product (2017)

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Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#51

Post by a_imho »

baxtr wrote: post #28

There is a big sentiment in the comments that ads are per se a bad thing. I want to make a counter argument: ads drive innovation because they make expensive services possible for the masses. I have watched endless YouTube videos and learned a great many things. I haven’t paid a dime for it yet. Newspaper adoption in mass was achieved by the same mechanism. Ads drove the price for newspaper significantly down so the…

What exactly is the difference between ads and spam? Disregarding the $T business that tells me they are not the same, as far as I am concerned they are both unsolicited messages.

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#52

Post by sergeykish »

kmnc wrote: post #8
dghughes wrote: post #5

It's tiring having a finger waved at you for blocking advertisements. When we all know that our data of who we are and our actions is just as valuable as the ads we are forced to watch. The Internet has become an ad machine that throws a tantrum if anyone dares to block advertising or tracking (of yourself). YouTube was meant for sharing videos but now "influencers", many channel owners, and YouTube itself balk at an…

The most disturbing thing is how many people have become ad apologists now. We gave up the fight, we lost. Massively successful channels now bait people into watching in video ads and people actually defend this practice. Many people I know actually find these things smart and clever. Most people actually defend ads now.

Are you talking about ads in video stream? They are static and usually have some connection to content, like instruments advertisement on music channel. And they would be easy to skip as long as youtube-dl works.

https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/DOCS/edl-mpv.r...

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#53

Post by alex_portabella »

nwienert wrote: post #43
alexh1 wrote: post #27

Social media is a tricky one because it's got such a bus factor wrt. usage, however I'm pleasantly surprised at the abundance of products coming out where you (your data, that is) are _not_ the product. Analytics - Fathom ( https://usefathom.com ), Plausible ( https://plausible.io ) Project Management - Portabella ( https://portabella.io ) (disclaimer: I'm behind this one) Chat - Signal ( https://signal.org/en/ ), Ma…

Bus factor related to usage? Am I thinking of the wrong bus factor?

My bad, what I meant was "so reliant on others using it"

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#54

Post by RussianCow »

hansvm wrote: post #46
RussianCow wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make sense. If you're paying for YouTube, then Google is already making a steady income stream from you; no need for ads.

But they could potentially make a larger steady income stream if they also had ads. It happened to cable TV, it happened when HTC introduced ads to their tiles or timeline or whatever it was called, ordering food online you'll get spammed when you try to checkout to buy their new promotional item (even if you already have it in your cart), and so on. If ads aren't a perfect fit then they'll still try to add other rev…

I get that, but an ad-free experience is the main benefit of subscribing to YouTube Premium. If they introduce ads to it, why would anyone pay for it?

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#55

Post by nathias »

alexh1 wrote: post #27

Social media is a tricky one because it's got such a bus factor wrt. usage, however I'm pleasantly surprised at the abundance of products coming out where you (your data, that is) are _not_ the product. Analytics - Fathom ( https://usefathom.com ), Plausible ( https://plausible.io ) Project Management - Portabella ( https://portabella.io ) (disclaimer: I'm behind this one) Chat - Signal ( https://signal.org/en/ ), Ma…

I'm sure you can pay and still be the product.

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#56

Post by ivanche »

RussianCow wrote: post #30
kmnc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the content producers just advertise to you directly, why wouldn’t they? The bigger they get, the more premium viewers, the more sponsors they receive. Eventually YouTube won’t like being cut out gain and boom to YouTube premium now has ads.

This doesn't make sense. If you're paying for YouTube, then Google is already making a steady income stream from you; no need for ads.

If you pay, there is every need for ads - you just showed you have the money and that makes you a worthy target for more advertising/tracking.

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#57

Post by jasode »

freediver wrote: post #33
baxtr wrote: post #28

There is a big sentiment in the comments that ads are per se a bad thing. I want to make a counter argument: ads drive innovation because they make expensive services possible for the masses. I have watched endless YouTube videos and learned a great many things. I haven’t paid a dime for it yet. Newspaper adoption in mass was achieved by the same mechanism. Ads drove the price for newspaper significantly down so the…

Ads are not evil per se, overdoing them is. Do you think youtube algorithms optimize for you learning and becoming a better human or to maximize ad revenue? Based on the answer the knowledge you gained is on average either deep and meaningful or shallow, bordering entertainment value. That is not to say you can’t find deep structured knowledge on youtube, but the proper way to support its creation is to directly pay…

>That is not to say you can’t find deep structured knowledge on youtube, but the proper way to support its creation is to directly pay for it. Next best thing is paying for youtube premium.

Of course, I also don't like ads but of the choices of : Youtube ads - vs - Youtube Premium - vs -subscription/Patreon/Paypal/bitcoin/etc ... I prefer the ads. The other options of paid subscription are more anti-consumer to me personally.

I follow about ~30 Youtube channels but the churn rate is high so I'd rather not manage ~30 separate subscriptions/Patreons and then cancelling ~30 paid subscriptions when the quality goes down or I'm not interested anymore.

>Imagine two youtubes, one ran by ads only and one exclusively for paid subscribers. [...] In which case the interest of the platform is aligned with the interest of the user?

Netflix/HBO/Disney+ are subscriptions but they don't have any videos I'm interested in. (I'm not interested in tv shows.)

Instead, I need quick hits of topical information to learn from and Youtube videos with ads happens to be more aligned with me than the subscription services. I also don't bother with paying extra for Youtube Premium to avoid ads. I just manually skip them if they're not relevant.

>In no way ads help democratize the access to valuable information.

I disagree on this. For me, ads work better because I mostly engage with random topic first more so than a particular person. When a new Youtuber with no reputation creates brand new content, an ad-driven model (with algorithmic recommendations) can put that in front of me to consume. Subscription makes no sense in this case because I have no idea if this new person is worth subscribing to. Ads are less friction and thus, more consumer friendly.

E.g. My Samsung clothes dryer broke and I needed to replace a heating element. Instead of paying $300 for service, I just went to Youtube and several people happen to upload videos of how to disassemble the dryer and fix it. It was a timely topic that I needed and ads were the best way for me to "pay" for that content. I'm not interested in subscribing to anything! I just wanted some visual guidance to help me fix my dryer. Thanks Youtube for the ads and helping me save $300.

Another circumstance that reinforced my preference for ad-supported content creation was dealing with a family tragedy in my life. I had stopped watching Youtube for months and when I finally came back, I noticed I didn't have to "suspend" any paid subscriptions while I was gone. Again, I don't want to watch ads but I have to admit that the ad-supported business model is what gives me flexibility to dip in and out of Youtube without a lot of commitment.

To summarize...

Subscriptions/Patreon: more aligned with supporting particular creators

ads : more aligned with consumers to support a wide variety of topics that can come from any creators, especially unknown ones

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#58

Post by nbzso »

baxtr wrote: post #28

There is a big sentiment in the comments that ads are per se a bad thing. I want to make a counter argument: ads drive innovation because they make expensive services possible for the masses. I have watched endless YouTube videos and learned a great many things. I haven’t paid a dime for it yet. Newspaper adoption in mass was achieved by the same mechanism. Ads drove the price for newspaper significantly down so the…

Let me be honest with you, as a painter I have a lot of knowledge about composition, colour, mediums and anatomy all gained trough experience with yers of experimentation and lots of invested time and money. Do you think that I will give all of this for 2 or may be less than 2 dollars per 1000 views? Do you understand that ad revenue is attached to types of content also? On youtube I will show you some time lapse footage and if you want to learn the craft you must pay for full video course. Yes there are people that give good knowledge on youtube, but full structured courses from professionals on high value topics are rare.

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#60

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

mdifrgechd wrote: post #50
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So specifically, how should sites support themselves if such as you won't pay?

If they cant support themselves, they should find something people do want to pay for. The universe doesnt owe the website creators a revenue stream.

The people who are happy to read it do owe them a revenue stream if they want a website to continue.

To be perfectly clear I have no desire to see any ads, and I don't cos I block pretty much every last one (squid) but if there are sites that are worth reading, like from here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25157722 well, author's got to make money for the time they put in.

Advertisers can die in rotting heaps, but they exist because people make them exist. They exist because you want free stuff.

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