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YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

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Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#71

Post by hhh »

throwaway743950 wrote: post #37
Workaccount2 wrote: post #15

It strikes me as so odd that people readily pay for netflix, hulu, HBO etc, but when the idea of paying for youtube comes along, who directly profit shares with small creators you adore, people fall over backwards in disgust. I guess it has to do with initial value proposition. If you hand out lemonade for free, people are going to be pissed when you start charging a dollar, regardless of how good of a deal it is. Ev…

Come on. This is a bad take. They "profit-share" with otherwise UNPAID creators. Other platforms license or produce content. On top of that, the pricing feels high for most people, and no one trusts Google to not jerk them around, killing a product or changing pricing.

I guess it depends on the content you get. I would feel more reserved at like $25/mo but not at $15.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#72

Post by trothamel »

spaceribs wrote: post #45
gretch wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe that we have been fortunate that Google's ad business was willing to subsidize it for us for so long with so little required in return. Unfortunately it appears that possibly the screws are getting turned, and there is less appetite for the subsidy. Um well no. They still have appetite to support the business with Ads (and they offer a paid version if you don't like Ads). The thing they no longer have app…

well it's not their computer, and I'll run what I want on it (...so far)

Don't they give you that choice, with Youtube Premium?

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#73

Post by hau »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #15

It strikes me as so odd that people readily pay for netflix, hulu, HBO etc, but when the idea of paying for youtube comes along, who directly profit shares with small creators you adore, people fall over backwards in disgust. I guess it has to do with initial value proposition. If you hand out lemonade for free, people are going to be pissed when you start charging a dollar, regardless of how good of a deal it is. Ev…

I feel like you're right about initial value proposition, but it doesn't seem odd to me at all. There are other things about treating youtube as netflix/hbo/hulu:

- I can't upload random video to the netflix, and I have a certain expectation regarding content there

- 99% of videos on youtube are not something I would pay for or expected to be paid for uploading

- I can pay for youtube subscription and would still get a lot of advertisement, because I dared to turn SponsorBlock off. Creators have a very good reason to use this type of ads, and youtube have all responsibility of not providing solutions for this.

- I can pay for HBO max and watch Sopranos. On youtube I can pay and content of interest could be deleted next second

- I have no idea if my favourite creator was demonetised for DMCA spam by youtube, but I certainly know they are not treated as equal partners in this business in many ways.

- Ultimately I pay for content, and subscription guarantees some kind of investment from the platform in acquiring or producing it. Not true for youtube.

edit: not saying one should not pay for youtube, but these points are for comparing youtube with established paid platforms. I believe youtube could offer very interesting and fair subscription schemes and conditions in principle.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#74

Post by is_true »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #15

It strikes me as so odd that people readily pay for netflix, hulu, HBO etc, but when the idea of paying for youtube comes along, who directly profit shares with small creators you adore, people fall over backwards in disgust. I guess it has to do with initial value proposition. If you hand out lemonade for free, people are going to be pissed when you start charging a dollar, regardless of how good of a deal it is. Ev…

Where I live YT Premium costs USD0.5 a month.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#75

Post by Clubber »

Waterluvian wrote: post #66
Clubber wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>support the creators i watch as they make more per my paid view then an ad supported view. I didn't know that. Good to know, thanks!

Either way they're making incredibly little compared to supporting them more directly like Patreon. Even Patreon takes a tasty cut. If the mental gymnastics helps, awesome. But paying Google is paying Google more than it is supporting creators.

Of course blocking ads doesn't support anything.

>If the mental gymnastics helps, awesome.

What a smarmy thing to say.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#76

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #52
timeagain wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it has been framed before, it’s like the lemonade stand put all the other stands out of business by handing out free lemonade.

No one else wants to run a lemonade stand because they can see customers do not want to pay for lemondade. See the Vid.me rise and fall illustrates this perfectly. Their closing letter to users even says in so many words "Ya'll don't want to pay, so how can we stay open?"

> Ya'll don't want to pay

It's easy to wonder why. The status quo at the time had been that user-submitted video content (YouTube) is free. It was only free because Alphabet had their losses from YouTube subsidized by their profits from Google. Maybe not for all, but for many this is an anti-trust issue.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#77

Post by [deleted] »

not_your_vase wrote: post #2

Google and Cloudflare pretty much rules at least 98% of the internet. If they don't want you to see something, then you won't see it. Welcome to this brave new world. Though to be fair, it didn't start now. But in the past years people were cheering for the random blocks and removals. The article seems to concentrate on adblockers mostly, but it is even more interesting which news, topics and conversations (etc) reac…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#78

Post by zdragnar »

dixie_land wrote: post #59
JAlexoid wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you consuming any YT videos, then? Why are so many people feel entitled to YT videos without ads?

No one is entitled to YT videos without ads. But at the same time, Google is not entitled to dictate how my user agent renders a page, locally, on my own computer . I'd have no problem if google just inject ads directly into the video streams. ( by which time, equally I'm entitled to configure my own video player to skip whichever frames I want )

If allowing ads is part of the terms of their service for non-paying users, then they are in fact free to not grant you access to the video feed.

It's still shitty, but this isn't a thing where you can have your cake and eat it too.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#79

Post by itsoktocry »

rpgbr wrote: post #29
MBCook wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I keep seeing the discourse recently and it’s all framed as if only two options exist: People can use ad blockers, or Google can block them and annoy people. There is a very good third option for people: pay for the (expensive due to bandwidth) service you’re using and you see no ads. And Google won’t block it because it’s encouraged as the solution to this exact issue. The level of “I should get everything for…

Alphabet profited nearly USD 20 billion last quarter. Not revenue; net profit. I'm pretty sure they can afford airing less ads per video watched without any damage to their bottomline. So… sorry, but there's a third, better way. The problem is: it doesn't work in a late capitalist environment where Google/Alphabet and all public trade companies operate.

>I'm pretty sure they can afford

I'm pretty sure you can afford to give away a huge chunk of your earnings, too. Do you? How much earnings are "fair"?

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#80

Post by [deleted] »

thot_experiment wrote: post #67
mvdtnz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What screws are really being turned though? This content is still available completely free of charge to anyone with an internet connection. You just need to watch a couple of ads if you're not willing to pay.

The problem is you can't just tape the shows and fast forward through the ads etc, or at least that's the direction things are going, it's a very very bad precedent.

[deleted]
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