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US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

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Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#971

Post by throw10920 »

ReptileMan wrote: post #955
surajrmal wrote: post #952

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want the web to work like clash of titans?

Well sending bytes and creating them costs money. Someone has to pay them. So it is either ads or payments. The money it costs are close to zero, so we need a way to pay close to zero, that is easy if we don't want ads.

Thank you for concisely expressing the core justification for micropayments. I have many arguments for why it's possible to implement, but I've never found a good way to describe why it's necessary before.

Maybe we'll get something from Mozilla eventually - but I'm not holding my breath. I suspect it'll only happen if there's a massive awareness campaign that produces a demand signal for it in the general public (as opposed to just tech nerds).

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#972

Post by bobdvb »

kennyadam wrote: post #920
knowriju wrote: post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's funny about this comment is that YouTube is absolutely usable if you pay for YouTube Premium, but most won't. Goes to show, while everyone whines about how bad an ad based business model is, noone has any alternate strategy that works at scale, - especially one that's not exclusionary to people from the developing world who can't afford to pay for every single thing on the internet.

It's crazy that people will watch hours of YouTube content every day, streaming HD video with almost zero buffering, features like auto-generated subtitles that can then be automatically translated into other languages, essentially unlimited storage so the videos they like are around forever (copyright claims and the like are a separate issue), you can embed the videos onto your own site for free, you can use them to…

YouTube is a modern engineering miracle, and yet it's so accessible.

People complain so much and don't appreciate what they have.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#973

Post by bobdvb »

knowriju wrote: post #780
zelphirkalt wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube sucks in terms of usability. It only survives, because it is at no cost except for ads viewing and not even that, when using uBlock Origin properly and because of most of the content being there. Other than that is has become so enshittified, it is one of the worst sites I visit. Gmail and Docs are children's toys for people, who don't know much about e-mail and proper documents. Those are the majority of peo…

What's funny about this comment is that YouTube is absolutely usable if you pay for YouTube Premium, but most won't. Goes to show, while everyone whines about how bad an ad based business model is, noone has any alternate strategy that works at scale, - especially one that's not exclusionary to people from the developing world who can't afford to pay for every single thing on the internet.

I got YouTube Premium Family and it's so great.

Plus, I am supporting content creators better while avoiding ads.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#974

Post by bobdvb »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #593
doctorpangloss wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube, Gmail and Docs are pretty good. All the alternatives to them really suck...

YouTube sucks in terms of usability. It only survives, because it is at no cost except for ads viewing and not even that, when using uBlock Origin properly and because of most of the content being there. Other than that is has become so enshittified, it is one of the worst sites I visit. Gmail and Docs are children's toys for people, who don't know much about e-mail and proper documents. Those are the majority of peo…

It's amazingly usable when you stop trying to circumvent things.

I watch a great deal of YouTube, probably more than any other streaming service now. It's very usable with Premium.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#975

Post by YetAnotherNick »

lolinder wrote: post #845
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is an ad monopoly and ad business should be broken up somehow(I don't know how). Here we are breaking up every business other than ad business.

This case is about their search monopoly. There is another case pending about their ad monopoly. And also: breaking everything else off of the ad company is the obvious answer to the ad monopoly. Every other part of Google exists to feed its advertising monopoly and maintain its edge there.

Google Ads can rely on third party websites entirely due to their deep penetration. And they have a clear network moat.

Other parts of Google(mostly good for the world like maps and youtube and search) can't survive without ads.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#976

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #878
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is sort of missing the point: I’m happy to trade a bit of attention here and there for services because I’m just going to go without a lot of things if I have to pay real money for them. If we go to a model where every site charges for usage, I will start using fewer services regularly and will use each service for more things which seems a bit counterproductive in terms of monopolies.

You’re not actually paying with attention—attention isn’t money. Google’s customers are paying for your attention and you are paying for more expensive products. All of the money in Google’s pockets comes from their customers and we all end up eating that cost as participants in the global market sooner or later. The whole “attention” thing is just a proxy.

This is a reductive view of the economy: one pays for something whenever one trades something of value to one’s counterparty to something that’s of value to oneself. In many cases, in fact, it’s preferable to do this sort of “bartering” to reduce the expenditure of money you might need for other things.

Finally, I have, in fact, benefitted personally from products that were advertised to me on the basis of user tracking data so a bit ambivalent about the anti-tracking argument.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#977

Post by kergonath »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #966
kergonath wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everytime someone blocks an ad, someone else has to watch it. No, that’s not how it works, at all. I give money to some people on Patreon, I pay for Nebula, but I am never going to give Google a single euro willingly. I’ll leave YouTube in a heartbeat the moment the people I follow (whom I am already giving money otherwise) make their content available elsewhere.

Just so you are aware, less than 1% of viewers actually give money directly to creators. It's good you do it, thank you, and people run at the opportunity to show everyone they are doing the right thing (creating an illusion of popularity), but I can tell you from having seen the stats - essentially nobody does it. Nebula, which you mention, has about 700k subscribers. Yet they host YouTube videos for creators who co…

> It's good you do it, thank you, and people run at the opportunity to show everyone they are doing the right thing (creating an illusion of popularity), but I can tell you from having seen the stats - essentially nobody does it.

I believe you, really. I still prefer that than people profiting off me without my consent.

There is hope, there are some media who manage with strategies ranging from complete paywalls (like Nebula, though I would be very curious to know how profitable it is for the uploaders) to the opposite (like the Guardian, who seem to be getting enough money despite very little friction to get to the articles).

Thinking about good old-fashioned newspapers, most of the readership did not pay, either. There is no reason why a combination of subscribers, non-invasive advertising, and sponsorship could not accommodate a certain number of freeloaders.

> Nebula, which you mention, has about 700k subscribers. Yet they host YouTube videos for creators who collectively have over 120M subscribers...that is a 0.6% conversion rate.

Nebula has a chicken and egg problem, and YouTube has an infinitely broader reach. It certainly is not perfect. That said, I don’t think Nebula needs to make as much money as YouTube, just enough so that people can make a living producing good stuff instead of slop optimised for ads.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#978

Post by scarface_74 »

DrillShopper wrote: post #963
scarface_74 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there are other traditional search engines - including one run by another 1 trillion dollar+ market cap company. That’s not to mention ChatGPT and other LLMs have built in search. Should Google not evolve with the times?

It's not that they have a search engine. It's what they're doing to advertisers, websight owners, and consumers with it that is the problem. It's them abusing their market position to the detriment of customers and competitors.

What are they doing to consumers? And why should we feel sorry for the purveyors of adtech that just made the web worse in every possible way?

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#979

Post by mattmaroon »

MyOutfitIsVague wrote: post #944
mattmaroon wrote: post #892

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. They’re not doing everything carefully and thoughtfully, but some things they are. Just because you disagree with it doesn’t mean it isn’t careful and thoughtful. What’s going on with immigration for instance has been in the planning phases for years. And while Trump may set tariffs based on his mood at any given moment, this case isn’t a whim. I think a lot of thought is being given to what to do about Goo…

> What's going on with immigration for instance has been in the planning phases for years. Then how do they still manage to mistakenly deport the wrong people and have to cover it with a smoke screen of lies? If this is what their "careful and thoughtful" planning looks like, I'd hate to see what their recklessness looks like, because it all looks like the same level of shit show from my angle.

No matter how well you plan to deport 1 million illegal immigrants you will get some of them wrong. Being deliberate does not mean being inerrant. Much of what they are doing now Miller has been talking about for many years.

It’s always a mistake to assume that people are stupid or incompetent just because you don’t believe in what they are doing. It looks reckless to you because that’s what most of the media in the country tells you, if you had a different Information diet, it would not. That’s why I intentionally read sources slanted in the other direction.

Epistemology has never been harder than it is right now

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#980

Post by jorvi »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #633
jorvi wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I feel like people are subconsciously aware that Google is trying to bludgeon them into getting YouTube premium, and they're simply sticking it to Google rather than giving in. Google's gone through: - one skippable 5s ad - two skippable 5s ads - one unskippable 5s and one skippable 15s ads - aforementioned or two 15s ads, one skippable - two 15s unskippable ads - removed the prerenderer 'skip' button to ma…

Everytime someone blocks an ad, someone else has to watch it. It's crazy to me how entitled people are and how completely blind they are to how the ad supported model works. Then these same people complain that youtube has no competitors. Yeah, no shit, who in their right mind would invest in a customer base like youtubes? Oh, that's right, Vid.me, and they went bankrupt in a year. Wonder why...

It's crazy to me how people are completely blind to inferring things.

YouTube is no longer using ads to pay the bills. They're using them to be user hostile.

Normally I would say "just use a different service". But YouTube is a de facto monopoly.

Hence, if YouTube wants to act user hostile, you are well within your moral rights to be service hostile.

The same people telling us to 'just watch ads' then complain when the web gets a bit more crappy the next week, when another service or site uses the shifted window of tolerable behaviour to become more user hostile in chase of a bigger cut of the loot.

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