I still remember YouTube ramping up ads starting at the beginning of lockdowns in 2020. It was the first time I was seeing double unskippable ads and 14 second ads.
Why does anyone put up with ads? Install uBlock Origin → no ads.
Also, if you install SponsorBlock then at least for popular videos you will probably never see an ad from a video creator either. You can even have it skip self–promotional segments (Subscribe Now!), repetitive animations and intro sequences, credits, previews, etc.
Or I could rip my legally purchased* CDs and give the finger to the leeches and rent seekers that fuck us almost as hard as they do the artists. Yes I support corporate genocide.
YouTube is at least as good as the vinyl record player. It is also the sole location for countless live audio/video recordings of musical performance. It works fine as a “music playback app” and is, to emphasize, an _awesome_ and convenient resource of live music performance.
Can they evade uBo, too? I had a stretch where I was getting them in FF with uBo & Privacy badger, even after updating all rules, but then they started being blocked again on their own.
It's probably apt to ask yourself what sort of revenue model you prefer to support for the value provided. YouTube is a rare case where they offer multiple options.
Meh. Most videos on the web are crap. Having advertising makes some kinds of crap worse. And even if all advertising revenue went away, enthusiasts will always post videos for fun. In fact most videos don’t earn any significant advertising revenue.
Personally advertising is a high cost to myself that I am not willing to pay. I even avoid restaurants that have televisions, or that play a radio station instead of buying music that has no advertising in it. (I also frequent a couple of places that are willing to leave the music off for me, at least early in the day before the lunch rush, and one that doesn’t play music at all. That’s a different story though.)
The videos that don’t make money are the unpopular ones. Are they the ones you watch? Have you listened to the content creators you do consume and what they have to say about doing it for the joy of it all
Ross Whatshisname of Accursed Farms (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ6KZTTnkE-s2XFJJmoTAkw/vid...) does an extremely in–depth review of a video game about once a month, and doesn’t do sponsorships. He gets 200k–500k views on every review, which is very popular by any measure.
I agree that truly unpopular videos with a dozen views will never make money, by advertising or otherwise. But the converse is not true; as I have demonstrated, there are plenty of popular videos that don’t bother to try to make money by sponsorships. You know every single one of those is turning down a VPN company every week of the year though.
People who have native sponsors inside their uploads are usually attempting to derive a significant amount of their living income through their videos, and if they're on sponsor block that means they've attracted enough viewership that this is doubly so.
It's fine if you want to deprive them of their livelihood which affords them the ability to make professional and polished videos but don't kid yourself about your motivations. And speaking as an amateur videographer, it takes an enormous amount of time and work to be able to make even a short 20 to 30 minute video.
True. I don’t mind depriving them of their livelihood, because advertising is intrusive. I don’t have to allow advertising onto my screen. There are more good youtube videos with no ads than anyone could watch in a lifetime. If 100% of people started blocking ads, and companies stopped buying ads as a result, then a lot of video creators would do something else. But like I said, many people create videos for reasons other than just money, and they won’t leave.
Years ago I got my not-so-tech-savvy parents using an ad blocker on their laptop, and recently when I upgraded them to a new device they briefly experienced the internet without an ad blocker and thought something was wrong with their brand new computer.
Once you experience the digital landscape with ads blocked, you quickly realize the mindblowing amount of advertising people are subjected to thru traditional media. I always wonder how much energy we're collectively wasting by sending people ads that they don't want to see, or will be blocked and never seen at all. What a waste
I already spend much less time on YT since they butchered their recommendations. Now I‘ll think twice before clicking on a video, so I very much welcome this change. Just as you can watch incredible videos about every topic on YouTube, you can waste hours watching junk. To me, this change is a great incentive not to do the latter.
I don't have this problem with my suggestions, but that's because I deliberately and constantly prune bad suggestions with the "Not interested" option. Maybe it's a placebo, but since starting that crusade I've found my recommendations to be very topical and relevant for me. I also make sure I open any videos that might 'pollute' my suggestions in a private browsing window.
Look, I hate ads. I really do. You can pry uBlock Origin from my cold, dead fingers. But the thing is, sites and creators and whatnot still often choose ads as a way to fund the things they create. If they're pushing ads at you over a medium where you have control (there's a reason why a web browser is a "user agent"), then I think you totally have the right to choose what your user agent does and does not fetch from the remote server. (And I believe uBO does work for YouTube ads?)
But if you're consuming something through a medium where you don't have full control -- such as the YouTube mobile app -- then you get what you get. If the ads are onerously bad enough, and people don't want to pay to remove ads, then fewer people will use YT and Google will dial it back. But there's always the paid option.
I get that many of us don't like ads -- again, I don't either -- and don't like a choice being made for us as to how we're going to "pay" for content online. But this isn't the case here: Google offers an ad-free paid experience. If you get enough value out of YouTube, maybe you should just pay for it. If you don't want to (or can't), then ads (or blocking) it is. Or just don't use it... vote with your feet.
May I introduce you to NewPipe, an excellent client for Android, and https://piped.kavin.rocks/ on desktop/web?
I disagree with the statement that this is " a medium where you don't have full control" — after all those are my devices and I like them to be my (user) agents, not some thurd (sic) party.
You’re “sure”? I mean it’s kinda the whole point of the product, and from what has been said in trade articles the revenue from premium is much higher than the ad revenue it’s replacing.
People of course do stupid things, but the information I saw made it sound like there’s no question, premium is better for Youtube
I also don't understand this discussion that they want to show ads just for the sake of it. No, all they care about is money from the ad and if they could earn more by not showing it, then there is no reason not to take it.
The argument you hear, is this is how CableTV started. Pay for Ad-free TV. Then they started a few ads, then they added lots of ads to to the subscription you were paying for... but people could not give it up. It's not altogether unreasonable to make the comparison.
Well if that is the point then Youtube can just make a public, legally binding, unrevokable declaration that they will never insert ads into Youtube Premium. Since they are not going to do it, they lose nothing and their customers get a legally binding assurance. Problem solved.
Netflix charges. For a long time they said no to ads. For a long time they said they won’t do ads. Then the profits started tipping down. Wall Street frowned.
Now ads are coming to Netflix, which you will still pay for.
What do you think Google will do, when they do freely abandon services, jack up GCP prices, and set 10 ads on the unpaid tier?
There will always be a cycle of bundling, unbundling, adding ads & removing ads.
In the meantime, if you can stand to identify yourself to Google, the $11.99 / mo I pay for YouTube Premium is some of the best bank for buck I ever spend.
My understanding is all the current plans have no ads and will not have ads going forward. There's a new cheaper tier coming with ads, that doesn't bother me. As long as I pay what I consider a fair price and see no ads I'll be happy.
Twitch did this a few years ago. Amazon Prime used to give you ad-free viewing, but they ended that. I believe the reason was so they could grow their ad business.
Likewise, If too many people buy Premium, they won't be able to sell as many ad spots. Plus, the people who actually pay for Premium probably make heavy use of YouTube. My guess is that they'll instead start increasing the price of Premium to get more people to give it up.
They still have a site wide ad free option. It’s Twitch Turbo.
Back in the day before Amazon brought out Twitch turbo would give ad free viewing plus a few extra perks (different emotes, full RBG setting for colouring your username).
When they launch Twitch Prime (now rebranded as Prime Gaming) as a benefit for Amazon Prime they copied the feature set from Turbo and added a free subscription to a streamer of your choice. So most people swapped from Turbo to Prime.
They stopped pushing Turbo and hit its purchase page but if you looked closely enough you could find it.
But prime wasn’t really a money maker, sure it was a benefit to the viewer but it was an extremely generous offer (helped soften the blow that Amazon just brought everyone’s fav gamer streaming platform)
But yeah it was tanking ad impressions (which they have were trying to expand the ad business during this time) cause you know you know a sub token worth 5 bucks, ad free viewing and all the other benefits of Amazon prime for what 8 bucks a month. You were a fool not to swap from the existing Turbo offering to Prime, and if you didn’t have Amazon Prime but you already sub’ed to atleast one streamer a month it was only a few extra bucks a month compared to what you were already paying.
So they removed the ad free viewing from Prime gaming and started pushing Turbo again for another 9 bucks a month.
Google's top risk is to Ads; much of Alphabet's purpose was to force each unit to find a monetization strategy; you're seeing this with nest, YouTube, workspaces, storage, music.
And then you're seeing it in their earnings call. (Though it's still a small percentage of revenue)
Nope. YT Premium only makes the problem worse by requiring you to log in using an account that is tied to your real world identity and was used for payment processing. You just end up giving more data points to Google to track you, cross-reference with other sources and shove more ads in other platforms, still get native ads, and Google can just add their own ads later (as it is happening step by step with streaming companies).
Google is acting as a mobster and you should never pay the protection money. Use your trusty adblocker of choice, NewPipe or yt-dlp.
The problem with NewPipe and yt-dlp is they can get shut down at any given time the moment they have a cease and desist and/or DMCA takedown letter much like when Vanced was shut down. They're basically living on borrowed time. It's much of a reason why NewPipe has support for other platforms such as FramaTube and Soundcloud to prepare for that inevitable scenario.
I just wish there's viable alternatives to YouTube out there but sadly there isn't any.
The problem is that YouTube is ramping up the number of ads. So what changed? Many creators have been getting plenty rich from the relatively fewer ads that have been shown over the years (which I've been quite happy with). If they are showing more ads for the creators sake then fine, but I am skeptical that is the case.
In general a lot of products have not been pulling their weight and have been subsidised by other products. YouTubers have not been able to make a living off video ads for a while so they do in video promotions, external fund raising, getting paid to promote crypto scams, etc.
YouTube may want to fix things so content creators can just put out good content and get paid properly through the platform.
The success of Netflix and its ilk proves that people are more than willing to pay for a product.
The issue is that Netflix and its ilk decided that the format and payment we all agreed on for the content provided was insufficient, and split content and jacked up prices and fudged with the platform to extract more money from people who were already paying.
I would be ok with Netflix raising their prices as they produce more content and offer more services. I would be okay with a competitor or two having different content behind their own paywalls.
I am not okay with having prices increase while losing content and having negative experiences like advertising added to the experience across the board and needing to keep paying more and more to what is it, 10, 12 streaming services each with their own tiers of quality and constant price changes and content disappearing and being shifted over to other streaming providers.
They've taken what should have been a simple platform that is accessible to everyone for a reasonable price and turned it into a hellish pay-as-you-go labyrinth of frustration.
That's why people would rather pirate than pay.
What I would like is a pirating amnesty pay site. Go to one spot, tell it what you've watched (but not where or how) and pay whatever fraction of a dollar per show that the show creators expected to receive after all of the middlemen took their cut and go on with a clean conscience.
I would even pre-buy credits to spend on shows, when I'm out of credits for the month I don't get to watch any more tv. I'm cool with that, but that option doesn't exist and won't exist as long as soulless middlemen insist on pissing on the walls of every good thing until they get their money.
There are over 20 streaming services in the US alone, and while some of them are tied to your cable providers, the grand majority have some content that is exclusively available to them, each with their own fee schedule and varying amount of advertisements or combo deals required to view the shows you would like to see.
> But if you're consuming something through a medium where you don't have full control -- such as the YouTube mobile app -- then you get what you get.
Hint: it's possible to watch YouTube in the browser on mobile. It's possible to do it with the screen off as well, using some browsers. Do with this information what you will.
I have YT premium. It only stops the ads in the beginning. It does nothing for the in-show ads - the sponsored stuff. I wish that was required to be flagged and skipped as well.
Yes I ended up paying for a YouTube sub because of my kids. I just use the app built into my LG tv and it doesn’t have an ad blocker. It’s pretty much a necessity if you’re playing one of those 60 minute loops of peppa pig or whatever.
I haven’t seen an ad on the Internet in nearly 20 years, ever since the first adblocker got released for Phoenix in 2003 (what became Firebird, then Firefox).
Same. I honestly forget it has ads since installing firefox followed by ublock origin are the first two things I do on any computer I'm going to be using extensively. Over the years with different adblockers and browsers, some ads have squeaked through, but on the whole I've lived ad-free on the internet for almost two decades as well.
On Android you can also use Firefox with Ublock Origin or the NewPipe app which removes the ads. If you want SponsorBlock, there is a fork of NewPipe with SponsorBlock included: https://github.com/polymorphicshade/NewPipe/releases
I'm sure there are ads you've seen on YouTube, they just look slightly different to what you have in mind.
But first, this comment wouldn't be possible without Deutsche Bahn, the n°1 train provider in Germany. If you go to their website right now with promo code "probably_wrong" you get extra delay on your next trip. If you're going to be late, be late with Deutsche Bahn. Remember: promo code, free delay.
Now, back to our comment. YouTube is full of ads, the only difference being who gets the money from them. Is one of the reasons why some people here don't want to pay for it - you get less ads, but not ad-free.
The answer to this is sponsorblock, which has reached a state where it takes mere minutes, sometimes seconds, for someone to mark the relevant segments in a new video. And it's not just sponsor reads, you can let it skip intros, unrelated tangents, etc.
Many YT content creators are not allowed to monetize through youtube because of content policies in place. Many more are not allowed because they can't produce the minimum traffic required in the timespan given or level of followers which force clickbait content.
I'm okay removing ads because the quality of video would increase and the type of video would change
If you think about it, people that can't monetize their videos, put much less effort into making good videos. By not paying for content you're actually doing the opposite of encouraging for good quality.
I've been using YouTube less because of ads. Partially consciously after a set of two long ads to send the message that this harms engagement, partially I just get annoyed and stay away naturally. If they're ramping it up.... crap.
It's not like there's an alternative and I'm not that fond of making the monopolist more entrenched by giving google, of all companies, more money in a subscription and tying the account to a real-world identity, also when considering all the other stuff google already collect on me.
(I've tried Nebula and CuriosityStream which many creators I watch constantly promote(d). Was done with the interesting content in one week and its size means there's very little fresh material, and also it doesn't run on the tv which I could work around with extra hardware if it were amazing but...)
An alternative is, of course, YouTube Premium. Their pricing always seemed very high to me, but now I wonder if it was meant to be in the context of this number of ads.
Yeah I realized that I should add why that seems even worse to me, so I edited that in.
To elaborate a little, I pay for Spotify, Netflix, F-Droid, OsmAnd, Simple Mobile Tools, FairEmail, K9, Internet Archive, and other software and services I use.... independent companies and creators that don't already track me to hell. Giving money to google would be out of necessity, not to help them strengthen their position if I can avoid it. If YouTube spins off as an independent firm where you can have an account that has independent guidelines and everything, I'd sign up in a heartbeat. They make a good product and have good content, the only downside is that there's zero competition but that's not a deal breaker by itself.
I’m in the same boat. I watch YouTube via Brave or uBlock + Firefox. If YouTube spun out of Google, I’d pay for premium. I get a lot of value out of it. I just can’t bring myself to pay Google for anything. I know it’s not really rational, and in a way, ad-blockers feel a little like piracy. But it’s where I am.
100%. I have a hard time explaining even to myself what makes it feel so wrong to pay google for their monopoly, it's a good product after all and usually that means I feel obliged to make money roll.
On pc I indeed also use the ad blocker, but on tv that doesn't work. (I also tried pi hole)
This. If YouTube were independent I would also be inclined to buy Premium. I already pay for several other streaming services. I do not want Google tracking my viewing habits (you must log in to use Premium) just so they can sell targeted ads via their other properties.
Orion Browser on iOS as well blocks YT ads for me.
The problem though with ad-tech is while browsers/uBO may work currently, it is a cat/mouse game and the big boys will win with their huge budgets and genius developers. Niche browsers like Brave/Orion and uBO extension are already probably getting to the point of being overwhelmed by constant breakage of YT/Twitch/Etc ad blocking.
I pay for YouTube Premium, and happily so. There’s A LOT of great content there—probably even better content than Netflix.
And you want to know what else? While it’s just okay, it includes ad-free music from YouTube Music. So, win, win? Until someone comes out with a better offer, I’ll continue to give more money to Google.
Every time this subject comes up, the comments are filled with people who feel entitled to watch YouTube for free (not willing to pay in attention or in hard currency). "If you don't watch to pay for it or watch ads, don't use the service" just gets ignored, and people post ridiculous replies like "lol I just block all ads" . . . it's as if YouTube is as necessary to their survival as water.
It's also great because it demonstrates how full of BS many of the "if I had a choice to pay for the <ad-supported thing> I would" crowd are . . . not all, of course, but I bet there's a sizeable intersection between the two categories.
YouTube is a monopoly, and either needs to be regulated as a utility or broken up.
Nit: YouTube offers no such service. You will still see ads if you pay for YouTube premium, because YouTube policgies incentivize creators to put ads and sponsorships in the video
LoL. Not in any way, shape, or form. INTERNET ACCESS can be seen as and drastically needs regulation as a public utility. One specific site via that access; no.
The way consumers value things is insane to me. People will fork over $12 on DoorDash delivery fees, an overpriced drink, a coffee, etc. but to remove ads for access to an enormous vault of content that provides endless value, NEVER!!!
> YouTube and YouTube Music ad-free, offline, and in the background
It amazes me that when it's pointed out that you can easily buy an ad-free experience, people immediately double down on some hypothetical situation where you can't.
Also, why do you have to worry about the problem that doesn't exist now. Even if they change their mind in 6 months, you would be charged for just 6 months if you decide paying at current rate is good thing to pay.
YouTube premium pays creators more per view than an ad-watcher pays, which probabaly means that the amount of money YouTube earns through a premium subscriber is more than they get from ads watched by an average user in a month.
So, I would say it's unlikely Google will change this up. Premium is expensive and Google knows how easy it is to download AdBlock, even on mobile, so they'll be playing with fire.
There's a lot of people here who act like the only ones annoyed by this are people who refuse to pay for YouTube premium. But here's the thing... /I/ do pay for YouTube premium, and I still find this annoying. Here's why: I'm not always logged into my personal Google account on a device, and I don't necessarily want to log in on some devices to my personal Google account, but I still need or want to use YouTube. YouTube /is/ a wealth of information, and it's worth paying for, but that wealth of information often extends into topics which are, for instance, relevant in the workplace, but I am not going to login to my personal account on a work device.
Increased ads affect everyone, not just people who don't pay, paying only limits how it affects you in /some/ ways, but not completely.
In cases like these, I use multiple personas in Chrome (I think Firefox has user profiles) so I can log into my personal accounts on my work computer while still keeping everything compartmentalized.
I'm glad that works for you, but I follow a strict policy of separation between work and personal accounts and technology in order to support a defense of my open source work against any claims from current/past employers regarding IP assignment. I have a completely physically separated space, network, and internet connection specifically for work usage and there is no account or physical crossover between work and personal computing. I /never/ login to personal accounts from a work device, and I never will, browser personas is not a sufficient protection.
They already don't sell your data. The other economic value that "tracking" data could have is to show you better targeted ads. But when you block the ads, that potential value is irrelevant. So you're choosing to not pay at all, "paying twice" has nothing to do with it.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. You have the opportunity to take something for nothing, and seized it. But at least be honest about your motivations.
Technically you’re right. They collect data on me and my behavior and then sell access to my screen real estate in an abstracted way. I am more than willing to pay for services in exchange for being exempted from adsense, and from being tracked and profiled across the net. But I’m going to fight back when I’m the product. Youtube premium doesn’t offer that option- they will continue to collect data on my behavior even if they don’t show me advertising, because they don’t want to make public the true nature of the exchange.
I use ublock origin on desktop/mobile (Vivaldi and Kiwi) and don't see any ads, I use SmartTubeNext on my Android TV and don't see any ads, so not sure how are they unskippable, if I don't even see them
Well, that’s just great news after they completely botched HDR handling on the AppleTV client (it now flickers back and forth several times between display modes on my TV, so I miss the first queen seconds of everything).
I have been noticing I haven't been watching youtube much lately. This will certainly be a final nail in the coffin to get me to stop watching youtube. Which I figure is a great thing. So bring this on!
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 174 ms ] threadAlso, if you install SponsorBlock then at least for popular videos you will probably never see an ad from a video creator either. You can even have it skip self–promotional segments (Subscribe Now!), repetitive animations and intro sequences, credits, previews, etc.
Cancel Spotify, buy YouTube premium. Get both ad free videos and music on the same platform.
* lol
YouTube is at least as good as the vinyl record player. It is also the sole location for countless live audio/video recordings of musical performance. It works fine as a “music playback app” and is, to emphasize, an _awesome_ and convenient resource of live music performance.
Not for me. (Typed from iOS + Brave.)
In-video youtube sponsors were some of the last advertising I was exposed to. Glad to be rid of them.
The NewPipe Android app is another option and there is a fork that includes SponsorBlock: https://github.com/polymorphicshade/NewPipe/releases
Personally advertising is a high cost to myself that I am not willing to pay. I even avoid restaurants that have televisions, or that play a radio station instead of buying music that has no advertising in it. (I also frequent a couple of places that are willing to leave the music off for me, at least early in the day before the lunch rush, and one that doesn’t play music at all. That’s a different story though.)
I disagree with that. A selection of channels that I watch regularly enough:
The Spiffing Brit doesn’t do sponsorships, and his videos are quite popular (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRHXUZ0BxbkU2MYZgsuFgkQ/vid...).
This Old Tony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9rlWu9KWe8) is not quite as popular, if you count popularity by video views, but still very popular and no sponsorships.
What about Ben Eater? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_koa00MBLg) He is exactly the kind of enthusiast who would make amazing videos even if all advertising disappeared.
Ross Whatshisname of Accursed Farms (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ6KZTTnkE-s2XFJJmoTAkw/vid...) does an extremely in–depth review of a video game about once a month, and doesn’t do sponsorships. He gets 200k–500k views on every review, which is very popular by any measure.
Posy (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmEmX_jw_pRp5UbAdzkZq-g/vid...) is another enthusiast who makes videos for the sheer delight of it and whose videos are quite popular. If you haven’t watched his videos about LCD displays then you haven’t lived.
I agree that truly unpopular videos with a dozen views will never make money, by advertising or otherwise. But the converse is not true; as I have demonstrated, there are plenty of popular videos that don’t bother to try to make money by sponsorships. You know every single one of those is turning down a VPN company every week of the year though.
Either I watch or I don't watch, but I won't watch ads.
It's fine if you want to deprive them of their livelihood which affords them the ability to make professional and polished videos but don't kid yourself about your motivations. And speaking as an amateur videographer, it takes an enormous amount of time and work to be able to make even a short 20 to 30 minute video.
Once you experience the digital landscape with ads blocked, you quickly realize the mindblowing amount of advertising people are subjected to thru traditional media. I always wonder how much energy we're collectively wasting by sending people ads that they don't want to see, or will be blocked and never seen at all. What a waste
Look, I hate ads. I really do. You can pry uBlock Origin from my cold, dead fingers. But the thing is, sites and creators and whatnot still often choose ads as a way to fund the things they create. If they're pushing ads at you over a medium where you have control (there's a reason why a web browser is a "user agent"), then I think you totally have the right to choose what your user agent does and does not fetch from the remote server. (And I believe uBO does work for YouTube ads?)
But if you're consuming something through a medium where you don't have full control -- such as the YouTube mobile app -- then you get what you get. If the ads are onerously bad enough, and people don't want to pay to remove ads, then fewer people will use YT and Google will dial it back. But there's always the paid option.
I get that many of us don't like ads -- again, I don't either -- and don't like a choice being made for us as to how we're going to "pay" for content online. But this isn't the case here: Google offers an ad-free paid experience. If you get enough value out of YouTube, maybe you should just pay for it. If you don't want to (or can't), then ads (or blocking) it is. Or just don't use it... vote with your feet.
I disagree with the statement that this is " a medium where you don't have full control" — after all those are my devices and I like them to be my (user) agents, not some thurd (sic) party.
I am sure ads will come to paid option too soon so enjoy while it lasts with truly ad free paid option.
People of course do stupid things, but the information I saw made it sound like there’s no question, premium is better for Youtube
Slippery slope might be that as soon as enough people by the lower tier, the prices increase to the upper tier
Now ads are coming to Netflix, which you will still pay for.
What do you think Google will do, when they do freely abandon services, jack up GCP prices, and set 10 ads on the unpaid tier?
In the meantime, if you can stand to identify yourself to Google, the $11.99 / mo I pay for YouTube Premium is some of the best bank for buck I ever spend.
I wonder how long that will last.
Likewise, If too many people buy Premium, they won't be able to sell as many ad spots. Plus, the people who actually pay for Premium probably make heavy use of YouTube. My guess is that they'll instead start increasing the price of Premium to get more people to give it up.
But even that can get acquired.
Most also hamper investors, of course.
Back in the day before Amazon brought out Twitch turbo would give ad free viewing plus a few extra perks (different emotes, full RBG setting for colouring your username).
When they launch Twitch Prime (now rebranded as Prime Gaming) as a benefit for Amazon Prime they copied the feature set from Turbo and added a free subscription to a streamer of your choice. So most people swapped from Turbo to Prime.
They stopped pushing Turbo and hit its purchase page but if you looked closely enough you could find it.
But prime wasn’t really a money maker, sure it was a benefit to the viewer but it was an extremely generous offer (helped soften the blow that Amazon just brought everyone’s fav gamer streaming platform)
But yeah it was tanking ad impressions (which they have were trying to expand the ad business during this time) cause you know you know a sub token worth 5 bucks, ad free viewing and all the other benefits of Amazon prime for what 8 bucks a month. You were a fool not to swap from the existing Turbo offering to Prime, and if you didn’t have Amazon Prime but you already sub’ed to atleast one streamer a month it was only a few extra bucks a month compared to what you were already paying.
So they removed the ad free viewing from Prime gaming and started pushing Turbo again for another 9 bucks a month.
And then you're seeing it in their earnings call. (Though it's still a small percentage of revenue)
I'd also recommend SponsorBlock.
Nope. YT Premium only makes the problem worse by requiring you to log in using an account that is tied to your real world identity and was used for payment processing. You just end up giving more data points to Google to track you, cross-reference with other sources and shove more ads in other platforms, still get native ads, and Google can just add their own ads later (as it is happening step by step with streaming companies).
Google is acting as a mobster and you should never pay the protection money. Use your trusty adblocker of choice, NewPipe or yt-dlp.
Ether pay, or don’t use.
Fuck You, Pay Me: https://youtu.be/jVkLVRt6c1U
I just wish there's viable alternatives to YouTube out there but sadly there isn't any.
YouTube may want to fix things so content creators can just put out good content and get paid properly through the platform.
Then we get upset when terms change/ we’re the product.
I wish there was a better way.
The success of Netflix and its ilk proves that people are more than willing to pay for a product.
The issue is that Netflix and its ilk decided that the format and payment we all agreed on for the content provided was insufficient, and split content and jacked up prices and fudged with the platform to extract more money from people who were already paying.
I would be ok with Netflix raising their prices as they produce more content and offer more services. I would be okay with a competitor or two having different content behind their own paywalls.
I am not okay with having prices increase while losing content and having negative experiences like advertising added to the experience across the board and needing to keep paying more and more to what is it, 10, 12 streaming services each with their own tiers of quality and constant price changes and content disappearing and being shifted over to other streaming providers.
They've taken what should have been a simple platform that is accessible to everyone for a reasonable price and turned it into a hellish pay-as-you-go labyrinth of frustration.
That's why people would rather pirate than pay.
What I would like is a pirating amnesty pay site. Go to one spot, tell it what you've watched (but not where or how) and pay whatever fraction of a dollar per show that the show creators expected to receive after all of the middlemen took their cut and go on with a clean conscience.
I would even pre-buy credits to spend on shows, when I'm out of credits for the month I don't get to watch any more tv. I'm cool with that, but that option doesn't exist and won't exist as long as soulless middlemen insist on pissing on the walls of every good thing until they get their money.
There are over 20 streaming services in the US alone, and while some of them are tied to your cable providers, the grand majority have some content that is exclusively available to them, each with their own fee schedule and varying amount of advertisements or combo deals required to view the shows you would like to see.
Hint: it's possible to watch YouTube in the browser on mobile. It's possible to do it with the screen off as well, using some browsers. Do with this information what you will.
_confused look_
I haven’t seen an ad on the Internet in nearly 20 years, ever since the first adblocker got released for Phoenix in 2003 (what became Firebird, then Firefox).
But first, this comment wouldn't be possible without Deutsche Bahn, the n°1 train provider in Germany. If you go to their website right now with promo code "probably_wrong" you get extra delay on your next trip. If you're going to be late, be late with Deutsche Bahn. Remember: promo code, free delay.
Now, back to our comment. YouTube is full of ads, the only difference being who gets the money from them. Is one of the reasons why some people here don't want to pay for it - you get less ads, but not ad-free.
https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock
very classy, more channels should do this
I'm a big fan of this approach.
And yea, for the best I buy merch or patreon or whatever.
I'm okay removing ads because the quality of video would increase and the type of video would change
It's not like there's an alternative and I'm not that fond of making the monopolist more entrenched by giving google, of all companies, more money in a subscription and tying the account to a real-world identity, also when considering all the other stuff google already collect on me.
(I've tried Nebula and CuriosityStream which many creators I watch constantly promote(d). Was done with the interesting content in one week and its size means there's very little fresh material, and also it doesn't run on the tv which I could work around with extra hardware if it were amazing but...)
To elaborate a little, I pay for Spotify, Netflix, F-Droid, OsmAnd, Simple Mobile Tools, FairEmail, K9, Internet Archive, and other software and services I use.... independent companies and creators that don't already track me to hell. Giving money to google would be out of necessity, not to help them strengthen their position if I can avoid it. If YouTube spins off as an independent firm where you can have an account that has independent guidelines and everything, I'd sign up in a heartbeat. They make a good product and have good content, the only downside is that there's zero competition but that's not a deal breaker by itself.
On pc I indeed also use the ad blocker, but on tv that doesn't work. (I also tried pi hole)
Even paying customers get zero support. I'm not encouraging that.
The problem though with ad-tech is while browsers/uBO may work currently, it is a cat/mouse game and the big boys will win with their huge budgets and genius developers. Niche browsers like Brave/Orion and uBO extension are already probably getting to the point of being overwhelmed by constant breakage of YT/Twitch/Etc ad blocking.
And you want to know what else? While it’s just okay, it includes ad-free music from YouTube Music. So, win, win? Until someone comes out with a better offer, I’ll continue to give more money to Google.
It's also great because it demonstrates how full of BS many of the "if I had a choice to pay for the <ad-supported thing> I would" crowd are . . . not all, of course, but I bet there's a sizeable intersection between the two categories.
Nit: YouTube offers no such service. You will still see ads if you pay for YouTube premium, because YouTube policgies incentivize creators to put ads and sponsorships in the video
The way consumers value things is insane to me. People will fork over $12 on DoorDash delivery fees, an overpriced drink, a coffee, etc. but to remove ads for access to an enormous vault of content that provides endless value, NEVER!!!
[Citation Needed]
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-inv....
> YouTube and YouTube Music ad-free, offline, and in the background
It amazes me that when it's pointed out that you can easily buy an ad-free experience, people immediately double down on some hypothetical situation where you can't.
Also, why do you have to worry about the problem that doesn't exist now. Even if they change their mind in 6 months, you would be charged for just 6 months if you decide paying at current rate is good thing to pay.
So, I would say it's unlikely Google will change this up. Premium is expensive and Google knows how easy it is to download AdBlock, even on mobile, so they'll be playing with fire.
YouTube without sponsorblock became unusable. For iOS I recommend uYouPlus: https://github.com/qnblackcat/uYouPlus
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/search/...
Increased ads affect everyone, not just people who don't pay, paying only limits how it affects you in /some/ ways, but not completely.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. You have the opportunity to take something for nothing, and seized it. But at least be honest about your motivations.
“Hey everybody, upload your videos, so everyone can watch them for free!”
YouTube in 2022:
“Hey everybody, if you want to watch everyone’s videos, you gotta watch 10 ads first or pay us money!”