From my knowledge a lot of YouTubers get paid by advertisers and they don't even let the viewers know.
The single view is not much worth - I estimate the streaming costs are quite high (think of all the bandwith you need for 4k/8k streaming with low latency).
They do, AFAIK creators get much more money from Premium viewers than ad-supported viewers. And not just relatively, sometimes in absolute numbers as well.
That’s the kind of comparison YouTube hopes you do.
Compared to patronage systems, it’s a pittance. You may as well try to pay your favourite shows directly rather than give your money to Google and have them redistribute it on your behalf.
Google is providing a service here. I think people have gotten so used to the internet they forget the massive costs involved in running a website like YouTube.
Netflix has it on their cheapest tier. Prime already has ads but for their own content only. I don't have Hulu. Either way, you can always just pirate stuff with Sonarr, Radarr, and a Usenet server account. Black Friday is coming then you can get huge discount on Usenet server account / block accounts, Torznab/Newznab server (you can use SpotWeb, too), VPN.
Way too expensive (unless you are able to pay in a currency of a third world country which is what I do). They still do tracking on you. You still get sponsored ads by 'creators', so you'll need Sponsorblock as well.
For Android, consider using "NewPipe x SponsorBlock x Return YouTube Dislike" [1]
(I've not once seen a sponsor I'd be interested in. Many of them are scams, US-centric, or just stuff I don't want/need and I certainly wouldn't be stimulated to purchase something because of a sponsorship.)
I don't expect that. I, like everyone else in this world, have limited amounts of time and money, and I'd like to spend them wisely with the tools I have available.
Why do they get all the negotiating power in this arrangement? They should pay me to watch ads. I'd watch more videos. Win-win for them.
Otherwise they have polluted their value prop -- to be a video sharing platform, and my content that I share, your content that you share, and all your watching patterns data, which has value, is stolen without recompense.
Please. Don't "but you get something for FREE" me -- we're the product and that ain't right. Youtube should be a service -- pay for or not -- not a package delivery vector for ~~meme viruses~~ content-free and meaningless adverts.
If it costs YouTube 2 cents to stream a video to you, and they get 3 cents for delivering the ads with it, let’s say they could pay you half a cent and keep half a cent of profit for themselves. For that to be worth it, you’d need to watch 2x the videos (and ads) for them to break even on the deal, and more than 2x for the deal to make more than the current deal today (you watch 1x and they keep the whole 1 cent). Would actually watch 2x more content to earn those pennies?
These numbers are made up, but explain a possible model of why YouTube doesn't try to induce more views with a monetary incentive.
> Otherwise they have polluted their value prop
> Please. Don't "but you get something for FREE" me -- we're the product and that ain't right.
I think the economic deal is clear to you. You don’t get something for free. You’re paying by watching ads (same as OTA TV broadcast for the last 60 years) and with the collection of your habit data (modern surveillance capitalism). In exchange YouTube serves you videos.
If you don’t like the deal, and they won’t negotiate with you, then you should walk away.
Personally I pay the $14/mo to not see ads; YouTube doesn’t produce content directly but they incentivize the production of a lot of niche content creators who otherwise would never get a deal from Netflix etc, and the YouTube mobile app is the most reliable one I use (better than Netflix, much better than Hulu).
I pay $6.99 for the student plan which is not that bad.
Since I got AdGuardHome on my network ads started to be very very very aggressive on YouTube so I just gave up and paid for it since I use it extensively during the day.
It's not "so expensive". It's a couple of cups of coffee from Starbucks, for 720 hours of content per month per person. Even if you factor in 8 hours a day of sleep you could watch it for 16 hours per day per person for one low price. That's about US$0.01 per hour.
I obviously don't watch anywhere near as much YouTube as you do.
The price is higher than I pay for any other streaming service. I don't drink coffee, but a quick look suggests it's 4 to 6 cups of Starbucks coffee here in Australia.
I remind again that this is the price I'd need to pay for my household, not just one individual (just like the other streaming services I subscribe to which is used by the whole household).
I remember 2004, when ads on the web were incredibly annoying.
There was (loud) sound, and half the information was buried under ads for certain pages.
Me being a teenager back then, decided I've had enough after a late night gaming session with friends ended with a stupid website screaming in my ear to buy a new car.
I installed an ad blocker and since then my web experience is (mostly) ad free.
When I see ads I immediately know what NOT to buy. I feel I've already paid with my lifetime, so I am not going to add (haha) money on top
Sure, they could charge you per view, which is being done indirectly now through ads. You're not entitled to free content no matter how much you think you are.
I'm absolutely entitled to whatever bytes some server is happy to send to my machine. It's up to my machine to then decide which ones of those bytes to actually turn into light and sound.
"How have you paid them with your lifetime (whatever that means)?"
Occasionally I watch TV (the oldschool satellite thing) or drive around and see ads.
> Follow-up: If you like someone's YouTube content, how would you suggest they be compensated?
If they have a Patreon, I go that route sometimes... but generally: I don't. It's a hobby for me, if it's your business, it's on you to find ways how to monetize it, just like I have to do with my business :)
The ones that are so offensive to Hacker News commenters that they will rail wildly against them, call YouTube’s business practices scummy because of them, and make a new hobby of blocking them rather than pay $14 a month for YouTube Premium.
Such a snobby comment. Do you really think people on HN don't know uBlock Origin?
People make their own adblockers because YouTube and uBlock Origin have been in an arm race for years. Sometimes uBlock Origin doesn't update fast enough to respond to YouTube's changes.
I presume this means you're now pirating. If so, then you've admitted you're a criminal. Nice work. If not, the what are you using your NAS for? Purchased content like I am?
Hard disk storage isn't getting cheaper at the same pace as earlier(before the Thailand floods 10 to 15 years ago IIRC). Bandwidth is also expensive, especially across the world. Microsoft threw in the towel in a related space(live streaming) with Mixer. Twitch wasn't really profitable for a long time IIRC, if it now is(even after adding a lot of unskippable ads and adblocker blocking). Kick is bankrolled by online casino gambling profits and is probably a huge money sink.
If something was feasible, surely the people who hang out on HN would be all over it trying to build something. Even if something does get built, it will go the same route eventually.
Am I the only one that is a little turned off by how everything nice on Earth needs to be monetized to death? It's not like Youtube isn't profitable already.
I don't think its a good argument to say "because x is profitable they should not do y". Sure I can dream of a world where actors do not try to extract profit where possible but its not realstic.
State funded services. By now it's clear that platforms like YouTube and Twitter are integral parts of our lives, even used by institutions to release official statements and by media to publish news.
Why then should we leave such important services in the hands of a handful of investors who's only interest is increasing the profit margins?
Some countries/cities manage to have excellent public transportation infrastructure. Why shouldn't they be able to build an excellent public digital infrastructure?
> Incentives matter, if you want good products you need to incentivize making them.
Speaking about incentives, for-profit products have the worst ones. Would you rather use a twitter-like product built by people earning the more time you spend on it, or by people who keep their jobs if they manage to achieve a positive societal effect?
No, I don't think incentives are the issue here.
One issue is probably the slowness of public institutions in embracing change, which is also a good thing in some cases, but doesn't help when the goal is to build new tech products that enable societal change. It seems that private initiative works best when it's about inventing stuff, but not when it's time to implement it in a society. Although that could be changed, if governments weren't so hellbent on delegating so much to private initiative.
Yes, and those costs are covered already. We're talking about squeezing additional profits out of the product in order to make the shareholders happier.
The tech industry did this to themselves by giving everything away for free for a decade.
I always thought it was suspicious that all these tech companies survived for decades without being profitable. Now that ZIRP is over and they have to actually be profitable, it all makes sense.
Turned off, yes. ...but at the same time, I am violently against greed and psychologically manipulative processes to acquire wealth. YT is insidiously screwing with peoples minds for profit. They can Fuck Off.
You know there aren't ads if you actually pay for it right?
I agree the ads are obnoxious, but hosting YouTube is incredibly expensive, and online ads are incredibly cheap so... Even if they _weren't_ being greedy there would need to be A LOT of ads to compensate for the hosting & engineering costs.
Like... If you hate the ads THAT MUCH, but want to continue using the service, why not just pay for the service?
(side note: you also get streaming music (YouTube Music) when you pay for YouTube which is a nice bonus.)
Are you sure that there won't be any ads in the future? Because it already repeatedly happened that that paid subscription was without ads, until it wasn't.
Whats the alternative to YouTube then? I get it, some people really don't like ads and especially do not like Google's data collection tactics. Whats the alternative then, in the YouTube model they need to pay the creator, pay for the associated costs of running the site and pay themselves. Lets not even go down the road that they already make so much money that they could play less ads or do xyz, I don't think that is a constructive argument.
I learned of an alternative recently, Nebula. One issue there is discovery, I consume a bit of youtube and had never heard of it before. The only reason I noticed it was Strange Parts mentioned it in his last episode and that he posted a new video there that will not show up on youtube for a bit. The first problem is discovery. YouTube is really great for content creators as they can get discovered with the massive amount of viewership.
The second problem is how much it pays. I tried to get a better idea of Nebula's model but this recent thread with the founder really did not answer the question for me. Felt like a redirection then just getting down into the economics of it. I would be curious what the actual per viewer income is between the two. We can immediately assume though that YouTube is paying more in total. They have the network with all the viewers.
At the end of the day I would happily use something else but imo there really is nothing else that exactly serves the purpose. The majority of content creators are on YouTube in some form with only a very minority that have totally left it and done their own thing.
90 comments
[ 6.4 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadThe single view is not much worth - I estimate the streaming costs are quite high (think of all the bandwith you need for 4k/8k streaming with low latency).
Sadly I couldn't find numbers for YT profit.
Compared to patronage systems, it’s a pittance. You may as well try to pay your favourite shows directly rather than give your money to Google and have them redistribute it on your behalf.
- Netflix
- Hulu
- Prime (coming)
For Android, consider using "NewPipe x SponsorBlock x Return YouTube Dislike" [1]
[1] https://github.com/polymorphicshade/NewPipe
I don't expect that. I, like everyone else in this world, have limited amounts of time and money, and I'd like to spend them wisely with the tools I have available.
Otherwise they have polluted their value prop -- to be a video sharing platform, and my content that I share, your content that you share, and all your watching patterns data, which has value, is stolen without recompense.
Please. Don't "but you get something for FREE" me -- we're the product and that ain't right. Youtube should be a service -- pay for or not -- not a package delivery vector for ~~meme viruses~~ content-free and meaningless adverts.
These numbers are made up, but explain a possible model of why YouTube doesn't try to induce more views with a monetary incentive.
> Otherwise they have polluted their value prop
> Please. Don't "but you get something for FREE" me -- we're the product and that ain't right.
I think the economic deal is clear to you. You don’t get something for free. You’re paying by watching ads (same as OTA TV broadcast for the last 60 years) and with the collection of your habit data (modern surveillance capitalism). In exchange YouTube serves you videos.
If you don’t like the deal, and they won’t negotiate with you, then you should walk away.
Personally I pay the $14/mo to not see ads; YouTube doesn’t produce content directly but they incentivize the production of a lot of niche content creators who otherwise would never get a deal from Netflix etc, and the YouTube mobile app is the most reliable one I use (better than Netflix, much better than Hulu).
Since I got AdGuardHome on my network ads started to be very very very aggressive on YouTube so I just gave up and paid for it since I use it extensively during the day.
The price is higher than I pay for any other streaming service. I don't drink coffee, but a quick look suggests it's 4 to 6 cups of Starbucks coffee here in Australia.
I remind again that this is the price I'd need to pay for my household, not just one individual (just like the other streaming services I subscribe to which is used by the whole household).
There was (loud) sound, and half the information was buried under ads for certain pages.
Me being a teenager back then, decided I've had enough after a late night gaming session with friends ended with a stupid website screaming in my ear to buy a new car.
I installed an ad blocker and since then my web experience is (mostly) ad free.
When I see ads I immediately know what NOT to buy. I feel I've already paid with my lifetime, so I am not going to add (haha) money on top
Especially since you've been actively avoiding advertisements.
Follow-up: If you like someone's YouTube content, how would you suggest they be compensated?
Not my problem to solve.
Perhaps content creators or those who host their content can find less offensive ways of monetizing?
Occasionally I watch TV (the oldschool satellite thing) or drive around and see ads.
> Follow-up: If you like someone's YouTube content, how would you suggest they be compensated?
If they have a Patreon, I go that route sometimes... but generally: I don't. It's a hobby for me, if it's your business, it's on you to find ways how to monetize it, just like I have to do with my business :)
Also i get to chose what runs on my machines, not them.
Wait, now that i think about it i wouldn't. I would rather give that money directly to few creators i watch, instead of them getting 0.01% of that.
It replaces the text 'skip ads' with 'Fuck Off'. That's it "
Okay then. Fun for 30 seconds. :)
People make their own adblockers because YouTube and uBlock Origin have been in an arm race for years. Sometimes uBlock Origin doesn't update fast enough to respond to YouTube's changes.
And this thread isn't even about ad blockers...
How many would they continue using it, 5%? ~20% max the most?
If something was feasible, surely the people who hang out on HN would be all over it trying to build something. Even if something does get built, it will go the same route eventually.
Whats the alternative?
Why then should we leave such important services in the hands of a handful of investors who's only interest is increasing the profit margins?
> Incentives matter, if you want good products you need to incentivize making them.
Speaking about incentives, for-profit products have the worst ones. Would you rather use a twitter-like product built by people earning the more time you spend on it, or by people who keep their jobs if they manage to achieve a positive societal effect?
No, I don't think incentives are the issue here.
One issue is probably the slowness of public institutions in embracing change, which is also a good thing in some cases, but doesn't help when the goal is to build new tech products that enable societal change. It seems that private initiative works best when it's about inventing stuff, but not when it's time to implement it in a society. Although that could be changed, if governments weren't so hellbent on delegating so much to private initiative.
Do you have an idea about how much does it cost to run a website like YouTube?
You’re all in violent agreement. Maybe drop the ad hominem.
1. Am I the only one that is a little turned off
2. how everyone feels
3. they deserve everything for free?
It's complicated the fact that some of these are negating statements where agreement is expressed by a "no."
I always thought it was suspicious that all these tech companies survived for decades without being profitable. Now that ZIRP is over and they have to actually be profitable, it all makes sense.
I agree the ads are obnoxious, but hosting YouTube is incredibly expensive, and online ads are incredibly cheap so... Even if they _weren't_ being greedy there would need to be A LOT of ads to compensate for the hosting & engineering costs.
Like... If you hate the ads THAT MUCH, but want to continue using the service, why not just pay for the service?
(side note: you also get streaming music (YouTube Music) when you pay for YouTube which is a nice bonus.)
It's a prisoners dilemma. The honest ones (who pay for YouTube premium) lost the most.
If you appear to be purchasing from Turkey (Türkiye), for example, then you’ll only be paying 29.99 Turkish Lira, or about £0.90, per month.
Well worth it for an ad-free experience (and picture-in-picture) in the native app imo.
I learned of an alternative recently, Nebula. One issue there is discovery, I consume a bit of youtube and had never heard of it before. The only reason I noticed it was Strange Parts mentioned it in his last episode and that he posted a new video there that will not show up on youtube for a bit. The first problem is discovery. YouTube is really great for content creators as they can get discovered with the massive amount of viewership.
The second problem is how much it pays. I tried to get a better idea of Nebula's model but this recent thread with the founder really did not answer the question for me. Felt like a redirection then just getting down into the economics of it. I would be curious what the actual per viewer income is between the two. We can immediately assume though that YouTube is paying more in total. They have the network with all the viewers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Nebula/comments/16qeup8/does_nebula...
At the end of the day I would happily use something else but imo there really is nothing else that exactly serves the purpose. The majority of content creators are on YouTube in some form with only a very minority that have totally left it and done their own thing.