| >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 |