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by thieu96 1610 days ago
Not the OP but I watch on a smart TV or on my phone a lot, also while commuting. There are also some songs that I can only find on Youtube so I use the music feature quite a lot. so a premium sub was the easiest way for me to not need to deal with those god-awful ads, yeah I know there are hacks like wifi-level adblockers but it's no end-all-be-all.

I know people want to fight against Youtube premium but it's a pointless fight, all that's gonna happen is the less techy-savvy will get bombarded with ads, the more the tech-savvy folk resist, I'm accepting the reality that this free service now needs either a paid plan or to serve more ads, I'm not resisting it, it's just the way it is.

1 comments

I think this outdated distinction of "tech-savvy" consumers needs to die. Something as simple as using ad blockers is not really a "tech-savvy" thing to do, but a practice that's almost essential for pretty much everyone nowadays. I am an Indian college student and even the least tech-interested people I know (barring the elderly) regularly use ad blockers and Vanced for Youtube on Android.
If that's really so, then India is leaps and bounds ahead in their "tech-savviness" on all age groups, compared to the rest of the world. I needed to install that stuff for my parents, same with the friends of my parents. How would they know about it otherwise?

Also, how do the common folks block ads on their smart tv, a very common means to watch Youtube? I only know because I'm a programmer, but most people won't know about a wifi-level adblocker.

I appreciate you have these ideals but have you wondered what will happen if every Youtube user in the world starts using AdBlock? In the process leading up to it, people lagging behind will get increasingly worse ads, and when that singularity hits people will need to disable AdBlock to access Youtube, and a mass amount of people will just opt-in to Youtube Premium anyway, or deal with the ads again. There is no alternative to Youtube.

I'm not going to fight against this type of stuff, I think it makes sense that this app which has been free for over a decade, now has an option to subscribe and get an ad-free experience, it makes total sense, we've just been spoiled.