[wcarss]

YouTube could play ads and let me play videos while my phone screen is locked. They could play ads like they used to: a small popup. They could play ads like they did after that: one 5 second pre-roll. Or like after that, a pre-roll with a skip call to action.

But at some point it got into the ballpark of two 10-15 second ads every 5 minutes even on the channels of people who explicitly asked not to turn on monetization because they're making educational content, often for kids and schools. The mobile app nags me with a "try premium" / "skip trial" popup 5 times per week. There are consistently small bugs in the user experience of the app.

Oh, and they're rich as God because they're also the people who own the operating system, browser, app store, and search engine I used to find all this stuff -- plus my email and my productivity software, all of which they will leverage to _squeeze_ every last bit the juice out of me as a user. They own all my data already. They own everything.

So, what is the "principled stand"? Enough is a goddamned enough! If they were just going to show some ads, it would be fine, but like every single parasitic horror show out there, they promised they'd be good and they cannot stop getting worse.

At the very least, I can choose not to pay them $12/month for the privilege.

[rtpg]

Yeah I agree that you can totally just be like "not for me". I just think the using of language of protesting and voting for "the video experience as a free user is not fun" adds a moral valence to something that honestly has a pretty good extant solution. Pay for the sub!

Pay money, get no ads. It's not that complicated. It's totally reasonable to whine about the increased ads and not wanting to pay ofc. But at least we can pay to not have ads!

[lumb63]

I see this ending with ads increasing ad infinitum. As more ads get added, the value of the free version will decrease and more users will be pushed to either stop using the site or pay for subscriptions. We should fast forward to that end game, where YouTube locks all the user-created content behind a paywall to monetize it for their own benefit like all internet platforms seem to be aiming to do.

I understand that YouTube costs money to run, but the monetization situation does not reflect that, and is thus totally backwards. The current model is that users pay for a “service” (YouTube) which has an expense for “content” (video creators). The content is what the users actually want; the situation should be that users pay the content creators, who pay YouTube something akin to rent. It is not fair that YouTube profits off of the value that content creators bring rather than just their infrastructure. It is akin to paying the owner of a building for access to the store.

[londons_explore]

Vimeo has exactly the business model you propose. Total data delivered to viewers is limited in all Vimeo plans, and you need to pay them extra if you want a viral video.

It's been about a while, and so far hasn't gained a large userbase of viewers - at least in part because content creators don't want to pay for random non-paying people to watch their videos.

[acover]

YouTube is a monopoly. They'll increase ads till it maximizes profit. If you don't watch then they don't profit.

[gymbeaux]

It boggles my mind how technology has been advancing consistently through time until the last few years. Now we have feature flags in databases dictate whether we can use technology. There's no reason to block YouTube videos from playing when my screen is off, except to get more money out of people.

[londons_explore]

Video ads pay far more than audio-only ads. Brand advertisers want to get their logo in front of you.

I bet the economics don't add up for running a video hosting site, yet only getting revenue from audio ads.

Even spotify hasn't managed to survive on audio-only with ads - they have to put in other arbitrary restrictions like 'you can't play the song you want to play' to dissuade people from using the lossmaking plan.