Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by pravus 946 days ago
> Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube?

Because they offered it for free.

YouTube can close the doors any time. If they want my money, they can make a service offering that meets my needs. They could charge content providers for bandwidth and storage and meter it with assisted ad-support networks. They could charge a price I'm willing to pay.

But they don't and I will not accept any argument that consuming resources they put into the public sphere for free use means I am under any moral obligation to either give them money or facilitate them making money off of my traffic.

The only time ads worked was when Google made them an unobtrusive part of search. They dominate literally every piece of software I use now. I'm sorry but I say burn it all to the ground. I will either pay for or build its replacement.

You don't want ad-blockers? Shut it down. I was doing the internet before there was a need for them.

5 comments

You can get a Youtube Premium family plan for $15/mo that works for 6 people.

I'm as against ads as anybody, in the sense that (1) in general I think ads are unhealthy (2) I want infrastructure that makes access to content without ads possible (3) being able to disable ad blockers is one reason it's bad to let one company control how your browser works.

I can't say I disagree with Youtube's right to monetize, it's more of an "I'd really rather if you didn't" thing, but I think they do in fact offer the affordable plan you are asking for.

>You can get a Youtube Premium family plan for $15/mo that works for 6 people.

The family plan is $23/month in the US. The regular plan is $14/month.

An idignant victim compensating for taking without compensating.

How many other people or services do we use for hours a month for free?

Are we mad at them - and entitled - for offering an ad-supported option?

> Because they offered it for free.

The Information Service Provider offered it for "free with ads".

Do you otherwise support paying creators for their work, if not through YouTube's system for compensating creators?

My Service Provider License Agreement states that I am able to circumvent any ad technology when using my own devices. It is free. The "with ads" part is someone else's opinion.

If you don't want ad-blockers, shut it down.

>They could charge a price I'm willing to pay.

So if the price of Premium was lower you'd be ok with this? Premium costs about the same as Netflix.

Disclosure: I work at Google, but not on Youtube.

I watch primarily wildlife documentaries, educational lectures, and podcasts related to academic topics like paleontology, archaeology, ancient history, and other subjects. I don't want music, live shows, television, sports, or most content that would incur a premium markup.

If YouTube would be willing to charge me something in the neighborhood of $5-$10 per month for that I'd happily pay. I have never had a Netflix subscription. I stopped consuming pop content and movies in 2010.

I am serious about this. If you have any way of making recommendations to anyone anywhere within Alphabet that will listen, please offer it up. I would point you to a site like HistoryHit which is far more in-line with what I want. It is $60/year.

Also, I already pay $5/month to the Kevin Richardson foundation and the ad-blocking mechanism on YouTube prevents me from watching those videos (which I paid for).

It's $14/month or $11.67/month if you buy the annual plan. Or $23/month for a plan sharable by to up 6 total people who are in your household.
Come on. People like that always have one price in mind for what they're willing to pay: zero.
You're not going to shut them down, it sounds like they shut you down. Just pony up the $100/year. It's the cheapest television has ever been. This is hacker news, not hobo news. If you've been using the Internet this long, then you should remember the outrageous amounts of money people were paying for cable television back in the 90's. And that still had ads.
Most content creators are either doing it for free, or getting a percentile of a cent on the dollar. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it communication infrastructure, not service provision. Youtube is providing the infrastructure, the creators are providing the service.

As I think that infrastructure should be publically owned, I'm happy to do my bit for nationalization, and use adblock.

Then watch PBS lool.
Yeah pay for propaganda from the man.