[least]

> Because you don't want to acknowledge the scary world of choosing something better?

You could choose something better by consuming media from sources that don't engage in the malpractices you're complaining about. There's plenty of media available for purchase without advertisements or subscriptions attached. There's also plenty of media on offer for free from the people who created it.

I'm not even anti-piracy, but your rationalization is just ridiculous. No, you're not sticking it to the man; you're being subsidized by people that are willing to pay for content they consume.

I've pirated a ton of content/software in my lifetime and I use adblockers. Countless mp3s, video games, applications, movies, tv shows, and articles online consumed by me without paying for it. Sometimes it was impossible for me to pay for it because of regional licensing, but a whole lot more of it was simply because I didn't want to pay for it or I couldn't afford it.

Now I pay for music and other media streaming services, including Youtube Premium. I pay for the games I play and I pay for a lot of software that I use. Does that balance things out? Maybe, maybe not. But I'm definitely not someone that is pretending I'm on some moral crusade against advertisements by circumventing them.

[talldayo]

I'm not pirating media people put on YouTube. When you upload content to YouTube, you are generally taking unlicensed (or provisionally legal derivative content) and sublicensing it to YouTube for distribution and monetization. You can argue that I'm pirating Google's copy of the content, but I'm not short-changing the original uploader by refusing Google's ads. I'm exclusively ensuring that Google's business model is less profitable.

> you're being subsidized by people that are willing to pay for content they consume.

Good! Those people hate YouTube too, otherwise would be perfectly satisfied with the default service. If Google kills YouTube and forces people to finally create a better system of content ownership then humanity will be all the better for it. Google doesn't deserve this content, they are poor stewards of the service and deserve to be deposed for their lazy management of a shared resource. If we were talking about ad-free Facebook subscriptions HN would be wearing the shoe on the other foot, ripping people to shreds for supporting a demonstrably destructive business. But YouTube is different, because we all have some incentive to prop poor Google up.

I feel zero empathy contributing to "the problem" of ruining the service. This isn't the tragedy of the commons, it's the progression of corporate greed. Keep paying for YouTube Premium, tell me with any honesty your contributions are making the world better or providing a more complete user experience. You can't.

[johnnyanmac]

>but I'm not short-changing the original uploader by refusing Google's ads.

I'd be surprised if Google didn't take adblocked users into account when administering pay, because the pay scale isn't some flat "X money's per Y thousand views". So yes, you are indirectly short-changing them.

>If Google kills YouTube and forces people to finally create a better system of content ownership then humanity will be all the better for it.

or we get a worse format like Tiktok taking over. The most popular reddit alternative during its "protests" was Discord. I don't consider that an obective net good for the free web.

That's not to say Reddit deserves to stay alive, just a consideration that this forced migration will not necessarily lead to a desired solution of "new website like X but without the bullshit"

[least]

> I'm not pirating media people put on YouTube. When you upload content to YouTube, you are generally taking unlicensed (or provisionally legal derivative content) and sublicensing it to YouTube for distribution and monetization. You can argue that I'm pirating Google's copy of the content, but I'm not short-changing the original uploader by refusing Google's ads. I'm exclusively ensuring that Google's business model is less profitable.

If I write a song and put it up on bandcamp for purchase and on youtube with the intention to monetize it through Youtube's monetization options, how do you arrive at the conclusion that you're not pirating my content when you're circumventing the medium through which that is monetized? Advertisers will pay Youtube for an advertisement on their platform -> Youtube places advertisements in front of my video -> Revenue from advertisements is determined by how many times an advertisement is viewed on my video. So circumventing advertisement reduces the view count and thus the revenue. This is making it both less profitable for Youtube and for me.

> Good! Those people hate YouTube too, otherwise would be perfectly satisfied with the default service.

The willingness to pay for no advertising is not equivalent to hating Youtube. If you hate Youtube, why do you use it?

You might say it's because the content is there. Why is the content there and not somewhere else? Because Youtube incentivizes people to upload their creations to it. If it is somewhere else, why not watch it there or pay for it there?

> If Google kills YouTube and forces people to finally create a better system of content ownership then humanity will be all the better for it.

Why would Google killing off Youtube force any change to how content ownership works?

> Google doesn't deserve this content, they are poor stewards of the service and deserve to be deposed for their lazy management of a shared resource.

If they didn't deserve the content, then people wouldn't upload their content to Youtube. It is every creator's prerogative to choose how they distribute their content and there's a reason many do so on Youtube.

I could levy plenty of criticisms against Youtube just as many creators on the platform could but there's no coercion involved here. People want what Youtube has to offer.

> If we were talking about ad-free Facebook subscriptions HN would be wearing the shoe on the other foot, ripping people to shreds for supporting a demonstrably destructive business. But YouTube is different, because we all have some incentive to prop poor Google up.

What incentive are you speaking of? If ad-free Facebook subscriptions were tied into revenue-sharing with content creators on the platform, it'd be as reasonable as Youtube Premium.

> I feel zero empathy contributing to "the problem" of ruining the service. This isn't the tragedy of the commons, it's the progression of corporate greed.

I don't care that you're a selfish person acting in their own self interest; I'm no different. I dislike that you're trying to portray your behavior as righteous.

> Keep paying for YouTube Premium, tell me with any honesty your contributions are making the world better or providing a more complete user experience. You can't.

Paying for Youtube Premium supports the upkeep of the platform and directly contributes to creators through revenue sharing. Both the platform and its creators make for a better world. You could absolutely replace the platform, but there's undeniable value in one that allows basically anyone to share what they have to offer to the world and create mechanisms to monetize their content. The content speaks for itself. There's countless hours of educational and entertaining content. There's content for niche subjects and hobbies that would never have appeared in traditional media.

[msadirna]

> If they didn't deserve the content, then people wouldn't upload their content to Youtube. It is every creator's prerogative to choose how they distribute their content and there's a reason many do so on Youtube.

...and the reason is: they were the first. Now they are so huge that you can't go past them. If you want to have your video seen, you HAVE to go to YouTube. It's not an argument for them. It's just a quasi monopoly. Every Smart TV these days comes with an YouTube app pre-installed. It has it's app on most of the phones on this planet.

There is no real choice.

[least]

> ...and the reason is: they were the first. Now they are so huge that you can't go past them. If you want to have your video seen, you HAVE to go to YouTube.

I think you're understanding the value in the platform itself, then. It is pretty trivial for someone to share their video online but it's extremely difficult to get it to propagate.

> There is no real choice.

There is kind of a choice. You already added the primary condition for uploading it to Youtube and that condition isn't something that matters to everyone for everything. Traditional media is Youtube's competition for attention on long form content.

[msadirna]

People who upload their content to the open internet usually want to have it seen by others. So no...there is no real choice.

Also, suggesting that this "value" is something YouTube still delivers or creates, is ridiculous. It was luck and from then on the value is being provided by the people who upload content there. What they get in return is ridiculous compared to what YT generates financially. This is nothing to be proud of. It's your usual digital rip-off through privilege.

[least]

> It was luck and from then on the value is being provided by the people who upload content there.

Content means absolutely fuck all if it can't reach its audience. Youtube hosts, encodes, streams, distributes, and circulates the content and has recommendation algorithms to increase the productivity of every public video published on the platform. It was lucky that it was a first mover and gained the momentum that it continues to enjoy from its massive user base, but a massive user base means fuck all if you can't deliver a product that they want to use... and Youtube as a platform means absolutely fuck all if people don't create and share videos.

If you want to argue that Youtube takes too much of a cut because of their position as a natural monopoly in the long form video content market, you might have a reasonable argument. To say that Youtube as a platform does not provide value to both its creators and its regular users is simply asinine.