[duxup]

> that are enforced on us !

You don’t have to use them and you could pay for them.

The users of the internet have made their call and they often don’t want to pay, so someone does.

As a whole the users of the internet are not rewarding anyone for NOT showing ads. We want our content and we want if for free generally.

[_Algernon_]

The problem is that advertisement business infects everything.

For instance, I could pay for Youtube Premium to ostensibly not be shown ads, but it doesn't change the fact that all the content[^1] in the ecosystem is still produced for maximizing watch time and/or being advertisement friendly.

I could pay for news, but that doesn't change the fact that the news is written to receive clicks from the non-paying users.

Paying for things does not help escaping the second order effects of advertisement.

[^1]: To a close approximation.

[wat10000]

I don’t understand this complaint in the context of YouTube. It’s the only major streaming service with plentiful new content that isn’t clickbait, focus-grouped, lowest-common-denominator, metrics-chasing trash. I can hop on and watch hours of jets flying through the Mach loop, people playing chess, and people machining metal. If those aren’t your thing, I bet there’s plenty of stuff that is.

Sure, there’s a lot of crap. But you don’t have to watch that.

[nindalf]

> Sure, there’s a lot of crap. But you don’t have to watch that.

The way people complain, I genuinely think they don't know about this option.

For example, Mr. Beast content isn't for me. But I was also living blissfully under a rock for years without knowing who the heck he was. Now that I know about him I simply don't click on his content and therefore never see it in my feed.

"But what if I click by accident?" - glad you asked. Simply delete it from your watch history and see your recommendations improve.

[wat10000]

Either that, or “that stuff is bad” is meant to be understood as “nobody should watch it.”

[nindalf]

Which is even dumber. How immature do you have to be to think you can dictate the tastes of others.

[choo-t]

> Sure, there’s a lot of crap. But you don’t have to watch that.

But even non-crappy content will be steered toward some direction by the advertisement, most videos are made just long enough to fit whatever is the new optimum time for revenue per view. And some subject will be censored to not displease advertisers.

Some people are not doing that, but it's simply because they don't rely on YouTube revenues.

[wat10000]

The people who aren’t doing that still produce way more than 24 hours of quality content per day. And for those who do, I’ll judge them based on what they make, not how I imagine they decide what to make.

[choo-t]

So your whole argument is just cherry picking? Sure if you ignore everything wrong, you can say the system is alright.

[haswell]

By way of analogy, large portions of Reddit have turned into every other social media hellscape.

Reddit is still awesome if you curate your subscriptions and avoid the big subs.

Is it cherry picking to say Reddit is awesome because I’ve carefully made it that way?

> Sure if you ignore everything wrong, you can say the system is alright.

This framing doesn’t make sense. It’s an ecosystem, and it’s not so much about “ignoring” things as much as it is about making active choices. If you go to a shopping district, there is nothing forcing you to shop at every store. If the district still has the stores you care about, shop at them.

[wat10000]

My gob is properly smacked by this reply.

I mean, yeah! Cherry-picking is the entire point of an on-demand video service. Are you just watching whatever it gives you in order? I seriously cannot comprehend what would possess someone to write this.

[carlosjobim]

Do you not choose what to buy when you go to the supermarket?

[dmonitor]

You get to pick the cherries that you eat.

[jnsie]

Recently I've been annoyed with Youtube Premium. I pay for an ad-free experience and do not see ads in the traditional (wait 5 seconds to skip) way, yet more and more content has inline product promotion where time is spent thanking a sponsor and pitching their product. So I'm paying not to avoid ads, but I'm still seeing paid promotion...

[fn-mote]

> I'm paying not to avoid ads, but I'm still seeing paid promotion...

It seems like you have shifted from having a problem with the platform to having a problem with the content producers. Can’t win?

[jnsie]

People all the way down...

[skyyler]

SponsorBlock works great.

https://sponsor.ajay.app/

[duxup]

> where time is spent thanking a sponsor and pitching their product

I’ve been unsubscribing from folks who do that a lot. Instant unsubscribe if the product is questionable.

I’m not going to judge their business decision, but it tea sets an odd tone when I’m watching something informative and they bust out into a “someone paid me to say this”.

[chuckadams]

It's an old-fashioned plug, and you can hit the skip button. Usually there's a banner of some sort that makes it even easier to know when the plug is done. If that's too much, then find a way to live without the show.

[ajsnigrutin]

google for "sponsorblock" extension for your browser, crowdsourced data makes it skip all the promotions, intros, "like and subscribe" and all other unneeded parts.

And when you're at it, ublock origin also skips the youtube ads.

There's also: https://freetubeapp.io/ , but it's a constant cat and mouse game with youtube, where you now have to refresh a video a few times before it starts playing (then it works fine), until they upgrade the software and then it works, until youtube changes something again.

[chgs]

YouTube has a “jump ahead” built in - at least on the phone - which skips sponsored bits

[javcasas]

You know who is the best target demographic for selling stuff? People with money.

So that's who you want to show ads to.

And do you know a proxy for "have money"? Paying for premium, when there is free.

Therefore, every time you pay for premium, all the advertisers look and say "I'd pay a lot to show ads to that guy". At some point, the premium service includes ads, because of so much potential extra revenue!

And that's why I don't pay for premium.

[sumeno]

I'll never understand why people are reluctant to pay for a monthly service because of something they might do in the future to make the service worse.

If they do that thing then just cancel! It's incredibly easy to do!

[choo-t]

Because if the service you pay for start to do what you expressively pay them not to do, your whole subscription since the beginning will feel like a waste.

Worst, your money was partially used against your interest, by financing people unilaterally altering a contract they made with you.

[sumeno]

> your whole subscription since the beginning will feel like a waste.

This is such a bizarre way of looking at something. I've canceled many subscriptions because of changes made by the company and I never felt like the time I already paid for was a waste. I got the thing I was paying for, then it changed in a way I felt like it was no longer worth paying for so I stopped. It doesn't change the time I was using it at all.

If a company taking your money and using it to make the service works is your line in the sand I've got bad news for you about how almost every single companies uses the money you pay them.

[ghaff]

And there have been a ton of things I just lost interest in over time and wasn't getting value from any longer, so I (usually, eventually) canceled. Doesn't typically mean my earlier subscription was a waste. When I got rid of my cable TV, doesn't mean I wished I never had it.

[acdha]

If your favorite restaurant changes their menu, does that make your past meals feel like a waste? It seems like a textbook economic transaction to buy when the deal is good and stop when it isn’t.

[choo-t]

Restaurant aren't subscription based, you pay for a one-time meal.

The whole point of a subscription is to support an ongoing service _to you_, if your money is used to enshitify the service and make it work _against you_, there no point of paying it altogether, you will be better serve by piracy (as you don't provide them with money to enshitify it, nor to lobby against your interests).

[acdha]

It’s especially weird because the one thing guaranteed to result in more ads is not paying. People spend a lot of money making content for YouTube and something has to pay for it.

[javcasas]

We already have more ads. The "promise" is that, by paying, we will get no more ads. For now.

I didn't ask for that content. I don't understand why I have to pay it.

[acdha]

So do what I do and don’t watch it. Just don’t deprive the creators of revenue and then be indignant when everything is loaded up with ads and sponsored content because people need to pay rent.

[javcasas]

"Might" is misleading. "Will" is more realistic.

[chippiewill]

You don't pay for premium because one day maybe it'll have ads?

The mental gymnastics people employ to not pay for content with either money or ad impressions is just silly.

[carlosjobim]

> it doesn't change the fact that all the content[^1] in the ecosystem is still produced for maximizing watch time and/or being advertisement friendly.

That's just not true. There is an enormous amount of content on YouTube right now, which is made chiefly with quality in mind, by some of the most professional people in the industry. There's more than you could watch even if you watched for a thousand years.

You just have to use the like/dislike and subscribe functions, so the algorithm knows what you want.

[Jgrubb]

Every one of the streaming services that I paid extra to go ad free decided to push ads anyway.

[duxup]

And they got their subscriber still I guess….

As users of these services as a whole we reward this kinda thing and then are upset when it happens again.

I don’t like any of this situation but I also think the user’s choices incentivize it.

[rchaud]

They didn't though. Every single streaming service bar Netflix loses money. On top of that, they've all poisoned the well by creating as many subscription tiers as Dell has laptop SKUs and raising the price every 9 months so nobody knows what the service should cost.

This ensures that people start and stop subscriptions just to watch a single series, instead of sticking with a single service all year.

[friendzis]

So it appears paying entrenched IP-hoarding organizations majority of your income further incentivizing their entrenchment is not the best business practice for a middlemen

[rchaud]

The hoarding began once they decided to abandon the DVD market, paranoid about file ripping and sharing. Now TV shows are like videogames now, can't watch without an internet connection phoning home.

[AlecSchueler]

Which choice could they have made differently here? They took the "pay for it" option that you suggested and then you still blamed them for giving the company negative incentives.

[choo-t]

Paying make it worse, paying doesn't prevent ads to be forced later (e.g: Netflix, Prime, Disney+) and split people fight against ad, as the ones with enough money to avoid them will berate the other for not paying, will still providing benefits to an ad-driven company.

Never pays to avoid ad, block them or get the content by other means. It's akin to "never negotiate with terrorists" or "never pay ransom", you have to remove the incentive.

[friendzis]

I'm not that old and yet old enough to remember internets before ad-supported free content, which was just infinitely better.

[sumeno]

I've been on the internet since the mid 90s and that entire time it has relied on ad supported free content.

[Marsymars]

Yeah, my first ad blocker was "AdSubtract" in ~2000: https://paulenglish.com/intermute.html

[windexh8er]

You could pay for them or Google could choose to take a different approach that is less intrusive. The assertion here seems to put the onus on the viewer. Considering YouTube pays little to nothing comparative to its profits based on content it does not make, I think a realignment of how Google operates YouTube could be an improvement for users of the service.

> The users of the internet have made their call and they often don't want to pay, so someone does.

Just because YouTube users put up with a broken system doesn't mean it's the correct, fair, or ethical approach. Beyond that many of the views are curated via algorithms that intentionally work against the user with an end goal to hold them in a viewing state regardless of the users original intent. With that in mind users should use tools against those malpractices and not feel bad about not paying for them. If someone is intentionally trying to manipulate you, what's stopping you from doing the same?

If Google were a fair and ethical company I think treating them the same would be more in line with your response. However, they are not.

[stingraycharles]

People have voted with their wallets on YouTube that they don’t want to pay for premium, and prefer to watch ads or block them.

Ads aren’t “forced” upon YouTube users, people have the option to pay but they just don’t want to pay.

[belorn]

YouTube can always choose to package the content in a financial transaction. They have chosen not to do so, and instead they are supplying advertisement alongside the content for which the viewer may or may not watch.

They can always change it, but then there are legal consequences of making it a financial transaction.

[windward]

Paying users are too valuable not to serve ads to. Their clicks are worth more: ad-free tiers are always temporary.

Not that it matters: I pay for the bandwidth and hardware too. So I decide what it serves and runs.

[abricq]

I know that I, as a user, ultimately have 2 choices: to pay for a subscription, or the choice to not use these services.

Option (1) does not block infinite scrolling content, it only removes adds. So this is missing the point. All i want is to not see these dumb shorts videos that I genuinely give no fuck about, but that manages to catch my attention regardless.

Then sure, I can always delete my social accounts, and ultimately i might end up doing it. But let me try to explain why I think this is difficult, and also unfair.

I give 2 purposes to these social networks: First, they play a role in personal-life balance as a way to be more integrated in my group of friends / local communities. Second, they play a role as citizen of my region (in my case, France and switzerland) by being a (sorta reliable) source of information through following accounts and newspapper on them.

Initially, none of these social-networks came with this super-fast / addictive content. They only started to integrate it, in my experience, since 5 years. So it seems to me that these companies have broke the initial contract that they "sold" to us: to connect with our friends & communities and to allow us to follow a specific set of public influencers.

I guess that I am mad that we, as a society, have allowed these companies to gain such an important role in our daily lifes (social life and public life) that they can now say : we will allow you to interact with some of our friends, but you will also have to watch our stupid videos... And unfortunaltey, it's not easy at all to spin up a concurrent social networks that would be full-filling this initial contract. Probably lots of people actually like to scroll on insta Reels and youtube Shorts.

[ed312]

This is why you fundamentally cannot rely on private companies to build the "town square". This will _always_ happen because every company has a profit motive (even if its a loooong tail via SV-style funding). The problem behind the problem is people want great communities and tools, but don't way to provide any effort to build them.

[carlosjobim]

> All i want is to not see these dumb shorts videos that I genuinely give no fuck about, but that manages to catch my attention regardless.

My recommendations never shows any low quality content. All you have to do is like good stuff, dislike bad stuff, and subscribe to good channels. The algorithm works surprisingly well.

> we, as a society

There is no we and there has never been. You have to start taking responsibility for your own actions.

[merely-unlikely]

There are corners like Substack that are an exception. And at least services like YouTube and Spotify offer a paid alternative to ads. I for one would rather pay the ~$10/month than sit through ads. But we are still very much a minority of users.