[cvoss]

If I can actually pay someone for content, then, if I don't pay, I should expect not to be granted access to content.

But that's not how YT works. YT doesn't charge you for good stuff. It charges you for not delivering crap. That's not legitimate business, that's a racket. I have no qualm punishing YT for that. Content creators are free to find other ways to monetize their labor, if their labor is actually valuable. (And so many of the good ones do, quite successfully.)

[Uehreka]

YouTube gives you two (2!) ways to pay for content. You can choose to pay with money, or you can choose to pay with your time and attention. If you don’t like paying with your time and attention, then either pay with money, or don’t use the service.

This “It charges you for not delivering crap.” line is bullshit. Serving video content costs money, they’ve given you the choice of how to pay for it, and you don’t like the choices but want to keep getting the content.

[gausswho]

Worse. It charges you by building a profile about you.

21st century nation states can better solve video scale delivery without middle parasites like Google.

[PurestGuava]

> 21st century nation states can better solve video scale delivery without middle parasites like Google.

If it's that easy, why has nobody done it?

(Hint: governments don't want to run YouTube, probably shouldn't run YouTube, and nobody else wants or can afford the immense costs that come with running YouTube.)

[gausswho]

I'm unconvinced. I suggest that YT's outlay is a sneeze among the budget of the US. In my estimation, all nations are lagging in the definition of what constitutes a public utility. In a decade we will be facepalming why advertisements were even needed for this common infrastructure.

[PurestGuava]

Most things are a sneeze compared to the budget of the federal government of the US, that doesn't mean that's a reasonable expectation for the US government (or any government) to run them.

[fc417fc802]

Phone service is recognized as a public utility. What difference justifies the failure to label internet service as a public utility?

Most governments operate a postal service. Why then should governments not provide bare bones email and video services? You have government agencies using Zoom and similar. The analogy would be discontinuing the USPS and sending official government post via a wholly unregulated Fedex. It's absurd.

[gausswho]

I challenge the idea that private enterprise could solve the scaling component better than a government could. We've reached this comedy of ads and surveillance capitalism because private strategies are flailing.

[chii]

why should US taxpayers subsidize a service for which non-US citizens could get a benefit from without paying any taxes?

"The gov't should pay for it" is not a solution to private problems.

[someone7x]

> In my estimation, all nations are lagging in the definition of what constitutes a public utility. In a decade we will be facepalming why advertisements were even needed for this common infrastructure.

I’m just glad others feel this way.

Why the hell can’t I have my own spam free email account from the post office? Because the ads, the precious ads.

[manquer]

The money goes to creators as well, not just pay for video streaming .

On average creators get paid more for premium views than they get from ads .

[krelian]

The mental gymnastics some will go through to justify being a cheapskate...