[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.

[Workaccount2]

The term is natural monopoly. These are things which cannot have competition for practical reasons.

Zoom and email are not natural monopolies.

[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.

[agent327]

As a thought experiment, is it realistic to get every tax payer to pay for funny cat videos? Because that will be a reality in your non-capitalist utopia.

Or maybe there just won't be any cat videos, because the state has decreed them unnecessary or even harmful? How about political messages, is the state going to allow those to be posted on its platform? There are bound to be a few that go against state policy...

You could argue that the same is true for broadcast TV, and I would 100% agree. The state has no business running or even funding public television.

[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.

[Y_Y]

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

Because US citizens would benefit? Preventing outsiders from incidentally benefiting isn't a constitutional mandate (yet).

Would you oppose an anti-pollution measure even though it would also provide cleaner air to neighbouring countries?

[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 .