[user34283]

In the past I used to pay for Netflix, Spotify, and even YT Premium.

However, they keep raising prices every year.

In the past Netflix 4K cost like $22 and with family sharing it was about $5 - totally acceptable.

Now they cracked down on family sharing in different households and charge $37. No way.

Spotify: they increased prices again last month to $20 USD for the individual subscription. I bought a 12 month Colombian gift card for $40 USD and activated via VPN. Should this stop working, I will unsubscribe entirely.

YT Premium: it's at $23 per month now. Considering they aren't producing movies themselves, I consider that one the most egregious pricing out of all three. They can absolutely forget it - I am unwilling to pay any more than $10 for it.

[yason]

YouTube has the best content that you absolutely can't and won't find in commercial productions, and exactly because they aren't producing anything, they're just a platform. I think the sub-$10 premium without music was in the right price range but even at $20+ it proposes much, much more value than your random streaming service.

However, what they're not clear about is how the Premium fees actually land on the YT channels which is an irksome point. Premium views generate more income than unpaid views, that much I know. But I don't know if my subscription fees will benefit only the channels I watch or whether I my subscription is helping the big, popular shows that I never watch.

[sidrag22]

I don't understand the youtube love i see all over this site. It's constantly something i see that people are okay with.. but i see so many things i dislike within it.

It has a social media style layer on top of it to entice people to keep watching, as well as creators to keep creating horrifyingly misleading titles/thumbnails, it captured a massive user base without utilizing ads and then removed the training wheels and went full steam ahead on ads and added a paid model.

they added shorts which is all the things i mentioned on steroids, and its owned by google.

I'm a strong advocate for turning youtube into just a search bar, with some subscriptions on the side for creators you actually care for. Imo, if something gets through all the noise and finds its way to me, its maybe worth watching, if its their social media style layer suggesting it to me? its a low % chance its worth watching a minute of.

[yason]

> youtube into just a search bar, with some subscriptions on the side for creators you actually care for

That's exactly the only way to use Youtube: start with the subscriptions page where you see new videos from channels you follow in reverse chronological order, then open up the videos into tabs, go fullscreen and play. The platform indeed is rather horrible and tries to be a video hosting plus a kitchen sink but you don't have to engage with it (even if they try to get you in to that). Sadly, the experience sucks for youtubers as well, accounts shut down for no good reason, copyright harassment, demonetization, videos removed, etc. with nothing much they can do about it. I would pay for Youtube if it was a video hosting service straight and honest, connecting creators and viewers, and not an opinionated platform moderated into nannies.

The problem with Youtube is that it has good content despite everything else so they can force this crap on us. If there ever was a friendlier implementation people would jump to it but network effects give Youtube its power. As long as you can't follow your subscriptions outside Youtube it's hard for competition to come out of nowhere. Much like there's no aggregation of social networks where you could follow people on various services without having to be on every single one even if you like Facebook and your kids like Instagram.

I last watched tv at my parents house in the last millennium. Never had a tv because there was nothing interesting to watch. Then Youtube came and all the niche people filming their stuff on all the niche channels. Stuff that would never ever be in any commercial, mainstream network because they would have to try to appease the largest possible audience. Coincidentally, all the Youtube channels that grow too big and make the channel a "production" rather than a "guy with a camera" unequivocally become bland and boring, averaged, dull, and all the nice rough edges nannified away just like networked stuff from big production companies.

[johnnyanmac]

>It's constantly something i see that people are okay with.. but i see so many things i dislike within it.

Yes, welcome to a true blue monopoly.

I can list issues for days, but at the end of the day a lot of beloved creators in pretty much all sectors can make a living off of Youtube and not much elsewhere. Maybe some can jump to Nebula, but not all have content that fit that service. It's those creators I love, not Google.

I'd love nothing more than a proper competitor to rise up, or for courts to finally do their job and slice Youtube out of the Google ecosystem. But I'll be waiting a while for either. I've de-googled in pretty much every other aspect except Gmail and Youtube, and I simply don't see any other way out for now.

[user34283]

45% of your subscription benefits Google as far as I know.

I'm not willing to pay $20 a month for watching like an hour or two of mediocre homemade content Google did not even produce.

[johnnyanmac]

As any other subscription, it depends on your habits. I can pretty much subsist on entertainment, educational, political, podcast, and simply fluff content on Youtube without any other streaming service (because damn, what's the last TV show I really was excited to watch? the new King of the Hill Season a year ago?). $15 for that is fine, for now. But I'm eagerly keeping an eye out on another ship to jump to.

[bambax]

I unsubscribed from Spotify six months ago and didn't look back. Navidrome works extremely well.

[sidrag22]

almost 4 years for me now, feels good to not feel like im having my music held hostage unless i pay them every month for the rest of my life.