[Gunax]

There is a comment somewhere on HN where a person described implementing ads for a small, hobby website.

Users complaied about the price to go ad-free (something like $25 per year).

The commenter revealed that the actual revenue from ads was much more than $25 per year. Every person who purchased the ad-free option actually cost them money.

----- The lesson I took away is that ads pay more than we expect, though i didn't know the specifics of YouTube.

By providing an ad-free option, they are really allowing the user to out-bid the advertiser.

I think for most people, they would not be willing to pay more to avoid the ad than the ad seller is willing to pay to show it. It's a weird conundrum--but people are very cheap.

[saltyoldman]

I think that's the angle I'm going for. If Youtube was $25 per year or even $50 per year, it would be a no-brainer for me to pay that. Even if 50 does NOT outbid the advertiser, wouldn't YT rather have guaranteed income rather than trying to constantly find high bidders.

Youtube claims "we’ve reached 125 million YouTube Music and Premium subscribers globally, including trials"

And I bet most of that is trials and it's probably cumulative rather than right now. I bet that 500m people paying $50 /year would actually make them real money that is dependable - since most people would pay for it again next year to avoid ads. And the lower price would skyrocket subscriptions.