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Comment by andretti1977 | Hacker News Reader

andretti1977

I'm completely against Google usage of personal informations and hate annoying and bad ux on official YouTube app but, to be honest, ads support creators with revenue so when you "avoid ads", you are harming creators too, not only Google.

I think that if you don't like YT app and advertising, you simply shouldn't use YouTube.

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the reason i pay for yt premium is because it goes to content creators and i don't have to see the ads.

Everyone I follow on YouTube that is trying to make any money there uses some other form of revenue. Mostly embedded ads, affiliate links, sponsorships, and merchandise. These work regardless of whether you watch Google's ads.

...in addition to YouTube ad monetization. You know how important YouTube ads and prime are because of how much those same creators scream when they get demonitized.

This argument is as old as time, and the counterpoint is simply "it's revenue they were not getting regardless".

Those of us who don't want to see ads ever, for any reason aren't stealing or harming anyone, we simply don't want to see ads -- saying "well don't use the service" is not all of a sudden getting the creators back any revenue, and no, if there's interesting stuff on YouTube, I'm going to use it, and do so without seeing ads. I'll support the creators I want to support elsewise.

While I support the sentiment, you know that's not how all advertising works? CPM ads mean the publisher makes money because you saw the ad, regardless of whether you clicked on it (CPC).

Even if you never click an ad or buy anything from an ad, you are still helping the publisher make money.

Wrong. It means the ad played not that it was actually viewed. Most people don't sit through ads and just ignore them.

If you ignore ads but don't block them you're helping the publisher steal from the client. Personally I think that's wrong.

I didn't read them as saying anything about refraining from clicking ads. I took them to be saying they will avoid ads entirely, not viewing them but not clicking.

(I work in advertising, so yes I know how it works :)

The hypothetical being discussed is "it's better to not use the service at all than to use it and block an ad". In this scenario, which impression would have been shown that now is not? Either way, no money is made by the content creator.

The only way that person would make money is the third scenario which it seems you're talking about, whereby I use the service and watch an ad (and yes, for some of us, that will never happen).

But such YT such the majority of any other service/work, isn't free: it requires a form of monetization in a way or another and YT uses advertisment. They have enourmous costs and they have much bigger revenues. If everybody blocks ads then they shut down. You don't work for free, neither them. I'm not a paladin of advertisment, simply saying those are their service conditions (that as a side effect provide money to content creators too). Don't like their terms of use? Well, don't use their service. Or adopt the other option they provide paying a premium account

As a coder, this unbalanced smily-parenthesis is triggering my syntax error radar aggressively :)

Do you think we should be forced to consume all content that gets shoved down our throats, never turn away or cover your ears or close your eyes? Because that's what you seem to be implying.

My eyes, my ears, my brain. I'll consume your content how I want.

I think that if you don't accept the terms of use of a service, then you shouldn't use that service and consuming advertisment is exactly how the YT service has been conceived: its primary monetization form is advertising so if i want to use its service, i have to consume ads. If i don't want to see their ads then i'm completely free to not use that service.

I think similar considerations are valid for ads on websites too.

Do you also read all the ads on websites, and remember them too (because by some definition of "consume", that would be necessary)?

I hope you enjoy being force-fed content, because that's the future you're advocating for.

It's extremely disturbing to see people essentially advocating for the loss of control over their own minds and senses.

You are completely misunderstanding what i'm saying! What i want to say is that if a service requires you to pay to use it, then you have to pay if you want to use it; if a service is free but requires you to see commercials to be used then you have to see them if you want to use it. If a software requires you to pay a one shot payment then you have to pay it once, if another requires you to pay a subscription then you have to pay a recurrent subscription.

I'm just saying that you have to accept the rules or terms of service if you want to use a non-vital private-company owned service otherwise you can simply stop using that service.

You are not compelled to watch YT even if it has a predominant position. And you still have the right to complain (like i do too) about the horrible privacy issues with today's advertisment but that is a completely different topic

Give them a few bucks via Patreon or whatever then. That's more benefit than they'll receive from your eyes being assaulted with hours of ads.

Umm, or one could just buy YouTube premium?

How much of the YouTube premium fee goes to content creators? Why would that be better than donating directly to the content creators? Or are you suggesting that we should be philanthropic towards Alphabet Inc.?

Most channels I regularly I watch on youtube don't have a way to donate to them. The premium fee gets distributed in proportion to the channels I watch.

And I'm sure I'll get roasted for this but YT isn't free to run either. Alphabet Inc. should get some money from you if you are watching youtube, and I'd rather I just pay them than watch an ad from them.

> The premium fee gets distributed in proportion to the channels I watch.

Minus how big of a cut for google?

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