One wonders how much further YouTube can take this - it appears they are approaching the optimal point for extracting revenue from videos, so where is their future revenue growth going to come from?
I miss the YouTube of old rather than this commercialized version. To me, Tik Tok seems like more like the original YouTube than YouTube does.
I for one have become so annoyed with the level of ads that I have reduced my consumption of YouTube. To me, it seems like there is a much higher rate of advertising on a per-content-minute basis on YouTube than there is on TV.
The maximally optimal value to the end user waxes and wanes throughout the business cycle, and unfortunately we're in the trough.
It's part of why you can't rely on the market or competitive forces alone, if you think something is an issue of public good, you need regulation.
Let's not pretend they weren't incredibly hostile to watching shows you're paying for already, when you want to and without the ads you paid to avoid, even though they didn't need to even build any infrastructure for it.
Add the rest of their anti-customer policies like bundling channels and it seems clear that their campaign to get rid of all their cable customers simply succeeded.
The timeshifting is the tv stations defense of segmenting their ad market and protecting against local viewer loss that targets ads to markets.
If you in New York watch Denver's version two things happen. New York loses viewers. Denver gains viewers who's local ads are not relevant and those viewers not included when selling ads.
I mean time shifting as in what devices such as TiVo did where they would record your shows for you and allow them to play them back whenever you wanted. For some reason Cable companies really hated this idea, presumably because... ads I guess?
I think that if they simply hadn't fought against people trying to basically turn what they already provided into something more like Netflix, those tools would exist and be built with a cable package as a backend.
They provide all the shows in a datastream that they would otherwise provide via cable, let other people deal with paying for developing devices to make it easier to use, and price it more reasonably so that it can compete with a Netflix. I don't know if they'd be able to, but since they own the pipes and own the FCC it seems more likely than not. But they'd be doing a lot better than they seem to be now, they just priced themselves out of the market once networks realized that people would just download their content for free if it was too inconvenient to watch. Better a little than nothing...
Sure, the cable companies could've theoretically made Netflix streaming before Netflix did - and the broadcast networks kinda-sorta-tried-this with Hulu - but that had nothing to do with their ad load increasing over time. Hulu was way more convenient than watching the same shows on cable even with ads still! But to go all in on a reinvention towards streaming would've been a huge gamble even seeing the streaming train coming right at them.
I find paying for Youtube premium an pretty great value, because it has some of the best content for any hobby I may be into. It doesn't have the pure depth of hard core educational content like udemy/coursera/khan has, but I'm really not able to consume that type of content enough to run out.
Not true. Cable TV started by simply sending a copy of broadcast TV over coaxial cable, giving the user a more reliable signal (better picture and sound) compared to a "rabbit ears" antenna, and access to programs from distant cities beyond the limits of good radio reception. That broadcast TV, of course, was a live signal which contained ads in the signal that could not be removed.
Cable TV also offered the end user a convenient box with a digital channel number display and remote control for changing channels. The user was able to flip among dozens of channels without having to fiddle with the UHF/VHF tuning controls of their TV: they tuned the TV to channel 3 (or whatever) and could just leave it, letting the cable box do the channel selection. Cable TV was a major upgrade to the TV set. In particular to a basic model or old TV with only knobs for channel selection, no remote.
Cable TV did offer premium programs also, requiring a "descrambler". Those channels were collectively called "pay TV"; separate from regular broadcast TV. These channels were satellite channels; the user could have obtained them alternatively by installing a dish, and paying for the descrambling.
PBS Kids FTW. No ads, no harmful content, and (probably much) less surveillance.
With that, the day they bring adverts into Youtube Premium, is the day I stop paying for it. That would be them going the way of cable companies all in.
Likewise, the day that they start putting ads into YouTube premium is the day I abandon the platform.
I had Youtube Premium through Google Play Music until Google finally axed GPM. I was so disappointed by how poorly Google handled that process that I cancelled my subscription and lost my YT premium.
Youtube is completely unbearable without premium - I have no idea how non-subscribers tolerate Youtube content. The ads are so intrusive. I would totally pay $5-$10 per month for a Youtube only subscription but I feel like the $18/mo for a family plan is a bit steep.
Personally I wish all these music streaming services could agree on metadata sharing such that I could enable apps like last.fm to review listening history across every service, and offer my listening history and playlists to every service to receive better recommendations. It feels odd that I can listen to the same song from 4-5 different services that I subscribe to legally, yet none of the services has a complete picture of what I like to listen to unless I pick one and use it as often as I can. I had thought that playlist sync would be a way to improve my recommendations, but it seems most services look at listening history rather than playlists. It's also irritating that every company has its own way of doing playback sync between devices, whether it's AirPlay, ChromeCast, Spotify Connect, Alexa, YouTube app, etc. There is no way things should be this fractured and hard to use for music playback and recommendation in the next decade, we need more standards. :)
Now I run my own Plex server on a Raspberry Pi with an external drive and get a better experience than I had before, minus discovery.
1) You can't organize Albums by artist. 2) Your Youtube (video) likes are included in the pool of liked songs in the music app. 3) Artists you are subscribed to in the music app are included in your Youtube (video) subscriptions.
When YTM is better than GPM:
1/ Auto-created playlists, especially after you just search for a song and hit play. On GPM, it would play different covers on the same song (basically all the search results) by default, unless you started a radio, which is a cool concept but was hit and miss in practice. On YTM, it continues with similar songs, and I have liked their selection so far.
2/ The library seems to have increased; I guess they have access to more songs that were YT exclusive for some reason.
3/ While I normally never use video mode on YTM, but once in a while for a cool song, it's nice to be able to seamlessly switch to video and cast to my TV.
On the cons side, I don't like the playlist management and home screen UI (which is what I hated initially), but it's not bothering me much anymore now that I am getting used to it I guess.
Initially, I had planned to just cancel the subscription, but held on because using YouTube with ads was just plain intolerable. I get reminded of this everytime I open a Youtube link on my work account Chrome profile by mistake.
There's a wide open market for a good music streaming company that integrates with your own albums, that is corporately stable enough not to dissipate after "An Incredible Journey Together". All the different services have weird lockins and major gaps, whether it be uploads, mobile app limitations, interop, etc.
Here's a longer list of grievances from users who were forced to migrate from Google Play Music: https://www.reddit.com/r/googleplaymusic/comments/icmwdf/one...
Oh, and of course uBlock Origin works fine on proper computers too.
IMO it's a net positive that it has created new business models that's open to anyone with a camera/mobile.
On the other hand, the method employed by YouTube is just akin to its contents. 90% BS.
Youtube kids (with proper video/channel whitelisting) is the main thing my toddlers watch. It has BBC shows (peppa pig), PBS kids, and 2 great kid friendly content crators (Blippi and Steve and Maggie).
Of course there is lots of good "IRL" kids content, but propery setup, Youtube kids is pretty good and fairly priced in my opinion.
Unclear why the attitude. Youtube is a business. It doesn't owe users anything for free regardless of what it did in the past or others have done.
Restaurants? You pay them to dine there. They operate at a profit or try to. And restaurants who offer either (or both) better food or experience get to charge more like any other product or service in life.
Sure google or any business does not exist to provide free things to people.
No, it's like paying the restaurant for the damn food. YouTube hosting all the world's videos forever is not a god given right, nor is being able to watch content people create for free.
I despise ads, absolutely despise them, but gladly pay YouTube the $15/mo to remove them because I know good content needs to be paid for one way or another. There's still a few channels that I like that put in ads during the videos and that's still annoying, but otherwise I never see an ad.
And this is fucking fantastic! Imagine if the web as a whole adopted this. (I know there are efforts including Google's) If I could pay $10/mo to get rid of all ads (explicit and implicit) and have that go towards the creators that I consume content for, then we'd be in a much better place. (imagine if FB just got a cut of that for example, how that would change the dynamics)
I have a patreon which I budget $20/mo to actually pay the creators that I care about. Don't kid yourself into thinking your YT premium money is going anywhere except unboxing videos and Minecraft screaming videos and the like.
"Currently, new revenue from YouTube Premium membership fees is distributed to video creators based on how much members watch your content. As with our advertising business, most of the revenue will go to creators."
I support some creators via Patreon as well, but honestly that's just more work for me as my interests change and some months I don't consume any of their content.
I imagine the truth is that it is likely something Spotify-like or some variation thereof. I'm still ok with that and YouTube does make it explicit that the majority of my sub goes towards creators. FWIW I suspect there are some reasons that are subtle, bug valid, that Spotify for example distributes subscription fees the way it does, which I agree does seem kinda BS at first blush.
edit: some anecdotal info here saying that creators are indeed paid (handsomly) based on views: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/9agg5f/how_does_yo...
This level of entitlement is just staggering. You can pay for YouTube in two ways; watch adds or pay for add free.
Now, I get that the price for watching adds right now is too high. It simply ruins most content. But your metaphors are still just way out there.
In reality there are now 3 "tiers". - Premium. Pay with money. - Get a free taste. Choose if you want it. - Unwatchable content.
I don't think that is going to work out for YouTube in the long run. But shaming people for being willing to pay for actual loads and loads of quality content is not constructive.
On the other hand, I _am_ glad if this means that random, prudish advertising companies will hold less sway over YouTube at some point in the future, where subscriptions make up a bigger part of the revenue.
The best reason I can think of is becasue of this effect: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/13/156737801/the-...