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Comment by jws | Hacker News Reader

…a limit to how user-hostile a tech giant can be before it really starts to hurt their bottom line…

Reading that line I just realized that google lost me as a YouTube viewer in the past two weeks. I used to follow a bunch of ~100k subscriber channels that produced content every couple of weeks on building things and how to build things. I'd generally watch one or two 10-30 minute videos a day.

They've cranked the ads through the roof to the point that I'd see the same 6 second Liberty Mutual bit three times before the video even got through its introduction along with a couple other ads.

I now realize its been days since I even went to the site. So I guess for this n=1 we've found the limit.

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Have you tried Youtube premium? We always say companies should move out of the ad revenue model and start charging for the services instead of pushing more ads. For me, paying Youtube premium has been a great decision.

I want to support the content creator first and foremost. That's not how premium works.

I know the creators get at least some of it. I have no idea if it's more or less than they would get with ads. I also pay for premium, and I'm fine with Google getting some of it. After all, it's not free to host and stream millions of petabytes of data. I really enjoy YouTube without the ads. It might actually be one of the last videos streaming services I'd get rid of.

I'm pretty sure there's an LTT video where Linus says he makes the most money-per-view from Premium users. Unfortunately I can't find it.

How does Linus make money? - 2020 Update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zt57TWkTF4

I use Premium too! Also try threatening to cancel and it will lower the price :P

Seconding this comment. I grumbled at first about paying for it but frankly after more than a year I’ve come to realize it’s money well spent considering how much use my family gets out of it.

We as a society have become allergic to paying for services. It's understandable but detrimental in the long term.

I figured this out about a year ago. As well as ad-free viewing I get YouTube Music, so I don't need to pay for an additional music service.

Now, if they would only stop with the censorship. When in the history of mankind have the censors ever been the good guys?

>>When in the history of mankind have the censors ever been the good guys?

I mean.....removing pedo or gore content from Youtube is still censorship. Just the kind that we probably all agree with. The way you view censorship(and censors) mostly depends on whether they remove content you want removed or not, and that line can massively vary even in western societies(for instance I love the fact that in Germany any nazi-related content is actually criminal, but many Americans gasp at the very concept - however the line is there even in America, but it's just placed in at a different point).

It doesn’t feel that great to help a company that’s dominating video hosting to help them muscle into the music streaming business through a bundle offer. But otherwise, yes: we might all be better off if Google made more from subscriptions and less from ads.

> When in the history of mankind have the censors ever been the good guys?

It's not called censorship when it is the right and reasonable thing to do. In many cases, it is simply decision making done collectively by society. For example, we don't tend to allow blatantly religious proselytizing in public schools by teachers. Is that censorship? Maybe? Is it controversial? Not really.

Education is actually a good example -- as decisions are constantly made in terms of what is and is not made available to students. It's easy to find decisions that are blatantly wrong -- for example, banning "A Big Mooncake for Little Star," which is a book about a little kid eating a cake. (But there are other choices that are obviously correct, such as banning books in school libraries that are blatantly misleading.

Whether something is considered censorship is often a matter of perspective.

Since the end of WW2, Germany has made spreading Nazi propaganda and denying the holocaust illegal.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/germanys-laws-ant...

Here’s the problem - if you don’t already watch a lot of YouTube the non pay version is such a bad experience that you avoid watching on it so you’d be unlikely to want to pay for it.

I agree with you 100%. I've had it for quite a while. When I see Youtube without being logged in, I really can't imagine using the at all with the current level of ads - it's gotten way worse in the past few years.

I also like having access to YouTube music but like so many things with streaming, you're not certain to get continued access to stuff you like. I've started buying MP3's of songs that I like again so that I don't have to worry that Google will stop carrying the music any more or raise prices on YouTube Premium to a level I don't like.

I have less and less trust for the big companies that provide these services so I'm focusing more on self-hosting and some form of ownership. It's not just MP3's. I'm also making sure that I'm using FOSS for my note taking (Joplin), backups (duplicati) and other such things. Some of this stuff is too valuable to me to risk losing access to.

I'd buy YouTube premium if YouTube was still an independent company. Even if paid YouTube doesn't serve you ads, they are still collecting analytics you and building out your Google profile. No thanks.

They are doing that if you don't pay too.

Right, so I just use AdBlock, PiHole, and NewPipe. I'd pay but I'm not gonna pay and be the product at the same time.

Honestly I’ve been interrupted by relentless pleas so many times for YouTube premium that I just don’t consider it a “positive” thing. I could cancel my Patreon payments to the content creators and redirect that money to Google, who would then give a small fraction of it to the creators. That doesn’t seem like I’m dealing with an ethical hosting service.

I’ll probably look through the Patreon pages in a few weeks, see who I still care about, and see if they have alternative video feeds that aren’t so ad littered. Those can remain, the rest I’ll cancel.

People aren't going to pay for companies they've had enough of. People open to the idea of paying would pay to companies that would treat them better.

It does feel like a bargain, all things considered. Plus you get YouTube Music.

Don't forget the lack of dislike counts, which makes it harder to distinguish good tutorials from scams shilling some service.

Also, why are you not using uBlock origin?

YT Premium is an alternative to ad blocking that at least supports the creators whose content one watches.

Why not use both? You can support the content creator with a higher per-view rate and still block ads in other places.

I quit because I was getting 2-3 30 second ads per video, 5 minute videos that is.

Ended up getting an ad blocker on my iphone and deleting the app. I now have to use youtube.com and settle for 720p, but it's far and away better than the shit ads it served.

Don't get me started on the relevancy of the ads.

You don't have to settle for 720p change the quality 720p is the default

I think on the mobile site 720p is the best you can do. On the app/desktop you can get 1080p.

I, at least, have never seen that 1080p option on the mobile site.

You may have been in the heavy ads group from some sort of A/B experiment on how the number of ads they show affects engagement. YouTube runs these sorts of experiments all the time to improve "metrics". I've heard that there's even a long-running "control group" that doesn't get ads on YouTube.

May I suggest an ad blocker just to hammer the nail?

I started using the Vinegar iOS app to remove ads and other crap from youtube. Still surprised that Apple hasn’t pulled it from their store (afaik).

You must be watching them on mobile, right? I get 0 ads on Firefox on my Mac, I'm assuming ublockorigin blocks them.

Oh and on mobile ios they’ve removed the ability to sort channel videos by popularity or age…

Popular sort was a great way to find what a new channel was about

Odyssee is fine if you can find content on it. Otherwise, use Brave. YouTube is pretty great if you use Brave.

The account I logged into Youtube... female facebook shill sock puppet. The feminine hygiene ads are down right discusting. N <= 2, If I see 3 ads, I just close the window.

There is the Scottish electrical engineer, that although his accent is really thick, its refreshing, but with the adds for cell phones/no and FHP/no.

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