It’s so notable that I can’t help but think overall watch time has flattened but they’re desperate to continue increasing revenue. Although at some point they’re likely to go into a downward spiral where they annoy too many users. I’m not there yet, but I’m on the trajectory.
Thus leaving us all permanently annoyed by the number of ads, but not quite enough to leave.
Sometimes I want to watch long podcasts about war and other times I want 30 second puppy videos and I don’t understand why I can’t have algorithms for both silos without separate accounts.
TikTok is capitalizing on this too - going to be much easier to digest a ton of tiktok then a ton of long meandering youtube videos.
I bought it right when it came out just to not have ads on YouTube. Then when you got free streaming music included, it was impossible to turn down.
The plus side is that YouTube music recommendations seem to be quite good.
For me, it’s because YouTube is clearly going the way of cable TV, and when they finally start showing ads on those fancy paid subscriptions, I’ll have to deal with the hassle of unsubscribing.
I’ll just watch YouTube until it becomes unwatchable, at which point I’ll stop watching.
I share YouTube Premium and Apple Music family subscriptions but if pressed would give up YT Premium before I gave up Apple Music.
Also, you're comparing different products in terms of price. YT can offer a "pro" version at an additional premium (though they probably won't... Since they focus on the main use cases)
What ads?
And as usual with Google, they either dont know what they are doing or they dont seems to care about YouTube Music.
Piss a user off once and you may have a much harder chance of bringing them back. Sure, you can use the fact you drove away user X in your model for how much to annoy user Y, but that doesn't un-piss-off user X. Sooner or later, there might be a significant number of users X!
For instance, I've specifically avoided "real TV" cable packages even when I can get them for cheaper than streaming TV because my use case (sports playoffs and such) is on and off, and Comcast et al have successfully trained me that it's extremely unpleasant to cancel wired cable TV, so I'd rather pay more for something less obnoxious.
It's easy to be both "data driven" and foolishly short-sighted.
As a bonus, in theory the creators get a cut, though I have no idea what it is. My clickthrough rate after years of watching YouTube is 0% so this seems like an improvement for them.
Effectively a nerfed version of ublock origin.
Nevermind the manifest v3 changes being introduced very soon which dramatically limits the capabilities of ublock origin to some limited sub-100k static filters.
For reference I have a block list of 800k filters + dynamic filtering on Firefox.
If you want to have a sane version of the web, switch to Firefox.
I realize I could do this now and it's probably better for the creators overall, but knowing that everyone I watch gets a little something, whether I subscribe to them or not, is nice.
The like/subscribe/become a Patreon is also annoying, but not as bad as actual ads.
I have a zero-tolerance ad policy. If there isn't a way for me to reliably skip ads I will stop consuming the content. I'm willing to pay but all too often you end up paying for an ad-free experience and eventually ads get re-introduced anyway or the ads take on another form.
Pardon the language but fuck advertisements. If it isn't a dry, boring information-based ad I don't care for it. I have no tolerance for the emotional manipulation and psychological warfare committed by modern advertisements. I'm sick of seeing [attractive people enjoying time spent together while <using/eating/drinking> <product> during a <meal/activity/social gathering>] or [commercial designed to make you laugh or smile so you associate being happy at some level with <product>]. I was sick of those commercials 20 years ago because they're all the same and I'm even more sick of them now that I'm old enough to see how they're designed to be manipulative.
I hear you, though i can understand video makers' point of view; they are often at mercy of YT algorithm with no heads up, no recourse. Also quality content is being slowly edge out by attention grabbing mental pollution videos, actively promoted by said YT algorithm. That is one semi stable source of income for them that wont be pull from underneath them.
So I accept those ads as necessary evil. And I support few creators via patron.
Per person? No way.
At some point, everyone who is willing to give money to avoid ads will have done so and then prices will rise and thoughts of an ad-supported cheaper tier will occur. We are seeing this with Netflix right now.
What needs to change is the unsustainable capitalist model that demands ever higher growth and profits.
Also, Google is at the heart of it, paying for yt won't make one iota of change in how they think about ads and data extraction.
It might be misguided but it’s how I feel.
Before I would click a video and check downvotes and comments for issues.
With downvotes gone, I stopped opening videos at all. I just don't trust anymore the platform to not waste my time.
Stuff like, how to change X in your Y car and then immediately find that the title is misleading. Or solutions to general IT problems. I just don't trust the platform anymore without being able to see red flags.
Short term this just means using something other than the TV app. But long term (5-15 years -_- ) I think content is going to be hosted places other than YouTube. Maybe wishful thinking, but right now if I had a YouTube link and a PeerTube link to the same content I'd send my friends to PeerTube instance.
I only need so many ads for "current SAAS desperation".