When a website designed to sell ads fails to sell content, that's not evidence that selling content doesn't work, it's evidence that selling content designed to sell ads doesn't work.
I beg to differ. As a hobbyist type, and also someone interested in semi trashy niche content (true crime), having access to a virtually unlimited catalogue of fresh content, a lot of it exceptionally good quality, makes it absolutely worth the money.
If I could have any one subscription, it would be YouTube 10 times out of 10. And as someone who abhors advertising, I'm happy to pay.
I love YouTube and pay for it.
It replaced apple music and spotify for me; plus it gives me access to all sorts of music that is only released there as videos.
If I ever have to watch youtube with ads, I am going to just not YT at all.
thanks, but no thanks
Source: Been subscribed for years and I watch hours a day on _average_. In fact I might be addicted to YouTube, but that's a different story.
The majority of my usage, and the usage of _many_ others based on the view count for DIY stuff, is watching people fix or build stuff. Usually because I'm in the middle of a project trying to figure out how to do something, or because I'm thinking about a project and wanting to get an idea of how difficult it'll be. Youtube University basically.
I pay for premium because it saves so much time, and I hate ads when I'm under a car trying to remember what bolt goes where.
Also, from an economic model, Stratechery has a great article last week discussing this - worth a read. https://stratechery.com/2023/the-unified-content-business-mo...
The useful uses of YouTube are basically a side-effect of the real usage which is "get eyeballs on the screen to watch the screen more" - which is what you want when you sell ads, whereas you kind of want the opposite when you sell subscriptions - subscribed users who use the service as little as possible are cost efficient users.
Also, demonetized videos are still eligible for Premium revenue.
Wow, TIL.
So you make more per view for a Premium subscriber. What about in total. What percent of your monthly profit is from Premium viewers vs Ad-watching viewers.
Around 5%
You can just use an ad blocker, and don't get me wrong, I hate ads. But youtube ads don't load potentially malicious scripts (for now), and they provide the money that incentivizes this MASSIVE open self publisher friendly library of video data. So adblocker on youtube reminds me of leaving grocery carts in the middle of parking lots. Stores like Aldi solve this by requiring a quarter to use their carts, but that's incinvenient.
Also reminds me of the open source funding challenge. The commons requires individual buy in and conscientious support, something that seems to be on the decline because(?) no one wants to carry free riders.
I then use adblock and sponsorblock on YouTube. It seems like a good balance to me.
I did try Youtube without adblocker and it was unusable, and Google is horrible evil company that I am for sure not giving any money.
I'll miss it, but at the same time, Youtube is horrible time thief. It is bittersweet but it will make my life better to be without it. If I spent the time I have over the years wasted on Youtube instead reading books, hiking or working out, I'd be a much better person today.
Some of it is, but the vast bulk of it clearly was not. You knew that of course.
I'd strongly consider paying for YT if it were an independent company. But as a part of Google - fuck no.
YT wouldn't be YT if it was an independent company. Lack of competition in the field is a proof
And I've got to be honest – youtube premium is not really worth it. All the other services have high-quality content, because they're designed from the ground up for paying users.
Thats like compairing backroom gossip to news. Sure both have their biases and inaccuracies, but at least one of them holds a resemblance of accountability as opposed to the other that can spew anonymous bogus crap at will. With zero consequence.
Reddit has very poor quality content. And it keeos on getting worse. Its just too riddled with bots. Imagine youtubes comment section without the videos. Reddit in a nutshell.
Yeah, stay far away from the most popular subs. The traffic is insane and there's no time to form any kind of community.
But you can find very good quality subreddits.
Small subs are often better, because the mods haven't burned out yet and people know each other.
And there's gems like /r/AskHistorians. Moderated with an iron fist, quality content is the only thing to be found there.
Yes, obviously the largest crowdsourced video service in the world has some subscribers. But the fact is, they aren't enough subscribers to approach its ad revenue. If you don't address why that is, you're not really responding to my point.
Are you serious?