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Comment by cheeze | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why some people are SO OPPOSED to YouTube Premium.

Maybe it's that I watch a tooon of youtube, but it's the best subscription I have. Easily worth the cost IMO. Hell, don't get ads in my browser with yt regardless (ad blockers) but I pay for premium solely so that when I'm watching _youtube on someone elses TV_ I don't see ads.

IDK. I'm fine with them having to make money. And I'm fine just paying instead of having to sit through ads.

If you're not paying the company, you're the product. I'm happy that I can pay to not get ads.

I do the same with Twitch Turbo as well. It just... seems straightforward to me that this would be the preferred option for someone who can't sit through an ad.

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I'm not hugely opposed to it, but my understanding is that whether or not I'm subscribe the videos will still be produced with clickbait titles, beg me to subscribe, include product placement, stretch everything out to try and keep me watching for as long as possible, over-promise and under-deliver, and so on. I'd pay to get rid of all of that nonsense. But just the ads? I have yet to be persuaded.

If it were as easy as merely dropping some coins/bills into the instrument case of a street performer is, I'd be perfectly willing to pay.

What I have absolutely no urge for are things like creating an account with Google (or any other service provider), having to give them a phone number and/or other information about myself in order to create that unwanted account, having to log in to it, having my activity tracked, having to get my credit card involved, not being certain that I'll get timely support if something goes wrong with all of that stuff, and so on.

>I don't understand why some people are SO OPPOSED to YouTube Premium.

Making something worse then let people paying for to make it better is not a deal at all.

They’re not making it worse, they’re monetizing it in a way that’s palatable by those that can’t afford to pay.

Video is expensive to serve. There’s no way around it.

> They’re not making it worse, they’re monetizing it in a way that’s palatable by those that can’t afford to pay.

If it were so palatable I don't think there'd be such a fuss about it (which there clearly is). Most people don't like ads at all.[1]

1. https://today.yougov.com/topics/entertainment/articles-repor...

There’s a fuss because people want something for nothing. This is not at all surprising or interesting.

> There’s a fuss because people want something for nothing. This is not at all surprising or interesting.

That's entirely your opinion, but I do agree it is neither surprising nor interesting. It's almost a trope at this point that a company providing something like this ends up milking the consumer to the point the consumer just stops caring.

I don't think there's a productive discussion to be had here. There are obviously two camps and neither are going to see eye to eye anytime soon. What will happen is YouTube will keep trying to milk their users for attention as much as possible (since more attention = more ad time). At some point in the future there will be a tipping point where people just lose interest. And when that happens people will again blame people "want[ing] something for nothing".

> Video is expensive to serve.

Whatever Youtube is commonly serving me doesn’t exactly look like premium bitrates, to be honest.

I recently uploaded a pan/landscape shot and was shocked by how blocky the result looks like – even (or especially) in "4K60 HDR".

What are you comparing it to? What are some alternatives that serve up 4K@60 HDR for free?

I’d honestly rather they make 4K60 a paid tier, and stick to a resolution they can afford to deliver at an appropriate data rate for non-paying viewers.

4K was tested as a premium feature recently but it was rolled back to being for everyone, not sure why. 4K YouTube TV is still an extra optional feature. No point here, just FYI in case you wanted to know.

I'd rather support the creator directly through Patreon or buying their products (which I do occasionally) than sending money to Google.

Besides, YouTube Premium doesn't get rid of creator sponsorships.

I subscribe to Premium. It seems like a fair deal to me. My monthly payment is to Google in exchange for them delivering a service that I find valuable (the video storage and delivery mechanism). If I had to watch ads instead, I wouldn't use the service at all.

Creator ad reads, Patreon, merch, a portion of my Premium fee, etc., is to the creators in exchange for the work that they do that I find valuable.

It's a win all around as near as I can see.

That said, when a non-Googly service appears that can satisfy my video desires approximately as well, I'll bail on YouTube in a heartbeat and use the Premium money to pay for that.

I’d subscribe in a heartbeat if it wasn’t bundled with Youtube Music.

Paying for two music subscriptions at once just seems silly.

> I don't understand why some people are SO OPPOSED to YouTube Premium.

Entitlement.

Because you're the kind of customers Google wants. Not because you're paying for a service, but because you have shown that you want to pay for a service, which they can otherwise show for free with ads. You're the kind of customer advertisers want to see their ads blasted to. And trust me, while Google may not have ads for you now, it will happen eventually - and you won't see it coming. Heck, they might already be serving you to the advertisers in other ways.

> while Google may not have ads for you now, it will happen eventually - and you won't see it coming.

That's fine. It's good for now. If Google starts showing me ads anyway, then I'll cancel my subscription and stop using YouTube.

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