I also block ads - BUT I do go pay for services that I use daily and get benefit from. Otherwise, the sites that I love would go away because it's not sustainable to employee people to write code and run servers without some sort of revenue.
They're essentially charging 80% surplus to tack on a poor man's version of Spotify. I also don't get any other improvements to the service.
If they'd just give me a feature that gives continuity of play between devices I'd pay the full monthly price without blinking.
So many small QoL improvements that would make a huge difference but instead they're too busy removing voting buttons and testing obnoxious autoplay thumbnail ads.
Source: I just tried it on my phone right now. platform - iOS (don't know about others). Also, possibly not possible for all songs or countries in the world.
Maybe the force feeding of obnoxious podcast hosts actually attracted some users?
Although I did subscribe to Google Play Music, and it was great, until they killed it. And that was it for me and Google.
(Although John Zorn's catalogue remains an elusive beast)
I use LMS for my small, curated personal music library, which is great: https://github.com/epoupon/lms
I tried YouTube music for a few months and it felt much more spaghetti-at-the-wall than Spotify.
My opinion is that this is because of the way that Spotify applies algorithm and curation in a highly unified way.
Spotify Radio, Release Radar and Discovery playlist are just wonderful. Right down to the ordering of the lists it accounts for broad tastes, current personal trends, building accessible gateways to new genres and so on.
YouTube Music felt a bit like the video algorithm. "You watched a Minecraft video? Prepare for the avalanche of tenuously related but quite obnoxious Minecraft content"
I am however left to assume, based on Spotify's broad success and appeal, that it hits a bit more frequently than it misses.
I have had the "continue playing from another device" feature for a good couple months at least, and it is clearly labeled as a "Premium" benefit.
Whenever I pause a video on one device, and open Youtube on another (Confirmed web desktop -> mobile app or mobile app -> web desktop, but I don't have a TV to test), the video that was playing on the other device shows up paused, as the given platform's miniplayer. Below you can see a desktop screenshot.
https://i.imgur.com/Leq2cJs.png
You could view this cynically as paying to be a lab rat, or you can also take it at face value.
Good A/B testing only works if you're measuring for the right things. When you get into the realms of "engagement is down but revenue generated is at $X" and X meets a goal, you're doing it in bad faith.
Given that a big fat ad thumbnail is a pre-selected item that fills half the screen on the YT TV client, we are left to assume that engagement resigned from Google a while ago.
>Whenever I pause a video on one device, and open Youtube on another (Confirmed web desktop -> mobile app or mobile app -> web desktop, but I don't have a TV to test), the video that was playing on the other device shows up paused, as the given platform's miniplayer. Below you can see a desktop screenshot.
This doesn't work at all for me TV -> TV. TV -> mobile device also does not work. I'd be interested to know, if you do try this with TV, whether you can get it to work.
> Good A/B testing only works if you're measuring for the right things. When you get into the realms of "engagement is down but revenue generated is at $X" and X meets a goal, you're doing it in bad faith.
Sure, and that doesn't stop people from doing it anyway. Pointless mass-gaslighting, but it makes you look busy.
> If they'd just give me a feature that gives continuity of play between devices I'd pay the full monthly price without blinking.
Probably you wouldn't. Then it would be some other feature needed to open the wallet.
To restate what I already said: will I pay to remove ads? Yes. Will I pay the price they're asking when I compare to the value and quality of service / UX other services I pay for? No.
> Probably you wouldn't. Then it would be some other feature needed to open the wallet.
You're wrong, but I don't need to justify it, I stated why in the original post. There's no need to be stubborn about it.
My question is why do you compare? Just because both things are on a computer or telephone screen? I've never heard people compare with other things they purchase. Why would I pay for this cup of coffee when I get 15 minutes of use from it, when there is so much free content online? Why would I pay for this restaurant meal when I get several months of entertainment on Netflix for the same price?
People will agonize for weeks over a $5 or $10 subscription, but outside of the digital they won't think about spending the same amount on parking, a pint of beer, etc.
Since we have the idea that everything on the computer should be free, we get upset over the slightest annoyance and cancel/decide not to continue the service. But is that rational? Like people are itching for the slightest excuse to not pay.
YouTube has an enormous amount of entertainment and also educational content, like videos on how to fix things that have personally saved me at least hundreds of dollars. It's a great value IMO.
Having it hidden three menus away is archaic and not the 'continuity' I'm looking for. It's a small thing but it's a) painfully simple to implement and b) one of many of these kinds of small usability gripes that make it a lesser experience.
What specifically are you looking for? e.g. was watching a video on my computer, powered that off, opened youtube on my phone and the video I was watching was most recent thing in youtube history there with my position in the video tracked. Similarly I can use my phone or laptop to control Youtube on my TV. Seems like what you're looking for is already mostly here.
(I've been a Youtube Premium subscriber for the last year or so thus far).
'Continuity' for me means a seamless experience. For example, Netflix used to be one click and is now two or three clicks which I find to be a worse experience.
The _perfect_ version of this for me would be a "Send to device" function to send from TV to TV in different rooms. Even being able to do a quick switch via my phone as I'm in transit (like I do with Spotify) would be a worthy middleground.
If sites want to send me useful content and additional annoying content, I’ll just render the useful bit.
If sites decide they aren’t willing to send the useful bit unless enter some other sort of arrangement with them, that’s fair on their part, I’ll evaluate their other options.
I don’t feel any obligation to render ads or make their business model viable, of course it is no problem if they decide they don’t want me around as a result!
Of course, business models might change. In that case my preferences probably will too, but I don’t think my reasoning will.
Just circling back a bit, what IS advertising? I work at a relatively unknown company - it's not in anyone's daily vocabulary. It exists, but barely. It will actually die if it's not marketed, advertised.
Now I can just go, fuck it, I don't want to work for any company that advertises. Great. Where should I work?
It’s a sad problem that we can’t expect to solve if we continue to limit our discussion around the symptoms of the diseased advertisement industry rather than the root causes of this cancer that ruins it for everyone like your company and most other small and medium sized players.
A company website that tells me what the elevator pitch is, is advertising arguably, but is not in the same category as putting a message in something I want to consume. The difference is push vs pull. If I have to seek out your message, if I ask you a question, then it's perfectly acceptable to answer.
The second you answer a question I've never asked, you are morally repugnant and harming society as a whole. It's an inevitable slippery slope to literal mental manipulation at that point. There is no "push" advertising that can NOT go that route, as it is inherently a hostile relationship, with independent competitors.
I try to quickly check if I’m agreeing to a cookie consent thing, or if it is a full TOS. But sites have so much garbage when you first show up nowadays. I’ll have to be more careful there.
if youtube wanted to make the ads unblockable, they could embed them in the primary video stream. They won't do that because then they would have to expend the computational effort of muxing the content instead of offloading it onto your computer. They want their code (javascript) to manage the ads to run on your computer and they want to be able to treat your computer as their slave.
If the site needs me to view content in a specific sequence, then they need to deliver it as such. Otherwise, I'll ignore (technically block) any content other than that in which I'm interested.
So basically, you won't pay for premium because Google makes money by serving ads, but you also use an Adblocker (assumption)?
Remember that you are not just paying with ad eyeballs, but also with your data. When what where how much you watch. That's nobodies business. I'd pay for not having this be in somebodys DB, ready to be exploited (and/or leaked).