Hacker News Reader

Comment by BoppreH | Hacker News Reader

Because I already support my favorite creators in other ways. Because I'll still see ads when I use other devices. Because videos have extra ads in the form of sponsor segments.

Because ads are a parasite on society. Because their lying and psychological manipulation should be illegal. Because most of this tracking and privacy invasion mania is the ad industry's fault.

If there's a new product useful for me that I should know about, I'll find out here, in review sites, or when I visit a store, thank you very much.

View on HN

This website is also ad-supported.

That's a bit like saying that both parties have done bad things so they're equally evil. There's layers to this thing

Do you mean the Y Combinator sponsored posts? My understanding is that they are normal, on-topic posts that are just artificially promoted to the front page. I wouldn't even call that an ad any more than Tinder Boosts are ads.

When those are the worst ads left on the internet, I'll be a happy man.

It gives more airspace to free ads for startups in Show HN than it does to it’s own companies to be fair.

But who pays for the medium? Someone needs to. And YT offers an alternative where you can be the customer not the product.

That's a good question, and I think we haven't explored alternative solutions enough.

As for me, I'm happy to pay for Netflix, Nebula, my VPN, and other services. I still pay, but I'm disappointed in Spotify, who is pushing more and more soft ads even on supposed ad-free plans.

But a YouTube Premium subscription would be financing this ad machine and the decisions that come with it. Have you watched Shorts? No thanks.

if nobody pays for YouTube then YouTube will go away.

I'm prepared. I own a 10tb hard drive that is half-filled with YouTube videos I've backed up. That's 13,000-odd videos in 360p, all raring to go once YouTube bites the dust.

Defending YouTube because we're afraid it will "go away" is the same Stockholm Syndrome that paralyzed people on Twitter for so long. I welcome a change that forces people onto more P2P-oriented services, the status-quo is obnoxious and unsustainable.

I get the sentiment that Youtube viewers shouldn't have to put up with each of Google's whims, but the comparison seems overly reductive:

Would you also be fine with your favorite newspaper going out of business because you have all of their issues of the last 20 years in your basement?

First I would archive, copy and redistribute the last 20 years of back-issues to the world. Then I'd see how I feel.

Great, you've a solution for the past. How will creators be incentivized to make and distribute future videos, that you can then download somehow?

Good question. Youtube is convenient central repository of videos, but if it didn’t exist I imagine people would just use google to find videos on other video hosting sites.

Blocking ads just pushes more ads on others and/or into embedded sponsorships.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com