Don’t like ads? Don’t like subscription fees? Don’t like large tech companies? Great! Go to the library and check out a book.
They aren't bullying anyone. They are trying to make a business model work as efficiently as possible. Anything that relies on ad revenue is going to be predatory like this.
I think it's ridiculous that people are only now coming out of the woodwork saying things like "I would pay if they weren't forcing me into it" or "I would pay if it wasn't so expensive now" or "I just want to pay for ad-free and not YT Music".
It's been out for years, and it was cheap before; they even had Premium Lite for a while.
Youtube premium has been a thing for 8 years now, you have had a really long time to start paying for ad-free youtube. You just didn't bother to even check if it existed until they started to push for it harder recently.
So you are a perfect example why they gave up and started becoming more aggressive now, its because it didn't work to just do it the way you think is "fair".
Tell me you're from the US without telling me you're from the US.
> So you are a perfect example why they gave up and started becoming more aggressive now
They started rolling out aggressive ads before YouTube Red was available in my country to purchase. And by the way, I gave in and do pay for YouTube Premium currently.
But I still stand by my statement, because I see how bad it is on my second account. For decades, YouTube managed to show me a few ads before and after the video just fine. And suddenly it's literally every minute? I'm sure Google is struggling to make ends meet.
Why not pay people to watch the ads by a similar logic?
BTW, curious has anyone ever anywhere in the world, any media, tried creating a channel/stream which just shows ads and pays people if they watch? Wondering if that’ll work.
Also, I rarely watch YT, so for me personally $15 or whatever the price is, is too high.
Another thing, ad blockers also help in privacy. $15 may result in no ads being shown in YT, but does that also mean that Google is not collecting data? I’ll consider paying to Google for a no-data-collected mode.
Encourage what you want to see in the world.
You can do that through patronage, if you have the means. Advertising never leads to that. Every sector that depends on large numbers of people contributing a small fraction (like cinema or music) ends up turning into a race to the bottom, as appealing to the lowest common denominator is the most efficient way to succeed. The advertising internet model the epitome of that.
So at least from we see on youtube the ads leads to more niche content, not less. There aren't enough payers to sustain that many niche channels.
For better or worse, the vast majority of my media consumption is youtube these days and of all the subs I pay for, it's the one I get the most value out of. I don't get the cynicism.
Netflix increased their prices from $10/mo to $16/mo in 2011 and faced massive backlash with tech journalists praising Blockbuster and saying "Up until today, we loved Netflix":
https://www.wired.com/2011/07/netflix-price-hike-anger/
https://www.houstonpress.com/arts/hey-netflix-wtf-6368309
Today Netflix charges $15.50/mo. The price rises and falls every 2 years and we get the same whining every 2 years: https://flixed.io/netflix-price-hikes
I don’t see any statements or actions even remotely hinting at feeling entitled to an ad-free viewing experience. They’re simply trying to figure out how to achieve an ad-free experience.
If someone locally modifies a website’s visuals to implement dark mode, would you lambast them for feeling entitled to dark mode?
Until then, they get no money and I watch no ads.
I am concerned about the new management of Twitter so I deleted my account and stopped using the service. It's very empty to claim you won't pay for a service because you are morally opposed to their service while continuing to use said service.
They’re breaking the implied contract, not us.
Now they want all our data, AND for us to pay to skip their ads? I'm not for it.