Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway5959 | Hacker News Reader

YouTube Premium (which avoids ads and still pays creators, plus offers downloads) is $14/month.

Put another way, let’s say the average Hacker News commentator makes $150k/year or $75/hour, that’s less than 15 minutes of work.

Just reeks of “I don’t believe tipping is fair to workers, that’s why I don’t tip.”

Edit: downvoted in less than a minute, haha

View on HN

Why are you conflating the extremely broken tipping culture/minimum wage system in the US and a multi-billion-dollar company's revenue strategy?

Why are people unwilling to pay creators (in attention or dollars) for making the content they watch? It’s the same with piracy. It was one thing when the content was simply unavailable, now most content is available via a streaming service for an incredibly cheap per monthly cost.

I pay the creators I care about, but I do it through Patreon, not Youtube. Of those $14 of Youtube subscription fees, approximately $0 would go to the creators I care about. If Youtube made some guarantee that the money I spent would only go to the creators I watch, I'd subscribe instantly.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#:~:t....

“Revenue from YouTube Premium membership fees is distributed to video creators based on how much members watch your content. As with our advertising business, the majority of the revenue will go to our partners.“

That sure sounds like they divvy up the money based on total viewership, not my individual viewership. I don't like the thought of a large chunk of my subscription money going to channels I don't personally watch.

Youtube gives 55% of your sub to the creators whose videos you watch. It is not at all like spotify.

> If Youtube made some guarantee that the money I spent would only go to the creators I watch, I'd subscribe instantly.

Do you mean that all $14 would go to creators you watch, or do you mean that whatever fraction of that $14 goes to creators after YouTube takes their cut only goes to creators you watch?

I meant the latter; I'm fine with Youtube getting a cut, I'm not fine with Mr. Beast getting a cut.

Because those creators I actually care about, I throw a few bucks on a platform that gives them a much better cut than youtube does.

For US users who are interested, paying annually discounts it to $11.66/mo. Comes with YT Music for better or worse (I rarely use that side of the membership).

I agree with your statement, but the tipping thing is totally unrelated. Youtube pays creators for the content they produce (via ad-share or premium sub share). There is no tipping in the loop here.

It’s the mentality. Many of the people that don’t tip aren’t really doing it because they disagree with tipping, they’re doing it because they cheap.

I don't tip (except for the classically tipped positions) because it is not on me to pay for employees. If the business owner wants to pay their employees more, they can raise prices to do so, and I can decide if I want to pay those prices or go elsewhere.

Tipping has just become a way for businesses to pay employees less and promising more while offloading all the guilt onto customers. No thanks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com