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Comment by verdverm | Hacker News Reader

Paying for YT premium is even better. No ads and you support the content creators

YT premium unfortunately scales very poorly for low usage. I probably average about one youtube video watched per month, so while I'm not opposed to paying something, I am opposed to watching any ads, and I'm not going to pay $13/video.

With the family plan, the cost calculation is very different

Blocking ads can be viewed as theft from the creators and many creators do see it this way

My wife doesn't use youtube to any significant degree either, so the cost calculation doesn't notably change with the family plan. Obviously if your usage is significantly different the cost calculation is different, which was my point from the start.

> Blocking ads can be viewed as theft from the creators and many creators do see it this way

And nobody should care.

Unless it is AI doing the stealing, many people care about their content being consumed by machines but are happy to block ads at the same time

If no one is supporting them they won't exist.

This is a false equivocation, blocking ads doesn't mean nobody will be supporting them. Anyway watching ads enriches Google far more than the creators. You can block all ads indiscriminately and send money directly to the creators you care about.

If everyone blocked ads it means exactly that. People can send money directly to the people who can set that up. If not enough people send money then the creator moves on.

Aren't you cheating yourself out of future content? Whatever you like doesn't matter to the creator.

You also support a shitty advertising business model.

and horrible censorship

I used YT premium until I realized I was still getting ads from the videos themselves.

Install sponsorblock, that’ll take care of that.

Likewise, Dearrow is also a must have to kill the horrible clickbait YouTube incentivizes.

https://sponsor.ajay.app/

https://dearrow.ajay.app/

Thank you _so_ much for that recommendation. I've been so frustrated that even authors I like have started to create clickbait.

Are you worried if everyone blocks revenue generating activities they will stop making the content you like?

I am not

Why would you want content other people pick?

Even if youtube disappeared today, there would be more "content" available in the world than I could ever consume.

Yes, so I support people via Patreon.

No. I prefer watching people who don't do it for the money.

Some of those people are in it for the money. Your interest won't matter to them.

Their interest doesn't matter to me. I don't watch ads.

It should because you watch their content. What they decide matters to you.

Right now what you like doesn't matter. You are a ghost roaming.

I will continue to roam. When I don't enjoy content, I won't watch.

But I won't watch ads.

I don't mind the ads that creators put there themselves. I skip them but I still see them so they've done their job IMO while not wasting my time.

I hear this a lot, and would love to see some figures.

If I'm a heavy YT Premium user, is it possible for my views to be worth less than ad-generated views?

you still get the baked-in ads, and I get weird ads when watching video embedded in other websites.

SponsorBlock generally works well for auto-skipping the baked-in ads, but of course only works on the website, not in the YT app.

Revanced has a patch that makes sponsor block work on the android app.

If you get baked-in ads, it's because of the editor of the video you're watching, not YouTube.

And Nebula.tv is best of all. No ads, you support the content creators, and you don't feed YouTube's near-monopoly on video distribution.

This sounds like YT premium, but just a different platform that has no ad supported option. These platforms are dependent on the network effect and the creators and viewers are only going to use a limited number of platforms (2-4)

Nebula was started by a bunch of very popular YT creators looking to bring their audience with them.

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