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Comment by Workaccount2 | Hacker News Reader

>Google realized this a long time ago; there is no ad-free paid version of Google Search.

Google actually experimented with this about a decade ago (I know, I was one of the suckers who paid), but it got canned because why the fuck would you pay google when u-bloc is free?

Companies absolutely will offer ad-free experiences. Google has youtube premium, which even compensates creators with half your sub as well. Evenly distributed too.

People get wrapped around the axle of ad-subsidized models, the "I pay and still see ads" but they just are confused about a hybrid monetization structure.

At some point the larger internet has to look itself in the mirror and recognize that it's either ads, credit card, or a hybrid of those.

And no, blocking is not an option, it just offloads costs onto honest users.

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> Companies absolutely will offer ad-free experiences. Google has youtube premium, which even compensates creators with half your sub as well. Evenly distributed too.

Youtube premium is not ad-free, you still gets whatever ads are embedded in the actual content.

YT premium comes with their own version of sponsor block, but you manually have to hit the skip button.

But I don't hold youtube accountable for what creators decide to put in their videos. I would grind my axe with the creator instead, it's their video and their choice. Youtube gets no cut from those segments.

As a paid YouTube subscriber, I’ve always wondered if that skip was only for us. It would be kind of bullshit if it was also for ad-based free viewers too as it would imply that google is free to show you ads they make hard to skip but they make it easy to skip embedded promotions and stuff.

This has been a life saver:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sponsorblock/

Crowd sourced in-video sponsor auto skip, I have been contributing to it myself as the UX is great.

The fact you hold them acountable or not is one thing. Calling it ad-free is another.

YouTube premium delivers the content you select to consume to you without displaying ads in-platform. If you then use that ad-free platform to consume content that includes ads, that's on you.

That doesn't change the fact that you are still getting delivered ads so it is not ad-free.

Correct, if you choose to seek out content with ads, you will see ads. Would YouTube premium need to block you from viewing that content to meet your bar here?

Several different “premium” tiers have this issue. Why am I purportedly paying for no ads if i continue to get ads? Whether or not they’re “platform ads” or “embedded” doesn’t matter. I paid for no ads and I’m not getting what I paid for, so why keep paying?

> Companies absolutely will offer ad-free experiences.

That is always at best a temporary affair.

> Google has youtube premium, which even compensates creators with half your sub as well.

And those creators still put ads in their videos.

> And no, blocking is not an option, it just offloads costs onto honest users.

Ad-free is the only option I am agreeing to.

I know its well meaning, but 14 dollars US a month is not cheap globally. The people who do block are probably not the group google wants to advertise to anyway.

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