This has happened to me btw. I can only suspect they are "testing" the reception.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I have a very strong, borderline-irrational distaste for ads. I hate advertising, I hate having to watch advertisements, I will go out of my way considerably to avoid ads. I have over 400 blu-rays specifically because I wanted to guarantee that I don't have to risk seeing ads in my media.
I liked YouTube Premium because it was an ethical way to avoid ads on YouTube; there's always been adblock but I always felt bad depriving creators of their revenue; most of them (at least at the time) weren't big heartless corporations, they were individuals creating stuff.
If I start seeing ads unless I'm extorted for more money, that might end up being a final straw for me.
This does make me the unethical bad-guy, but my aversion to advertisement is so strong that I can't feel any remorse. AdSense is a scourge on the internet, and once Google is held accountable for it they'll immediately try to extort their licensed library of millions of videos to make a living. And they'll have to try a lot harder than that if they want to deprive me of a daily Tom Scott video with my morning coffee.
How is it any different than the price increases that have happened up until now? Or do you mean $27 per month for up to 6 accounts is the most you will ever be willing to pay?
Amazon Prime has ads by default now, or you can get rid of the ads if you pay an additional $3 a month.
If they start showing some amount of ads on my YouTube Premium, and start charging a fee to get rid of all of them, I think it will just piss me off; I already pay for YouTube Premium, I am not going to pay extra for extra ad free.
It is simply a change in price, dressed up to be more palatable for people who are not as discerning.
Before, Amazon Prime Video without ads was the price of Amazon Prime. Then it became the price of Amazon Prime plus $3 per month. Now it's the price of Amazon Prime plus $5 per month or $46 per year.
Same thing with Youtube, or any other product/service, price changes happen all the time. Pay if it is worth it, or don't if it's no longer worth it.
I've grown kind of tired of YouTube as of late anyway, and it's not like I get a lot out of it in any kind of deep meaningful sense. I probably could fairly easily justify canceling it and surviving on my blu-rays.
You can either reduce the product or increase prices, or both if you're really going for it.
Why would you behave ethically towards a company that is anything but?
The slight remorse I feel by not using official YT frontends is towards creators I enjoy watching, who I try to support via other means, if possible. But then again, any creator or business who chooses advertising as their only business model doesn't deserve my support.
Advertising is a scourge on humanity. It corrupts every medium of information by allowing sleazy middlemen to psychologically manipulate one party not just into buying products out of manufactured desire, but into thinking and behaving in ways that serve someone's agenda. It is weaponized via platforms built by adtech companies, which have played a major role in the current sociopolitical instability in the world. It is so insidious that even though it has concentrated incredible amounts of wealth into the hands of a few, most people see it as harmless because they get products and services for "free". To hell with all of that.
That's what I felt bad about. I didn't care if I was depriving Google of money, but I was watching a lot of videos of relatively small channels, and I was watching them with ad block, and I wasn't compensating them otherwise. In a bit of fairness (though not much) I was not making much money at the time.
I agree that advertising is bad for humanity. I hate ads. I don't like the idea that a corporation is weaponizing my psychology to sell me crap I don't need. For the most part I would rather pay for things, but of course I make a lot more money now than I did back in 2015.
I've said it before, but I think it bears repeating: people will pay for things if those things don't suck. I think it speaks to the shittiness of the platforms that people will only use stuff like Facebook and YouTube if they're "free".
I do believe the better solution is to go to DIY channel, but yeah. I got Amazon Prime, which gives me free shipping on Amazon. Add on top of that, I can freely support one Twitch stream. So I am going with Critical Role. They also sell their own platform, but it is more expensive than Bezos' deal. It is hard to compete with big tech...
I got a hunch feeling my IPv4 is shitlisted here and there though, but it could also be Linux + Firefox + plethora of extensions. I'll get a new IPv4 soon, so a good time to also clear all my cookies and part with some extensions.
Don't Blu-Rays and DVDs have unskippable ads built in, including the FBI notice?