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Comment by 1vuio0pswjnm7 | Hacker News Reader

"Meta isn't going to stop harvesting all your information just because you pay for a subscription, they'll harvest [and sell] your data AND take your money." (Meta sells access not data)

Google has been doing this for a while with YouTube

The data collection and surveillance will of course be used to support online advertising services. The ads can be delivered outside YouTube by other Alphabet business units or partners

There seems to be a myth that paying so-called "tech" companies solves the problem of data collection, surveillance and online advertising. As if for every subscriber the company will voluntarily collect less data, perform less surveillance and sell less ad services, leaving that money on the table

The truth is that these subscribers, by paying the companies that perform data collection, surveillance and advertising services, are actually subsidising the practice

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I pay YouTube Premium and get no ads there. It's totally worth it for me.

I get that they aren't performing less tracking on me, and they've labeled me as "will pay subscriptions for stuff".

But I get so much out of YouTube that's it's a no-brainer.

You can accomplish "no ads" and arguably substantially less tracking without Premium, though, with (e.g.) firefox and ublock origin. The only downside is an occasional ignorable warning that you're "seeing interruptions".

Or, buy two Starbucks/month to set and forget

Not when watching on an Apple TV.

Are we supposed to be shocked that one of the most locked down devices ever won't let you block ads?

How does that get money to the people making the videos I like watching?

I'd suggest getting them money through patreon, kofi or whatever patrons system they use instead. That's much safer for them than YT ad money and helps them feel less pressure when they get demonetized or whatnot.

Next level is to reach out directly and ask them if you can just sponsor directly with said micropayment ($20/month). SUrprisingly, most say no.

Your special kindness is not worth $20/month to even moderately successful creators.

I probably watch too many channels to pay them each outside youtube, it will become quickly logistically unmanageable, if not unaffordable. The maximum I can do is probably 5 channels or so.

If there are that many channels you watch regularly, what slice of the pie does each one get from your youtube subscription, a few cents?

You could possibly pick one channel you like each month and give it a one-time $5 donation, which would be equivalent to years of ad revenue from a single viewer.

This also involves a significantly larger number of people getting my payment details, actual proper name, etc. Even if I wanted to pay individual channels, I'd probably still do it through the YouTube channel membership feature.

They still get views and subscribers, which increases the popularity of the channel, making it more likely to get recommended.

there's still an annoying pause in there on video load (and sometimes video skip/scrub) due to how youtube tries to thwart ad-blockers

> I pay YouTube Premium and get no ads there. It's totally worth it for me.

You pay for YouTube and don't get ads there, but you also just put a big red target on your back for Google to show you ads in all of their other products because you've just outed yourself to them as someone with disposable income. You can't opt out of ads in search, your personal inbox, etc.

What are they even doing with all of this data collection, especially considering that ads still are terrible at pertaining to my interests?

Make the feed curation algo more addictive.

...which generates usage data, which in turn feeds itself? Circular economics, how convenient.

Also the ads are not just classical ads for coca cola or a mattress sale, but people and organizations paying to boost their content in the feed, which can be all kinds of manipulation, political, but also more organic looking brand management or astroturfing. Marketing is way more nowadays than just straightforward "here is a product you may be interested in, buy it".

That's how its always been. The loop just wasn't as efficient a few decades ago.

And YouTube recently (and silently) started approving multiple in-add ads for videos longer than 20 minutes. They destroyed the long-form content creators with their shorts push, and now it looks like they're trying to recover a little.

Intermediary (middleman) creates nuisance then charges subscription fees to temporarily "remove" it for those few who pay

But no amount of payment will remove the nuisance. The intermediary has made it their "business model"

Remove the middleman to remove the nuisance

I don't subscribe to "YouTube Premuim" and I get no ads there

I avoid using Google's Javascript to play other peoples' uploaded videos

I get so much relief out of avoiding the Javascript, telemetry, data collection, behavioural surveillance, "recommendations" and ads, and whatever nonsense Google is doing behind the scenes

It's totally worth it for me

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