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Comment by ApolloFortyNine | Hacker News Reader

>* Ads underneath videos for products from the channel owner. > >* Sponsorships within videos from the channel owner.

I actually agree this is a bit annoying, but also the alternative is Google banning Youtubers from finding their own advertising partners, which I'm sure people would hate.

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I'm sure content creators would hate it because they would make less money. Billions of YouTube users around the world would be very happy.

To be clear, I'm not opposed to the practise, as long as that's clear up front. YouTube advertises Premium as an ad free experience, and in reality it's full of ads.

Do they not have a little sponsor skip thing? Where like if many people skip a segment, itll pop up like hey, wanna skip? I mean, thats about all they can do besides forcing youtubers to disclose exact segment lengths which would concretely hurt them whereas this provides a little sort of breathing room, or just straight up ban them, both of which would dramatically hurt the platform.

I understand they have an opt-out feature now. With positive interaction one can skip one sponsored segment (which works most of the time). The problem is that it's not automated. It required digging one's phone out of their pocket, or reaching for the remote. That's still really annoying. To point: it's still full of ads, even if they have the skip button now.

YouTube could tell content creators not to include sponsorships. The terms are long and onerous. Of course content creators would be upset and they would make less money. Ultimately my issue is that YouTube advertises an ad free experience with Premium and it still has a LOT of ads.

YouTube Premium now has "skip ahead" which is basically this. Or you can install SponsorBlock and get a much better version for free.

I'm in favour of people making money from their work. Maybe I'm old fashioned that way. IMDB, Duolingo and Wikipedia have encouraged the model of using unpaid labour.

YouTube isn't paying people properly, despite its vast revenues. At least with sponsorship the people themselves make some money.

Wikipedia predates Youtube by five years.

Unpaid cooperation of human to generate knowledge or entertainment predates YouTube by tens of thousands years.

YouTube is part of Alphabet, one of the biggest corporations in the world. It can easily afford to pay people. It isn't co-operation, it's a corporation which takes the work of other people and makes lots of money off them, without paying them properly (or at all in many cases). Wikipedia's content is used by LLMs and other such outlets who also profit off unpaid labour.

It is a basic right of people to be able to afford to live. It's easy to work for free when you have family money but you cannot support yourself when you don't.

> I'm in favour of people making money from their work.

That's completely fair. YouTube offers content creators many ways to do this. For example, they can put content behind a paywall. They can ask for donations. They can ask for memberships. Members get all kinds of fun perks. The part I have an issue with is YouTube advertising an ad free experience with Premium and then allowing content creators to fill their videos with ads.

> YouTube isn't paying people properly

I hope we can both agree that the solution to this is YouTube paying people properly, and not allowing content creators to shit all over viewers. That's pitting the little guys against each other while Google laughs all the way to the bank.

>I hope we can both agree that the solution to this is YouTube paying people properly

The solution is proper competition to google. Because Youtube is pretty much the one true monopoly out there. But as we all know, video hosting alone is very,very, very expensive. It really is something you need to be a billion dollar company to do, and Youtube wasn't profitable until like... 2 years ago?

So I tolerate the user ad reads as the best compromise because nothing else would work. I don't think Youtube is a model where Google is being greedy so much as practical. At least not in how it monetizes creators (there's plenty of hostile means they do to creators as is, but the monetary structure seems fine).

There are alternative streaming platforms, but many of them have become associated with certain political viewpoints.

There is also a very limited range of content on Odyssee, Bitchute and all the rest. If you want to find music tutorials for example, you're unlikely to.

You have to put in a disproportionate amount of work to get anything back. Almost no one makes money off a single video, but instead you make a string of videos and get a following. (The cases of a single video making money are few and far between.)

You don't get hourly pay for it, it's vaguely commission based and you do all your own promotion. They can demonetise you at a whim and refuse to pay you (I've seen this happen to craft channels and other content that wasn't remotely controversial.)

I'm not saying this is the way to go, but damn do I miss the old internet where passionate people presented information for free, at worst showing an affiliate link for an information-related book.

People need to be able to make a living and when this is taken away, the living expenses don't disappear. Most people can't pay for their electricity or food with voluntary work.

The people who were doing this on the early internet were not trying to make a living off of it, they were just doing it because they enjoyed it and wanted to share what they built with the world. If you could cover your server costs then that was considered a win.

There are plenty of people giving away their labour for free, which makes it harder for people who need to be able to make some money in order to support themselves.

People making passion projects for free don't owe anyone a business model.

They aren't always making passion projects. They're told unpaid labour is good for their CV/resumé, or that they're helping society (sometimes the case, but sometimes not).

Massive corporations such as Alphabet do have the resources to pay YouTubers, especially given how much tax they avoid in most countries.

Do you only watch videos from creators who are not trying to make money?

If they couldn't make money, 80% of the content worth watching would not be produced.

Premium works for me. Is it perfect, no. But there's that saying about perfect being the enemy of good.

> To be clear, I'm not opposed to the practise, as long as that's clear up front. YouTube advertises Premium as an ad free experience, and in reality it's full of ads.

I think it's clear. I don't want YouTube going in and editing movies and creator videos removing any form of advertising. Maybe you want them deleting that content. But the average person realizes what Premium means by no ads. Being obtuse or willfully ignorant isn't reasonable.

This would destroy YouTuber culture AND rid us of ads on there. This is my own personal heaven. Nirvana. Eden. Promised Land. Paradise.

Let’s freaking do it.

More importantly, it would lead to more “product placement” and other underhanded product/brand promotions.

And the real annoyance with YouTube Premium is that the UI is still full of engagement dark patterns.

no it wouldn't, such things are straight up illegal in most places? You have to clearly disclose ads + have clear distinction between ad content and rest of content. A bunch of youtubers have gotten in trouble for this?

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