Hacker News Reader

Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

Really? Maybe I am in a niche but I watch more YouTube now than literal TV (although, yes, Netflix, Hulu+, etc are consumed).

Most things I watch are 7-10 minutes. I have a healthy subscription list of new content almost daily. I watch minimum 30-60 minutes of YouTube a day, more on weekends and holidays.

Additionally YouTube already has my payment information and I already use it to rent movies (via the Play Store, which plays on YouTube).

I don't use AdBlock because I want to support the people who I watch. If I block the ads they have to go get a job and they stop producing original content which I enjoy watching.

I won't claim I would definitely get a YouTube subscription, but I'd consider it (devil is in the details and all that). If it meant I was funding people who I watch daily better (a la Reddit Gold) I very well might.

View on HN

But with AdBlock you can whitelist pages which you want to support, and block all the ads for videos from those which whom you don't care whether or not they stop producing original content.

It's the ads I watch for a video I regret having clicked on that cause me to block everything first, whitelist later.

So with a paid no-ad subscription, it would mean I'm indirectly supporting the videos I've seen which I don't feel deserve my support.

> I don't use AdBlock because I want to support the people who I watch. If I block the ads they have to go get a job and they stop producing original content which I enjoy watching.

You need to actually buy the advertised products in order to "support" the producer. Otherwise the ad has been wasted on you and the advertiser might of well have not paid for it.

That isn't how YTs revenue sharing program works. You do get paid per views. Also there is value in a non-clicked ad e.g. building brand awareness. The majority of ads you see are non-actionable.

I understand it is not CPA but if the views don't eventually lead to you buying something then the ad is wasted. In other words, technically all advertising is CPA.

So if you don't actually buy the advertised goods or services the ads have no value to the advertiser and they should stop using them, at least on you (and will if they are able to measure the effect).

Therefore viewing an ad for something you are not going to buy is just trying to fool the advertiser into giving money to the producer. So if you think not view ads is "stealing" from the producer then viewing them but not buying the products is "stealing" from the advertiser.

However you want to justify ADBlock to yourself...

Personal experience - I buy ads for my videos. The ads link to nothing but the video I'm advertising.

Why? To build up brand recognition using the cream of the crop videos we produce (and in our case subscribers). It's a slow process but it'd be a lot slower without putting up ads.

In a purely money sense though I guess I'd rather no adblock using users see the ads I put up, there's no way they'll ever see any future ads as subscribers anyway and I'd lose out in the long run

YouTube (plus Netflix / Hulu) has replaced TV for me as well. I just don't think the average user sees it in the same category as Netflix. I have tons of subscriptions too, but I would much rather, as someone else here mentioned, pay a subscription fee to individual artists rather than YouTube as a whole.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com