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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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I don't really know how people can expect YouTube to exist without some sort of income.
The age of free content is coming to a close as VC funds dry up. Serving video is expensive.
In reaction to this news from YouTube, I signed up for Premium. $12/mo for my main source of content? Easy decision.
Thats more than most streaming services cost..l
And youtube doesnt create the content.. lol
YouTube premium views pay creators a LOT more than ads. So if you care about supporting creators and the platform they run on, then premium is an easy choice.
Additionally, most people spend a lot more time in YouTube than any other streaming site, so the cost makes sense given how fucking expensive video serving is.
If you care about supporting creators, donate to their patreon or buy merch or something. The idea that YouTube Premium needs to insert itself as a middleman for that purpose is nothing but a red herring.
My favorite creator absolutely could not exist without YouTube or any other content delivery platform for that matter. So why not pay for that?
On the other hand, YouTube is also supporting some content creators you hate...
... But at least you don't have to watch them.
YouTube is a business with a clearly-defined business model, precisely-tracked direct metrics, and automation up the wazoo. Not a government taking taxes and dealing with human elements for which there are very few direct metrics. They can pay creators based on watch hours or some other usage metric.
What I mean is that paying for YouTube premium is a very indirect and inefficient way to support your preferred content creator.
But my preferred content creator could not exist without YouTube and YouTube shoulders the enormous expense of hosting videos. I don't get why they should not get compensated for that as well.
That's an ok justification, but I thought you were buying YouTube premium to support your content creator, not to support YouTube. YouTube premium doesn't support your content creator.
That's just false. Premium supports the creator and YouTube and NOT the advertiser. That's a win in my book. Saying that premium does not give anything to creators is just not true.
Creators nearly always make substantially more from premium subscribers
"The YouTubers" not your YouTuber.
Better just to split $7 a month between your favourite patreon accounts and put up with some advertising.
What's the difference? Most stuff I watch comes from a longer list of channels I'm subscribed to. I could go and figure out which Channel I want to donate how much to and then split 12€ between them and keep my donations updated if my viewing habits change and then deal with ads, or I could just not do any of that and support the video platform as well because honestly, I'm very happy with the distribution quality and selection YouTube gives me.
I have a subscription to nebula/curiosity stream as well but compared to YouTube, every other platform just suuuucks at content Delivery 🤷
The difference is 45% of $12 and your original goal at the top of this thread was to support your content creators, not YouTube.
At the top I said "So if you care about supporting creators and the platform they run on, then premium is an easy choice. "
So that's perfectly in line with what I said, no?
Still not sure why you are so adamant about giving $5 a month to a monopoly generating 30bn per year. But you be you.
Because it provides me with value that imho justifies the cost in addition to supporting creators more than what they would usually get from me consuming their content.
Realistically, 50% of the videos I watch are random creators I don't subscribe to and I would not make the effort to donate to just for watching one or two videos. These people still worked for that content and deserve payment.
I could install an ad blocker and basically fuck them over for using YouTube as their platform, or I can pay money, have no ads and support them.
I think that's a more ethical thing to do then to pretend that they don't deserve compensation because realistically, they have no alternative platform that generates them enough money to continue what they are doing.
Nobody can make a living on peer tube or any of the other alternatives, except for maybe meta or TikTok but they are far worse.
I feel like I've read this exact comment before....
You can also subscribe to YT premium lite for 6$/mo. Basically YouTube premium without YouTube music and background playback.
Wish this was available in Canada. I'm paying $25 a month when I've never even touched YT music
Not anymore.