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this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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ITT: "it costs more than 5 bucks a month!" yeah, if you don't share with friends with family, it does. Also, music service included, deduct your spotify payment.
"You can just block ads" You can just miss the whole point.
"I rather support creators directly" I'm happy you do that. YouTube hosting is not free for Google/Alphabet, pay them too, or you'll have to teach each and every creator how to webhost + help em search a "real job" because selfhosted won't pay enough. Also, good fun browsing videos then.
IDK man, paying for YT Premium really isn't that bad. Assuming you already consume YouTube content, that is. And I'm pretty sure that's like 98% of first world population between 4 and 70.
Blocking ads on YouTube is no sustainable solution. Hosting Billions of Gigabytes of on-demand content is SUPER expensive. Like, it actually costs money. Other, wayyy smaller indie creator on-demand video platforms charge 5 bucks a month, but i'ts okay if they do it, because they aren't big bad Alphabet.
If that's your view, you don't have a problem with pricing, you have a problem with morals. And if you still do voluntarily consume YouTube content in private, with or without ads in any which way, you inarguably have a huge problem with your own morals.
YouTube premium is a good deal. It's priced very well compared with competition, it actually does pay indie creators and it let's you access to features that many users really do use.
BUTBUT THEY ARTIFICIALLY LIMIT FEATURES FOR NO REASON WITHOUT PREMIUM. I mean, it's subscription software and streaming, what else would they do? Every for profit subscription software provider and their mother does this. I develop hospital software and we literally do exactly this. If hospital A has feature x and hospital B also wants that, we don't just hand that out for free even when we just have to add it to their system in like 10 minutes... what did you expect? They already use our software (like you use YouTube), we don't have a huge incentive to just randomly add features if nobody paid for it. If we do, be happy about it, send me a gift card, if we or they don't, that's just business.
It's wild to me that this is so often called "just business" when, described this way, it's textbook racketeering.
The textbook this person owns:
service provider: "Hello, I'm a window cleaner, do you want me to clean your windows? I'll actually do it for free this time! Please recommend me to your peers"
customer: "yes please"
service provider: "all done! Want me to do it again in three months time?"
customer: "yes, I love free stuff!"
service provider: "actually, I'd have to charge for that, can't work for free all the time."
customer: "Racketeering!"
"Racketeering" is definitely the wrong word.
I'll put it like this. I think YouTube Premium is too expensive. I also think YouTube is too aggressive with it's ads.
I opt to send them that message by using an ad blocking service tailored to YouTube and paying the content creators in other ways.
If the family plan weren't 20 dollars a month to cover 2 accounts I would probably buy it. But they opted to offer only 1 or many never just 2.
I'm capable of affording it. I pay nearly every major streaming service monthly even when I am not using them, so long as their cost is reasonable.
YouTube Premium's cost is not reasonable. Especially when you consider they are still collecting and making money off of your data in the end.
I don't see how the pricing for Premium is unreasonable. I do, however see, how they are too aggressive with ads. That's why I said paying for premium is a better deal than watching ads. If you don't agree with either compensation, don't use their service
It's completely fair that your view on the pricing is different than mine.
Complete transparency, I do play their ads sometimes. I only refuse if I'm watching on my phone directly, but I cast from the official app. And I will have YouTube playing when I'm eating or playing a game on the steam deck.
The thing people should be referring to instead of it being a racket is that YouTube has a stranglehold on creators. I can watch streaming vids on another service, but if I want to consume content from small creators, I have to use YouTube. There isn't a real option for alternatives.
So, I do provide the platform with some money. Then I pay creators in a way where they get a higher dollar amount than YouTube would give them.
It depends on the how the contract is written but generally billing a client the full time to develop an existing feature that "could be turned on in 10 min." is a good example of fraudulent misrepresentation. A business/industry that replies on that (like your example) is a racket.
Yes, I understand that's how the world of 'software as a service' works and yes I am calling it a racket.