this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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You forget that YouTube was always free in the before times of long long ago. Content was free and delivered flawlessly. Minimal ads. Maybe banner ads or something. Now it's ads every few minutes.
That's obviously not sustainable. At some point they need to recover expenses on all their infrastructure and development. It can either be through ads or a subscription model. Alternatively they shut down permanently. Which do you want?
At this point, I'm fine with it shutting down. If it shut down, creators would go somewhere else, we could end up with something much better. i won't watch youtube if I have to watch minutes of ads before the video, and more throughout the video. Hard fucking pass.
Ok. Then stop watching instead of complaining. I don't watch ads either.
They had paid for it for years. The sustainability relied on the range of services vs the service itself. For example, Walmart doesn't really profit on big tvs. Typically the markup is negative. They combat this with the price of add on devices, wall mounts, hdmi cables, etc. It's not a this or that for me. It's the choice of the company to change it up to be more profitable.
Let's be real, the point of a business is to make money. More money = more success, right? But what happens when you reach one billion dollars? Is one more billion more successful?
This is where my brain says fuck you. One billon means you've won. Stop being a greedy dick.
Yes. With the intent of making a profit eventually. Or they wouldn't have.
What is YouTube going to "combat" with if not advertising or subscriptions...?
One billion means nothing if you're spending tens of billions per year to continue operating. I'm not suggesting the CEO of YouTube deserves to get richer. I'm saying the company has operational expenses and investments that require some level of profitability, and "free for everyone forever" is literally just not a viable option.
Alphabet spent $70 billion on stock repurchases last year. Their server costs aren't a problem.
It's not that they couldn't burn billions of dollars for the betterment of society. It's that obviously they won't. If YouTube weren't supposed to be profitable it wouldn't exist.
YouTube is only one section of an entire corporation. Compare Walmart's entertainment department to the rest of the store. The company does profit.
Free forever was the whole premise of YouTube. That's why it was named You Tube. Users create content and host it. Ads were fine, the ads now are not fine.
The operational expenses were always covered by ads. Ads is Googles whole business model. They were successful when they were less intrusive, why do they need to do things this way and break up the videos when they have grown an empire on what was previously done?
It's a corporation, not a charity. They don't spend tens of billions per year out of good will.
Ads were not making enough money to justify continued operation.
Because "what was previously done" is not sustainable.
I simply disagree. Stats if YouTube show not just a small sustainable gain, but we are taking 4-5x their income from 10 years ago. https://mobilemarketingreads.com/youtube-revenue-and-usage-statistics-2020/
What they're doing with ads is annoying as shit and their right to do as it's their business to run. It's my right to run my browsers how I want. Also my right to filter traffic in and out of my network.
Sorry man but YouTube ads can kiss the fattest part of my ass.
I don't care
It doesn't matter
I don't care
Now we're seeing eye to eye.