Technology

God the ads are awful. If they start blocking apps like Vanced and Browsers like brave, i will make a PiHole. And they can never block it.

Oh, cool; more reason to use Piped and Invidious lmao

While we are saying "fuck reddit", let's say "fuck you too YT". Fucking malware machine.

Fuck youtube and fuck their ads, this shit is getting out of hand

Honestly, I pay for YouTube Premium because I find value in it. The price is reasonable for where I live, and it's my main source of entertainment. I don't like watching movies/TV shows that much so YouTube is my jam. So the convenience of being able to download videos, ad-free viewing, picture-in-picture, background playback etc. is totally worth it for me. I know if I dig hard enough and use an Android phone/tablet I can get those features without having to pay, but I don't like Android and again, the features are worth the small price.

For me, YouTube Premium and Spotify broke piracy because they're more convenient than pirating.

I pay for Prenium. But that's only because I also use YouTube Music. Otherwise, I wouldn't pay for it and I would do everything that I can to get rid of the ads. YouTube with ads is just hell now. There are so many of them now, it's ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong, I recognise the value that YouTube provides. Most things I watch and listen to are on YouTube. It's the website I use the most and I'll be glad to pay for it. I understand that it costs money to run and I want to support the creators that I watch.

HOWEVER.

I refuse to be strong armed into paying for it. Music brings me the value that I want and comparing with other prices, such as Spotify and so on, the actual "YouTube" part of the package just cost me 1€ per month which is one hell of a deal if you ask me.

But if you don't care for YouTube Music, 11€ a month (worst in the US apparently), just to get rid of ads is... ridiculous. I'd happily pay 5€ a month. It's not much and for the thing that I use the most? Yeah, I'm willing to! And I know that there is YouTube Prenium Lite. However, it's not available everywhere and it comes with a giant "fuck you" to the costumer.

You see, YouTube Prenium Lite is YouTube without ads. And that's it. So, no Background Play (which I use ALL THE TIME), no downloading of videos, none of that. You want that, well, you have to pay full price. Even though these are basic features.

Paying for getting rid of ads is one thing, and maybe accessing special features is one thing. But paying for artificial limitations that are put into place? Absolutely not. And I know the line between what's a prenium feature and what's an artifical limit is blurry. But for me it's basically this: If I can do something for free on desktop, but can't on mobile without paying. Such as background play.

I am convinced YouTube Prenium would be way more appealing if YouTube weren't being such dicks about it.

It's simple:

• Get your prices back to normal (I hear that in the US, prices have been going up for... no reason).
• Roll out YouTube Prenium Lite to everyone and rename it YouTube Prenium. So it has all the features of current Prenium except YouTube Music (put ads and disable background play only on music videos?).
• Make it at like 5 bucks a month.
• Make a variety of plans based around that. So a Prenium Family and also, a Prenium Duo, just like Spotify, for just two people. Reasonably priced.
• And you make a YouTube Prenium Music plan, which includes YouTube Music as well. So on top of all of that, for 11 bucks a month, you now have a really compelling offer because you can go, Hey, for just 5 more bucks a month, you get all of the features of YouTube Prenium AND you get a complete music streaming services.
• Oh and also: STOP DOING THIS SHIT.

Bam. All of the sudden you have compelling options. Some people will say: "Uuuh, jUsT uSe an AdbLocKeR!" and whatever. Those people are not the majority, so many people watch YouTube from their phones and their TVs now, they will be much more inclined to buy it...

...I think.

That last part is important. I recognise I'm just playing armchair business developper here and that I don't know shit, but still. I'm convinced this could work. The real issue comes down to YouTube being a monopoly and thinking that they can do whatever the hell they want, which... they likely can, due to the position they're in. It's an issue but this comment is already long enough and that is another discussion entirely, but basically: Monopolies sucks.

There's always the Revanced Project on Android. Honestly though, I've cut way back on YouTube after their algorithm started shoveling crap at me. Now it's hard to find genuinely informative videos. It's all "This guy got PERMANENT ORGASM FACE DISORDER Tears of the Kingdom" type videos, instead of ones on science, technology, and news.

So soon we will need an adblocker blocker blocker to use YouTube?

Knowing what I know about the costs of streaming video, I really want to know what the alternative is for a platform that can't just throw money down the drain. To my mind, there are only two options here - people watch ads (within reason, but 2 hour ads aren't resonable), or people pay YouTube (a la Premium).

If you want things for free, the only way to make that happen sustainably is ads right now. Donations simply will not work, especially for something with the costs that video incurs - to say nothing about being able to compensate creators for their time and effort.

I use ytdl-sub to downloadt the newest videos from the channels I like and import into Jellyfin. No ads, nothing, just videos. Even thumbnails.

I'd be happy to pay for video content/video hosting, but I'm not happy with any of my money going to youtube or google. Peertube is the future. 😎

The big issue for me is the content to ad ratio is completely out of whack.

I took the L and started paying for YT Premium since you can't really get rid of ads on LG TV otherwise

Did it with a bit of malicious compliance and opted for Family plan using argentinian VPN, totaling at less than $3 a month (and constantly dropping) for 5 people.

Call me lumberjack cause I wish a nigga wood pay for YouTube premium. With how many times YT tells me I’m not connected to the internet while my phone has a 3 bars of 5G (for whatever that’s worth) connection, hell naw I’m not paying for youtube premium. They move the goalpost way too often for what counts as “monetizable content” to the point that it’s neutering my favorite content creators to keep the lights on. TBH I’d rather pay Nebula

Honestly if I worked at YouTube and they asked me to implement this I'd quit.

I pay for Premium (bc I watch mostly from the TV using a console or AppleTV) but this sucks. Especially because how annoying and long a bunch of these ads are now.

I understand why they're doing this, but if you make a service that was once free, paid (whether with your time, or money), it's not a good look.

Yeah please do, I will just stop using YouTube and that would be a good thing.