To be fair, YT Premium is one of the few subscriptions I think is a no-brainer and good value for money.
Sometimes when I've forgotten to log in and see what it's like without, it's amazing anyone can watch videos on there. Like a lot of people I've generally been OK to watch ads in exchange for free content but it seems over the years instead of ads getting better and/or more relevant to my interests (even broadly), they're getting much worse.
I assume this is the result of companies just accepting ££ for anything rather than having more quality control?
As the old saying goes, good ideas shouldn't require force. If they have a "no-brainer" offering, no need to strong-arm people into using it, right?
I get it that they are not a charity and can monetize or paywall their platforms as seen fit, but there's something just sad about the model where you build a customer-friendly and open platform, then progressively crapify it once you capture a niche and eliminate most alternatives, and then start penalizing users for trying to work around that.
In Google/YouTube's defense, this mentality is why we can't have nice things. You think it's cheap to host the content YouTube does? Paying for premium to remove ads is a way of saying "Thank you for providing me this service, instead of displaying me irrelevant ads, just take my money"
It's also worth noting that creators get paid more for YT Premium views than ad-based views. YouTube, for all its problems, has far better revenue-sharing than pretty much any other "user generate content" platform.
>You think it's cheap to host the content YouTube does?
These discussions always include bad-faith arguments about offsetting costs.
The purpose of ads on websites like YouTube is not just to offset costs, it is to maximize profits. The distinction is important; it means Google doesn't stop showing you ads once they've paid their bills, so please stop framing it this way. They will show you as many ads as they can before it starts to hurt their bottom line. They are not serving videos to be nice.
This is what we want, though, right? The alternatives would be a paywall, or charge per view. (Or, I guess, pay to "own", like a Kindle ebook, but seems like a mismatch for most of their content.)
By this logic, buying e-books from Amazon is the worst value I can think of, because I can get them effortlessly from libgen and other "sources", and a single book can cost as much as the whole year of YouTube premium.
If you truly believe this (which I don't agree with), at least you're consistent. But I feel "adblock good, piracy bad" is a double standard that many people hold.
Practically, I think adblocker is even slightly worse than piracy. At least when you download a cracked game via a torrent, you don't cost Steam any money.
Except ad-blocker is literally just stealing bandwidth. Just because it's legal (under the current law), it doesn't mean it's morally right. Why should Youtube or any hosting service serves a user when they refuses to view the ads? YouTube is not a public service.
Yes, this is why YouTube should just refuse to serve you and other adblocker users. This way it can no longer steal your time, and it's the only fair solution.
It is morally right, not because it is legal, but because I was never asked to make a market transaction for the content. By your reasoning, it would be theft to close your eyes during a TV commercial. I completely reject your line of reasoning.
Sometimes when I've forgotten to log in and see what it's like without, it's amazing anyone can watch videos on there. Like a lot of people I've generally been OK to watch ads in exchange for free content but it seems over the years instead of ads getting better and/or more relevant to my interests (even broadly), they're getting much worse.
I assume this is the result of companies just accepting ££ for anything rather than having more quality control?