I find it hard to believe that advertising revenue brings in $15 per person per month. This is just penalizing people for trying to take the high road to avoid advertisements.
I find it hard to believe that advertising revenue brings in $15 per person per month.
This is just penalizing people for trying to take the high road to avoid advertisements.
While Google obviously adds a heavy premium compared to the user's actual advertisement worth, it's more complicated than just comparing to the advertising revenue per average user. The people...
While Google obviously adds a heavy premium compared to the user's actual advertisement worth, it's more complicated than just comparing to the advertising revenue per average user. The people willing to pay for an ad-free experience are the ones with disposable income and therefore the higher value target for advertisers; an advertiser offering that demographic the ability to buy their way out of the ad ecosystem directly devalues the ad network.
Same with Spotify podcasts. Spotify could easily make it a condition of them hosting that the production companies include an ad free copy of each episode they upload to serve to premium...
Same with Spotify podcasts. Spotify could easily make it a condition of them hosting that the production companies include an ad free copy of each episode they upload to serve to premium customers, but they don't.
It shows what bullshit the rhetoric about "Well you've got to pay for it somehow" is as a defense of predatory advertising practices. It's simply about greed, not maintaining the service or paying your fair share.
And I will go full adblock if it does that. I've paid for premium coincidentally since the days of Google Play Music and I kept the sub when they killed that because I was watching a lot of YT...
And I will go full adblock if it does that. I've paid for premium coincidentally since the days of Google Play Music and I kept the sub when they killed that because I was watching a lot of YT anyway (never used YT music). But I refuse to pay and still see ads; what am I paying for at that point? background play? Can do that with Firefox mobile. offline videos? Dont really download them, but I've used extensions before for that. Better monetize creators? I'll throw out more patreon and other donations and keep the adblock on.
I just really don't like ads, I got plenty of disposable income to stick that message.
This is the problem with ads. I don't think people realize how effective they are. It's how they extract so much money out of users watching ads. I've seen a few people mention that ad companies...
This is the problem with ads. I don't think people realize how effective they are. It's how they extract so much money out of users watching ads. I've seen a few people mention that ad companies are basically tricking businesses into paying for useless ads, which just seems like such a nonsensical take. Businesses have money to spend on ads because advertising works. The fact that people don't realize how much money they are making off ads also means they don't realize how they are paying for these ads, and the services the ads subsidize. I don't just mean the money people are paying, but the effect it has on their brains, their thinking, to let companies manipulate them with catchy jingles and other psychological trickery that associate certain feelings with various activities or products.
This is what they are doing in streaming too, it's not an isolated incident. Ads are clearly valuable, and few people seem to realize how valuable they are.
Part of the problem is online advertisers sell a lot of snake oil and companies are misattributing causality.
To explain the difference between the two to my students, I have them imagine that, on the first day of class, I stood at the door handing out leaflets advertising the class to every student who walked in. I then ask them: “What’s the conversion rate on my ads?” They always correctly reply “100%” because 100% of the people who saw the ad “bought” or enrolled in the class. Then I ask: “How much did those ads change your behavior?” Since they had all already signed up for the class long before seeing the ad, they all reply, “Not at all.” So, while the conversion rate on my ad is 100%, the lift from the ad — the amount of behavior change it provokes — is zero.
I could see the article earlier but not right now and don't feel like figuring out why my extension isn't bypassing the paywall to get a quote, but from what I read, the conclusion was still that...
I could see the article earlier but not right now and don't feel like figuring out why my extension isn't bypassing the paywall to get a quote, but from what I read, the conclusion was still that ads are effective, just not all ads in all situations. The moral of it was basically, buy the right ads, not don't buy ads at all because they're a waste of money.
Of course you can waste money on ads, I wasn't saying that it wasn't possible for businesses to waste money on ads, but you can make anything bad if you overdo it. Water is the key to life, but you can also die from too much water.
One example mentioned in that article was Procter and Gamble cut marketing costs and but increased returns, because they were better able to target appropriate audiences with ads. The story wasn't they stopped all marketing and maintained the same revenue. They still spend billions per year on advertising.
I'm not saying all ads are ineffective either. But the sales pitch which supposedly justifies the added cost for hyper-focused online ads is the one under the lens of scrutiny. At the end of the...
I'm not saying all ads are ineffective either. But the sales pitch which supposedly justifies the added cost for hyper-focused online ads is the one under the lens of scrutiny.
At the end of the day, yes marketing is effective. And IMO is mostly immoral. It is manufacturing demand where there was none, which serves little purpose than to further the industrial mechanization that is killing the planet.
I think you're absolutely right. It's just very unsettling surrendering to that thought. If we accept this we're basically saying there's nothing we can do to avoid the exposition and adds affect...
I think you're absolutely right. It's just very unsettling surrendering to that thought. If we accept this we're basically saying there's nothing we can do to avoid the exposition and adds affect on us and that's frightening.
Any time you keep seeing an ad over and over it’s because the company is straight up printing money with that campaign. The basic goal of a marketing campaign is to find something that returns...
Any time you keep seeing an ad over and over it’s because the company is straight up printing money with that campaign. The basic goal of a marketing campaign is to find something that returns more in profit than you’re spending on the ads. You could be doubling your money. Once you find the right way to get people’s attention you just pour as much into that as you can and keep doing it until it stops working.
Online advertising is revolutionary for marketing because of how good the attribution systems are compared to before the internet. You can quickly iterate and hone in on exactly the right message to get people interested.
I have for things sold by the creator themselves in the video. The pricing structure there is all based around commission, so the ads are much higher quality.
I have for things sold by the creator themselves in the video. The pricing structure there is all based around commission, so the ads are much higher quality.
They also usually show the product and regularly use it themselves, at least in the videos I watch. I haven't bought anything that I've seen in a sponsored video, but I've given it some thought....
They also usually show the product and regularly use it themselves, at least in the videos I watch. I haven't bought anything that I've seen in a sponsored video, but I've given it some thought. (That being said, I have bought some products I've seen in videos that weren't being sponsored, so I have no reason to think that a sponsored video would not work on me.)
For regular YouTube ads, I've never come anywhere close to wanting to buy the product shown — if I even notice the product at all. They're like banners on websites, where I just mindlessly tune them out, which is a habit I developed surprisingly fast (I disabled my adblocker for one month before getting a YouTube Premium trial because I wanted to give it a fair comparison).
There is only one YouTube ad that I can remember well—I think because it was very high quality and I only saw it once, so it really stood out from the sea of sameness—which was a Greenpeace ad campaigning against ocean bottom trawling.
It's a whale* economy. Online ads are so cheap that only one person out of thousands needs to buy something for the ads to have a positive ROI. Of course, this is a very crudely measured ROI. It's...
It's a whale* economy. Online ads are so cheap that only one person out of thousands needs to buy something for the ads to have a positive ROI.
Of course, this is a very crudely measured ROI. It's much harder to quantify how much a given ad poisons a viewer's opinion of that brand, how much it pushes them toward installing an adblocker, etc.
* In free-to-play games, "whales" refer to the small percentage of the player base who spend significant amounts of money on free games. The great majority of players spend no money or very little, so their interests are disregarded. F2P game design centers entirely around whale hunting, and no regard is paid to how it affects other players' experience.
Vizio makes almost as much selling ads and viewer data than from selling TVs. IIRC estimates were something like $40/user/month. Quick search shows ads cost around $0.10 to $0.30 on Youtube per...
I wouldn't mind an adblock extension that does load the ads and "play" them, but muted and blacked out. YouTube still thinks it showed me an ad, creators get paid, I don't have to watch ads for...
I wouldn't mind an adblock extension that does load the ads and "play" them, but muted and blacked out. YouTube still thinks it showed me an ad, creators get paid, I don't have to watch ads for dumb shit I'm never interested in and have my relaxing hour long astrophysics documentaries interrupted with blaring music and bright colours. Win win win.
Not saying you’re right or wrong – I’m curious what the average YouTube user is “worth” to Google too – but here as a comparison, competitor search engine Kagi says: … which I find to be a...
I find it hard to believe that advertising revenue brings in $15 per person per month.
Not saying you’re right or wrong – I’m curious what the average YouTube user is “worth” to Google too – but here as a comparison, competitor search engine Kagi says:
To estimate the revenue per user, we can divide the 2023 US ad revenue by the 2023 number of users: $76 billion / 274 million = $277 revenue per user in the US or $23 USD per month, on average! That means there is someone, somewhere, a third party and a complete stranger, an advertiser, paying $23 per month for your searches.
… which I find to be a somewhat sound and convincing argument, at least for having an initial estimate.
However I imagine it might be a good portion less on YouTube’s users due to the “shopping” results missing compared to Google Search.
I pay for YouTube premium and I get value out of it. However I dislike all the shorts being pushed at me. Also I find the increasing number of sponsorship sections in youtube videos annoying and...
I pay for YouTube premium and I get value out of it. However I dislike all the shorts being pushed at me. Also I find the increasing number of sponsorship sections in youtube videos annoying and clearly something slightly out of YouTube’s control.
Well sort of. Some of the channels push it because the revenue from Google itself is not nearly enough, especially when videos easily become demonitized.
Well sort of. Some of the channels push it because the revenue from Google itself is not nearly enough, especially when videos easily become demonitized.
It appears that this is a new batch of countries that will receive the price increase, following the ones that got hit on August.
As of November 1, YouTube Premium is seeing an international price increase in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Chile, Germany, Poland, and Turkey. [...] This price increase is happening in a piecemeal fashion across Europe, Asia-Pacific, and South America rather than the price going up for all countries in a region.
It appears that this is a new batch of countries that will receive the price increase, following the ones that got hit on August.
Actually they would do me a favor if they make it this expensive. I'm paying 3 euro a month for Nebula so I'll have my fav content creators still available. But it would also mean that I'll spend...
Actually they would do me a favor if they make it this expensive.
I'm paying 3 euro a month for Nebula so I'll have my fav content creators still available. But it would also mean that I'll spend less time just browsing videos (it's a bit of a vice for me at this moment)
And I do hope this will bring back more written content to the web. Learning from video's is fine but I think it still can't beat a well written guide/blog/book (but I'm probably just old and out of touch)
I was on a VPN with an IP address from Turkey when I subscribed to the YouTube Premium family plan, so Google charges me in Turkish lira. I did get notified that the price went up recently--after...
I was on a VPN with an IP address from Turkey when I subscribed to the YouTube Premium family plan, so Google charges me in Turkish lira. I did get notified that the price went up recently--after the price hike I'm paying the equivalent of around $4 USD per month. It's still worth it to me at that price.
Let's boil the frogs some more. At this point I expect every streaming service to increase prices within a couple of months. Let's attack adblockers and also siphon more from the paying consumers,...
Let's boil the frogs some more.
At this point I expect every streaming service to increase prices within a couple of months.
Let's attack adblockers and also siphon more from the paying consumers, as if it wasn't clear already this is just rent seeking. It's not like any of this leads to a better product for the customer.
I got hit with this price rise in August and just chalked it up to "whatever, probably inflation related, I'll just eat it", but seeing Google go full mask-off with being aggressively...
I got hit with this price rise in August and just chalked it up to "whatever, probably inflation related, I'll just eat it", but seeing Google go full mask-off with being aggressively anti-consumer since is pushing me more and more towards cancelling Premium on principle. God knows my media server has several years worth of unwatched content on it, I'll be able to entertain myself without YouTube in a pinch.
whaaat? after pushing such anticonsumer practices lately while basically holding a monopoly after running at loss for a decade? whaaatnooo who could have seen this coming? tag this off topic if...
whaaat? after pushing such anticonsumer practices lately while basically holding a monopoly after running at loss for a decade? whaaatnooo who could have seen this coming?
tag this off topic if you think it fits, i normally just lurk here but i had to squeek out my displeasure of how the platform is being ran and handled from a consumers perspective.
They’re about to turn me into a hypocrite if they keep this up. It’s already quite expensive in all territories unless YT Music appeals to you.
I find it hard to believe that advertising revenue brings in $15 per person per month.
This is just penalizing people for trying to take the high road to avoid advertisements.
While Google obviously adds a heavy premium compared to the user's actual advertisement worth, it's more complicated than just comparing to the advertising revenue per average user. The people willing to pay for an ad-free experience are the ones with disposable income and therefore the higher value target for advertisers; an advertiser offering that demographic the ability to buy their way out of the ad ecosystem directly devalues the ad network.
That's why they want everyone to pay and show ads.
Same with Spotify podcasts. Spotify could easily make it a condition of them hosting that the production companies include an ad free copy of each episode they upload to serve to premium customers, but they don't.
It shows what bullshit the rhetoric about "Well you've got to pay for it somehow" is as a defense of predatory advertising practices. It's simply about greed, not maintaining the service or paying your fair share.
Yup it will get there at some point.
And I will go full adblock if it does that. I've paid for premium coincidentally since the days of Google Play Music and I kept the sub when they killed that because I was watching a lot of YT anyway (never used YT music). But I refuse to pay and still see ads; what am I paying for at that point? background play? Can do that with Firefox mobile. offline videos? Dont really download them, but I've used extensions before for that. Better monetize creators? I'll throw out more patreon and other donations and keep the adblock on.
I just really don't like ads, I got plenty of disposable income to stick that message.
So back to cable? The ads were 100% the reason I left cable.
This is the problem with ads. I don't think people realize how effective they are. It's how they extract so much money out of users watching ads. I've seen a few people mention that ad companies are basically tricking businesses into paying for useless ads, which just seems like such a nonsensical take. Businesses have money to spend on ads because advertising works. The fact that people don't realize how much money they are making off ads also means they don't realize how they are paying for these ads, and the services the ads subsidize. I don't just mean the money people are paying, but the effect it has on their brains, their thinking, to let companies manipulate them with catchy jingles and other psychological trickery that associate certain feelings with various activities or products.
This is what they are doing in streaming too, it's not an isolated incident. Ads are clearly valuable, and few people seem to realize how valuable they are.
This isn't untrue
Part of the problem is online advertisers sell a lot of snake oil and companies are misattributing causality.
I could see the article earlier but not right now and don't feel like figuring out why my extension isn't bypassing the paywall to get a quote, but from what I read, the conclusion was still that ads are effective, just not all ads in all situations. The moral of it was basically, buy the right ads, not don't buy ads at all because they're a waste of money.
Of course you can waste money on ads, I wasn't saying that it wasn't possible for businesses to waste money on ads, but you can make anything bad if you overdo it. Water is the key to life, but you can also die from too much water.
One example mentioned in that article was Procter and Gamble cut marketing costs and but increased returns, because they were better able to target appropriate audiences with ads. The story wasn't they stopped all marketing and maintained the same revenue. They still spend billions per year on advertising.
I'm not saying all ads are ineffective either. But the sales pitch which supposedly justifies the added cost for hyper-focused online ads is the one under the lens of scrutiny.
At the end of the day, yes marketing is effective. And IMO is mostly immoral. It is manufacturing demand where there was none, which serves little purpose than to further the industrial mechanization that is killing the planet.
I think you're absolutely right. It's just very unsettling surrendering to that thought. If we accept this we're basically saying there's nothing we can do to avoid the exposition and adds affect on us and that's frightening.
Any time you keep seeing an ad over and over it’s because the company is straight up printing money with that campaign. The basic goal of a marketing campaign is to find something that returns more in profit than you’re spending on the ads. You could be doubling your money. Once you find the right way to get people’s attention you just pour as much into that as you can and keep doing it until it stops working.
Online advertising is revolutionary for marketing because of how good the attribution systems are compared to before the internet. You can quickly iterate and hone in on exactly the right message to get people interested.
This is interesting because I don't think I have ever in my entire life spent money on anything I saw a YouTube ad for.
I have for things sold by the creator themselves in the video. The pricing structure there is all based around commission, so the ads are much higher quality.
They also usually show the product and regularly use it themselves, at least in the videos I watch. I haven't bought anything that I've seen in a sponsored video, but I've given it some thought. (That being said, I have bought some products I've seen in videos that weren't being sponsored, so I have no reason to think that a sponsored video would not work on me.)
For regular YouTube ads, I've never come anywhere close to wanting to buy the product shown — if I even notice the product at all. They're like banners on websites, where I just mindlessly tune them out, which is a habit I developed surprisingly fast (I disabled my adblocker for one month before getting a YouTube Premium trial because I wanted to give it a fair comparison).
There is only one YouTube ad that I can remember well—I think because it was very high quality and I only saw it once, so it really stood out from the sea of sameness—which was a Greenpeace ad campaigning against ocean bottom trawling.
It's a whale* economy. Online ads are so cheap that only one person out of thousands needs to buy something for the ads to have a positive ROI.
Of course, this is a very crudely measured ROI. It's much harder to quantify how much a given ad poisons a viewer's opinion of that brand, how much it pushes them toward installing an adblocker, etc.
* In free-to-play games, "whales" refer to the small percentage of the player base who spend significant amounts of money on free games. The great majority of players spend no money or very little, so their interests are disregarded. F2P game design centers entirely around whale hunting, and no regard is paid to how it affects other players' experience.
Vizio makes almost as much selling ads and viewer data than from selling TVs. IIRC estimates were something like $40/user/month.
Quick search shows ads cost around $0.10 to $0.30 on Youtube per person. If they foist 10 ads on me a day (easy in an hour), that's easily $15 a month.
It's $30, and per year, not per month. Compare it to Roku which has more public information and also in the $40/user/year range.
I wouldn't mind an adblock extension that does load the ads and "play" them, but muted and blacked out. YouTube still thinks it showed me an ad, creators get paid, I don't have to watch ads for dumb shit I'm never interested in and have my relaxing hour long astrophysics documentaries interrupted with blaring music and bright colours. Win win win.
Not saying you’re right or wrong – I’m curious what the average YouTube user is “worth” to Google too – but here as a comparison, competitor search engine Kagi says:
… which I find to be a somewhat sound and convincing argument, at least for having an initial estimate.
However I imagine it might be a good portion less on YouTube’s users due to the “shopping” results missing compared to Google Search.
I pay for YouTube premium and I get value out of it. However I dislike all the shorts being pushed at me. Also I find the increasing number of sponsorship sections in youtube videos annoying and clearly something slightly out of YouTube’s control.
Well sort of. Some of the channels push it because the revenue from Google itself is not nearly enough, especially when videos easily become demonitized.
It appears that this is a new batch of countries that will receive the price increase, following the ones that got hit on August.
Actually they would do me a favor if they make it this expensive.
I'm paying 3 euro a month for Nebula so I'll have my fav content creators still available. But it would also mean that I'll spend less time just browsing videos (it's a bit of a vice for me at this moment)
And I do hope this will bring back more written content to the web. Learning from video's is fine but I think it still can't beat a well written guide/blog/book (but I'm probably just old and out of touch)
I was on a VPN with an IP address from Turkey when I subscribed to the YouTube Premium family plan, so Google charges me in Turkish lira. I did get notified that the price went up recently--after the price hike I'm paying the equivalent of around $4 USD per month. It's still worth it to me at that price.
I am curious what VPN service? Or did you roll your own?
I believe it was Privado.
Let's boil the frogs some more.
At this point I expect every streaming service to increase prices within a couple of months.
Let's attack adblockers and also siphon more from the paying consumers, as if it wasn't clear already this is just rent seeking. It's not like any of this leads to a better product for the customer.
I got hit with this price rise in August and just chalked it up to "whatever, probably inflation related, I'll just eat it", but seeing Google go full mask-off with being aggressively anti-consumer since is pushing me more and more towards cancelling Premium on principle. God knows my media server has several years worth of unwatched content on it, I'll be able to entertain myself without YouTube in a pinch.
whaaat? after pushing such anticonsumer practices lately while basically holding a monopoly after running at loss for a decade? whaaatnooo who could have seen this coming?
tag this off topic if you think it fits, i normally just lurk here but i had to squeek out my displeasure of how the platform is being ran and handled from a consumers perspective.