You know what else has ad-free viewing on YouTube? Firefox with UBlock Origin and Sponsorblock. And that's free. You are then free to give money to your favorite creators directly, rather than...
You know what else has ad-free viewing on YouTube? Firefox with UBlock Origin and Sponsorblock. And that's free. You are then free to give money to your favorite creators directly, rather than trusting Google to pay them appropriately.
In theory, you are right, but only if you just watch video of those creators you support. Which might be true for you, but I suspect that the majority of people who use adblock on YouTube don't...
In theory, you are right, but only if you just watch video of those creators you support. Which might be true for you, but I suspect that the majority of people who use adblock on YouTube don't support any creator or if they do still enjoy the content of many others.
It is a factor that did play into my decision to go for premium (we use the family plan with two people). Yes, it is expensive, but I also watch more YouTube than any other streaming service. And this way I know that for everything I watch the person who made it gets some percentage. Which might be small, but still more than ad income and obviously more compared to me blocking ads.
I still support some creators specifically because I enjoy their content even more or for other reasons. But now I can do that without having to try and somewhat equally divide it between everyone I watch.
Why I applaud your ability to pay for it, there is also the question whether that money (and how much of it) goes to your creators. I know most people get petty amounts of pennies per 1000s of...
Why I applaud your ability to pay for it, there is also the question whether that money (and how much of it) goes to your creators. I know most people get petty amounts of pennies per 1000s of views. Where as donating through something like Patreon directly gives people a few dollars/euro's a month which is a lot more than ads can most likely cough up, save for a few very popular Youtube channels.
I feel like you glossed over what I wrote. As I am not going to repeat myself I'll just clarify one thing and acknowledge one other. It is my understanding that creators get more per video from...
I feel like you glossed over what I wrote. As I am not going to repeat myself I'll just clarify one thing and acknowledge one other. It is my understanding that creators get more per video from premium views compared to ad supported views. This is important in the context of my previous comment.
Yes, I also realize that the ability to pay for things is a luxury.
In relation to this my understanding from various channels I watch, is they'd rather you give $1 a month on patreon than subscribe to youtube premium as it's several orders of magnitude more...
In relation to this my understanding from various channels I watch, is they'd rather you give $1 a month on patreon than subscribe to youtube premium as it's several orders of magnitude more income compared to your premium views.
It does of course have the issue in that if everyone does this, youtube does need to somehow pay for server costs, and in an isolated situation, this would lead to everyone losing the very platform they use to make content and earn a living, but that's obviously not likely in current circumstances.
I know channels rather have Patreon money, I mean more income is more income. I can hardly blame them for trying to increase and diversify their sources of income. And to be clear, I do support a...
I know channels rather have Patreon money, I mean more income is more income. I can hardly blame them for trying to increase and diversify their sources of income. And to be clear, I do support a few of my absolute favorite creators through Patreon. The problem is that my budget does not allow for that sort of money for all creators I watch videos for.
Not to mention the many times I watch an incidental video of a creator. I am obviously not going to support that creator on Patreon, at the same time I do think they deserve some compensation for the fact that I watch that one video and enjoy it.
I just took a look at my subscriptions, there are over 100 channels I am subscribed to. There is likely going to be some channels that belong to the same creator and a bunch of them haven't been active in quite some while. So, let's say at most 50 of them still post things on a semiregular basis. I am one of those weirdos who still navigates to their subscription overview first. Meaning that I'd have to set aside at least $50 which is starting to become a little bit much.
Now:
With my premium subscription I get to support all content I watch.
If I didn't have premium and didn't block ads I'd still get to support all content, but they would get less.
If I didn't have premium and did block ads I'd be supporting the least amount of creators possible.
As I have stated before, I also firmly believe there is a significant group of people who neither support creators on Patreon (or at best just a few like me), still watch a wide array of content made by various creators and also block ads. In this context, I feel pretty good about the choice I made to get a premium subscription.
Do I think that everyone should do the same? Not really, as I also said I do recognize that I am in a privileged position as far as disposable income goes. But, I would like to see people more honestly looking at this complete picture.
Yeah but for the price of the family plan for YouTube Premium, that's 23 creators at $1/creator. Is a family likely to only watch 23 creators? If I'm in a family of 6 and I get to save my $4 and...
Yeah but for the price of the family plan for YouTube Premium, that's 23 creators at $1/creator. Is a family likely to only watch 23 creators? If I'm in a family of 6 and I get to save my $4 and spend it on Patreon instead, giving $1/month to my top 4 creators, that would be great for that too 4 but at the cost of every other creator I watched that month. That's why creators are okay with this idea; if they can convince someone to do this for them, they've re-allocated another creator's money to themselves. They would not like this if they lost in this scenario.
That's actually what I use normally, but I have to launch it directly from Google TV instead of the Apple TV that I use for everything else. E: oh, also can't use SmarTube on the Roku TV in my bedroom
That's actually what I use normally, but I have to launch it directly from Google TV instead of the Apple TV that I use for everything else.
E: oh, also can't use SmarTube on the Roku TV in my bedroom
Sure. I opted for a setup where I have more control. My TV just streams video from my PC, or from my Steam Deck, both of which benefit from ad/script blockers. I wouldn't use a system that didn't...
Sure. I opted for a setup where I have more control. My TV just streams video from my PC, or from my Steam Deck, both of which benefit from ad/script blockers. I wouldn't use a system that didn't give me some control over what I was seeing and what information was heading back out. For instance, I spent a little chunk of yesterday switching over to Firefox from Chrome when Manifest V2 was finally disabled because my experience of the web took an immediate turn for the worse. I don't need to put up with that poison.
At the moment, I have a Steam Deck docked at my TV, and use Moonlight to stream Steam's Big Picture Mode from my PC. Doing that, I've got full access to my PC, and with a keyboard and mouse hooked...
At the moment, I have a Steam Deck docked at my TV, and use Moonlight to stream Steam's Big Picture Mode from my PC. Doing that, I've got full access to my PC, and with a keyboard and mouse hooked into the Steam Deck dock, it's like having my full setup in my living room. It is a wired connection, but my PC is in a different room.
A slightly bigger payout being a penny or two instead of fractions thereof. It still doesn't come close to beating the $1/month I send my frequently watched people on Patreon or the segment of the...
A slightly bigger payout being a penny or two instead of fractions thereof. It still doesn't come close to beating the $1/month I send my frequently watched people on Patreon or the segment of the $30/year I pay Nebula.
I don't spend a lot of time on YT but I agree with you on this. YT (google) is getting free content that they resell at a very high premium, even at these prices.
I don't spend a lot of time on YT but I agree with you on this. YT (google) is getting free content that they resell at a very high premium, even at these prices.
Premium lite having browsing and shorts ads and not having background play is close to a dealbreaker for me. I understand ads on music videos to prevent it from having all the benefits of YouTube...
Premium lite having browsing and shorts ads and not having background play is close to a dealbreaker for me. I understand ads on music videos to prevent it from having all the benefits of YouTube music, but everything else feels excessive and not a sufficient upgrade over the base service.
Edit: At the price it's offered. If it was ~2.99/month, then I'd probably get it.
yeah background play is a bummer. The absolute dealbreaker is No. I'm not paying a trillion dollar company a subscription to STILL get ads. They can't even promise every normal video is ad-free. I...
yeah background play is a bummer.
The absolute dealbreaker is
With Premium Lite, you won’t get ads on videos like gaming, fashion, beauty, news, and more. Ads however may appear on music content, Shorts, and when you search or browse.
No. I'm not paying a trillion dollar company a subscription to STILL get ads. They can't even promise every normal video is ad-free. I didn't even know they threw ads at you while you browsed until today.
Ad-free really should mean "ad-free", full stop.
Ugh, Nebula is pretty good for most videos I watch but I really wish there was some sort of proper competitor for the various gaming content I consume on Youtube. There's really nowhere else for creators to go if they need to get paid.
What I miss most on Nebula, oddly, is the comment section. I know everyone memes about how worthless YouTube comments are, but my highly curated YouTube algorithm delivers me good channels with...
What I miss most on Nebula, oddly, is the comment section. I know everyone memes about how worthless YouTube comments are, but my highly curated YouTube algorithm delivers me good channels with generally good comments.
As buggy as YouTube is, it's still more usable for me than the Nebula app. I haven't launched it in a few months (yet I'm paying for it... hmmm), but every time I try to use it I find that it's...
As buggy as YouTube is, it's still more usable for me than the Nebula app. I haven't launched it in a few months (yet I'm paying for it... hmmm), but every time I try to use it I find that it's much harder to find what I want and things like background play with the screen locked don't work well -- it'll do background play, but you have to be careful to first exit the app to get background play going and THEN lock your screen, otherwise it stops playing. I listen to content far more than I watch it, so this is a must-have feature for me.
I just checked on my iPhone and when you lock the screen the transport controls show up on the screen and you can simply click play to resume the audio.
I just checked on my iPhone and when you lock the screen the transport controls show up on the screen and you can simply click play to resume the audio.
$7.99 is ridiculous for this. Mostly ad-free, lol. If they offered this as a cheaper tier I could actually understand it, something priced at a few dollars a month, but $8 is just crazy for...
$7.99 is ridiculous for this. Mostly ad-free, lol.
If they offered this as a cheaper tier I could actually understand it, something priced at a few dollars a month, but $8 is just crazy for essentially "YouTube as it is at the moment, just slightly less annoying as we'll only show you less ads than we currently do."
It should be all of the features of YouTube premium, without YouTube Music. The forced bundling is textbook abuse of a monopoly as leverage to gain an advantage in a new market.
It should be all of the features of YouTube premium, without YouTube Music. The forced bundling is textbook abuse of a monopoly as leverage to gain an advantage in a new market.
Wonder if that anti-trust is still running at this point. Unsurprisingly, Trump turned very quick on his "Hard on Big Tech" stance. Not like he ever was doing it for the right reasons, but at that...
Wonder if that anti-trust is still running at this point. Unsurprisingly, Trump turned very quick on his "Hard on Big Tech" stance. Not like he ever was doing it for the right reasons, but at that point I'd take any bashing of robber barons.
I'm glad that everyone that made excuses for why they couldn't pay for Premium can re-evaluate their excuses. I, however, will unapologetically continue to not pay for YouTube.
I'm glad that everyone that made excuses for why they couldn't pay for Premium can re-evaluate their excuses. I, however, will unapologetically continue to not pay for YouTube.
Yup, I adblock and pirate plenty of stuff, so I don't pretend to have the moral high ground. But it really annoys me how often people come up with excuses or act like they are Robin Hood just...
Yup, I adblock and pirate plenty of stuff, so I don't pretend to have the moral high ground. But it really annoys me how often people come up with excuses or act like they are Robin Hood just because they are doing the online equivalent of dine and dashing.
They keep saying that it's better to support creators directly on patreon, but I bet they don't support 90%+ of the creators they watch. Many don't support anyone at all.
Also, why does the cute chick that makes the videos deserve to get paid, but the software engineers that make that possible don't? 518,400 hours of content gets uploaded to YT daily, you think maintaining and hosting that is free? But I guess people deserve to get paid only if you have a parasocial relationship with them.
How much development does YouTube need to keep doing what they've been doing for decades? The software development could be basically done, at which point you're talking about data storage and...
How much development does YouTube need to keep doing what they've been doing for decades? The software development could be basically done, at which point you're talking about data storage and transfer costs. And that's not nothing, but how much does it actually cost to do that per user? Sure, Google should be paid, but what would a fair rate for the video hosting actually be?
There are years and years worth of youtube videos uploaded every single day, that data hosting cost must be insanely massive. And the craziest thing is, I can load up a YouTube video that I...
There are years and years worth of youtube videos uploaded every single day, that data hosting cost must be insanely massive.
And the craziest thing is, I can load up a YouTube video that I uploaded on my private channel almost 2 decades ago and it'll still come up within seconds. That's insanely impressive infrastructure.
Updates to work with the modern web, yes. New features? No. Why do I need them to shove old android games in between videos? A lot of what they've done over the last few years has been...
Updates to work with the modern web, yes. New features? No. Why do I need them to shove old android games in between videos? A lot of what they've done over the last few years has been value-negative for me, regardless of how much they spent on it.
which is created by Google for Google and its Chromium and Chrome to kill the competition. No way I'm gonna pay directly a penny to this "don't be evil /s" corporation.
Updates to work with the modern web
which is created by Google for Google and its Chromium and Chrome to kill the competition. No way I'm gonna pay directly a penny to this "don't be evil /s" corporation.
That doesn't actually answer the question of what their cost is. I acknowledge the need for maintenance, but question whether what they're asking is actually anywhere close to their cost per user.
That doesn't actually answer the question of what their cost is. I acknowledge the need for maintenance, but question whether what they're asking is actually anywhere close to their cost per user.
So this got me curious, but some quick searches (1, 2) did not help bring anything conclusive up, unfortunately. TL;DR it seems to be kinda hard to tell. YouTube may be wildly profitable, or may not.
So this got me curious, but some quick searches (1, 2) did not help bring anything conclusive up, unfortunately.
TL;DR it seems to be kinda hard to tell. YouTube may be wildly profitable, or may not.
Google gets lots of money from selling our data that it doesn't need my few pennies to pay for the workforce. Adblock and direct contribution to a creator is enough. [edit] s/YouTube/Google
YouTube Google gets lots of money from selling our data that it doesn't need my few pennies to pay for the workforce. Adblock and direct contribution to a creator is enough.
Google isn't selling your data, that would be pretty stupid. They are selling targeted advertising using your data, which you aren't seeing because you adblock.
Google isn't selling your data, that would be pretty stupid. They are selling targeted advertising using your data, which you aren't seeing because you adblock.
Why pretty stupid? They have tons of data from the videos, messages, search queries, they have all the data from their web browser and websites all over the internet, which are used also to...
Why pretty stupid? They have tons of data from the videos, messages, search queries, they have all the data from their web browser and websites all over the internet, which are used also to fingerprint each one of us. They also gather data from other things, such as location services, GPS and their location servers so that they have data on where when and who. I will never believe they aren't selling this data in some form. Corporations collaborate and create oligopolies together.
That said, my stance is that Google has tons of money and they don't need my few pennies to pay way fewer to the chosen creators. They have money to pay creators without my contribution. I prefer direct contribution to creators I really like, I don't want to fuel "don't be evil" corp.
It's stupid because it's like having a hen that lays golden eggs and deciding to sell the hen instead of the eggs. Having all that data is precisely what gives google competitive advantage and why...
It's stupid because it's like having a hen that lays golden eggs and deciding to sell the hen instead of the eggs.
Having all that data is precisely what gives google competitive advantage and why they can make so much money through targeted advertising, which is their main cash cow. And it helps them teach their algorithms and develop AI, which is extremely important for their future. Even if we ignore the massive fines they'd be risking due to GDPR and other privacy laws, it would be ridiculously stupid to give that data to anyone from business perspective.
Also, yeah, there are plenty of good creators who deserve to get paid, but I'm not sure I really care? A lot of good videos would go away without their creators being paid, but I liked YouTube...
Also, yeah, there are plenty of good creators who deserve to get paid, but I'm not sure I really care? A lot of good videos would go away without their creators being paid, but I liked YouTube plenty before it got monetized and I'm frankly not sure those high-quality videos actually add to my life enough to justify their runtimes.
I still pay for premium. I wouldn't have minded alsmost halfing my bill to not use Youtube Music. But alas, this current world is not one who cares about the consumers. Or at least pretends to.
I still pay for premium. I wouldn't have minded alsmost halfing my bill to not use Youtube Music. But alas, this current world is not one who cares about the consumers. Or at least pretends to.
The fact that fewer but still not zero ads is still roughly half price and they can’t even be buggered to give you background play and downloads just goes extra hard to demonstrate exactly how...
The fact that fewer but still not zero ads is still roughly half price and they can’t even be buggered to give you background play and downloads just goes extra hard to demonstrate exactly how useless YouTube Music is as a bonus.
Let's do some math. Looking at my YouTube history, for the past month (Feb 6 - Mar 6) I've watched 51 videos. This is my typical usage, and I understand I'm likely on the low end of the spectrum...
Let's do some math. Looking at my YouTube history, for the past month (Feb 6 - Mar 6) I've watched 51 videos. This is my typical usage, and I understand I'm likely on the low end of the spectrum here.
If every video had a skippable ad (some have more than one, some have none, and I click Skip every time), I will have seen 51*5s = 205s of ads.
I don't think I'll pay $8 to save myself 3.42 minutes per month of avoiding ads. That's $2.34 per minute. I'm not THAT annoyed by skipping ads.
Yeah, I don't think this product is really intended for someone whose YouTube usage is relatively light like you. It's a much better value proposition the more YouTube you actually watch.
Yeah, I don't think this product is really intended for someone whose YouTube usage is relatively light like you. It's a much better value proposition the more YouTube you actually watch.
I thought it was be a higher price tbh. Not a bad deal for what you get. I use background playing too much to swap, but I think this’ll be good for a lot of users.
I thought it was be a higher price tbh. Not a bad deal for what you get. I use background playing too much to swap, but I think this’ll be good for a lot of users.
Really? $14 for all the premium features vs $8 for "we have ublock origin at home" feels like highway robbery. It seems like a terrible price for a mode that just takes away all of premium except...
Really? $14 for all the premium features vs $8 for "we have ublock origin at home" feels like highway robbery.
It seems like a terrible price for a mode that just takes away all of premium except ads. And not even all the ads.They couldn't even give paying customers higher bitrate.
Yep. If you compare it to Netflix, it's less than half the price. As to whether ad-free on Netflix is worth more or less than ad-free on Youtube, that'll depend on you. But personally, I watch far...
Yep. If you compare it to Netflix, it's less than half the price. As to whether ad-free on Netflix is worth more or less than ad-free on Youtube, that'll depend on you. But personally, I watch far more youtube than Netflix. It's a fantastic price.
The two seem like fundamentally different mediums to me. It's a bit like comparing basic cable to HBO. Even then: I'm not quite seeing the deal here. YT Premium vs Netflix standard sort of made...
The two seem like fundamentally different mediums to me. It's a bit like comparing basic cable to HBO.
Even then: I'm not quite seeing the deal here. YT Premium vs Netflix standard sort of made sense ($14 vs $18), but the dynamic changes once you add a tolerance of ads. $8/month for Netflix with ads vs $8/month for Youtube with "less" ads. In that comparison, why not just tolerate YT ads for free?
I was mostly comparing Lite to the existing full premium. Even if you ignore YT Music, why not pay $6 a month more to make sure there's no ads, and get a bunch more features?
"Mostly ad-free", if you read the note, just means that music videos still have ads. Presumably from the agreements with the labels. So for all intents and purposes, what aligns with Netflix's...
"Mostly ad-free", if you read the note, just means that music videos still have ads. Presumably from the agreements with the labels. So for all intents and purposes, what aligns with Netflix's $8/month plan is the $0/month plan from youtube, a.k.a the free version, and what aligns with the $18/month Netflix plan is the 8/month plan. Pretty solid bargain.
I was mostly comparing Lite to the existing full premium. Even if you ignore YT Music, why not pay $6 a month more to make sure there's no ads, and get a bunch more features?
I mean, either you use them or you don't. I'd imagine a lot of people do not use the background listen option for anything other than music to begin with. The ads - again, it's just music. If you already have a spotify subscription or whatever, I doubt you listened to all that much music on youtube.
I read the details: So whatever other rich companies make deals with, an entire format of YouTube, and then while scrolling looking for a video. The last one of the biggest dealbreaker to me, but...
"Mostly ad-free", if you read the note, just means that music videos still have ads.
I read the details:
With Premium Lite, you won’t get ads on videos like gaming, fashion, beauty, news, and more. Ads however may appear on music content, Shorts, and when you search or browse. Premium Lite doesn’t include YouTube Music Premium or features like video downloads and background play.
So whatever other rich companies make deals with, an entire format of YouTube, and then while scrolling looking for a video. The last one of the biggest dealbreaker to me, but I am very outspoken about paid services having ads to begin with.
I mean, either you use them or you don't
I just think calling it "lite" is a misnomer when it's not even half the price but cuts 90% of the features. Including not blockinig all ads to begin with. Someone not using all those features gets a better deal with an adblocker. They could have at least added the smart device features to hook people on formats you can't easily add an extentension on.
Right, now it just remains to introduce a payment model that is nor inherently predatory and built by relying ob people underutilizing the service(almost any kind of consumer targeted subscriptions).
Right, now it just remains to introduce a payment model that is nor inherently predatory and built by relying ob people underutilizing the service(almost any kind of consumer targeted subscriptions).
I watch YouTube almost exclusively on a TV, currently using an Invidious+Playlet setup on my Rokus. It works to avoid ads, but some fraction of videos I want to watch end up being not playable...
I watch YouTube almost exclusively on a TV, currently using an Invidious+Playlet setup on my Rokus. It works to avoid ads, but some fraction of videos I want to watch end up being not playable (anything age restricted is unwatchable without logging in, and some random videos just refuse to play for no discernable reason). As far as I know there's no way to skip ads on a Roku analogous to ublock origin in a browser, so I'm actually interested and potentially willing to pay for this Lite subscription.
Problem is it's still not showing up as an option for me in the US, despite all the material I'm reading saying it should already be available. Have they actually rolled it out yet, or is it a partial/gradual roll out? Is it showing up for anyone in the US?
It's a pilot program, so not everyone is eligible yet. In the meantime, you could try a Student Plan if you have an old email, a Family Plan if you have friends you're willing to trust to split...
It's a pilot program, so not everyone is eligible yet. In the meantime, you could try a Student Plan if you have an old email, a Family Plan if you have friends you're willing to trust to split the bill. There's also Web Video Caster which works pretty well for that sort of thing, and all sorts of little tricks you can do with Screencast or Airplay or Miracast if you're willing to change your workflow.
Thank you for the suggestions! I have tried various casting options but (unless I'm missing something) they all sacrifice the ability to browse and search videos on the TV itself with a remote...
Thank you for the suggestions! I have tried various casting options but (unless I'm missing something) they all sacrifice the ability to browse and search videos on the TV itself with a remote (the Roku remote, in my case), which is enough of a convenience to me that I'd consider paying the $7.99/mo for it. I do currently sometimes use screen casting as a backup for when Invidious refuses to play a specific video, but I find it pretty cumbersome.
As for the student plan, I'm decades distant from having a working .edu email. I do have kids who actually are students though, so hijacking one of their emails may be an option.
You know what else has ad-free viewing on YouTube? Firefox with UBlock Origin and Sponsorblock. And that's free. You are then free to give money to your favorite creators directly, rather than trusting Google to pay them appropriately.
In theory, you are right, but only if you just watch video of those creators you support. Which might be true for you, but I suspect that the majority of people who use adblock on YouTube don't support any creator or if they do still enjoy the content of many others.
It is a factor that did play into my decision to go for premium (we use the family plan with two people). Yes, it is expensive, but I also watch more YouTube than any other streaming service. And this way I know that for everything I watch the person who made it gets some percentage. Which might be small, but still more than ad income and obviously more compared to me blocking ads.
I still support some creators specifically because I enjoy their content even more or for other reasons. But now I can do that without having to try and somewhat equally divide it between everyone I watch.
Why I applaud your ability to pay for it, there is also the question whether that money (and how much of it) goes to your creators. I know most people get petty amounts of pennies per 1000s of views. Where as donating through something like Patreon directly gives people a few dollars/euro's a month which is a lot more than ads can most likely cough up, save for a few very popular Youtube channels.
I feel like you glossed over what I wrote. As I am not going to repeat myself I'll just clarify one thing and acknowledge one other. It is my understanding that creators get more per video from premium views compared to ad supported views. This is important in the context of my previous comment.
Yes, I also realize that the ability to pay for things is a luxury.
In relation to this my understanding from various channels I watch, is they'd rather you give $1 a month on patreon than subscribe to youtube premium as it's several orders of magnitude more income compared to your premium views.
It does of course have the issue in that if everyone does this, youtube does need to somehow pay for server costs, and in an isolated situation, this would lead to everyone losing the very platform they use to make content and earn a living, but that's obviously not likely in current circumstances.
I know channels rather have Patreon money, I mean more income is more income. I can hardly blame them for trying to increase and diversify their sources of income. And to be clear, I do support a few of my absolute favorite creators through Patreon. The problem is that my budget does not allow for that sort of money for all creators I watch videos for.
Not to mention the many times I watch an incidental video of a creator. I am obviously not going to support that creator on Patreon, at the same time I do think they deserve some compensation for the fact that I watch that one video and enjoy it.
I just took a look at my subscriptions, there are over 100 channels I am subscribed to. There is likely going to be some channels that belong to the same creator and a bunch of them haven't been active in quite some while. So, let's say at most 50 of them still post things on a semiregular basis. I am one of those weirdos who still navigates to their subscription overview first. Meaning that I'd have to set aside at least $50 which is starting to become a little bit much.
Now:
As I have stated before, I also firmly believe there is a significant group of people who neither support creators on Patreon (or at best just a few like me), still watch a wide array of content made by various creators and also block ads. In this context, I feel pretty good about the choice I made to get a premium subscription.
Do I think that everyone should do the same? Not really, as I also said I do recognize that I am in a privileged position as far as disposable income goes. But, I would like to see people more honestly looking at this complete picture.
Yeah but for the price of the family plan for YouTube Premium, that's 23 creators at $1/creator. Is a family likely to only watch 23 creators? If I'm in a family of 6 and I get to save my $4 and spend it on Patreon instead, giving $1/month to my top 4 creators, that would be great for that too 4 but at the cost of every other creator I watched that month. That's why creators are okay with this idea; if they can convince someone to do this for them, they've re-allocated another creator's money to themselves. They would not like this if they lost in this scenario.
I think this may still be useful for watching on a TV? 🤷♂️
Try smarttubenext
That's actually what I use normally, but I have to launch it directly from Google TV instead of the Apple TV that I use for everything else.
E: oh, also can't use SmarTube on the Roku TV in my bedroom
Sure. I opted for a setup where I have more control. My TV just streams video from my PC, or from my Steam Deck, both of which benefit from ad/script blockers. I wouldn't use a system that didn't give me some control over what I was seeing and what information was heading back out. For instance, I spent a little chunk of yesterday switching over to Firefox from Chrome when Manifest V2 was finally disabled because my experience of the web took an immediate turn for the worse. I don't need to put up with that poison.
How do you stream video from your PC to your TV?
Is the PC in the same room?
Is it a wired connection?
At the moment, I have a Steam Deck docked at my TV, and use Moonlight to stream Steam's Big Picture Mode from my PC. Doing that, I've got full access to my PC, and with a keyboard and mouse hooked into the Steam Deck dock, it's like having my full setup in my living room. It is a wired connection, but my PC is in a different room.
If you have a Fire TV stick or anything else Android-based, you can just sideload NewPipe.
Content creators get a slightly larger payout on views from premium users than they do from ad supported users.
A slightly bigger payout being a penny or two instead of fractions thereof. It still doesn't come close to beating the $1/month I send my frequently watched people on Patreon or the segment of the $30/year I pay Nebula.
I don't spend a lot of time on YT but I agree with you on this. YT (google) is getting free content that they resell at a very high premium, even at these prices.
Or Smarttube sideloaded to my NVIDIA Shield.
Premium lite having browsing and shorts ads and not having background play is close to a dealbreaker for me. I understand ads on music videos to prevent it from having all the benefits of YouTube music, but everything else feels excessive and not a sufficient upgrade over the base service.
Edit: At the price it's offered. If it was ~2.99/month, then I'd probably get it.
Disallowing background play for this just feels ridiculously petty.
It was always available until it wasn't. So yes.
I refuse to pay for background play since the day they took a default functionality and paywalled it.
Another reason to ditch it all and just get Revanced
yeah background play is a bummer.
The absolute dealbreaker is
No. I'm not paying a trillion dollar company a subscription to STILL get ads. They can't even promise every normal video is ad-free. I didn't even know they threw ads at you while you browsed until today.
Ad-free really should mean "ad-free", full stop.
Ugh, Nebula is pretty good for most videos I watch but I really wish there was some sort of proper competitor for the various gaming content I consume on Youtube. There's really nowhere else for creators to go if they need to get paid.
What I miss most on Nebula, oddly, is the comment section. I know everyone memes about how worthless YouTube comments are, but my highly curated YouTube algorithm delivers me good channels with generally good comments.
As buggy as YouTube is, it's still more usable for me than the Nebula app. I haven't launched it in a few months (yet I'm paying for it... hmmm), but every time I try to use it I find that it's much harder to find what I want and things like background play with the screen locked don't work well -- it'll do background play, but you have to be careful to first exit the app to get background play going and THEN lock your screen, otherwise it stops playing. I listen to content far more than I watch it, so this is a must-have feature for me.
I just checked on my iPhone and when you lock the screen the transport controls show up on the screen and you can simply click play to resume the audio.
Yeah, not sure what device is being used; it works perfectly fine on my Pixel. It doesn't even pause; you just start a video and hit the power button.
$7.99 is ridiculous for this. Mostly ad-free, lol.
If they offered this as a cheaper tier I could actually understand it, something priced at a few dollars a month, but $8 is just crazy for essentially "YouTube as it is at the moment, just slightly less annoying as we'll only show you less ads than we currently do."
It should be all of the features of YouTube premium, without YouTube Music. The forced bundling is textbook abuse of a monopoly as leverage to gain an advantage in a new market.
Wonder if that anti-trust is still running at this point. Unsurprisingly, Trump turned very quick on his "Hard on Big Tech" stance. Not like he ever was doing it for the right reasons, but at that point I'd take any bashing of robber barons.
It’s not. SEC, CFPB, FTC, and FCC are all gutted. They were next on the list right after USAID.
I'm glad that everyone that made excuses for why they couldn't pay for Premium can re-evaluate their excuses. I, however, will unapologetically continue to not pay for YouTube.
Yup, I adblock and pirate plenty of stuff, so I don't pretend to have the moral high ground. But it really annoys me how often people come up with excuses or act like they are Robin Hood just because they are doing the online equivalent of dine and dashing.
They keep saying that it's better to support creators directly on patreon, but I bet they don't support 90%+ of the creators they watch. Many don't support anyone at all.
Also, why does the cute chick that makes the videos deserve to get paid, but the software engineers that make that possible don't? 518,400 hours of content gets uploaded to YT daily, you think maintaining and hosting that is free? But I guess people deserve to get paid only if you have a parasocial relationship with them.
How much development does YouTube need to keep doing what they've been doing for decades? The software development could be basically done, at which point you're talking about data storage and transfer costs. And that's not nothing, but how much does it actually cost to do that per user? Sure, Google should be paid, but what would a fair rate for the video hosting actually be?
There are years and years worth of youtube videos uploaded every single day, that data hosting cost must be insanely massive.
And the craziest thing is, I can load up a YouTube video that I uploaded on my private channel almost 2 decades ago and it'll still come up within seconds. That's insanely impressive infrastructure.
Is it your position that YouTube requires no ongoing development, new features, or updates?
Updates to work with the modern web, yes. New features? No. Why do I need them to shove old android games in between videos? A lot of what they've done over the last few years has been value-negative for me, regardless of how much they spent on it.
which is created by Google for Google and its Chromium and Chrome to kill the competition. No way I'm gonna pay directly a penny to this "don't be evil /s" corporation.
How much maintenance does your car need to keep running? It's just like that, except insanely accelerated.
That doesn't actually answer the question of what their cost is. I acknowledge the need for maintenance, but question whether what they're asking is actually anywhere close to their cost per user.
So this got me curious, but some quick searches (1, 2) did not help bring anything conclusive up, unfortunately.
TL;DR it seems to be kinda hard to tell. YouTube may be wildly profitable, or may not.
YouTubeGoogle gets lots of money from selling our data that it doesn't need my few pennies to pay for the workforce. Adblock and direct contribution to a creator is enough.[edit]
s/YouTube/Google
Google isn't selling your data, that would be pretty stupid. They are selling targeted advertising using your data, which you aren't seeing because you adblock.
Why pretty stupid? They have tons of data from the videos, messages, search queries, they have all the data from their web browser and websites all over the internet, which are used also to fingerprint each one of us. They also gather data from other things, such as location services, GPS and their location servers so that they have data on where when and who. I will never believe they aren't selling this data in some form. Corporations collaborate and create oligopolies together.
That said, my stance is that Google has tons of money and they don't need my few pennies to pay way fewer to the chosen creators. They have money to pay creators without my contribution. I prefer direct contribution to creators I really like, I don't want to fuel "don't be evil" corp.
It's stupid because it's like having a hen that lays golden eggs and deciding to sell the hen instead of the eggs.
Having all that data is precisely what gives google competitive advantage and why they can make so much money through targeted advertising, which is their main cash cow. And it helps them teach their algorithms and develop AI, which is extremely important for their future. Even if we ignore the massive fines they'd be risking due to GDPR and other privacy laws, it would be ridiculously stupid to give that data to anyone from business perspective.
Also, yeah, there are plenty of good creators who deserve to get paid, but I'm not sure I really care? A lot of good videos would go away without their creators being paid, but I liked YouTube plenty before it got monetized and I'm frankly not sure those high-quality videos actually add to my life enough to justify their runtimes.
I still pay for premium. I wouldn't have minded alsmost halfing my bill to not use Youtube Music. But alas, this current world is not one who cares about the consumers. Or at least pretends to.
The fact that fewer but still not zero ads is still roughly half price and they can’t even be buggered to give you background play and downloads just goes extra hard to demonstrate exactly how useless YouTube Music is as a bonus.
I was pretty close. Surprised I overestimated it by $1.
Still too much for me personally I think.
Let's do some math. Looking at my YouTube history, for the past month (Feb 6 - Mar 6) I've watched 51 videos. This is my typical usage, and I understand I'm likely on the low end of the spectrum here.
If every video had a skippable ad (some have more than one, some have none, and I click Skip every time), I will have seen 51*5s = 205s of ads.
I don't think I'll pay $8 to save myself 3.42 minutes per month of avoiding ads. That's $2.34 per minute. I'm not THAT annoyed by skipping ads.
Yeah, I don't think this product is really intended for someone whose YouTube usage is relatively light like you. It's a much better value proposition the more YouTube you actually watch.
Since I mostly watch music videos uploaded by users, I’m wondering which music videos have ads. It’s not very clear.
Official ones? Unless the service works off of videos marked or otherwise detected as music.
I thought it was be a higher price tbh. Not a bad deal for what you get. I use background playing too much to swap, but I think this’ll be good for a lot of users.
Really? $14 for all the premium features vs $8 for "we have ublock origin at home" feels like highway robbery.
It seems like a terrible price for a mode that just takes away all of premium except ads. And not even all the ads.They couldn't even give paying customers higher bitrate.
Yep. If you compare it to Netflix, it's less than half the price. As to whether ad-free on Netflix is worth more or less than ad-free on Youtube, that'll depend on you. But personally, I watch far more youtube than Netflix. It's a fantastic price.
The two seem like fundamentally different mediums to me. It's a bit like comparing basic cable to HBO.
Even then: I'm not quite seeing the deal here. YT Premium vs Netflix standard sort of made sense ($14 vs $18), but the dynamic changes once you add a tolerance of ads. $8/month for Netflix with ads vs $8/month for Youtube with "less" ads. In that comparison, why not just tolerate YT ads for free?
I was mostly comparing Lite to the existing full premium. Even if you ignore YT Music, why not pay $6 a month more to make sure there's no ads, and get a bunch more features?
"Mostly ad-free", if you read the note, just means that music videos still have ads. Presumably from the agreements with the labels. So for all intents and purposes, what aligns with Netflix's $8/month plan is the $0/month plan from youtube, a.k.a the free version, and what aligns with the $18/month Netflix plan is the 8/month plan. Pretty solid bargain.
I mean, either you use them or you don't. I'd imagine a lot of people do not use the background listen option for anything other than music to begin with. The ads - again, it's just music. If you already have a spotify subscription or whatever, I doubt you listened to all that much music on youtube.
I read the details:
So whatever other rich companies make deals with, an entire format of YouTube, and then while scrolling looking for a video. The last one of the biggest dealbreaker to me, but I am very outspoken about paid services having ads to begin with.
I just think calling it "lite" is a misnomer when it's not even half the price but cuts 90% of the features. Including not blockinig all ads to begin with. Someone not using all those features gets a better deal with an adblocker. They could have at least added the smart device features to hook people on formats you can't easily add an extentension on.
Right, now it just remains to introduce a payment model that is nor inherently predatory and built by relying ob people underutilizing the service(almost any kind of consumer targeted subscriptions).
I watch YouTube almost exclusively on a TV, currently using an Invidious+Playlet setup on my Rokus. It works to avoid ads, but some fraction of videos I want to watch end up being not playable (anything age restricted is unwatchable without logging in, and some random videos just refuse to play for no discernable reason). As far as I know there's no way to skip ads on a Roku analogous to ublock origin in a browser, so I'm actually interested and potentially willing to pay for this Lite subscription.
Problem is it's still not showing up as an option for me in the US, despite all the material I'm reading saying it should already be available. Have they actually rolled it out yet, or is it a partial/gradual roll out? Is it showing up for anyone in the US?
It's a pilot program, so not everyone is eligible yet. In the meantime, you could try a Student Plan if you have an old email, a Family Plan if you have friends you're willing to trust to split the bill. There's also Web Video Caster which works pretty well for that sort of thing, and all sorts of little tricks you can do with Screencast or Airplay or Miracast if you're willing to change your workflow.
Thank you for the suggestions! I have tried various casting options but (unless I'm missing something) they all sacrifice the ability to browse and search videos on the TV itself with a remote (the Roku remote, in my case), which is enough of a convenience to me that I'd consider paying the $7.99/mo for it. I do currently sometimes use screen casting as a backup for when Invidious refuses to play a specific video, but I find it pretty cumbersome.
As for the student plan, I'm decades distant from having a working .edu email. I do have kids who actually are students though, so hijacking one of their emails may be an option.
I fully accept being labeled as noise, but I find it really hard to respond in any other way than:
Lol.
Respond with Grayjay, works on phone and now even desktop.