I guess this will be an unpopular opinion, but YouTube is justified in doing this imo. Video hosting isn’t cheap, especially providing 4K & 8K. They’ve gotta be able to support costs somehow, and if you’re not paying for Premium, you should be paying with ads. You’re also preventing the content creators from being compensated for content that you find valuable, useful, and/or entertaining.
I know ads are annoying, and I hate them just as much as you do. But a big reason why we have people who make super niche videos that help you learn how to fix something on your car or those regular videos that you watch every week is because the creators are able to get compensated for their work. Are you really saying that utility and entertainment isn’t worth 30 seconds of ads and it’s better to not support them at all?
Part of the reason we’re in this enshittification era of social media is because of the expectation of social media to be free. We need to learn from our past mistakes. It’s not sustainable.
May I ask why? That seems unsustainable to expect to be able to get the same amount of entertainment and utility from creators without helping compensate them.
Also, I would argue monetization has had to increase because of people using adblockers and the Silicon Valley mentality of “grow first, make money later.” Now that interest rates are high, social media companies are being forced to make money wherever they can since money isn’t cheap anymore.
If this is purely companies already being profitable and trying to just suck as much money as possible from their user base, then I would agree with you. But Twitter has been rumored for months to be close to having their lights shut off, and Reddit apparently isn’t profitable. Idk about YouTube, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not profitable and/or wouldn’t be able to exist without Google being its parent company today due to their other businesses diversifying their revenue streams.
I don’t see YouTube as a money-making endeavor, so I couldn’t care less if it is profitable. I’m not at a pay grade nor in a position to concern myself with a content creator’s income, and I’d prefer to simply browse non-monetized content for free. The thing I found attractive about YouTube is that anyone can share anything for free. The very first video uploaded to YouTube was a phone-quality short video of one of its creators rambling about some elephants at the zoo. That’s the YouTube I liked and enjoyed, and I hate what it’s become. I don’t find the content that’s pushed at me to be interesting at all, at least not interesting enough that I would ever want to monetarily support it or would be willing to watch an ad.
I spent many, many hours as a mod author for Skyrim. Never did it cross my mind to attempt to make a profit. I would much prefer this type of content. I don’t really care if someone is able to turn a profit, I don’t care if a site goes down because it is unsustainable, nor do I care about consuming content for free if I am able to access it without too much trouble.
I especially don’t care if a large evil corporation like Google is able to turn a profit, and I am categorically opposed to the idea of exploiting normal people’s time and resources in their attempt at earning a profit.
There are plenty of viewers who don’t want/need/care about the resolution. Especially not 8K, probably not even 4K. People who watch on their phone, probably won’t even notice if the content doesn’t go above 720p.
Anyway, if YT wishes to charge for their service, they should try having more reasonable fees, and making sure fees actually remove all ads from the service, and actually reward creators fairly - they get much less than they should as a proportion of fees paid.
As it stands, it is much better to subscribe to the likes of Nebula or to individual creators through Patreon (if they host their videos there). The bill might end up adding up to something similar or even more than YouTube Premium, but at least you get what you paid for and the money goes to the creators, not to line Google’s executive’s pockets, which in the end means better content, better platforms and a better viewing experience.
I agree, a lot of the creators on YouTube make these great videos and channels because of the financial compensation they are receiving.
But there should be other video hosting platforms to break the monopoly of Youtube, so that Google would not be willing to do moves like this, for fear of losing viewers to other competitors.
They’ve never really made money through the AdSense payments though, and it’s not because of adblockers. YouTube is notorious for demonetizing videos for more or less no reason and for false DMCA claims that allow trolls to hijack AdSense from the video’s creator. Most money being made by YouTubers is being made through sponsorships or direct support through Patreon/Ko-Fi/etc
I guess this will be an unpopular opinion, but YouTube is justified in doing this imo. Video hosting isn’t cheap, especially providing 4K & 8K. They’ve gotta be able to support costs somehow, and if you’re not paying for Premium, you should be paying with ads. You’re also preventing the content creators from being compensated for content that you find valuable, useful, and/or entertaining.
I know ads are annoying, and I hate them just as much as you do. But a big reason why we have people who make super niche videos that help you learn how to fix something on your car or those regular videos that you watch every week is because the creators are able to get compensated for their work. Are you really saying that utility and entertainment isn’t worth 30 seconds of ads and it’s better to not support them at all?
Part of the reason we’re in this enshittification era of social media is because of the expectation of social media to be free. We need to learn from our past mistakes. It’s not sustainable.
Yes, I am.
I strongly disagree with your last point as well. It’s the increased monetization of the internet that has led to enshittification.
May I ask why? That seems unsustainable to expect to be able to get the same amount of entertainment and utility from creators without helping compensate them.
Also, I would argue monetization has had to increase because of people using adblockers and the Silicon Valley mentality of “grow first, make money later.” Now that interest rates are high, social media companies are being forced to make money wherever they can since money isn’t cheap anymore.
If this is purely companies already being profitable and trying to just suck as much money as possible from their user base, then I would agree with you. But Twitter has been rumored for months to be close to having their lights shut off, and Reddit apparently isn’t profitable. Idk about YouTube, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not profitable and/or wouldn’t be able to exist without Google being its parent company today due to their other businesses diversifying their revenue streams.
I don’t see YouTube as a money-making endeavor, so I couldn’t care less if it is profitable. I’m not at a pay grade nor in a position to concern myself with a content creator’s income, and I’d prefer to simply browse non-monetized content for free. The thing I found attractive about YouTube is that anyone can share anything for free. The very first video uploaded to YouTube was a phone-quality short video of one of its creators rambling about some elephants at the zoo. That’s the YouTube I liked and enjoyed, and I hate what it’s become. I don’t find the content that’s pushed at me to be interesting at all, at least not interesting enough that I would ever want to monetarily support it or would be willing to watch an ad.
I spent many, many hours as a mod author for Skyrim. Never did it cross my mind to attempt to make a profit. I would much prefer this type of content. I don’t really care if someone is able to turn a profit, I don’t care if a site goes down because it is unsustainable, nor do I care about consuming content for free if I am able to access it without too much trouble.
I especially don’t care if a large evil corporation like Google is able to turn a profit, and I am categorically opposed to the idea of exploiting normal people’s time and resources in their attempt at earning a profit.
That makes sense. Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective.
There are plenty of viewers who don’t want/need/care about the resolution. Especially not 8K, probably not even 4K. People who watch on their phone, probably won’t even notice if the content doesn’t go above 720p.
Anyway, if YT wishes to charge for their service, they should try having more reasonable fees, and making sure fees actually remove all ads from the service, and actually reward creators fairly - they get much less than they should as a proportion of fees paid.
As it stands, it is much better to subscribe to the likes of Nebula or to individual creators through Patreon (if they host their videos there). The bill might end up adding up to something similar or even more than YouTube Premium, but at least you get what you paid for and the money goes to the creators, not to line Google’s executive’s pockets, which in the end means better content, better platforms and a better viewing experience.
I agree, a lot of the creators on YouTube make these great videos and channels because of the financial compensation they are receiving.
But there should be other video hosting platforms to break the monopoly of Youtube, so that Google would not be willing to do moves like this, for fear of losing viewers to other competitors.
They’ve never really made money through the AdSense payments though, and it’s not because of adblockers. YouTube is notorious for demonetizing videos for more or less no reason and for false DMCA claims that allow trolls to hijack AdSense from the video’s creator. Most money being made by YouTubers is being made through sponsorships or direct support through Patreon/Ko-Fi/etc