- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- android@lemdro.id
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- android@lemdro.id
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Does…. Any one, actually, you know, subscribe for YouTube?
I have a YouTube Premium subscription
How does it compare to a Netflix subscription, or whatever you got?
I would dump Netflix before cancelling YT Premium. Everything on Netflix I can stream for free from pirate sites to my TV. YouTube actually has tons of informational and educational content and a premium subscription lets me support it without the ads. I probably watch YouTube twice as much as all my other vid subs combined.
I’ve been so annoyed with the ads that I’ve started to go elsewhere for instructional content.
I’m technically still sharing a Netflix account with my parents, though I rarely use it at this point.
Whenever I want to watch a movie, and I check Netflix, they don’t have it. (It’s worth pointing out that I’m not in the US)In contrast, YouTube Premium gives me pretty much exactly what I seek from it. Videos from channels that I follow, but now without ads.
I watch a lot more YouTube than Netflix, personally
Ditto. It is my most used subscription.
I watch more YouTube than cable (never) or Netflix (maybe one binge a month).
I use it for music in the car and at work.
I play audio from some sciencey channels while I try to goto sleep.
I’ll probably keep paying. I do get value out of it.
Why
For me its solely because of a ad free experience on my TV, since its the primary device I’m using it on. And i got it relatively cheap from turkey so it’s not that big of a deal. I might reevaluate if the price increases though.
It really boils down to a few reasons:
- I don’t like ads, and I prefer not to see them
- Running a platform like YouTube is not cheap, and I understand that Google needs money to keep things running.
- The revenue of Premium is split between YouTube and the creators, much like ad revenue is. So it also supports the channels that I follow.
You pay and you’re still the product, they continue with all the tracking they do.
That hasn’t stopped me from using other Google services like Gmail, Docs, or Drive either.
If I ever decide I want to opt out of Google’s ecosystem I’ll just serve them a GDPR data deletion request.
That’s what I did when I deleted my Twitter account as well.
You should do an AMA
you hopefully mean you had a prem subscription, the more people quit because of price policy the better it will be for everyone
Oh yeah, because historically, whenever a large internet platform starts losing money, things definitely get better for everyone. Nevermind Reddit and Twitter and Meta and Netflix and Hulu having to nickle and dime users for basic functionality of their platforms, things are definitely better. I love all those raised prices and lowered quality of service.
Right.
out of all the subscriptions, it’s probably the best one. you can get youtube for free but either you’re gonna get ads or you’ll block them, and the creators you like will start seeking other forms of revenue that are just as/more annoying, or just quit.
yt-premium makes youtube an actually nice experience and keeps money flowing to creators. There’s a limit to how much that nice-experience is worth but it’s better than paying for netflix, and a bunch of netflix execs get paid, and the creators don’t. then the show you like is cancelled and removed anyway.
I fee like premium is really the only way to make youtube more sustainable for content creators and the platform alike. However, youtube has currently deemed that demonetized videos should lose all youtube premium revenue. That’s incredibly stupid.
Imagine if premium revenue went to creators you watched, regardless of monetization status. Premium subscribers would be highly sought after for content creators, since it’s a more reliable revenue source that gives them the freedom to make what they want. It’s good for YouTube/google too because thats less reliance on advertisers.
It could use some adjustments, maybe taking some inspiration from patreon.
I fee like premium is really the only way to make youtube more sustainable for content creators and the platform alike.
I really don’t see how, unfortunately. You give Youtube the money and they decide what to do with it and they won’t do it in a remotely fair way because they want profits for themselves. There are many better ways to support content creators directly than over whatever Youtube decides to pay them at any given moment. Most content creators know that of course and are already linking to other services that you can use to help them out. At least for as long as Youtube allows it…
When I signed up for premium half of my bill went to creators based on my watch time. I don’t know the current split, but I do know LTT has said quite a few times that premium actually pays out a lot to channels.
YouTube could claw that back at any point, obviously, but right now it seems fair
Personally I become a member of the channels I’d like to support or join their Patreon if they have them and then use AdBlock+SponsorBlock and uYou+ on mobile.
If you pay for premium Google is still collecting all of your data and using it for their own gain. Why support them at all?
someone’s gotta do the hosting part, honestly that’s pretty difficult and I can’t see anyone else being able to make a youtube other than google. The platform itself does have value. I don’t think that value is 45% of the money but it’s not a case of they shouldn’t make any money.
Their yearly revenue has increased by $20B over the last 5 years alone, let’s not pretend YouTube is hurting for money here.
And other video platforms do exist and are successful. I think more people would consider premium, myself included if three things were different.
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The price. Over $10 a month for no ads is insane. If it were $4.99 a month I probably would have it and not care. I hardly even remember that I pay for Plex pass each month. I don’t want or need YT Music, make a separate plan.
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Paywalling old features like being able to watch videos with your screen off on mobile. Most videos where it’s just a person taking and there’s no on screen content worth watching is perfect for that. But they removed it as a free feature locking it behind premium. That and being able to throw the app into the background and have the playback continue. I mean come on…
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Screwing over the creators. YouTube, much like Reddit, has taken the thing that made the platform what it is today, that being the content and those who generate it, for granted. The whole adpocalypse and constant demonetization of videos for stupid reasons is getting old. Things might be a bit better now? But I support most of my favorite creators off platform through Patreon or whatever so they get what they deserve and aren’t shafted by Google being full of greedy fucks.
So yeah, really it’s YouTube shooting themselves in the foot. It’d be very easy to get tons of people to sign up for premium but they’re choosing profits over people. We all know how that works out.
Google can go fuck itself. Ever since they removed the “don’t be evil” slogan they’ve been doing a great job of being shit.
Just to be super clear. There are other video platforms, and they are not successful, and not one of them could scale to youtube scale. And any that did would likely act similarly.
There is value in the content delivery platform we call youtube, value for consumers and creators. As I said originally There is a limit to how much value there is, which might not match what they currently take.
But to say vimeo? Could serve as a youtube replacement. It’s just silly.
that argument of ‘they have money’ doesn’t make fucking sense lol. them having money has zero to do with them asking for payment in exchange for a service like every other company out there. the fuck does their bank account have to do with the costs of hosting millions of videos for millions of viewers? bupkus - that’s what.
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Yea I’ve been kinda watching youtube through this whole social media moment, suspicious that they’ve successfully taken a middle road here that will probably last. Ads and profiteering? You bet … but it seems that there’s a monetisation model for “creators” that kinda works (though I’m not sure at all about that). And so, for anyone that actually wants to make any sort of living doing the creative stuff that the rest of us lurkers want to consume, the inevitable question of how do you live within capitalism seems to have an answer of some sort in youtube while all the other platforms perhaps don’t have healthy or appealing answers.
As for the fediverse, I think there’s a massive opportunity for donations and crowd funding to become a much more central and normal aspect here so that making some sort of living by contributing to and being a part of this space is actually viable. Even some sort of subscription model for platfroms that are essentially non-profit creator-driven would make a lot of sense here.
That’s a problem that goes beyond any single platform though, and at the moment, cross-platform or fediverse-wide work seems to be lacking behind a little bit.
I do, you get Youtube Music as well and no ads, which is a great combination.
YouTube music is superior to Apple Music and Spotify. Change my mind.
Now i haven’t been subscribed to spotify since at least 2015 so things may have changed but when i’m controlling someone elses phone with spotify i pretty much always prefer it to youtube music which has been my main player pretty much since it launched (i wont change for as long as i have yt premium though :p).
I moved to YouTube Music from Spotify and I really miss being able to move the songs around in a playlist on the mobile app. I used to spend a lot of time curating playlists where order mattered (I might avoid having two songs back to back that are the same tempo/vibe, or I might tell a story with the progression of songs in the playlist).
I’m also annoyed by the fact that sometimes YouTube Music will hang forever on a blank loading screen instead of accepting that there’s no connection and sending me to my downloaded songs. I don’t know if Spotify does better about this because I never had Spotify Premium.
However, one good thing about YouTube Music is that you can find covers and unofficially released songs much more easily. I search for covers often, to see how others might interpret a song I like.
I use Youtube music and I think it is inferior to Spotify. Offline music is much more seamless, music quality is superior, shuffling a playlist is easier, recommended music is better, dedicated desktop app, and more. The only reason I use YouTube music is because there is more selection.
I’m not sure about Apple music though since I never had an iPhone.
Is it better than Google Music was? Cause I had that for years and swapped to Spotify when they first announced they were axing Google Music to combine it into YouTube Premium.
It is absolutely not better than Google play music in any way, shape, or form. It has improved a lot since launch though. I’m still bitter about that switchover.
Same man. 😭
YouTube music is pretty great. I’ve got it through revanced so it’s free, but being able to find random playlists is a huge plus.
Yeah I do… family plan so split the cost with the fam. I find it worth it. But the price increases are certainly concerning. If it keeps going up I’ll drop it.
The combo with YT Music is a good deal.
I primarily watch YouTube on tv, it is my most used video streaming platform, so yes I do. As does all my friends.
Out of all the streaming services I pay for I get by far the most value out of yt premium, I probably spend 10x longer watching yt vids compared to movies and TV shows, and it has a dedicated music app that links nicely with my android auto.
Yes, a family plan makes it cheaper. You won’t see any ads on your devices, from your TV to your PC, and you can listen to YouTube videos even when your phone is locked. It also includes YouTube Music. It’s a great deal, and I’m not sure why some people don’t see it that way. Sure, you could get a different YouTube client for your phone, install an ad blocker on your PC, block ads on your router to get rid them on your smart TV, and listen to music on Spotify for free. But the value of a good service is that you pay a reasonable amount of money and get all these features without any additional work on your part.
I do. I watch a ton of YouTube. Revanced and NewPipe are rad but there’s no effortless way to have an adfree experience on the TV.
OP here. I do in fact confess that I share a YT Premium subscription with a friend, though I myself eschew the bog-standard YT apps with those patched using Revanced Extended just because of long-standing QoL issues on said regular apps.
Subscriber here. I use YouTube pretty much all day long. I usually have it playing something for background noise while I’m working. I’ve got a family plan with 4 other people on it, who all also get the benefits of ad-free viewing.
I also use YouTube on several devices of my own. TV, PS5, phone, tablet, three laptops… Trying to manage adblockers on all of those is such a pain in the ass. I’ll never go back to troubleshooting Pi-holes and adblockers and adblocker-blocker-blockers. It’s an objectively worse experience having to manage all sorts of goofy tools that keep getting circumvented by Google every week.
Also, the content creators I watch get paid for my views. I spend hours watching these people’s content, so making sure they’re getting paid means something to me.
Yup. YouTube is most of what I watch.
I do, and YouTube is my primary Media consumption for both video and music.
That said, I have the family plan which went from $15-23 back a few months ago and it was difficult to keep. I actually cancelled it and used Spotify and some of the available ad-blocking apps, but ultimately didn’t like Spotify, so I came back.
If it were to go up again anytime remotely soon I’d be gone.
Yeah, got YouTube music after they shut down Google play music. All my friends dog on me for not having Spotify but not having ads on iOS is so nice. I tried it once without youtube premium subscription and idk how people can sit through advertisment hell for every video.
Also having the creators I watch get a larger share of the YouTube money pie cause I watch them as a YouTube premium sub is a nice feeling too.
That being said though, I’m on a family plan and not this specific plan that got its price raised (although I’m pretty sure the family plan prices have also gone up recently if I remember right).
I actually dropped my other subs (Netflix, Deezer) in favor of the YouTube family plan. My kids watch a ton of Minecraft vids and I don’t really care to have them digesting all those ads. My wife also uses it a lot and I get a music service that just works with all my casting devices flawlessly.
I also love the ad free experience when I use a how to video etc.
I’ve had it for a few years. I watch a ton of YouTube via Chromecast. I also use the music service every day. For me it’s a good value.
I pay ~£1 a month for it by ‘being Argentinian’.
This is on top of already using ReVanced and SmartTube because I actually use the download feature of YT Music.
I have one through my legacy Google Play Music subscription. I get YouTube Music and YouTube Premium for $7.99/month
I do but I got it „on my holiday“ in India
Question for you: I looked into trying this approach myself, but Google would not accept my non-Indian payment information.
As it happens, they also refused to take my payment information when I visited Argentina and Turkey, too.
How did you do it?
I used my credit card (Visa by Klarna) and it worked just fine. But it’s been a while since I’ve been there, maybe they changed something?
I did, sorta.
I subscribed to Google Play Music All Access from day 1, because (at the time) it was like Spotify but also allowed me to upload my own music. I added a family plan when that became available for my friends/family who wanted it as well, and was grandfathered into that price when GPMAA eventually turned into YouTube Music, which was also bundled with YouTube Premium. Ad-free YouTube isn’t something I specifically sought out but it was bundled into a service that I was using as a perk.
I kept that subscription going at the grandfathered rate until I got an email from Google one day informing me that they were increasing the price, which was last October, and would only allow me to keep the grandfathered cost for an additional 6 months before hiking me up to the new price. That would bring me from $14.99/mo to $23.99/mo, so I said “fuck that” and canceled. The service only got worse after they killed GPM anyways.
MAN I miss Google play music. Uploading your own music was lit
I sub from Turkey, or whatever the new name is, for barely more than $2pm for a 6-person family plan in Australia.
I do! Would probably give up my Netflix subscription before YouTube to be honest. As a family, we spend more time using YouTube than most other streaming services.
I tried a free month, but it really didn’t tingle me. I still prefer Spotify to YouTube music.
I want to but the price is to high for what they’re asking for. I could have gotten myself a subscription for crunchy roll or Netflix with the money they’re asking
I have a premium family membership and I pay around 18 bucks and allows 4 people into the membership I think.
This includes youtube music, which I use to upload my music and play it anywhere.
YouTube has the creators I actually want to support. I don’t mind paying for all the hours of content I’m getting for it
Yes, the whole family watches YouTube on the TV, on the iPad/mobile phone apps, that it’s worth it not to see the ads there, plus background play of audio, plus the whole family can stream their music from YouTube Music so no need for an aditional Spotify subscription.
Anyway, I just wish they’d remove the sponsor stuff on the apps like SponsorBlock does on the desktop for me.
I used to when I used have it when subscribed to Google Music—which was amazing but then they tried to replace it with YouTube Music and yet another big amazing Google product died—and there was no point anymore.
I’ve considered it to stop ads on the TV app, but always thought it wasn’t worth it. I can’t even be bothered ad-blocking the network to include the TV, so raising cost of Premium now may as well make the product cease to exist in my mind.
I do, YouTube is my most used video app and I pay for a family plan
Yep, Family Plan here as well. It’s 4+1 of us, we all watch YT pretty much continuously at different age levels (two adults, one teenager and one preschooler), and since there was one extra seat left grandma also got ad free experience on her mobile. All 5 of us are also into different kinds of music so having access to YT music is also huge plus. The only other subscription I don’t mind paying for is Amazon Prime, for obvious reasons. Netflix, D+, Apple TV+ and such got the boot long time ago, with no plans to resubscribe any time soon.
Yep. I watch more YouTube than TV. Once you get a curated list of channels set up, YouTube is great. And I don’t like ads.
People with overpaid white collar jobs do that plenty and there are plenty of them who will pay probably up to $50 a month or more. Youtube is already testing predatory measures to make chrome users ditch adblockers by giving out warnings to people who use them. Many more will go Youtube Premium in the near future because of such measures and Youtube will keep ramping up prices of course.
So you are pissed off that people are actually willing to pay for service? Youtube hosts millions if not billions of videos and streams them to billions of users, dozens of times a day and they do all this essentially lag free. That infrastructure is not cheap.
Additionally youtube actually shares their premium revenue with content creators allowing people to actually make a successful living with their creative pursuits and you control how that revenue is shared by which videos you watch.
My YouTube subscription costs 0. ublock Origin.
Unlock origin and ReVanced is great, but it doesn’t allow casting to the TV without ads…
Smarttube Next works great on my TV with FireTV. No ads.
Its the only way we can watch TV in our house.
Im just afraid that they might remove thr ability to install custom apks altogether.
Also you can use a browser (I usually recommend Brave but I think the tide of opinion on them recently has turned?) that has adblocking built into it, navigate to youtube, and use that to cast to TV.
That’s my secret, Cap. I don’t own a TV.
I’ve got one! …but it’s only connected to a computer. All of our screens have computers connected. Computers that can install adblocking software and play videos are insanely cheap. I’m astounded anyone uses smart TVs’ rubbish software or a stick of any sort.
I run Newpipe on a fire stick. No ads.
Does ReVanced still work? I know YouTube Vanced was killed a while back, but I think I tried ReVanced recently but couldn’t get it to work.
Works perfectly well.
With the root install method casting works too.
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All of these options are unreasonable when you are talking a whole household and catering to a family that is not tech savvy. I have a pihole and it does not block ads from the YouTube TV app.
I have a plex going with content enough for the adults, but the kids consume so much media there is no reasonable way to get enough and fast enough and to meet their current interests. Youtube is the only streaming subscription we have left in the house because nothing even comes close for kids. Even Disney+ completely fumbles when it comes to appealing to what used to be its target market.
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You can also use Apple TV which is hands down best streaming box, use ATV remote on your couch without faffing with computers and pay for good service that YouTube and content creators on YouTube provide.
It’s easy to avoid paying but the experience is just worse.
And if you’re really short on cash, subscribe from Argentina or India and pay ~$2.
I am a big fan of isponsorblocktv which sits on a network device like a nas and skips YouTube sponsor segments on Apple TV.
Whoa, this looks awesome and I do have always on server for Usenet/Plex and Homebridge.
Thanks!
[edit] Installed and working great but I had to change os.exit() to sys.exit() in one of the files, looks like it’s not compatible with recent Python versions out of the box. Converted into system.d daemon, now working 24/7.
Oh that’s sick, only reason why I won’t get an Apple TV. You still need a subscription to get rid of YouTube ads, yeah?
Yes. I am one of those who pays for premium. I primarily watch on my tv and probably watch more youtube than anything else. Also still on the old $10 plan but we will see how long that lasts.
You can use a secondary google account, sign up for premium family plan using a vpn to Turkey and pay like $10 per year, while adding your main google account as a family member to save a bundle of cash. I haven’t bothered since I’m happy with STN on android tv, but knowing that there’s a working sponsorblock solution for appletv now I might have to make the switch lol
AppleTV doesn’t let you cast from obscure streaming websites.
Chromecast does though. That’s why it will always be better.
Huh? You can Airplay those. Not sure what do you want to stream there that would be a better experience than downloading it outright from Usenet or torrents.
Chromecast is fine for what it is and a very good value but it does not compete with Apple TV or Nvidia Shield.
You can airplay any video playing on your phone with the AppleTV
By all means, please attempt to cast. Not mirror your phone, but actually cast.
Yeah, AirPlay works fine with flixtor. It shows up in the media player in the control center and allows you to airplay just like any other video
There’s catt which can be installed in termux on Android or directly on your PC easily enough. AFAIK there’s also a few (T)UIs for it out there. I personally have set up a bash script in
termuxas a share target and send the links from the revanced app tocattfor casting. But yeah, it’s definitely more work and needs more expertise setting it up than hitting the cast button in the app, fully agreed.Best solution is PiHole. If you can find RaspberryPi, but any replacement will work. Essentially local DNS which ignores requests to ad servers. There are also some other DNS servers which filter ads. But I’ve had less success with them.
In my experience PiHole doesn’t stop YouTube ads on the mobile app. I imagine that it won’t fix on a TV either.
The only solution I’ve found on mobile without installing security certificates and stuff is to use You tube’s website on Firefox with ublock installed there too.
Yeah. Just found that out. Although uBlock kills those for me. Perhaps setting up a proxy and blocking those URLs could work.
Pihole won’t keep you from watching ads,for what I know its because google uses the same servers to serve the content and the ads.Pihole is great to browse the web though… I have it at home. For me what gets the job done is newpipe for my android phone and Smartube on my Android TV.
Hm, then it won’t.
They started blocking users with advanced adblockers completely in some places. It’s expected they’ll roll out that policy in most countries. Prepare to either ditch Youtube completely, watch dozens of ads as well as sponsored segments every couple of minutes (because why would Google pay content creators who make them a huge pile of money by providing content for free adequately, right?) or pay hundreds of dollars a year. Even then they might start showing you some ads because why the hell not? Big tech stole the internet from us and now they’re banking in on it big time. Needlesly to say this is not a sustainable business model, but since when did that ever bother mega corporations?
Unless they put YouTube content behind a paywall there will always be ways to block ads.
Probably that would be their future take, free 3 minutes of the video, if you want more… pay.
And then will the era of pirating and downloading YouTube videos begin.
Oh no my dns provider broke and it cant resolve the ad servers. Pihole for the win
Just that the ads and videos come from the same domain
Personally, I like it when the content creators I spend time watching get paid for their work.
So pay them directly or through other platform. Why would you pay them through Youtube rather than Patreon when using Youtube Premium is going to make them get a lower share of what you paid?
My resources are limited. I’d love to support them all in more direct ways. And a few of them, I do support outside of YouTube from time to time, as well. But I only have so much money to give, and there’s so many creators whose works I’ve benefited from. It’s the most conscientious use of my limited expendable income.
Because the platform does actually deserver a share, too?
We’d be living in a very different world if we hadn’t grown entitled to free shit because ads, and were actually paying for services that, you know, cost money to provide. The “ad supported” business model is utterly broken, dead, and gone, and was only ever able to support low-cost services like email and social media… But video streaming? By all accounts, it makes no sense.
And on top of that, YouTube’s revenue share is by far the most generous in the industry. There’s a reason creators ditch twitch, tiktok, etc. for it, even without the sign-on bonuses that other platforms have to resort to.
Ah, yes, I can see the poor company is suffering, nevermind, I prefer my money to go to shareholders who have their life solved rather than towards creators who are making amazing content yet aren’t making a living yet /s
So you just… never buy anything? Do you shoplift your candy bars, too, since they are probably made by a company that makes more than enough already?
YouTube is trying to move away from a shit business model, to a much more fair one. One that’s more fair for the platform, more fair for the creator, and more fair for the user. Because guess what, taking shit for free, was never fair. I’m not paying to support google. I’m paying to support common sense.
Ads are shit. They are shit for the platform running them, they are shit for the creator, and they are especially shit for the user. Fuck em. Actual subscriptions net so much more for all involved. As long as YT doesn’t try to double dip like twitch, hulu, and now netflix, I will continue to support a move away from them.
The size of a business doesn’t come into that. A mom and pop car service shop that scams their customers with technobabble, would be just as deserving of bankruptcy as facebook is.
And paying for premium isn’t mutually exclusive with donations, or supporting through patreon (which guess what, also takes a cut), when you find creators who you think deserve it. But you can’t claim to be righteous if you pay for the food a farmer grew, while the truck driver who actually brought it to you is standing right there, unpaid. No, his cut should not be large, but he should get one.
The concept of fairness for Youtube gets out of the equation at the very moment we’re talking about a natural monopoly with the capacities to accumulate immense wealth, for the mere virtue of having the lead, and bend the knees of anyone who thinks their policies are not fair, but cannot find a viable alternative.
No shades of grey for you, huh.
Yeah I’m not a fan of their lead either, but until peertube or something else, like floatplane or nebula, lets me interact with the type and amount of content youtube hosts…
I will vote for the least evil path I can find. And yes, I think paying youtube to remove the fourth party in the transaction, advertisers, is that option.
Adblock is not.
Can you cast it to your TV with no ads?
This right here. Crazy to me that people would pay for what ublock origin does for free. Especially people defending the need to shell out for the service to “support” a trillion dollar company like Google.
I don’t have the money to sustain the “everything is a subscription” simple as that. So adblockers and piracy is the only way to get media content.
I still go to the cinema, but some cinemas over here are already experimenting with subscriptions.
I’d be willing to pay for a few subscriptions if I didn’t feel like subscription services are trying to gouge me left and right. I miss the days when subscriptions to Netflix and Spotify gave me access to 90% of content online.
Contrast this with Steam, which gives me centralized convenience, seamless updates, online sync, achievements… No wonder that’s where I spend almost all of my entertainment money these days.
By the time steam chokes and shittifies we are all doomed
It’s like what cable networks did back in the day, if you want to view a channel, subscribe to it. We have come full circle.
Good lord they are going to put ads again in streaming services aren’t they
They already have.
Where? Haven’t seen one on Amazon prime, Netflix or HBO yet
Peacock, Paramount+, Hulu, and YouTube TV all have ads or ad plans. Some even just have ads on popular shows no matter the price you pay.
I’ve started getting ads for other shows and movies on Prime. I’m sure they’ll start putting other ads in front of the actual content too soon
netflix has a plan with ads! https://help.netflix.com/en/node/126831
amazon uses prime video as a hook to get you to sign up for prime membership (which itself has been steadily increasing in price).
i’d be shocked if HBO didn’t introduce an ad-supported price tier at some point in the future. that totally seems like zaslav’s MO.
going to
Uhhhh
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Software subscriptions are what really bums me out. Back in the day you could just buy your software and have it forever. Now Microsoft Office is a subscription, Adobe Photoshop is a subscription, and so much more. Nothing pisses me off more than when I install a basic app on my phone and find out it’s actually a subscription app.
Literally the only major software I can think of right now that isn’t subscription based or insanely expensive is Apple’s Final Cut Pro at $300.
“buy your software and have it forever” was not really true other than in the very early days. everything that was in active development like office, photoshop, all the pro music software i used, was updated regularly and had an upgrade cost. my music app had a paid upgrade every year like clockwork for $150. it was essentially a subscription in all but name. yeah i could stop paying and stay with the last version forever but operating system and hardware advances would make it so those versions would stop running on newer machines eventually.
This right here is one of the biggest reasons I turned to exclusively open source software, cuz man the amount of internal rage I feel any time I have to log into software is unreal, like I open the software I want it to just go
Fortunately Microsoft Office isn’t fully subscription yet, but with how much they’re pushing Office365 it’s not too surprising that people don’t seem to realize this. You can still buy a permanent license from MS directly (with some digging around to get to the correct page) or from 3rd party websites. Only downside is it locks you into the current version of Office, but for the average user (me) that’s not too much of a big deal - I can’t recall them releasing any major must have features over the past 10 years.
If you’re going to all that trouble, why not try some open source alternatives next upgrade before shelling out for another license? You might be surprised how narrow the gap between Microsoft and libre office options has become.
I just don’t care 🙌
I seriously couldn’t give two fucks about supporting influencers or tech companies. Uploaders can pay for the infrastructure for all I care. Like people use to host websites out of passion, now everything is about profits, and politics, why would I want to support that? Why should I give two fucks about making someone else rich?
Fuck that shit. You can get cracked copies of the YouTube App that give a much better experience.
A single ticket to my local movie theater costs $16.50 for an adult ticket to a typical movie. That is already more expensive than a month of unlimited Youtube premium, even at the inflated price.
Video streaming is a consumable product. What model would you prefer. Ad supported is still available. A la carte is reasonable in theory, but doesn’t seem like it would work well for a site like youtube (even though youtube does have some a-la-carte offerings such as movies)
We used to have a movie subscription service around here. It failed because it was essentially sellings dimes for nickels.
I pay $22 per month for the family plan because I don’t want my kids or my folks to have to be constantly inundated with ads. And I enjoy being and to play free music that is exactly the songs I want.
I was really upset when they raised the price on me, and kicked me off the grandfather plan. But in the end I decided it was still worth it.
But what the real cost to Google is here is that they have evaporated my loyalty and good will. I now see them as a company that will squeeze me when they know they can get away with it, and that my loyalty and being an early adopter means nothing to them.
That will definitely affect every future buying decision I make for future products and services.
Yeah I love Youtube Premium on the family plan. People on the internet act like there’s no benefit to it as long as Adblock and Youtube Vanced exist. Meanwhile I have an iPhone, smart TVs, and my whole family does too. My nieces and nephews don’t have to get bombarded with ads, and that’s well worth it to me. But the way they silently jacked the price up $5 per month was a total dick move that I’m not happy about. If they keep pulling this shit, it’s only a matter of time before I find another solution.
smart TVs
SmartTube can solve that issue, at least, assuming it runs any form of Android. I don’t know enough about iPhone to know if there’s an alternative there.
But what the real cost to Google is here is that they have evaporated my loyalty and good will. I now see them as a company that will squeeze me when they know they can get away with it, and that my loyalty and being an early adopter means nothing to them.
You really expected more from Google?
Yes. I was an early adopter away back when their motto was “don’t be evil”, when Android devices were premium hardware at extremely low prices, when Google apps were free or super cheap.
They have changed over time. They weren’t always greedy scumbags.
I’ve had a bunch of their pixel phones and one ended up breaking. So I did a warranty exchange and they kept sending me bad phones with even more problems than the one before it. Like their refurb department doesn’t even bother fixing a bad device before sending it to their next victim. And they have zero customer service, so I was pretty much screwed. No more pixels for me.
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get caught in an automated process and have your life ruined, for starters. I’d say that’s a pretty real world consequence of letting Alphabet scan all of your photos.
The ‘Don’t be evil’ era was quite a long time ago now. Google’s been greedy scumbags for quite some time now so this really isn’t that unexpected.
Google went public in 2004. They’ve always been greedy scumbags. It’s just more apparent now since they are constantly looking for new ways to extract money from their customers.
Doesn’t matter to them what you think, since they can simply buy any good alternative that show up.
Basically these companies are similar to kings now. They own our services and our data. And the peasants may whine a bit but can do nothing.
At least on Lemmy we are left alone for now.
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I had that for $14 a month and they were going to raise it to $22 so I said bye just at the perfect time since ReVanced released it’s manager to install.
Firefox+UBO and Revanced users: Oh no… anyway…
Revanced still costs $0/month.
They gave me 3 months free and it was just the same broken website without ads.
Youtube is completely broken. The algorithm doesn’t even auto play undiscovered music or videos. It’s just serving me the exact same videos I already watched. It used to be a really fun and good service that was free and now you get shit and have to pay for it.
Why would anyone pay for that?
Is anyone running the company or are they all just doing drugs?
That’s nice. continues to enjoy effectively yt premium with NewPiped for free
SmartTubeNext on AndroidTV. Complete with SponsorBlock and everything.
ReVanced is the way.
It crashes decently often but still worth it
It has never crashed for me. Not once. In what device are you using it?
Seems like a good alternative. Do you know if there a way to import my current subscriptions?
Also, I’ve been using the music service for some time now as well. Do you have any suggestions for viable replacements for that?
We believe this new price reflects the value of YouTube Premium
I disagree. YouTube offers nothing without the content creators. While reason I ever started using it because TotalBiscuit made a good case for it. But I have to say, while they keep jacking up prices I don’t feel like I’m getting anything more. I never asked for YT Music and would gladly take a discount to have it removed.
Keep fucking around and find out Google, I got no issues going back to ad blockers. Whole reason I got premium was to support those I watch and all I ever hear is how Google is fucken them over.
I’d rather have a cheaper version premium just for Youtube without ads though. I’ve heard there is or was Premium Lite in some countries, but not where I’m from. I don’t need Music, I already pay Tidal for that.
Or is YT Music with Premium so much better than the free one? When I cancelled my Spotify and were looking where to move to, I gave the free YTM a try. It would be two birds with one stone - YT without ads and a replacement music streaming service. But I just hated the whole experience. The UI, that my music “follows” get mixed with YouTube subscriptions, and that it always plays a video with every song.
Yeah basically the same. The video thingy only does it when the song is not available on YouTube Music and it’s playing a video.
Which honestly is the only thing why I switched to YouTube Music, on Spotify if the song isn’t there that’s it, but YouTube music there is always a user or band uploaded video.
When is available there is switch to choose if video or music and well on the phone you can always use the audio only option as you can do with YouTube. The rest the same as you said it.
I don’t like YT music at all, but it is a nice double dip and I learned to live with it. I’d certainly switch to a plan without music if given the chance.
NewPipe (mobile), FreeTube (desktop), SmartTube (TV). If you did not know about these, you’re welcome.
I really wish they’d drop the YouTube Music aspect of this and just do an ad-free YouTube sub. Happy to pay content creators for their work; less happy to give Google money for a music platform after what they did to Google Music.
I’m the opposite. I’m still grandfathered into the $7.99 Google Music sub, which turned into YT Music + YT premium. The cheapest music service with basically free YT premium is nice
I wouldn’t pay more though
It’s probably improved a lot since the early days. I remember it being significantly worse than the Google Music it was replacing.
It still is in parts. Still takes a few extra taps/screens to get to playlists
They are least stopped the practice of just starting a song when you went into a playlist.
My big gripe was the loss of audio quality. Made me pick up Amazon music for a bit
I like YouTube music though? I refuse to give Spotify money because of Joe Rogan, and if you’re a classical music lover YT is just better.
That’s cool. I’m not saying they should only offer it without YT music, just that they should offer an alternative way of supporting YouTubers without buying a service you don’t need.
Yeah that I do agree with. I don’t have Premium so I guess I don’t know what that looks like.
They actually did a trial of such a sub in various Scandinavian countries, cost about five quid a month or so, which is entirely reasonable. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere.
I just find YouTube music does random mixes better than any other platform. I really dig it!
Switched over from Spotify after they went too hard on Joe Rogan, so I never used Google Music. I like YouTube music. That said, they’ve just started adding podcasts - really hope they don’t go the way of Spotify.
My adblockers are holding steady with a 0% rise! I still ain’t paying!
Google’s really been on one lately. They’ve also been laying off staff, increasing ads while trying to ban ad blockers from YouTube, raised the pricing of workspaces yet again and closed the unlimited drive storage loophole. Removed photos from the album archive thingy. And I feel there’s been a few other things within the last couple months I’m forgetting.
Lol. Theres already no way I’d pay for YouTube premium. Raising the price more and more just entrenches that more and more.
