Who cares about a privately owned platform? It was never ours.
Spending time there was always going to be a waste of time. Every business wants to grow like a cancer to consume us all. The next service that you use will want the same if you use another private platform.
You should consider using something that is open source and self hosted. Peertube right? Anyone got other recommendations?
Until the content I want is on another platform, I don’t really have a choice of what platform to go to. Of course, I can also just go outside which YouTube has made more and more appealing by the week, but telling people “just use Peertube” isn’t a solution when the content they want to see simply doesn’t exist there
Objectively wrong.
YouTube could not be profitable showing one quick ad per video, especially if it’s longer content.
Im of the firm belief that youtube should make creators pay for storage of their videos.
Free teir for short videos, no monetization, YT places ads. Paid teir for longer form videos and monetization. This would ensure that long form videos should ideally be profitable for creators, or companies uploading their training videos etc pay a nominal fee for their storage.
This is the fairest way to keep youtube in the green.
Yeah it’s very clear to me the top creators make far too much money and I agree that business model bears fruit.
However, the cost of YouTube isn’t the storage, it’s serving views of the videos. That payment scheme you’ve suggested doesn’t scale well with number of views of single videos, that’s why they chose to increase income per view and not per video.
this process will cause most smaller creators to just leave the platform, it’s already super difficult to to get established, this would essentially force them to operate at a loss until they can get a foothold which concidering a lot of the time it can take months to years to get established? I can’t see that system being sustainable either.
I know this is a controversial opinion, but I dont think youtube should be a place where small creators should expect to make money from direct monetization. That model is what brought youtube to the state its in. Selling patron, merch, or driving traffic to their own website for services, yes. Direct monetization of ads on youtube, no.
I would even be ok with more than one add for longer videos. Like every 20 minutes they want to put a short commercial in? That’d still be fine for a free video I like enough to watch more than 20 minutes of. But no
Same with Google’s ads in general. For a long time they were whitelisted by default on just about every adblock list out there because they were so unobtrusive it didn’t make sense to bother blocking them, especially when you compared them to the other ads that were common at the time. They were also generally relevant ads, so people actually did click on them and use them since it actually related to the thing they were searching for.
They’re obviously more profitable now, but you have to wonder by how much and if they’d be a more trusted company today (and what’s that worth monetarily) if they hadn’t gone down this race to the bottom.
ETA: Part of what I mean is that now they create things like Stadia and most people didn’t even bother trying it because they knew it’d hit the Google Graveyard in a few years. Had Google been a more trusted company, people may have been willing to give it a try and they could possibly have printed money since by all accounts the service was actually pretty good.
My concern is that this race to the bottom is so that they can intentionally become unsustainable due to ad blockers. From there, they may be able to get Congress to ban ad blocking altogether.
Instead I’m putting great energy to get away from Google, along with a lot of other people
We are an insignificant amount. Most people likely don’t even know how to change the default search engine on their phones.
That’s fair. It’s unfortunate.
Sometimes few people raise much voices. Those who bother and search for new engine are early adapters of technology, spends money on new gadgets and such. Those are who ads are after, not my grandmother.
I would think they’re infinitely more likely to click an add.
Shit I hate ads that much, if I see one for a product I might actually want I’ll still search it manually. It’s ingrained in me to avoid ads on the internet and to shut them out as much as possible irl where imo they’re even more an eyesore.
Edit: to add, I do agree with the sentiment, but just not in this instance. With protesting as an example where it can apply.
Most people don’t even know what a search engine is by that term. They just know they type things into search boxes and click things that come up. Greater majority of phone users don’t even use the browser, it’s just endless apps
You’re right, and now I’m dreading having to change my email address again after nearly 20 years. This one lasted a lot longer than the Hotmail account.
I tried Stadia. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I played Cyberpunk mainly and didn’t have 90% of the problems that other players had. It was very enjoyable.
I likely wouldn’t sign up for another similar service simply because now I have a library on my Steam Deck (purchased with the Stadia refund) and that’s how I’m used to playing at this point. But it sure was a nice service while it lasted. I thought they were selling it to someone but I guess it didn’t end up happening.
I accidentally watched a YouTube video on a browser without blocking. It started with an ad. I thought I’d just endure it this time. Then another ad. OK, just this time then. Suddenly, another ad in the middle of the video. I gave up. Who’d have the patience to sit through this?
Then there’s Google’s habit of completely ignoring the browser’s language settings so I have to sit though ads I don’t even understand.
What I think is so unfair is that if I actually sit through one ad I don’t get rewarded and fast forwarded to the video, no. I’ll get a second ad that, if I am lucky, I can skip after 5 additional seconds. Or it’s an unskippable one. That’s not fair. I could have skipped the first one but I gave you that, I gave you that time of my life, now give me something back!
Then there’s Google’s habit of completely ignoring the browser’s language settings so I have to sit though ads I don’t even understand
I used to occasionally watch YouTube on my lunch break when I would go into the office. I loved getting ads in Spanish, the office was in Greenville,SC not a large Spanish native population. I have premium on my account but don’t like signing in personal account on work machines.
Ad blocker?
That is actually ideal
I had to tailor my do not recommend and not interested in this subject clicks until I was left with the one advertiser that I’m actually interested in, and that’s basically low voltage communication mux devices…
That feature still works for you? I used to be able to skip ads on the ad by blocking them. Now the ad just finishes playing AND pops up again during the next ad break.
My father in law uses the built in YouTube app on the TV. There were 3 ads that played. The first one was 15 minutes. The second one was also around 15 minutes. The third one was an hour. One fucking hour for a 5 minutes video.
It always makes me mad when somebody put a playlist on YouTube and out of nowhere a bad song starts playing because it’s an ad.
Was YouTube ever profitable?
I actually had trouble finding that out (although I only looked for like, 15 minutes). It’s apparently difficult to determine according to some tech websites. I do have this chart that says since 2017 YouTube ad revenue has been 7-11% of Google’s global revenue but I don’t know if that = profit. Decided to meme anyways because I have ads blocked on PC but still see them on my phone.
get firefox with ublock origin. block that garbage on mobile too.
Hosting a streaming service is incredibly expensive. Especially at the scale of YouTube. I can imagine YouTube is costing far more for Google than Search itself.
My guess is that YouTube has never really been profitable, which is why they’re pushing users to buy Premium.
Youtube has always claimed that it doesn’t turn a profit but I don’t believe them. My reasoning is that if the server costs are more than the revenue today, then they’re going to be worse tomorrow. A gorillian gigabytes of data are uploaded to that thing every nanosecond. A company can’t get exponentially less profitable every second and still survive. And what else is there to prop it up? Google ad results? No way is Youtube not profitable. They’re saying that to avoid tax.
Just use any app like newpipe or pipepipe
“I have ads blocked on PC but still see them on my phone.”
If you’re on Android, ReVanced. And if you’re on iOS, well get fucked or something, idk
In iOS you can use Yattee and link to an alternative Frontend. Works well for me.
I just use Firefox with extensions on mobile honestly
Yeah I completely gave up on the app. Firefox with ublock is a blessing, internet in general is basically unusable on mobile without it.
On ios there’s brave browser and firefox focus.
You just got me free music, I couldn’t afford it anymore so I have to drop it. Thank you
Given the tech turnover rate at google (the rate at which they kill products) the answer is most probably yes.
Passively?? Video streaming is anything but passive income.
As someone that has used ad blockers for just about as long as I have been able to, I would like to think that this is true. However, I’m not entirely sure that it is. I’ve heard that a surprising percentage of people just don’t even know that ad blockers exist. If that’s the case then they may be very well aware of what is happening. (Using made up numbers for the sake of argument since I don’t have real numbers) Like if only 5% of users use ad blockers and doubling the number of ads they show only brings that to 10% then it is certainly worth it financially. I doubt that if you were to graph that curve it would be linear - there is certainly a point where you inundate users with so many ads that even non-technical people will start learning about ad blockers. Regardless of what the real numbers are, I would be very surprised if they are making decisions this big without at least being aware of what those numbers might be. And if they can make a small amount of money indefinitely but they have evidence to suggest that they can make even more money also indefinitely then the financial motivation is obvious. Not all infinities are the same size.
That’s definitely a good point. I looked it up and found a few places saying it was about 38% of users using adblock on the internet in general: https://techjury.net/blog/ad-blocker-usage-stats/
Although apparently the most adblockers are in Indonesia with over 50%.
So that would suggest that if there is a tipping point where increasing ads backfires, we’re not actually that far away from it, and in some places it may have already happened.
Although the analysis that “if you add 10% to the price and lose 5% of customers then it’s worth it” is definitely true. This is why there’s a bottom to every market where for instance some people can’t afford even the basic necessities and become unhoused.
I refused to use adblock for years. Not because I thought Youtube needed MORE money, but because I did realize that a business ultimately only continues operating as long as the business model is sustainable. I endured, through occasional ads, ads at the bottom, then through ads every time a video was watched, then ads in the middle of videos, and even two ads before every video.
But three unskippable ads was where I drew the fucking line. Now I use adblock for Youtube and Youtube only.
Similar story here, except I just stopped using YouTube.
Lemmy’s piping bots help with that.I like to watch video game speedruns. I especially enjoy the really long, challenging ones. Watching a 2 hour video on YouTube without an ad block is basically impossible at this point.
Ads never bothered me on YouTube.
They’re bothering me enough now that I’m going with an android phone after more than a decade on iPhones just so I can get back to YouTube the way it used to be with a decent ad blocker (better than it used to be actually).
I can’t fucking stand it, and again, it didn’t bother me before.
Want to show someone a short clip? Nah. Gotta skip two fucking ads first while you stand there looking stupid and waiting.
I’m fucking done.
So pissed at YouTube (Google) you’re switching to Android (…)? Was this their master plan all along?
I’m going to go with a degoogled version of the OS (LineageOS is my current plan).
The only way I’ll back out is if Apple allows an ad blocker that will cover any app I’m using. I’m currently paying for one that only works on Safari and YouTube videos take a thousand years to load up.
Now if a legit version of Firefox makes its way to iPhone in the US with ublock, I’ll be happy with that.
The irony of a Google product pissing you off so you switch from iOS to Android
All to get those sweet sweet modified APKs
From very trusty Telegram sources no less!
On a more serious note, f-droid is where I got NewPipe. Also, you don’t need to own a fucking macbook and pay a fucking developer’s license to be able to develop for Android, which is good.
Telegram? F-droid? Just patch the original apk’s locally. Easy
What this commenter won’t tell you is that the patches are only for specific versions of the app, it’s what makes it a pain, can’t just patch the one that phone updates all the time from the store or the app will be quite bugged.
I’m a software engineer at AWS and work on video content delivery for services like Netflix. The idea that one single ad could cover the cost of delivering a video that’s been replicated in multiple servers, multiple regions, multiple countries throughout the world is pretty hilarious. No matter how much money you think YouTube is making I can almost guarantee it’s not enough. There is a reason there is no significant competition in this space, it makes no money.
Sounds like the public library system should host the peoples videos as a service, not for profit.
Unfortunately, YouTube exists because content creators make money out of the ads.
But free content video is possible with a peer to peer protocol. The content creator get the responsibility to keep the seed alive. The more popular, the more it gets shared, the more it’s available.
But content creators don’t work for free, and public libraries don’t have the resources to store all the dumb content people deem necessary to make.
Reminder: give money to Wikipedia. This thing is a miracle.
It’s not really a single ad though, right? It’s a single ad per view. I realize that each view costs money, but at some point you’re just paying for bandwidth, after paying the upfront replication costs right? Assuming replication is an upfront cost, I might be misunderstanding there. If that’s true though, then surely there’s a breakpoint where ads start making money. Though I suppose if that breakpoint is like a million views, your point basically still stands.
Genuine question.
How is been running for almost 20 years, most of them with very few ads?
I doubt they had been just sinking money for the kind of their hearts.
I do not know how much it cost to run a service like YouTube. Or how much money they make by ads or other ways. But they have been running for long enough to be a successful business.
And it’s just the latest few years when they are pushing these aggressive techniques.
How is been running for almost 20 years, most of them with very few ads?
Investor money, then Google money. Video streaming requires fuckloads of storage and is a HUGE bandwidth hog, especially if people want to watch stuff at 1080p or higher resolutions. Youtube is a money pit, but it’s a major and nearly untouchable internet power, especially given its size and reach.
And it’s just the latest few years when they are pushing these aggressive techniques.
The “easy money” from loans with very low interest rates has dried up, also Google being Google.
There’s also the cost to transcode the video and audio streams into different formats so they don’t have to do it on demand whenever someone watches a video. That’s a lot of compute cost plus they have to store all of those additional transcodes which is more storage cost.
What’s less sustainable is centralized web. You must know that since you work for Amazon, right?
When PopcornTime was still a thing you could watch adfree any movie you’d like even in 4K because resources were shared through peer to peer.
Now, YouTube gets up to 12$ RPM, content creators get maybe 40% of that. With 2 prerolls and 2 midrolls + banners they get plenty enough money to make things work. Google has the most aggressive VASTs of the market. They are everywhere, called multiple times per pages.
Spare us your tears.
Besides, no significant competition? Is that a joke?
no significant competition? Is that a joke?
For the type of service they are (hosting random one-off videos and series that anyone can load and optionally kicking back a portion to the content creators) - who are they competing against? If you go on the street and ask random people to name 3 streaming services that do that, you’ll likely get YouTube, “ummm”, and “I dunno”
If you ask a 40+ year old maybe…
Content creators are flying away to TikTok or Snapchat. Gamers are on Twitch and Discord etc.
My nephew is 11 yo and has never watched content on YT.
Mid to late 2000s adds were very easy to avoid
Didn’t have to pay to see much of anything.
Just every now and then a virus.
Soon we will return to that, except smarter and more adept at not downloading viruses and traps songs labelled as Linkin park
First, it was side banners that you could easily ignore.
Then, late 90s, early 2000s, popups that interrupted your attention. This was such a problem that EVERY browser added a “block all popups” setting, which never blocked the ads, but to this day may block stuff from sites you actually want to use.
Finally, it became javascript. Fucking javascript. “What could go wrong?”
The reason YouTube makes the ads so unbearably obnoxious is they want people to pay for premium. That’s all they’re doing is annoying people until they pay. I’ve been paying for premium since the beginning, I know it’s awful, but at least I have never seen any ads.
Until they pull a Microsoft and start throwing ads into the paid model as well.
Or like all the other streaming platforms that you paid a subscription for to not see ads, but believe it or not you now have ads.
Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly common. Amazon now also shows ads on the Prime streaming service even though you already pay a subscription fee for it.
yeah I havent experienced it myself with YouTube, but I have heard some people say they pay for premium and they’ve started getting ads 😡 YouTube is a huge part of my life and I would be livid if this happened and I don’t know what I would do because I don’t know how I could live without YT I would love to say that I would abandon YouTube if they pulled this shit on me, but I just can’t even imagine my life without YouTube. I don’t pay for any other service, no Hulu, no Disney Plus, no HBO blah blah whatever the heck other people are paying for. when I’m craving watching something, I always go to YouTube. And I have several YouTube channels too, so YT is an integral part of my life 😭
I use Firefox with ublock origin and I don’t any ads either.
yeah I admire all of you who refuse to use the YouTube app and you watch YouTube through a browser, but in my opinion watching YouTube through a browser is clunky and tedious.
ReVanced, NewPipe, SmartTube. You’re correct that their mobile browser experience sucks.
youtube prem + youtube music family plan with 6 total users at $22.99 is pretty reasonable.
I remember when YouTube was free, and ad-free. I’ve been posting videos to YouTube since 2005. Then a few years later they put a price on it, “Premium” became $9 a month. Something something Pepperidge Farm remembers
And I was grandfathered in at that price even after they raised their prices for everyone else, but then for some reason I got upset and I canceled YouTube but then I couldn’t live without it so I subscribed again and they put me back in at the regular price with all the new people 😡
I had the same deal, my comment is in regard to the family plan, which allocates 6 total accounts. I thought $3.83 per person a month was reasonable for the hd music alone, youtube prem was just a plus, but based on other comments I’m apparently a dipshit. 🤷
Per year?
Per month.
That’s not good at all.
Yeah, it’s really expensive.
Yeah, at least i got both youtube and music, so far it’s worth my money. I’d love to get nebula + a music app but it cost way more.
Yeah premium makes 15 dollars per month. Ads for an average viewer makes dozens of cents per month.
I don’t really see too many ads as I use Adblock, but on mobile they seem to creep in more and more ads every year.
I suggest switching mobile browsers: Vivaldi has an integrated adblocker, Firefox can block ads via extension.
Just in case someone doesn’t know.
