The amount of downvotes on comments trying to help people not get price gouged and comments supporting these subscription price increases shows me just how many corporate shills are actually out there. No wonder these corps keep getting away with this bullshit.
Edit: Wow so many people took personal offense to this...almost like it they know it's true but are afraid to admit it.
Everyone is hurting financially right now, some more than others. Yet year over year, the prices keep going up even with record inflation and record profits. Keep shilling folks, enjoy emptying your wallets for the millionaires while you struggle.
I'm not going to defend the price increase, but a lot of comments in here are just aimless hatred of the idea of paying anything, ever.
Pound for pound, YouTube Premium has been a decent deal at $10. Has been. This is pushing it, but there's a lot of comments that seem absolutely indignant at the idea of paying YouTube period (and by extension the content creators).
There's got to be some room for nuance here. The internet is plagued by advertising and paywalls, yes, but it can also not exist without them, so we find some middle ground.
I've been using the internet for over 24 years. I can tell you that the internet can survive without ads or paywalls. Ads and paywalls are a product of greed. Ads are way more efficient these days but many used to take up so much memory. I remember when AdBlock or whatever it was called came out. It made browsing the internet smoother.
The only way the internet can survive without ads or paywalls is for the person/business hosting the content to pay for everything out of pocket.
A platform like YouTube could never exist without some form of revenue. I understand that there are small platforms out there, such as PeerTube, but they will never be comparable to the scale of YouTube without some form of revenue. Sure, people could grow PeerTube by spinning up their own instances, but then they need to provide their own hardware and storage. At which point you’re spending just as much, or likely more, than you would on a subscription service.
I think its possible it will just be slow and requires people to sacrifice a bit just like we are trying to do with lemmy. maybe find a different route for ads like how Brave the browser does it where it give the user the choice to see ads and give them and the content creator a cut if they agree to it, not that I trust that browser but its an interesting concept
I can afford $13/month on my income and watch YT on a daily basis, much more than any other streaming service by a wide margain. Does that somehow make me an astroturfing troll?
I don't understand what shilling will earn for these people. The corps don't care about you. They never will and never have. Do these shills think there's some comfy bonus to be gained if they wave their flag around in support of greedy practices?
I think what you are seeing here so far is the organic result of those dumb enough to pay this kind of money for youtube being personally offended and defending their bad decisions.
We will get there but I'm not sure that this platform is large enough to be a major target for corpo bots just yet. Just dummies.
You can say what you want to or about me, I honestly don't care. I didn't even see what you said or report it. Have fun emptying your wallet for your corpo overlords.
Do you actually know that? I would bet that the cost of hosting the damn near infinite amount of content on YouTube would probably actually outweigh the amount they make on ads. At least if every other platform is to go off of.
It absolutely costs a lot. Google also has a borderline monopoly for online advertising.
That's on top of absolutely harvesting your data and selling it as well. You're acting like Google is a non-profit or some shit. They're a giant corporation that doesnt give a shit about you.
I say this as someone with a google phone and generally likes Google products. But you've got to take a step back and realize what they are.
You're getting down voted to hell, but I totally agree. Using someones else's YT account or using it at work is so jarring because I am used to a 100% ad-free experience. It's a good value to me, I'm not going to cry about paying $15 a month for a service I literally use multiple hours a day.
Ya how dare people actually pay for a platform that hosts billions of videos and streams to billions of users essentially lag free and is actually decent and shares revenue with it's content creators. /s
Things cost money. You don't have to be a corporate shill to not expect everything to be free, you just have to be an adult.
Ok? And? They aren't a charity and don't owe you free video hosting services.
EDIT: I find it hilarious that point out the fact that you aren't entitled to free hosting services is getting down voted. Lmao how old are the people here?
Dude they sell our data to advertisers and big data for profit. The least they can do is provide some services for us for the amount of analytics they collect from us on a daily basis.
Dude, they ARE the advertiser. That's Google's main business. They have no incentive to export ANY of your account data to 3rd parties. Business tell them what groups of people to advertise to, and their systems handle the rest. They're open about how it all works.
As someone who's actually worked in this industry, your data isn't enough to pay for video hosting services to the scale youtube provides. Youtube makes up a significant chunk of all network traffic in the world. It costs money.
No i am not. But I am happy to support actual content creators and the platform that they host on and gets them the most views because I spend more time on YT than I do on any other streaming platform.
Our definitions of "decent" are definitely different. But this is not just about what you choose to do, it's about all the fingerwagging people do at people who don't believe this is worth paying (even more) for.
Then you need to look better because you are down a thread pointing out how people are getting downvoted and ragged on for suggesting ad blocking options.
I find it hilarious that point out the fact that you aren’t entitled to free hosting services is getting down voted.
Actually nevermind. Just look at the mirror. You really are talking of Google like it's a struggling charity.
Would just like to interject; while I agree with what you're saying, and yes, lots of people think an amazing service should be free, which is wrong.... But YouTube/Google is now 100% beholden to their shareholders, and this, plus the last couple of price rises, is gouging to make some millionaires richer and is fucking despicable
No I just think it's stupid to call people who would pay for a service a corporate shill. I have no issue with someone who doesn't think a subscription is worth it. Maybe read the whole thread first next time.
Whether you think that service is worth it or not is up to you.
But don't act like you have some moral high ground here and that people who are actually paying for a service that you are stealing from and a service that actually shares revenue with it's content creators and encourages independent creators are just corporate shills.
Some of us are adults and realize things cost money and not entitled children that expect everything for free.
Here, since you have difficulty following, let me copy where the original thread started.
The amount of downvotes on comments trying to help people not get price gouged and comments supporting these subscription price increases shows me just how many corporate shills are actually out there. No wonder these corps keep getting away with this bullshit.
I am not the one who started the moral superiority, I just disagreed at being called a "corporate shill" before a bunch of insecure assholes started losing their shit.
Maybe try having self awareness yourself before suggesting it to someone else.
I get that, but the vast majority of content creators seem to make their money with sponsorships or their own ads, so most of what google is doing is content distribution, not creation. Which makes the amount of money they want for that seem ridiculous when pretty much every other streaming service that produces high profile and expensive shows themselves is way cheaper.
This feels like your supermarket requiring entrance fees in addition to you having to pay for stuff you actually buy.
Youtube spends more on revenue sharing than some big streaming services do on content creation. Content creators who also have sponsored segments are essentially double dipping but that's on the content creator.
Also I don't know how much it is in the US, but in Canada, YT is one of the cheapest streaming services if not the cheapest, and I get way more value out of youtube than I do from Netflix, Crave, Prime, or Disney+.
I don't know about the revenue sharing. But in Germany, youtube premium is 12€, Amazon prime and Disney is 9€, Paramount is 8€ and Apple tv is 7€. Only Netflix is the same price for hd or more expensive with 18€ for 4k.