from ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 16 Apr 2024 15:17
https://lemmy.world/post/14359766
Google warns users of these apps that their experience may deteriorate soon. They may “experience buffering issues” or see errors such as “the following content is not available on this app” when trying to watch videos.
Similar to Google Search, ads have become insufferable for many users of the service. There are too many of them, they may break the viewing experience, and they may show inappropriate content.
YouTube Premium is expensive. What weights more for some users is that its functionality is severely limited when compared to third-party apps.
The cat and mouse game continues.
For those looking to avoid ads or improve privacy, here are some options for free, open source, privacy-friendly frontends to YouTube without advertisements:
www.privacyguides.org/en/frontends/#youtube
threaded - newest
Go ahead, as the only Google service I regularly interact with, I am looking for a reason to finally ditch it, so that I can say that I no longer use any Google services at all for any reason.
You know, they’d probably get a tenfold increase of Premium subscribers if they just, I don’t know, dropped the prices a smidge and had better regional pricing. Not everyone can or will subscribe, but Google is only making this more difficult for themselves by making it such an expensive service.
I was a happy subscriber when I was paying $15/mo for a family plan for 6 people. I was grandfathered into a low rate for being an early adopter of Google Play Music All Access.
Then they decided that grandfathered plans no longer applied and wanted me to start paying $23/mo, a more than 50% increase, so I canceled. I switched to Spotify for the music, where I pay less, and just watch less YouTube since the ads are ridiculous.
If they kept it at $15/mo, I’d still be a subscriber. If they sold just ad-free YouTube for like $3/mo, I’d consider subscribing to that and keeping my Spotify subscription.
It costs $23/mo for fucking YouTube? And to get the same experience you get with a free browser add-on? Fuck all of that. Absolutely not.
Yep. Their excuse is that you also get YouTube music out of it, but there is no option to buy them separately.
At this point I have no interest in moving away from Spotify, so Google’s gonna have to play ball if they want to get me back. It’s sad, too, when it seems like every other YouTube link I visit from my phone brings up a prompt begging me to subscribe again.
lol then one day youtube music appears in killedbygoogle.com
… No. It’s $15 a month unless you sign up every single person in your family. It still boggles my mind how people have grown used to the idea of using services for free. The internet isn’t free. Everything costs money, even Lemmy. YouTube has server costs. Employee costs. And dare I say it, profit margins because they’re a business.
You need to pay for services you use. I’m exhausted with online entitlement that it all should be free.
Right, cause YouTube/Google are really struggling so much that their only option is to increase prices while offering less value and making everyone’s experience worse. Maybe, and hear me out here, the massive billion dollar corporation could make less money.
How much do they profit off YouTube again?
Oh wait - they don’t. They take losses from it. A business, meant for making money, is suffering a loss to provide goobers like you content and have the goobers making that content profit enough so they aren’t in poverty for choosing to make videos for a living.
You people really throw logic out the window when you talk about shit like this. You want corporations to make less money? Go fix the fucking tax laws not bitch about average membership fees like a fuckwit.
As far as I know, YouTube does not lose money(feel free to correct this with a source) and even just from a logical perspective if YouTube loses google money why keep pouring so many resources into it? The correct answer imo is YouTube doesn’t lose money theyre just greedy pigs but Alphabet(the parent company behind both google and YouTube) makes 10s of billions of dollars in profit, they are not struggling to pay the bills hell even if YouTube was losing then money fucking good they shouldn’t be allowed to hoard that much wealth anyway, but feel free to keep being a corporate bootlicker.
YouTube has been running on a loss since they last posted their info some handful of years ago. I think Susan was being pressured by creators to be transparent or something. YouTube has expanded well beyond what it used to be and hasn’t demanded money to compensate. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and Google/Alphabet has been fine with that but clearly aren’t anymore.
Alphabet makes money in other areas, yes, but YouTube specifically is the problem child that keeps begging for an allowance. So, how does YouTube fix it? How do they save money? By kicking off the freeloaders. You watch ads, contribute your 13 cents for the day, then fuck off - or you can buy premium.
Like I’ve said before, if you hate the big companies fix the tax laws, don’t bitch about them charging you for the service you’ve been getting free of charge.
Can you look to that? They only seem to share revenue, not profit. And profit is easily manipulated. Apparently they had 29 billion USD in revenue in 2023. There was a huge growth in revenue. I don’t see why you really claim that they’re making a loss.
This has been a point of discussion for nearly a decade. It’s almost common knowledge YouTube runs at a loss. CDN hosting was approximated to be about 2 billion in 2017, not including what they pay to creators, employees, etc. Their revenue does not cover all of these expenses, meaning there are no profits to announce. They borrow money from their parent company, Alphabet, because they benefit from YouTube by it merely existing under their control. They have an effective monopoly on video hosting and zero meaningful competition.
First of all, a link to reddit isnt an acceptable source. Second if it was common knowledge that YouTube ran at a loss I would think looking up “does YouTube run at a loss” would give something more recent then 2009 I did find this from 2016, by looking for “YouTube revenue report” and according to this YouTube generated 31bn USD in 2023, unfortunately I can’t find any concrete numbers for operating costs but some estimates I read were between a couple hundred mil to a few bn, either way drops in the bucket compared to profits. Sure YouTube may have operated at a loss at first but its highly unlikely it still is.
First of all, the link to Reddit had their own links but hey, fuck trying to find a source. Second, you’re looking for decade old information as if it were brand new, not really how SEO works but hey.
YouTube doesn’t report their expenses. We have to guess. The one time they did revealed they operate at a loss which is why in the fucking Reddit post I showed you, they were discussing said losses. But hey, not an acceptable source. Christ.
A reddit post from 8 years ago is not going to have up to date information so no, not a valid source, but even in that reddit post many people point out that youtube was breaking even in 2014 not operating at a loss and I find it highly unlikely that the growing YouTube would still be breaking even a decade later. I did read the reddit post and the sources they provide require subscriptions to access. This will be the last I respond to this though since I can’t see this going anywhere, continuing the conversation would be asinine.
But you said they aren’t making a profit. And you could see their revenue heavily increased in the last few years. So something has to give.
I did find some statistics about YT running at a loss back in 09 but I can’t find anything recent really abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7868311&page=1
The problem is not that YT cannot make money, the problem here is that the options are that you can choose if watching video, with or without ads, for free (well, paying with your data) or pay with money and your data to watch videos with ads.
I am not saying I have some god-like right to watch videos for free but on the other hand it seems that at YT they are trying as hard as they can to make me install adblocker to be able to use their service with minimun hassle.
YT, like every other company, is learning that if they don’t care about customers then customers don’t care about them. They are making the false equation “one less user with adblocker == one more user on Premium|without adblocker”, which is obviously false. And they are forgetting that they have a lot of more or less direct competition.
Quite a statement to say that Google (YouTube) would care about customers.
They care. Problem is that they care only to be able to make more money. They are simply trying to see how much money they can make before rendering the service worthless or unusable
Do you know how little money advertisers pay per ad? I think last I heard it’s between 0.5 and 3 cents. Could be even lower. That’s probably not enough, so they sell your anonymized data. That’s not enough, so they offer a membership without ads so the ratio can allow them to get closer to break even. What’s left?
The people getting the benefits of membership without paying for it. Third party apps letting you use premium features for free? Gone. Didn’t push the needle far enough. Most of their userbase using adblocker? New target acquired.
They’re very clearly trying to get their revenue and expenses to hit 1:1 because no company that’s doing well is going to crack down on their users. Netflix was flourishing so they let you share accounts. Then, the bill came and they said fuck that. Their revenue and profits went up what, 60%? They just had to endure the people throwing tantrums.
No, they’re learning that if 5% of the people using adblockers instead get Premium, they lose less money, even if it means doing what Netflix did and riding out the storm while people bitch and moan about how their free shit isn’t free anymore. Should they help offset it by making Premium more worthwhile with features even third party apps could do? Absolutely. Do I hate having to defend a company that could be doing so much more to benefit their users but are making pretty common sense business practices? Absolutely.
It reads to me like you think these companies are entitled to a user base. They aren’t. Just because it costs money to run a service, it does not mean we have to accept the price they charge or the anti consumer practices.
They provide a service not easily replicated, hence why there are no good alternatives. They operate on a loss because Alphabet/Google can afford it. They own the monopoly because they’re willing to lose money on it. You can swallow your pride and fuck off but it doesn’t matter. You don’t make an impact. They’ll still have the userbase and you leaving does nothing but lighten the server load from people who won’t pay anyway.
You aren’t entitled to free services at the expense of others. They don’t have to let you use their website without charging you. You not using the site without paying isn’t the attack you think it is, it’s the desired outcome.
That was a whole lot of assumptions about me. That, with the emotional language being used tells me that this interaction isn’t going anywhere useful or productive, so I’mma go ahead and step out.
Okay, take care psuedo intellectual. If you aren’t passionate about your position, your position is worthless.
So, why Youtube Premium has ads ?
It doesn’t.
Source? Me. I’ve had it for months haven’t seen a single ad.
Loads of videos have ads in there. They’re put in there by the content creators. This as YouTube doesn’t pay enough. YouTube premium doesn’t block those.
It’s strange that you haven’t noticed those.
You know what’s really strange? That you think not paying YouTube would make it so they could give their creators enough to where they didn’t need to take outside sponsors. Almost like YouTube has limited or even no control over creators having third party sponsors but you still blaming them for it.
YouTube has 30 billion revenue a year. You make a claim about what I think but I didn’t claim it, nor did you back up that things would change.
Your claim is like the trickle down economic policy, which initially was meant as a joke.
And their expenses? 31 billion? 32 billion? You don’t fucking know do you? REVENUE IS A POINTLESS METRIC WITHOUT FUCKING EXPENSES. Holy shit you people really are so vapid.
Loads of videos don’t have those either. I watched three to four car repair videos yesterday and none had sponsored segments.
Some of my followed creators have them, but they are the minority. I’d love to see some overall stats, as my experience may not be the norm.
The Internet is actually free. Services on it aren’t always. The issue with YouTube monetizing, for me, is 1) they are doing it retroactively and 2) they’re monetizing content made by others.
Okay I’ll let Verizon know so they can stop charging me monthly. I’ll let Google know the servers they bought should have been free. That the electricity to keep them running, also free. It’s all just fuckin free!
How long have you been on the internet? Two weeks? Three? How did you even find Lemmy?
How much you think the salaries of the pencil pushers are, the ones who get paid for little else but squeezing every single possible cent out of the supply/demand curve? The corporate greedsters, err the “revenue maximizers”.
Startup founders are told:
I was about to pay for it when they doubled the cost. No joke I told my wife I was going to start paying since we watch it all the time. The next week they doubled the cost. It irritated me. Not because I couldn’t afford it but because they added no value with the increase. Nothing changed.
I believe there’s a sort of death-loop phenom taking place here. The enshitification, you know.
I said the same thing for Reddit before the third-party apps crackdown; instead of cracking down on users who just want a better experience, they could allow third-party apps to be officially used if you have a paid/Premium subscription?
That way Google gets paid, and the users who enjoy their third-party apps can keep using them without worrying about them suddenly breaking.
That doesn’t solve the privacy issue which is a good reason why people use these, but at least it partly solves the monetary issue.
It would only work if it was still a massive privacy invasion. They either feed you ads or sell your data, they’re not going to offer a service that can’t at least do one of those.
Lol good luck Google. No way im watching YouTube with ads.
Then don’t.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/061183d6-3129-48d5-968c-acff0ca010cd.png">
Youtube Premium offers a fraction of the benefits of something like Newpipe.
Does it even have content you can only see with Premium like Red did?
YouTube Red content can only be seen with Premium, but not only does Premium not have new exclusive content, Premium features don’t work with member videos if you’re paying for channel membership
Does it even pay the people you watch? No… wait… it just freeloads off YouTube by piping that content to their site.
I watch a number of creators that YT has demonetized so I’m not worried about it.
YT can clearly see what people want in these apps. They simply need to provide the exact same functionality and set a price. They won’t though because they want control and data as well.
Sure, that’s fair critique. Them not implementing the features people turn to third party apps for. Absolutely.
What I can’t make sense of are the people who want control, privacy, content, and not to pay a dime. YouTube could do this better, sure, but let that be the criticism not the mere fact they have the audacity to kick off people who provide nothing and take everything.
To be clear I wouldn’t give them my money even if they did offer all the same features.
So you’re just outing yourself as being among the freeloaders they’re trying to kick off.
Okay then?
Yeah let me fork over my rapidly disappearing regular people money for a service which used to be free, whose price will only keep going up, and whose features will only keep disappearing to be locked behind a higher tier of paid subscription, thus giving me less and less, for more and more payment. You meet me over there. Let me just grab my little red wig and honk my nose a few times first and I’ll be right over.
The service was never fucking free you goober it always had ads. Since the moment it expanded beyond a couple dozen 240p videos, it had ads. You know what they did though? Tried to pay the people you watch so they could make a living giving you content. But yes throw a fucking tantrum that you have to pay the website so they can stay running and pay the people so they can earn that “regular people money” you ignorant fuckwit. YouTube still, to this day, doesn’t make a profit and still comes at an expense to Google/Alphabet.
You’ve been comfortable in that red wig and nose for way too long already.
Yes, I’m the “ignorant fuckwit” who is “throwing a tantrum”. Read above and behold me being immature, for the crime of calling out the poor little giant corporation who reportedly generated $31.5 BILLION dollars last year. Clearly they’re just trying to keep the lights on, and not kowtowing to investors whose sole, stated goal, is to buy low, and cash out when line goes up. I’m the fuckwit for pointing out that this shouldn’t be the system we’re all just okay with accepting. Clearly.
.
No need for that tone old bean!
If it was fairly priced then maybe, but as of now yt premium just isn’t a good opntion
$15 a month is on par with other subscriptions, part of that money goes to the people you watch so they can get paid for what they do, I don’t see what’s unfair about this pricing. Yes, the features they give are lackluster and could easily be done by third party apps before they killed them but I pay for premium so the people who do YouTube as a job can make a living.
Because YouTube is well known for actually paying their creators… A lot of the creators I watch get a lot of their videos demonotized for nothing really, so I’d have to become a channel member to support them, at wich point I might as well just completly switch to their patreon. And just because it’s on par with other stupid subscriptions, doesn’t make it fair. There are a ton of useless perks to me I’d have to pay for. Doest Premium still come with YT music? Yeah that kinda shit. I you use all the stuff, fair, but I certainly wont, so no the price is not fair for me
There’s multiple issues with this but a lot of them come down to: it’s Google.
They will charge. They have heaps of money, they will enzhittify. They will kill and recommend a new less capable app.
They’re Google and I’m moving away from them hard.
I do use YT a lot, and for now I pay. But give me a little time and that won’t be as true.
I don’t care if it’s Google, Amazon, or fucking Walmart. If the product makes sense as it is right now and the price is on par with other services, I’ll pay for it if it makes sense for me.
I’m not going to avoid something or complain about shit that hasn’t even happened yet. If you don’t like the corporations and want to avoid supporting them, fine, but I’m exhausted with people giving bullshit answers as to why xyz isn’t fair.
I was simply explaining why I’m bailing on them.
Google graveyard has happened. YT makes them a lot of money, so it’s not likely destined there. But, like search, they will eventually make it more about $ extraction than value for the customer.
It hasn’t happened yet. Early adopters and early leavers shape things.
Ads don’t support YouTube. Actually if you have premium that does a better job supporting both YouTube and the creators because they get paid more per view with premium than they would with ads. That’s why google pushes premium so hard and is bundling it with the services it thinks it can get away with.
What you’re describing has basically already happened and the ads are getting worse because they just don’t provide enough income.
Just 10mins ago I was thinking how great the digital age started. I liked that when I bought something I can store it anywhere, play/listen (don’t remember if digital movies was a thing) it without any internet connection etc. Then we got Netflix and eventually Spotify and we got even more options, do you want to pay a reasonable price a month and watch/play essentially anything or do you want to keep your stuff forever and pay more? But then other companies wanted that piece of pie and started their own services, neutered existing services, raise prices often, got more aggressive with drm and other limitations. My point is, when things start and they seem good in this tech world of ours, just think a bit outside of the box about how bad it can get, because believe me, you are likely correct with that. When this digital age started, people were fearful too, and most of their fears came true.
Thing is, what you’re describing is a logical fallacy. That because things got worse they’re going to continue to get worse. The slippery slope fallacy.
Yes, you used to have dozens and even hundreds of songs that nobody could take away from you. You were your own server. However, now that we have a service like Spotify where you can listen to most of the world’s music, not be required to store it, not have to buy each album, each track, but instead pay $15 and listen to anything, anytime, make nearly unlimited playlists of nearly unlimited tracks… it doesn’t make me miss the old days. I don’t feel nostalgia for the days when my disk walkman skipped because I walked too fast or the headphones on my head were $3 and I couldn’t even hear the lyrics properly. Now we have lossless compression, headphones that would cost thousands just a few years ago being only a couple hundred, devices that don’t skip, don’t lag, don’t buffer, but instead of you fronting the cost all at once you make payment plans. You take for granted the things we dreamt of and demand improvement, not stagnation, and god forbid a decline.
You can still live in the past. Download and store entire discographies from any of the dozens of pirate sites, force them onto your device, then play them as if we still lived in 2009. But the artist doesn’t see a dime for that. The pirate site doesn’t see a nickel. So you either support the people who make things you like in a system you don’t, or you fuck them over to try and stick it to the system itself. Thing is, I think the system will survive even when the things you like, don’t.
Sorry, I think I worded it poorly. I was saying that Netflix and Spotify were good, but Netflix got a bit neutered after other companies came in. Spotify is still amazing though.
I think the only problem with Netflix is that they funnel money into the wrong shows. They’d rather launch 180 new series than fund 18 really good ones. Other companies, like Disney, making new platforms to host their own content definitely hurt Netflix but I think it still has enough value to warrant buying.
I took your comment as idolizing the past and gesturing to a grim future.
But that doesn’t get rid of the ads, it just get rid of some. Sponsorblock would still be needed. Why pay a huge amount for something ineffective?
To. Support. The. Creators. I. Watch.
Use sponsorblock then, I sure as hell do. My main goal is to get rid of as many problems as possible and creators not getting paid enough is on that list.
So I buy premium. I participate in the system because a tantrum doesn’t fix it.
Hard pass. I donate to good creators who provide me hours of content by buying them a coffee or supporting on Patreon.
Then may your videos be riddled with ads, sponsors, and one day throttled buffering speeds.
Ah, so pay for premium to support creators, but if you support creators in another way then that’s bad because… reasons.
… Because the site you fucking watch them on needs to pay bills? Why are you all so selectively stupid on this point?
YouTube can burn.
They generate more money than whole countries and you want to give them more? I don’t have to pay them shit for them to make money off of me from my browsing history alone.
I would rather speed forward the enshittification to the point that all creators decide to strike and hop over collectively to another, kinder, video hosting site.
In the meantime Google benefits from my viewing data/history and sells that over and over. They’re making money hand over fist and then when you pay them for a “premium” experience you’re just handing them more. You’re already a cash cow for them with just using the site. Screw that noise.
Give directly to the creator.
Did you ask those creators how much money they get? Loads of them make way more from inserting advertisements themselves.
It’s also telling that you’re saying it’s about supporting those creators while responding negatively towards the person who blocks ads and gives money directly.
when I like a creator I give them a dollar instead of giving google a dollar so they can give a penny of it to the person who actually makes the thing I want
<img alt="" src="https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/9cb7cc8d-8050-417e-b3be-02c6934b1d22.webp">
Did you really come in here with a mini youtube premium go back to reddit.
By now just paying for adblocking alone wouldn’t cut it, I have also grown accustomed to YouTube sponsorblock in my client.
Indeed, paying for YouTube would still result in loads of advertisements. So it’s pretty crazy that Google (and various people) are saying you need to pay because you’d just pay and still see loads of ads.
It’s not just the ads either. Automatically skipping interaction reminders, zelf promotion and non-music parts is such an improved experience that it’s just too painful to go back.
No. No fucking ads, or lack of swipe controls.
I uninstalled the YouTube app on my phone a long time ago. I only visit the site in an ad blocking browser.
Had no idea you could do that. I just went and did it, thanks for the tip. I use Newpipe anyway
Does anyone know how to add my subscriptions and channels from regular YouTube to newpipe? There isn’t a login feature.
You have to export your youtube data at “google takeout manager” and import it in new pipe. Also you can read about it at newpipe FAQs
Thanks to my internet friend. Got it working!
Even if my client couldn’t block ads, I’d still keep it for the downvote button count and sponsor block.
Fuck Google and their price gouging.
It’s ok google, we have just as many engineers across the world that hate you and your ads and want to watch videos without your predatory pricing.
Indeed. However, they have that web DRM thing in their back pocket. The more we resist (as we should) their efforts to shut ad circumvention down, the more they’ll look at web DRM I’m sure. And they’ll have all large media outlets with them when they load that ball into the cannon.
Google lost the battle even in their own browser so now they’re trying to save face by attacking third party apps, dumbass just don’t know how to take the L.
Aren’t they implementing manifest v3 for addons soon, which will cripple adblockers on chrome?
When they do it’s only a matter of time for users to search how to block ads and move to a new browser
Firefox
They attempted to blocking videos for adblock users on YouTube some time ago, it was effective for like, I don’t know, a few days?
Chrome is still the most used browser