this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 108 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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…

  3. 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unlock origin on the desktop, brave browser for mobile yt seems to work fine at not showing ads

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it's cool how the tradition of only reading the first half of the first sentence is alive and well on lemmy too.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As is apparently the misplaced opinion your bullshit is worth reading or responding to in full. People use yt-premium to block ads. Creators are going to survive or not on the platform not because someone uses an ad blocker.