So this is some bollocks. Guess I'll be cancelling our plan since it's only used by two of us.
Current price $17.99/month, new price $32.99/month.
If they boiled the frog better I would probably have accepted a $5/month price rise, and then another later... But close to doubling in one go is a no from me dawg.
Thank you for being a loyal member throughout our journey. We created YouTube Premium so that you could enjoy all the videos and music you love without interruptions.
To continue delivering great service and features, we are increasing the YouTube Premium family plan price to A$32.99/month. We don't make these decisions lightly, and this update will allow us to continue to improve YouTube Premium and support the creators and artists you watch on YouTube. This is the first ever price increase for your subscription.
Links to cancellation etc: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12400348?sjid=6028684095030617608-AP
I fully agree and still think that regulations to a degree do impact the ability for others to join in spaces. The world is full of nuance and as always it's a bit of A & B and C through fucking Z as well in small amounts.
Convenience has let people grow complacent to companies doing whatever which gives us now when the reaper has come to collect and wants more money since they have nothing else to focus on.
But think of it also as making a hotdog. There are rules that are super necessary and helpful. You want it made with good ingredients and not rodent and in a kitchen that is clean and inspected every so often. But imagine if they made a requirement for size and shape, stated that each hotdog must be measured by an IR camera and nuked by gamma radiation to be sold. Suddenly the only people that can sell hotdogs retail are ones that can afford plutonium and very expensive equipment.
Not a huge issue cause those hotdogs last longer and are reliable but there was literally a law saying all platforms must be responsible for every single comment on their platform and several of them said they would turn off comments.
With server costs, bandwidth costs, registration and more eventually the people that can afford to meet those minimum requirements are the ones who already have the money to do so. The walls get built and those inside make sure they stay safe of others impact.
They can only do that while people have no interest in leaving the walled garden, and they assist in building them. It seems to just be how people interact with their world. Ignorant. And I say that without prejudice cause it lets them be happy but the horrors will come out of nowhere to them.
Fair, I also didn't realize that I was replying in an Aussie specific community, so this part:
makes it make more sense to me why you said that in your original comment. Over here (US) there is very little regulation of these platforms. Basically, they can't knowingly host CSAM, and they have to respond to DMCA requests. The DCMA is basically just "take down copyrighted material when a right's holder complains." We have a carve out called section 230 that really lets companies not have much responsibility for the content they host. So in the US's case when it comes to these things going back to the hot dog analogy, our tech companies only responsibility is along the lines of not explicitly encouraging employees to allow rodents, or even to police for rodents, it's basically just if the right people report rodents they have to do something about it.
So in the case of YouTube, for example, I and most other people who know how to build websites can make a site that hosts video fairly easily. Because regs here are so lax, all I really need to do is explicitly state that CSAM/copyright materials aren't allowed, do a shockingly small amount of work to automatically take it down when reported. Laws over here aren't really the barrier.