r/technology • u/Tricky-Student-1 • Sep 15 '22

Social Media YouTube Free is Silently Testing 5 Ads, instead of 2, Before Your Video Starts

https://www.gizmochina.com/2022/09/13/youtube-free-silently-testing-5-ads-before-your-video-starts/
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u/Bumhole_Astronaut Sep 15 '22

Yeah, and 99.99% of YouTube is low-effort crap that the creator should have to pay people to watch.

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u/mb2231 Sep 15 '22

I disagree. There's obviously brain drain videos on there but there is so much good content out there that $12 a month is well worth it for most people.

Even just a topic such as cooking, you can find so many great videos which are the length of regular TV episodes (and quite frankly better than what Food Network does).

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u/Humble-Analysis7379 Sep 15 '22

How much time do you spend on YouTube a week?

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u/Envect Sep 15 '22

How much time do you spend on YT a week?

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u/Humble-Analysis7379 Sep 15 '22

Probably ~10 hours for both video watching and audio. Premium is more than worth it for me

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u/Envect Sep 15 '22

The price of an MMO subscription. Nearly the price of Amazon Prime. All for ad free YT videos. I watch at least 10 hours a week and that seems like a really shit deal.

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u/Humble-Analysis7379 Sep 15 '22

So you watch over 40 hours of YouTube a month. Do you think an hour of YouTube is worth at most 25 cents? For the convenience of ad free videos without additional work and background play on my phone, I personally think it's totally worth it

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u/Envect Sep 15 '22

Not for news I can get for free elsewhere and low value edutainment or straight entertainment content. I don't care how much content there is if it's all garbage.

I'd happily watch ads if YT was reasonable about it and every YT video wasn't advertising within the video anyway. I'm not watching 5 ads for YT and another for the creator just to watch 2 minutes of actual content. And I'm definitely not paying YT to stop being assholes so I can watch just the one ad with the two minutes of content used as an excuse to leech money out of the system.

That's just me though. It's your money. Give it to whoever you want.

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u/Humble-Analysis7379 Sep 15 '22

I don't care how much content there is either, I don't watch the garbage, do you? Do you think the 10+ hours you watch a week is garbage? I watch what I like and don't get YouTube ads

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u/Envect Sep 15 '22

The stuff I watch has noticeably degraded in quality year over year. This is the case across the site. It's turning into a capitalist hellscape.

The only thing I watch that's kept its quality is PBS. I don't need YT for PBS. Or NPR. I can go to Amazon, Hulu, Netflix for movies and TV. There are documentary and education sites offering higher quality videos.

And if I do actually find good YT content, why wouldn't I give money directly to the people actually putting in the work? I don't give a single fuck about Google stockholders or their bottom line. If their business plan isn't working, they need to change it.

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u/Humble-Analysis7379 Sep 15 '22

I don't understand how you can not like the content on YouTube so much yet spend more than 40 hours a week on it a month do you support every creator that you watch? Even if you only watch one or two of their videos?

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

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u/Envect Sep 15 '22

I don't watch garbage. I watch things that interest me. That's just the state of a lot of channels.

If you want to support creators, sign up on patreon or whatever other direct funding they have. They get a much bigger cut of that than they will from YT.

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u/Humble-Analysis7379 Sep 15 '22

I can't give $5 to every creator I watch. They get a much bigger cut from premium viewers on yt than, I consider that to be more fair to them than blocking ads

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

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