But what does that mean? YouTube keeps a history list, which I download and periodically reset. If it didn't I would need to add some sort of Firefox add-on that remembered which videos I'd seen.
What else are they "tracking"? Does YouTube have tracking on other sites (like Facebook, Twitter etc)? I haven't seen anything like that.
You can switch the history off, I presume that would work even without Premium, but it never occurred to me to even try it since I definitely want history.
Part of the answer is that YouTube algorithms optimize for engagement, not satisfaction. They don’t show me what they think I’ll like, they show me what they think I’ll keep clicking into. You can pay to subscribe, but that doesn’t change their algorithm.
if youtube isn't tracking me in malicious way, why would I pay them to stop them from tracking me?
but the error here is conflating a tool with a legal person. Google will track me no matter how much I pay them for any of their services, including YouTube.
the situation at the moment is that no-one believes that a corporation who offers a free service is going to not track you because you pay for the premium version. so (a) I'm not going to pay Google or Facebook to get the premium version since it is not going to be untracked and (b) Google and Facebook aren't going to detrack their premium services since no-one believes that's going to happen anyway - the value add is removing ads/playing with the screen off/etc not the absence of tracking.
the best you can do is pay a third party to offer you some service Google or Facebook offers for free, thereby reducing your exposure. for instance, Google surely knows the content of many emails sent to me, but not all of them, since I pay for email from another provider; or I'm strongly considering paying for a substitute for Google docs, except that I don't like unpredictable monthly USD payments.
I personally think a better way to sell YouTube Premium wouldn't be to focus on just the ads, yes that should be a part of it, but consumers have shown they want certain things in particular (via Patreon):
1. A way to support their favourite creators (adblock whitelisting proves people care more about creators than the downsides of ads - I do for sure)
2. A way to get exclusive content in return, or maybe just a shoutout.
Super Chat is one of the best things YouTube has ever done in this regard. It's amazing how much money flows through to creators when they do live-streams & premiere events.
A lesson can be learned from Steam's fight with piracy wrt ad-free versions. You've either got to:
1. Make it an easier sell to purchase YouTube Premium than to get AdBlock (not-likely)
2. Make a significant value-add for the premium offering "be a better service than piracy".
The problem is that YouTube's not been doing too well with option two, and they're simultaneously making their advertising products a worse sell for business customers.
I'm very interested to see how they adapt to the changing market though.
Well, for starters, now they're tracking that you are willing to pay a ransom. That's the same kind of knowledge value as spammers get when a user clicks the "unsubscribe" link in one of their emails.
What else are they "tracking"? Does YouTube have tracking on other sites (like Facebook, Twitter etc)? I haven't seen anything like that.
You can switch the history off, I presume that would work even without Premium, but it never occurred to me to even try it since I definitely want history.