I just subscribe to YouTube premium to support my favorite application out there.
I learn so much from the people who spend hours and hours making videos every month that I am more than happy to pay a measly $13 or whatever it is every month to YouTube.
If you continue to give Google money you'll continue to get things like AMP, Manifest V3, Web "Integrity", and whatever else they think up to track you across the web.
They're an ad company. They pay the creators per impression even if you block the ads. Blocking ads harms Google, not the content producers.
I'm giving them money to view fewer ads. Isn't this an inherently "anti-ad" consumer standpoint? I am telling YT/Google that I as a consumer am willing to pay money to not see ads.
Am I not telling them with my wallet to develop other ad-free solutions that I will pay them and the content creators money for?
> They pay the creators per impression even if you block the ads. Blocking ads harms Google, not the content producers.
Blocking ads and refusing to pay any money into the YT ecosystem decreases the revenue per viewer which will eventually reduce the amount of money YT pays to creators and/or increase the price they charge to YT premium subscribers.
I’m honestly not asking to be obtuse, but what difference does this “tracking” actually make? I block ads on the web because they’re so obnoxious and usually so utterly stupid (One weird trick to blast belly fat!!”), but I couldn’t care less if an ad profile exists on me or on some GUID tied to a browser I use[1]. What’s your pitch to someone who doesn’t care, that they should care?
[1] also, if tracking can help to replace idiotic ads like that with ones for some b2b software product I’d actually be interested in knowing about, please track me.
The idea that if you are willing to give up some privacy, the ads you see will be high quality and relevant. That sounds like a great trade and for twenty years I waited for those useful ads.
They still haven't appeared. When I consider what I trade for the ads I'm getting now, it's no where near good enough. My data is valuable and Google et al just aren't offering enough in return. The only place I ever see decent ads is on Google's search page.
I think the reason we see shitty ads like the belly fat ones, is because Google isn't actually trying to serve us first. Their main concern is ad dollars. So even though Google knows you watched a video on changing guitar strings an hour ago and now you are standing in a Guitar Center, instead of showing you an ad for guitar strings, you're going to see an ad for belly fat because that advertiser is willing to pay a fraction of a penny more.
So to answer your question about why you should care - it's because you are greatly overpaying for the service you are getting. Of course there are other reasons too - avoiding ads containing malware is one. Protecting yourself from tyrants is another. If you are socially or politically active, you may not trust that the government now or in the future can resist grabbing the data that shows you support abortion rights or attended a BLM or LGBTQ march or were part of the crowd on Jan 6.
Let me ask you this - if you learned the tracking is actually a person on the other side of the planet watching in real time, everything you do online, every conversation you have, every site you visit, and mix it with the data they can get from your phone (location, phone calls, music preferences, who you are spending time with, etc...) and they manually log it into a database, would that change how you feel about it?
I think there’s an opportunity cost not considered explicitly here, which is heavy users of YouTube (such as myself) find $13/month cheaper than wastes time watching ads.
If I added up the total ad time I’d have to see on a free account, the math would heavily favor paying to not see them vs my (or really most software engineers at the level of YouTube I consume)’s hourly rate.
It’s made decisions much easier for me if I take my hourly post-tax rate and compare it to services I’m using. If math works out, it’s generally worth it.
I’d love to fight the good fight against ads and stuff, but between working 9-5 and a side business, relationships, hobbies, I just don’t have the time.
You're giving them money because they're serving you ads in the first place.
I appreciate advertising money pays the salaries of people in such companies, but there are other less intrusive ways. Since I've grown up with the evolution of internet advertising, my brain is wired to just ignore it. I can't saying I've knowingly be influence by any form of internet advertising, ever.
A better solution for all concerned would just be to watermark a corner of a video with 'sponsored by company X' than the hours of human effort wasted in squeezing 30 seconds of adverts into everything, and the effort of people to block and get around that.
No, they're not going to leave money on the table. Eventually you'll be seeing ads too. This is just a hook period. I don't understand how we as a culture haven't learned this already. This is at least the fourth or fifth generation of this with media. How things actually work should be common sense by now.
It seems to me that all of google's most successful services (search, youtube, gmail and gsuite, maps/earth, android) are next to impossible to monetize profitably and have significant utility to the general public. It feels like these are services that governments should be building and funding themselves.
Youtube specifically has a plethora of useful information made by normal people. You can find hundreds of thousands of videos, in most languages, about doing most basic and complex repairs for almost any model of car made in the last few decades, for example. It is essentially a giant public library.
That is insane. No corporation has the ability to incarcerate you or kill you. No corporation can round up your family.
What, precisely, is the “threat” that Google presents that does not rely on a government to be the muscle. Are they going to cancel your Gmail account? Cut you off from YouTube?
Surely if they actually are as powerful and dangerous as you think they are you wouldn’t use their stuff at all. But then I guess they wouldn’t be all that powerful if you could just stop using them…
(Shrug) Insane, whatever. All I know is, when I call the IRS, I can get a human on the phone who actively wants to help.
Try that with Google, PayPal, Amazon, Apple, or any number of other companies when an error they've made but refuse to even explain, much less fix, threatens to wreck your livelihood.
To redress grievances with my government, I don't need to make the front page of HN or go viral on Twitter. We don't go a week around here without another front-page lamentation to appeal for noblesse oblige from one of these intentionally-faceless megacorps. That's not how you should have to deal with a company you're doing business with... but it is how you deal with a dictator who leaves you no other choice.
That's simple in countries without a Second Amendment, or that don't recognize self-defense as a fundamental human right, but it's not simple in this one.
It is deeper that that, corporations literally are governments. When you form a corporation you are creating the government that your organization will now operate under. usually this will require a license from whatever larger governmental structure you find yourself in.
Sometimes this is a publicly tradable for profit endeavor, sometimes it is private or perhaps non-profit(all profits have to be distributed back into the corporation), or even an actual public corporation(often called a town or a city,
I've been using premium for almost a decade now, since before it was rebranded from YouTube red. I'll let you know when it's safe to remove your tinfoil hat.
Oh and I'll be downloading my videos for offline viewing and listening to ad free unrestricted music as well.
Thank you for reminding me that yt-dlp also works with youtube music (didn't think of that). I just tried to list all the available formats of a song there:
ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH │ FILESIZE TBR PROTO │ VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
233 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default
234 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default
599 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.05MiB 31k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 31k 22k ultralow, m4a_dash
600 webm audio only 2 │ 1.27MiB 37k https │ audio only opus 37k 48k ultralow, webm_dash
139 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.67MiB 49k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash
249 webm audio only 2 │ 1.86MiB 55k https │ audio only opus 55k 48k low, webm_dash
250 webm audio only 2 │ 2.44MiB 71k https │ audio only opus 71k 48k low, webm_dash
140 m4a audio only 2 │ 4.42MiB 130k https │ audio only mp4a.40.2 130k 44k medium, m4a_dash
251 webm audio only 2 │ 4.71MiB 138k https │ audio only opus 138k 48k medium, webm_dash
Hm ... no mp3 (my car accepts mp3 only) and the bit rate is not very high. Is youtube music that bad?
Both AAC and Opus fix some of MP3's inherent design problems (like imperfect handling of short sharp transients no matter how much bitrate you throw at it), so the only reason to continue using MP3 is for compatibility with old devices.
Since downloads aren't an official part of Youtube's offering, they don't have to care about old offline-only hardware players only supporting MP3, either and anything that's modern enough to still support either a Youtube app or the website will also support either AAC or Opus.
> the bit rate is not very high
There's also a high bitrate available, but only for subscribers.
Tell me, do you casually click 15-20 videos on your phone while You're taxing before takeoff to be entertained for the whole flight? Do you use a media player that lets you turn off the screen but continue to listen to your just released yt podcast while you work out? Do you watch live feeds on your phone without ads? Or do you run a yt-dl scripts from the CL 3-4 times per year to farm w comments?
Not seeing ads is a benefit of the service. Paying for premium is to support the video makers and, yes, the service itself.
Paying for things you use is how you signal you like the product. The insane contortions people resort to in order to justify piracy boggles my mind. You either pay by watching ads or you pay the premium price. No one is entitled to YouTube. YouTube has to be paid for in order for it to exist and the creators to make stuff. That is the reason to pay for premium.
Or you can do what I do and support the creators on patreon and continue to use adblock on YouTube. That way you can consume content without feeling guilty and not support Google's monopoly at the same time.
No that's what you get when you're the product by being a free user. Paid service relationship works just fine for me - Google isn't ideal but YouTube is one of my main content sources + YouTube music for my family for slightly more than the price of Spotify family subscription - yeah it's an easy choice.
Spotify suggestions and playlists weren't a seller feature for me for years. Maybe I'm missing out on a few podcasts.
No, Google will keep fucking you over and destroying the Internet, whether you pay or not. Not to mention the fact that what they pay out to creators is absolutely pathetic. Go find their Patreon, their Ko-fi, hell their paypal, anything but giving Google 13 bucks.
“Consume” ads? That is a quaint 1960’s take that is long dead.
Ad companies have been tilting the agreement attention for content ever more in their favor in aggressive and privacy harming ways. They long ago broke any moral standing.
The content creators need to seek a better deal, they’re getting screwed by Google too.
I'd rather use their services and block their ads, if I'm honest.
Ad supporters talk like blocking ads is literal theft, which is absolutely laughable. It's further away from theft than piracy, which is also in no way literal theft.
If I'm watching traditional non-demand television, and I go to the bathroom or change the channel during an ad, am I stealing from the network or the show? Hell no, that's ridiculous.
Theft? Of course it's theft, if I reduce to what is happening - you're using their services for free with no compensation. That is the definition of theft.
I would agree with you it's ok if there was no way to _otherwise_ pay for the service. If they push a only ads-supported version, and I have no choice but see ads, and I don't consent to the impact of ads on my brain, it makes a case for blocking ads being ethically correct.
But since there is a choice on how to pay, I find reasoning is no longer ethically right. You can choice to pay with your attention and brain, or to pay with hard cold cash, so the argument of ads being shoved down your brain no longer holds. You can choose to not see ads and pay for the service, and you chose to steal.
And you can make the argument that stealing is ok since you steal from the bad guys, but then you don't get to complain when others may steal from you - we're all "the bad guy" for somebody else
No. Theft would mean they no longer have the service once I've taken it.
Me taking a copy of Shrek 2 at the local store and not paying for it is theft: the store can no longer benefit from Shrek 2.
Google can re-send the exact same bytes to someone else. All I've costed them is what it costs to send those bytes over. But then, would you consider going into a store, loitering for two hours, taking the sellers attention (therefore, costing them time that they cannot use to sell things to other customers) then leaving without buying anything theft ? Most reasonable people would say no. We'd all agree it's a dick move, but since corporations are not people, it doesn't matter.
Would you go into a restaurant, occupy a table, spend server's time to bring you only tap water, loiter for a couple of hours, and leaving without paying anything OK? if that's what you want, go to a public library.
I think the sooner we move from ads-supported models to pay-per-use like Netflix, the better we are - those that can afford will consume the best content, and the rest will stick to public domain.
Hear hear. I'm beyond tired of all these self-proclaimed hackers with their lips so far up Google's ass that they can taste what Sundar had for breakfast.
The ad industry is a scourge on humanity, and its gormless defenders are willing accomplices.
Ads are emphatically not a valid monetization tactic. Holding up a corner store at gunpoint is unethical; getting up to go to the bathroom during a commercial break is not. There has never, ever, ever, ever been any moral or ethical imperative to view ads, in any context. By asserting otherwise you're simply being dishonest.
None of the content I'm interested in is available elsewhere. I've checked for exactly this reason. I don't want to be freeloading off of google, ideally I'd not use their platform at all, just like how I replaced gmail with self hosting, googlemaps with openstreetmap, googlesearch with duckduckgo, etc.
It costs creators literally nothing to upload an mp4 file to a second website and it would create market forces where youtube now has to compete for views with those alternate platforms (even if it's fragmented). But they're not doing it. Okay, so then I need to use youtube, doesn't mean I need to give google my payment information to pay a fraction of that money onto creators and mainly further their adtech
Google uses their primary business (surveillance and propaganda) to subsidize their other endeavors, engaging in unfair business practices by providing services below cost to destroy any competition. Taking them up on their offer while protecting yourself from their primary operation is no more freeloading than buying only the loss leaders from one store while going elsewhere to get the rest of what you need. They're a business, not a public service.
And it's just a convenient consequence of doing the "morally right" thing, that you happen to get your content for free? And content creators be damned?
No, I just happened to always have it for free. They are the ones that decided that it was a good deal in exchange for tracking me throughout the internet, stalking me. They are the ones that decided to make my watching experience miserable by putting unskippable ads. They are the ones that decided to make the videos I watch crap, because if they're not 10 minutes long with a perfectly engineered cover image, they won't pay out the creators and they won't show their content. They are the ones allowing literal hour-long ads. They are the ones that decided to make my home page """algorithmic""", which is really "oh you watched a video game ? Others like <literal nazi>, you should watch it". They are the ones hiding, destroying, trying to piss me off by removing features one by one and putting them into Youtube Premium. Play in background ? High quality videos ? Not stopping autoplay every 30 minutes to ask me if I'm still here ? Picture-in-picture ? Adding to queue ? These are all features that they proudly displayed in blog posts saying how awesome they are, and that it'll always be free. Now, they blast me with popups telling me to get Youtube Premium. One per person in my household by the way, account sharing is bad and they must extract as much money as possible.
The content creators I support get their money on Patreon or whatever fundraising platforms they use. Same things for my favorite journals. The others ? Well, I don't care enough about them to think that I would pay for them. Maybe others will. And if they don't, well, they'll stop.
It would be, if Google didn't have a chokehold on most of the internet. Sure, Nebula exists, I can watch three creators there, woohoo. Let me go on Dailymotion too for those sweet 2005 videos.
Google did everything in their power to force themselves into every aspect of our lives and leaving no alternatives, or destroying them, or buying them. Now they get to deal with the consequences
The content creators could post anywhere, there is no reason they can't cross-post their videos to other platforms. Most publishers who are on Patreon post all their videos ad-free on there so you don't even need to go to YouTube.
The reason most publishers post on YouTube is because they depend on the revenue from the YouTube network.
If you don't want to watch ads, fine, but you are expressly violating the wishes of the people who are creating the content and then rationalizing it to yourself. The fact that you still rationalize not buying the ad-free premium offering is the kicker.
I'll stop freeloading when mega corps start paying back even a fraction of what they take from society. Governments have a setup for this, it's called taxation.
It would be, if Google didn't have a chokehold on most of the internet. Sure, Nebula exists, I can watch three creators there, woohoo. Let me go on Dailymotion too for those sweet 2005 videos.
Google did everything in their power to force themselves into every aspect of our lives and leaving no alternatives, or destroying them, or buying them. Now they get to deal with the consequences
I just have no sympathy for the ad industry. I wouldn't have gotten into ad blocking if ads were non-intrusive, non-deceptive, and purely contextual. I used to even click on them more than a decade ago. But no, the ad industry wasn't satisfied with the money they were already making. They wanted to stalk you across the web and shove endless amounts of junk ads to uninterested people.
The ad industry brought the current situation on to themselves.
Fortunately I bypass Google entirely and find ways of paying good creators, which ends up with more in their pocket and less in the pocket of one of the shittiest companies on earth.
Do not confuse Google's revenue with market rate of an impression on YouTube. More revenue for Google does not equal higher pay for content creators. Google pays them the minimum to keep them on the platform. And that minimum is tiny since their platform is essentially a monopoly.
I'm also intensely Youtube positive, even if I don't like ads or google.
Youtube is one of the best things on the internet. The shame is that it's centralized with a single point of failure.
The upsides of youtube are enormous - people learn a lot there. It's not just nerds learning about stuff, but everyone. How do I fix this thing on my car, etc? People show and tell about all kinds of topics. This is making people more knowledgeable and capable on a citizen level(!)
The written word champions here will have to realize that for some, videos are a superior medium for transmitting know-how.
If the ads were silent banners changing the aspect ratio of the videos, I wouldn't mind them.
30 second un-skippable advert to see a 7 year old 45 second clip? I press "back" and watch neither.
Thinking of supporting creators: I looked at Nebula a while back as an alternative; I think there was some UX issue back then, but they've likely improved it and I should look again.
If the ads were silent banners changing the aspect ratio of the videos, I wouldn't mind them.
This is an interesting idea. It is already used to some extent in live football matches broadcast on TV. The sidelines have their ads replaced. I think your idea is a good one and deserves some testing by Google/YouTube.
At this point I would pay those people to stop making videos and start writing again. Sitting through a 15 minute video to explain something that can be read in 2 minutes is a waste of everyone's time.
I find it’s pretty unusual to find something being taught in a YouTube video that couldn’t be learned from a book, repair manual/schematics, or a university course. Nothing’s stopping you from seeking out written material instead, especially if you’d be willing to pay people to _stop_ making videos.
The obvious reality here is that RandyLahey1989 from Halifax probably isn’t going to start a Substack about snowmobile repair, nor would anyone read it if he did, but his video on replacing the carb in a 2011 Switchback has hundreds of comments thanking him for his help. Wouldn’t you agree the internet’s a better place for giving Randy the chance to share his domain knowledge (and get paid for it)?
I seriously think the “everything should be an article” crowd is a bit disconnected with how the average person prefers to create. The future of consumption is video for a growing majority of internet users, one would be a fool to pretend otherwise.
Which, if people weren’t aware, is also a consequence of ads. It’s so the creator can get a mid-video ad. Even if you pay for yt premium, you’re still getting a garbage experience because creators fluff out videos to hit the higher minute mark.
Some videos are drawn out but lost aren’t. People will drop if the video gets too boring. It’s also very easy to skip in video ads or forward or reverse to the most replayed part of the video.
I’m eagerly awaiting the day when some pirate site feeds the videos through a machine learning thingy and outputs an appropriate length text summary, with an appropriate number of screenshots for following along.
I’d want the summary and images to be verbatim from the video, but for it to strip crap like “hey, it’s been a while since I made my last video, as you can see behind me, nessie the cow is caught in a tree in my vertical farm wall again, which you can see another video about. Today, we are going to explain how to open this laptop, but first I’m going to talk about [product placement]”
But that's not all about it. You probably don't know amount of courses available on YouTube. Chemistry, medicine, engineering, mathematics and what not.
I don't see a point in giving google any money when the price of premium seems to go up every time I open the page for it (it's literally gone up 50% in the last 2 months, with the cheaper tier also no longer being offered) on top of actively being worse than using normal adblockers since you won't get any equivalent to sponsorblock by paying for premium. It's literally worthless, at least until google begins clamping down on ad blocking.
I would not mind paying for "ad free Youtube" if it was like 5 - 10 bucks. I don't need or want Youtube Music. There was a YouTube Premium Lite at some point for some countries.
Plus paying for youtube premium does not remove the sponsor ads inside videos.
Also I feel like the algorithm has gotten worse and worse? I personally don't like to support that.
I pay for Youtube Premium, but still I have to run Sponsorblock to block the in-video embedded sponsorships and one uBlock origin scripts to remove Shorts from my Subscription.
I understand the sentiment, but the creators actually only got peanuts (most don't even see any money) out of your $13 while the rest go to Google. You are paying Google for youtube, and Google pay (some) content creators with a tiny fraction of your subscription money.
This is bullshit. I'm a full time youtuber, and creators get 55% of that money, and we really appreciate that income stream.
Youtube is actually one of the good companies out there when it comes to paying creators a fair share. No other company that I know of pay creators this well, and it is probably a big reason for their continued success.
Afaik From ad revenue channels get 55%. They also get money from premium subscribers depending on how much time they spent on channel. I wouldn't call it peanuts.
That’s true when they pay out. It’s supposedly hard to get to get them to actually pay.
They say they pay out 55% of ad revenue per video and 55% of subscription revenue.
Assuming 10% of video creators have successfully set up monetization (I made up that number), then they are only paying out 5.5% of ad revenue, since (as far as I know) the unclaimed ad revenue is not pooled and the distributed proportionately to other accounts.
It’s unclear if they put YouTube premium revenue in per-creator buckets in the same way as they do ad revenue. If so, then they would only be paying out 5.5% of subscription revenue in my 10% example. If, on the other hand, subscription revenue is split amongst just the monetized creators that you personally watch, then they would be paying the 55% their marketing department likes to brag about.
I haven’t been able to figure out which way they do the accounting.
However, as of 2021, over their service lifetime, they paid $30B to creators. Their 2022 revenue was $29B
So, they’re definitely keeping the vast majority of the combined ad and subscription money that comes in the front door (or revenue exploded in 2022).
I do that too when I really want to support someone. YouTube premium is a way to support each producers videos, not only the few that I might patronize on Patreon.
There are dozens and dozens of different creators of videos that I watch each month, so if I only used Patreon most wouldn't get anything from me.
The infrastructure for growing and preparing tobacco products also "costs rather steep amount of money" but isn't justification for supporting them. The incessant vomiting of advertising by Google into the faces of the public and the distortion of incentives for content creation has reached a point where the overused word "toxic" has really become warranted.
I'll pay Google when they start weeding out the utter garbage that is uploaded targeting kids. Things like frozen characters getting tired up and thrown in water, or their clay stomachs getting cut open. YouTube happily suggests these abusive videos when you are watching kids shows, and Google does stuff all about them
The last sentence in the Wikipedia article you link provides reason to believe that the extensive and largely unfocussed show of action Google made in 2017 did not, in fact, solve the problem.
Are you sure these videos and their targeting are still a thing? Your comment is the first I've heard about it in years, and looking now everything I'm finding is years old.
So have 100 different Patreon subscriptions each month? The minimum pledge is $1. What if I watch 200 different YT creators? What about the short videos? Should I create a new Patreon subscription for each individual creator I watch? What if my interests frequently change (they do). Should I spend hours per month managing individual Patreon subscriptions?
The original post is about blocking ads. Blocking ads reduces the amount of money going to creators. Now you are saying that paying actual real money to not see ads is also not the way.
> They shaft creators in every way possible.
I guess this could be true that YT "shaft[s] creators in every way possible". If this were true, I'm somehow guessing that not basically everyone would show their videos there, don't you think?
There's a balance here; being universally against ads (which quite a few people here are) while also refusing to pay anything for content is not a congruent view.
At a very minimum there is considerable costs associated with delivering the video content, as most of us know.
And for the record, I do patronize the creators whom I watch lots of consistently.
> I guess this could be true that YT "shaft[s] creators in every way possible". If this were true, I'm somehow guessing that not basically everyone would show their videos there, don't you think?
The fact that content creators are still using Youtube doesn't mean Youtube is not shafting content creators. Youtube has killed most of their competitors so it's not like content creators have other options right now, but I suspect new competitors will show up if Google continue to enshitify youtube.
The problem is that most people don't subscribe to hundreds of Patreon creators. It is actually REALLY hard to have a substantial income from Patreon unless you have like 1 million subscribers on youtube. YT Premium+Ads is the next best thing and makes most creators a lot more money with less effort.
Source: I'm a full time youtuber, I have done Patreon for over a year, and I have friends who are also full time youtubers.
For many it's not about supporting the platform and creators. YouTube can be unwatchable with ads. I believe this was done in part to push people to purchase premium. Some pay, some block, but nobody thinks the YouTube advertisement business is something done right.
I and other educational content creators thank you. YouTube is not evil, the service they provide for both content creators and viewers on YouTube is not only fair, it is clearly unmatched.
A problem with paying is that you have to be logged on so you can’t avoid being tracked and having every video you ever watch linked to you for all eternity.
You have privacy controls in your Google account. I have web & app activity off, location history off, YouTube search off and YouTube watch history auto deleting after a few months. https://myaccount.google.com/data-and-privacy
If you're talking about them building a secret extra profile about you with those things turned off, then they wouldn't need you to login for that.
This is misleading. At least with Google Play, they track all installed apps on your account forever.
even if you uninstall, remove from history in the app, and remove from Google account history, future API calls reflect that you've installed the app before.
And if you believe Google is not storing that information anyway I’ve got a beautiful bridge for sale.
If you don’t use an account you can create a fresh container every once in a while and start the game anew and you can choose to not associate it all with your identity.
If my country either took privacy seriously or took corporate malfeasance seriously, then Google wouldn't exist in the first place. Here's to hoping, though.
Read the privacy policy, they explicitly state they store it. Obviously, because in many cases they need to know who watched that. For instance for their licenses they need to be allowed to show you copyrighted content.
You can ‘pause history’ which means ‘If you turn off your YouTube watch history and have no significant prior watch history, YouTube features that rely on your watch history to give video recommendations, like recommendations on the YouTube homepage, are removed.’ it doesn’t mean they don’t store it.
Google stores everything and deletes nothing. If you don’t want Google to keep track of information, you have to make sure they don’t have it and never get it.
> Google stores everything and deletes nothing. If you don’t want Google to keep track of information, you have to make sure they don’t have it and never get it.
This would be a clear GDPR violation. This isn't the 2000s or 2010s any more.
This post is more of a technical breakdown of things, not some sort of advocacy for not paying content creators:
> Disclaimer: I want to support content creators, so to be fair, after a few months of blocking YouTube ads, I am now paying for YouTube Premium; Just because I can break something, doesn’t mean I need to.
As long as the youtube tos allows creators to upload videos with their own add I won’t be paying a dime for premium. Where is the point to pay for skipping 5s of ads, when there is another one by the creator for a whole minute in the middle of the video?
No, paying Nebula as an alternative to paying Youtube doesn't work for many viewers because most creators who create good content are not on Nebula. E.g. Many popular channels with worthwhile info such as Applied Science, Technology Connections, 3Blue1Brown, etc are not on Nebula.
Also, many people who use Youtube for learning DIY repair, hobbies, coding, etc and Nebula doesn't really cater to those genres. E.g. I watched some videos about configuring Unifi networks and then some tutorials on installing some flooring. These types of videos are not on Nebula's platform.
There is a huge variety and scope of educational material on Youtube and platforms like Nebula/CuriosityStream only have a fraction of that.
Nebulas Android app is insultingly poor quality and pretty much unusable on tablets/foldables (it locks in portrait - who the heck still does that on a VIDEO app?!)
I've had college students build better apps for homework. It's insulting considering the rather high price of a service.
Paying for YouTube premium does not remove the sponsors, in video ad breaks and all. Actually the only way to do that on mobile is with ReVanced, not matter how much you want to pay YouTube.
I do when I regularly watch a particular creator's videos over and over. However, this isn't the case for most of the videos I watch. Lots of one-off views.
I learn so much from the people who spend hours and hours making videos every month that I am more than happy to pay a measly $13 or whatever it is every month to YouTube.