this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Okay, but those independent content creators are often doing this trying to make money.
YouTube actually does have a pretty fair deal for "if you make us lose money, we won't charge you" and "if you make us money, we'll give you 55%." That includes increased revenue to those creators if you are a YouTube premium subscriber.
Getting in the way of monetization here isn't just hitting Google's bottom line, it's hitting those creators using Google's platform as well.
I used ad blockers for YEARS until YouTube added a paid option and once I started using YouTube more (again) I went for that option quickly. I switched my mentally a few years ago to "if it's not worth paying for, it's not worth it" and that cleared a lot up for me in terms of priorities.
An aside but, I'm extremely annoyed with the pro-piracy, sentiment against paid game mods, and general attitude against paying people money for the work they're doing attitude, that I've seen on Lemmy (and in gaming communities) recently. It's like everyone wants to be paid a six figure salary when it comes to their life and then they want to get everything they enjoy on a computer for free.
The hell are you talking about? Premium is $13.99/mo, removed all ads, includes YouTube Music with all it's licensed music, among other things. What exactly does your math represent? The amount of hours you'd need to watch to generate revenue equal to the cost of the service? That's a ridiculous thing to base your calculation on. If you think watching ads is such a better value than Premium then watch the damn ads?
Like, this is basic supply and demand economics. They know that there is less tolerance for ads in terms of exchange of value so the "cost of the service" when payment is in ad viewing time is less than the upfront cost if you get premium. That is really simple economics.
You are describing supply and demand. Not much more to it than that. Demand for ad free services is greater than demand from advertisers. What's your point?
You're free to be indignant about the ad industry and other people's willingness to pay for services at this or that price point but at least call a spade a spade.
I have premium for YouTube Music, and because they have certain music I can't get elsewhere, so I get a better YouTube experience and a music streaming service for about the same price I'd pay for just Spotify. I'm satisfied with my purchase and the value I get from it.
Except American medication prices a) aren't supply and demand; they involve manufactured scarcity among other serious problems and b) are a matter of life and death in many cases; they deal with necessities
There are many things that should not be capitalist: education, healthcare, prisons, to name just a few
The pricing of funny Internet videos et al is not one of those things, and it's frankly inappropriate to make that comparison here. You think the ethics of lifesaving medication and YouTube videos are comparable? Gimme a break
There is a difference between monopolies and anti-trust. It is not, nor should it be, illegal to be the only serious contender in a given category.
If I make widgets for arcade machines so well that I drive all the other arcade machine widget makers out of business, that's normal commerce.
Antitrust is when I gain and maintain that advantage through specific practices detailed in the legal code
Monopolies are only broken up when it is of grave public interest to do so. There are industries I believe have monopoly/duopoly problems and should be broken up. "Hosting videos on the Internet" is not one of them.
Again, trying to say "pharmaceuticals shouldn't be an oligarchy/monopoly, which is proof that nothing should be" is not good logic
You should look into the history and breakup of the Bell telephone company for context on when a monopoly is broken up and why
How are you defining "should be" anyway? Your personal opinion? What profit margins should be considered okay and for which products or services?
You need to pick which things are important enough to forcibly break up, and everything after that is fair game, regardless of what you think is healthy for the market. Otherwise you're just talking about "I don't like the leadership of that company, they're bad people" at which point your problem is about, like, specific people's ethics.
I hate that those people succeed, and there are things I think we can do to mitigate those problems, but "Google bad, don't let them secure their products or help others secure theirs" ain't it homie
I'm not sure I agree yet, but I respect that. I guess my last comment is that you can't squeeze blood from a stone. You can't get businesses to voluntarily police their own greed, nor can you outlaw having best in class service providers. These are the wrong levers to pull when trying to fix the problems of wealth disparity and access to well maintained, valuable, unhindered services for everyone.
It's a fact that YouTube pays out more to creators per view for a subscriber than for an ad user, and in the words of LinusTechTips (despite the current backlash he had literally no reason to lie), it's "a lot more."
It may actually be the case that it's a pool of money that's distributed based on what parts of the YouTube service you use. So if you watch 100% Mr. Beast, 55% of your subscription goes to Mr. Beast... I really don't know how that works, it's not to my knowledge clearly explained.
If you don't believe Mr. Beast deserves 7.7/mo or so, then you're welcome to use ads or see if Mr. Beast will upload his content somewhere else.
The fact of the matter is though, it really isn't a scam for creators where YouTube just milks them for profits in an unfair exchange. They get an entire professionally hosted platform for free the entire time they grow, they get their old videos hosted indefinitely, and they pay nothing for that service. They could quit tomorrow, start losing YouTube money on heaps of 4k video, and be on the hook $0.