Are we pirates?

[HanZie82]

3 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

So, let's say everyone on the internet follows suit and does what you do.

What then? What will you do when most YouTubers decide to shut down their channel due to loss of income?

Where does this money come from? Or do you simply expect all websites to be run at a loss or locked behind a paywall?

 

LTT can probably fund the forum without ads at a loss and pay for it with their YT money - but of course, if they lost ads on both the forum and on YT, both would disappear without the income.

I'm glad that you're up front about it - but I just question what kind of internet would exist in this future.

 

I really see it going into two camps:

1. Your diehard folks who will run a site or YT channel at a loss, funnelling all their money from some day job into keeping it running, making no money.

2. Niche sites with paywalls spring up for those who can afford to pay for content or using a website. The occasional large scale site or service springs up with a paywall that can attract a larger audience.

 

Basically most creators and sites would fail. Maybe that's a good thing in the long run, but good content would disappear because of it. Most "free" stuff on the internet works either because of ads or because of a diehard fanbase that donates.

Lol i've heard these arguments many times.

Ive been doing it for over 30 years, and see what's come of it.

People make money of posting video's online. So yeah im part of a very small group. Im fine with that.

 

I and people like me dont mandate how the internet is run.

Its the ignorant masses that control how things go since thats where the money is.

It matters not what the individual does, it matters what the masses do.

 

 

And i've even ran several websites/forums so i do know both sides of the coin.

(yes i've put adds on a forum where the most read pinned message was on howto install a plugin to not see them anymore. )

[Blademaster91]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

What will you do when most YouTubers decide to shut down their channel due to loss of income?

Youtube would be to blame for this, not ad blocking, Youtube/ Google could easily pay creators a more fair share regardless of people using ad blockers.

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Where does this money come from? Or do you simply expect all websites to be run at a loss or locked behind a paywall?

 

LTT can probably fund the forum without ads at a loss and pay for it with their YT money - but of course, if they lost ads on both the forum and on YT, both would disappear without the income.

Setting up a Patreon, selling merch, or getting sponsorships, any of those are much more reliable income than trying to rely on ad revenue and video monetization.

And LTT already says using ads doesn't pay for the forum, which I doubt as I see ads for Newegg, Amazon, and Walmart.

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

I'm glad that you're up front about it - but I just question what kind of internet would exist in this future.

 

I really see it going into two camps:

1. Your diehard folks who will run a site or YT channel at a loss, funnelling all their money from some day job into keeping it running, making no money.

2. Niche sites with paywalls spring up for those who can afford to pay for content or using a website. The occasional large scale site or service springs up with a paywall that can attract a larger audience.

 

Basically most creators and sites would fail. Maybe that's a good thing in the long run, but good content would disappear because of it. Most "free" stuff on the internet works either because of ads or because of a diehard fanbase that donates

1. Except Youtube used to be a fun hobby, until YT ruined it with ads, and an algorithm that makes you grind making videos every day in order to get views. And again YT is to blame as creators trying to get started on Youtube also have to deal with Youtube's often demonetizing people for no reason, or getting DMCA content ID'ed with no way to contact someone at youtube unless the channel has millions of subscribers. And smaller creators aren't getting paid enough to live off of Youtube from ads alone.  Youtube/Google being a multi trillion dollar business could easily pay creators more, and they still collect all kinds of data on users for just using Youtube but take all the profit for themselves.

 

2. I avoid visiting any site that uses paywalls, once a site puts up a paywall that forces me to turn off an ad blocker I have enabled for security, the site is telling me they hate money and don't even want the clicks or analytics to sell.

I have no problem with ads when those ads aren't intrusive and annoying, this forum is a good example of how sites should use ads, not ridiculous videos which auto play, or ads that take up half a page.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

Youtube would be to blame for this, not ad blocking, Youtube/ Google could easily pay creators a more fair share regardless of people using ad blockers.

YouTube would not be able to pay creators anything if the ad revenue stopped (this is of course putting aside YT Premium, since the biggest sell for Premium is no ads, so Premium likely wouldn't be a viable product if the other option was free with no ads at all).

 

Now - of course, YouTube could give creators a larger chunk of ad revenue (and of Premium revenue too). That's not really what's under discussion here, but I would be 100% in support of that. I believe YT takes 45% and the creator takes 55% (and that's for both add revenue and Premium) - this ignores any cut that a Network would take.

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

Setting up a Patreon, selling merch, or getting sponsorships, any of those are much more reliable income than trying to rely on ad revenue and video monetization.

All of those work - but most creators are already doing all of those things. Getting rid of ads wouldn't magically make those revenue sources increase. The creator would simply have less income now.

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

And LTT already says using ads doesn't pay for the forum, which I doubt as I see ads for Newegg, Amazon, and Walmart.

You'd have to ask him to clarify, but what I think they mean by that is "Ads don't cover all the costs". Ads do run on the forums, clearly - but there's very few of them, so I imagine they don't make much from the ads. The cost of running the forum probably exceeds the cost of the ads, and they're losing money on the site (subsidizing it from the other income, such as YT ads).

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

1. Except Youtube used to be a fun hobby,

Sure - but a lot of the content back then was not comparable to the quality content we have now. YT before monetization was largely memes and cat videos and simple how-to videos, and very little of it had production value. Some did, of course, but that wasn't common.

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

until YT ruined it with ads, and an algorithm that makes you grind making videos every day in order to get views.

Not denying that the algorithm couldn't be improved.

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

And again YT is to blame as creators trying to get started on Youtube also have to deal with Youtube's often demonetizing people for no reason, or getting DMCA content ID'ed with no way to contact someone at youtube unless the channel has millions of subscribers. And smaller creators aren't getting paid enough to live off of Youtube from ads alone.

No denying that at all. Of course, smaller businesses tend to make less money in general, and it's totally normal for a business to not make enough to live off of until it's well established.

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

  Youtube/Google being a multi trillion dollar business could easily pay creators more, and they still collect all kinds of data on users for just using Youtube but take all the profit for themselves.

Google could of course probably afford to pay something to creators for just using the site. But that's a pretty bad business model - that's generally how companies go bankrupt.

 

YouTube itself makes money primarily from ad revenue. If you take that away, it loses a large chunk of revenue, and any money they'd pay out, would likely be at a loss to the company.

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

2. I avoid visiting any site that uses paywalls, once a site puts up a paywall that forces me to turn off an ad blocker I have enabled for security, the site is telling me they hate money and don't even want the clicks or analytics to sell.

I don't really understand this argument. It's essentially the same as someone telling an artist to do something free for them "for the exposure", etc.

 

I do like that you refuse to use the site though - at least you're standing by your convictions. This is good.

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

I have no problem with ads when those ads aren't intrusive and annoying, this forum is a good example of how sites should use ads, not ridiculous videos which auto play, or ads that take up half a page.

This forum does a good job with ads. If only those ads paid more.

[Legitsu]

Does anybody know the address of LMG

I want to ship them a backhoe

 

because we know Linus is going to keep on digging he might as well get the biggest hole he can consider it my donation for blocking ads 

[Jcpower]

It's piracy yes, if you want to get rid of Ads in youtube, get a Youtube premium account and that's it. If you think about morality is for another discussion.  

[MultiGamerClub]

piracy? haha pfffffffft

I'll gladly order another t-shirt some time tho or a water bottle.

[atxcyclist]

I used to run an ad-blocker years ago, but I then became acquainted with a few people that were YouTube creators and learned about ad revenue. If I do run an ad-blocker (and I don't anymore), I always carve-out YouTube as an exception.

[Natani]

I use Pi-hole, Ad-blocker and Ad blocker for youtube because I am tired of the BS 90 second ads and other crap. So I guess I am a pirate.

 

[Frenky]

I use an adblocker browser extension and a pihole, and i force all devices in my network to use it by rerouting packets. I do not care about anyone losing any money. I decide what data enters or leaves my network and which connections are being made or blocked. I can't stand ads, it's one of the main reasons I haven't watched TV in like forever. 

 

If you have to make money by annoying people with ads you should think of a better revenue stream and stop ruining the internet.

[thehardwarehacker]

On 2/16/2022 at 4:31 PM, Blademaster91 said:

Yeah I admit i've had to pirate things, I know it hurts the publisher and creators, though I either couldn't afford the software, or with shows or movies, especially anime, the content just isn't available, or it's paywalled behind a bunch of different streaming services.  I wish Crunchyroll just had everything, now that Sony owns them, but no I'd still have to subscribe to Funimation, which also puts some anime behind their paid service to watch with Japanese audio with subtitles.

friends through shared pain.

[Bramimond]

On 2/16/2022 at 5:13 PM, Moonzy said:

As long as you still get food A in the end, and food B is extra candy, then I don't really mind that much, honestly

Everyone can decide for themselves.

If ads had been playing nice and been the equivalent of extra candy, nobody would have set out to block them in the first place.

 

The problem is that ads do not play nice. They terrorize us and there is no negotiating with terrorists.

 

If ads had just been unobtrusive like they were in magazines, no one would have been motivated to install adblocking software. But they weren't. The ad that got me to install an adblocker was a diaper ad that included the voice of a crying baby. On a website mainly used by nerds in their early teens.

 

Nevermind how hilariously bad ads are at targeting, but this ad played sound. That's the opposite of unobtrusive.

 

 

If Internet ads were forbidden to play sound, forbidden to have any type of animation and had to be relevant to the demographic of the websites users, I wouldn't mind them, really. But that's the antithesis of ads.

 

I welcome paywalls. I really do, since it makes it easy to know which websites to ignore.

 

 

Also, anyone still remembering pop-ups? You know, when you went to a website and instead of the website, you'd get a pop-up. With and ad, of course. And closing the pop-up would open two new pop-ups. Was it around 2003? Or even earlier? Anyway, Firefox one day shipped with an integrated pop-up blocker and since Firefox was a browser that mattered in those days, pop-ups kind died off. We can only dream of a world in which Firefox decided to ship with an adblocker, too. But it was soon after that Firefox got most of their funds by Google and we know how Google makes money. A tragedy, really.

 

So my stance is ads are bad and whoever gets free money from ads, good for you, but be aware of the negative impact this has on our society. Also, everyone should feel morally obliged to block ads.

 

But of course....

 

[IPD]

pop-up spam was limited to 2003?  Ya'll don't what to go where I've been creepin.

[Rex Hite]

So YouTube Premium is kind of... "Nice internet you got here...be a shame if it got all ruined. How about you make regular payments and then maybe things will be ok, you know what I mean?"

 

Basically acknowledging that ads aren't just an alternative funding method but a deliberate nuisance and not a benign experience. Their own business model requires that ads be so annoying that people will pay to get rid of them.  It's hardly just YouTube that operates this way.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Rex Hite said:

So YouTube Premium is kind of... "Nice internet you got here...be a shame if it got all ruined. How about you make regular payments and then maybe things will be ok, you know what I mean?"

This is definitely an exaggeration.

 

YT came out with Premium because people don't like ads - that's not some revelation. People didn't like ads on TV before YT either. And let's be perfectly honest, YT ads are far less annoying than TV ads, where there were literally 2-5 minutes of unskippable ads every 10-15 minutes.

 

The only kind of ads I especially don't like on YT are ones that interrupt the video part-way through. Pre and post-roll ads are really not that bad.

1 hour ago, Rex Hite said:

Basically acknowledging that ads aren't just an alternative funding method but a deliberate nuisance and not a benign experience. Their own business model requires that ads be so annoying that people will pay to get rid of them.  It's hardly just YouTube that operates this way.

YT's ads are among the least intrusive compared to the web as a whole - many other sites have pages filled with ads that are hard to distinguish from the actual website elements (download sites are the worst - there are 5 download buttons, and 4 of them are ads, etc). Other pages have sites that "break" after a few minutes of scrolling, or refresh on their own after a while, to reload the ads.

 

And that's not even talking about that period of time where it was really common to have ads that auto-play sound, or will make a sound if you mouse over the ad, etc. Those kinds ads still exist of course but they're less common on mainstream sites.

 

Premium is basically "Look, some of you have told us you don't like ads - here's an alternative with no ads". Premium is decent value if you can't stand 30 seconds of ads on a video.

[Rex Hite]

I just think it's funny that ads are so annoying people will pay to not see them; that they have so much negative value. Makes them a tough sell.

[MageTank]

3 minutes ago, Rex Hite said:

I just think it's funny that ads are so annoying people will pay to not see them; that they have so much negative value. Makes them a tough sell.

This is an oversimplification of why people buy premium. I buy it because it allows me to play videos on my phone with my screen turned off. Also gives me access to their music catalog which includes artists I normally follow on Youtube as well. The ad-free portion is but a small piece of what premium offers. Think of it as Spotify with ad-free Youtube tacked on as a bonus.

 

You can also download videos/podcasts offline and listen to them (Great for if you travel to rural areas that have no cellular reception). They also offer "Youtube Originals", but frankly I don't consume that content so I could care less if it were offered or not. If they'd cut $1-$2 a month off to not have that feature, I'd take the lower tier service. 

[IPD]

3 hours ago, Rex Hite said:

I just think it's funny that ads are so annoying people will pay to not see them; that they have so much negative value. Makes them a tough sell.

That seems like extortion to me....

[dalekphalm]

3 hours ago, MageTank said:

This is an oversimplification of why people buy premium. I buy it because it allows me to play videos on my phone with my screen turned off. Also gives me access to their music catalog which includes artists I normally follow on Youtube as well. The ad-free portion is but a small piece of what premium offers. Think of it as Spotify with ad-free Youtube tacked on as a bonus.

 

You can also download videos/podcasts offline and listen to them (Great for if you travel to rural areas that have no cellular reception). They also offer "Youtube Originals", but frankly I don't consume that content so I could care less if it were offered or not. If they'd cut $1-$2 a month off to not have that feature, I'd take the lower tier service. 

I'd be very please if they introduced a Premium-Light tier that was a couple of dollars cheaper (maybe like $7.99 or $8.99/mo - less would be even better, but I understand the need to make the full premium package seem "worth it"), and only removed the ads.

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, IPD said:

That seems like extortion to me....

It kinda is. I pay for the ad free Paramount Plus currently. Id also pay for ad free HBO as well. I hate ads with a passion. At least with YouTube I dont have to pay shit and I can still block the ads. 

[irishbeast]

Has an option never been explored where user can pay to not have ads, like youtube premium. Then the proceeds of that go towards the video creators?

 

I pay £12.99 a month for YTP and I couldn't be without it. Would I pay a few quid extra to get rid of popup ads, certainly would. Within reason of course. 

 

Popups dont annoy my that much but the amount of ads in youtube videos drives me insane which is why I pay the premium price. I watch more youtube than normal telly so its money well spent for me. 

[HanZie82]

23 hours ago, irishbeast said:

Has an option never been explored where user can pay to not have ads, like youtube premium. Then the proceeds of that go towards the video creators?

 

I pay £12.99 a month for YTP and I couldn't be without it. Would I pay a few quid extra to get rid of popup ads, certainly would. Within reason of course. 

 

Popups dont annoy my that much but the amount of ads in youtube videos drives me insane which is why I pay the premium price. I watch more youtube than normal telly so its money well spent for me. 

You mean like Floatplane?

[Rex Hite]

Is disabling Windows' telemetry piracy? I

Presumably doing so hinders advertisements and other things that contribute to MS revenue. Unlike many instances of adblocking I imagine some terms in the EULA are being violated.

Is this shameworthy or is it good practice?

Who owns what, and who owes what...?

 

[thrasher_565]

can a ut post a video on ut and ytp ? or is it one or the other? im guessing i cant see utp content on yt?

 

seems like i see lots of uters wither double channels too to increasing the odds of making it big?

 

i mean its up to the utber on what ads the put in and some are like 4 mints long... witch will make others stop watching...

[rrats]

On 2/23/2022 at 2:58 PM, irishbeast said:

I pay £12.99 a month for YTP

Arenr YTPs free

[irishbeast]

1 hour ago, rrats said:

Arenr YTPs free

I'm guessing this is a joke thats gone over my head?

 

Youtube Premium certainly not free in the UK!