• confusedwiseman@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    It seems like we’ve all lost the plot. We’d probably be willing to view ads if the experience wasn’t literally jarring. Try browsing for a day on a plain-no-extension browser. If you use other web enhancement tools kill those too. Straight-up internet is cancer, especially on mobile.

    It’s impossible to read a 250-word article without being interrupted 5-7 times. Two of those interruptions are likely a full page overlay with give me your email, and are you sure you don’t want to subscribe, just give me your credit card number.

    Then there are auto-play videos on the side, some with audio on by default. I mean I came here to read something, so of course we have things flashing and moving and making noise, it’s the most conducive environment for thought, right?

    Ad blockers and script blocking are essentially a hazmat suit that allows us to withstand a hostile environment. Remember when we said myspace pages with audio and [marching-ants] borders was a bad UX? At least we didn’t have overlays back then.

    Go back to basics and consider what makes a good vs bad internet experience. The reality sounds like someone with a minor case of severe brain damage. I think we’ve just become unashamed of greed as a society. It’s clearly all just about money.

    Those annoying customers/users generate content and we have to put up with them so we can monetize it. *Sadly, It’s unclear if I’m talking about youtube, reddit, or nearly any other site.

    Le sigh.

    • StrayCatFrump@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      We’d probably be willing to view ads if the experience wasn’t literally jarring.

      Not me, sorry. Fuck ads. I’ve been ad-free for like a decade, and I’m not interested in regressing.

      • confusedwiseman@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Even if there was a balance and the ads were non-intrusive? I mean, servers and bandwidth cost money. I’m in the same boat as you where I have run ad blockers, adblocker blockers, no script, privacy enhancers, and anti-fingerprinting since forever ago.

        I’d rather view a few reasonable ads than have a site try to mine and sell my data. If there was a balance, this is where I’d say it was reasonable. Since not reality, I’m with you, nuke them all, and just take the content.

        • longshaden@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          The definition of “reasonable ads” and “just a few ads” keeps sliding. I’m old enough to remember the early internet, and that this lie has been told many times.

          Just a few acceptable ads always becomes many unacceptable ads, because money.

        • StrayCatFrump@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Even if there was a balance and the ads were non-intrusive?

          I don’t need propaganda telling me to want to buy shit that I otherwise wouldn’t want to buy, no. I’ll go to other consumers (and, more specifically, people I trust) to determine what things are worth, not entities with a conflict of interest in the matter.

          The whole marketing/advertising industry is illegitimate and harmful, and I’m “boycotting” the whole thing until we finish the job of destroying capitalism and it’s no longer needed anyway.

          I’d rather view a few reasonable ads than have a site try to mine and sell my data.

          The corporations are going to try to mine and sell your data anyway. Why wouldn’t they? You think just because they have a revenue stream through ads that they’ll give up another revenue stream from fucking over your privacy? Then I’ve got this nice bridge to sell you, too…

          • confusedwiseman@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            I think you’re right, I feel like I’m looking for a little good-will among our kind (bleak and probably misguided at best). Sellers and consumers need to coexist in some manner, but what that relationship should be is yet to be defined. For now, we’re in a place that needs change for sure.

    • Mavapu@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      I fully agree. Online ads used to be some banners next to the content you came to the site for. I was fine with that. As soon as they put it in front/in between/… the content, I very quickly got fed up with it.

    • sexy_peach@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      We’d probably be willing to view ads if the experience wasn’t literally jarring.

      Not really I don’t want to view propaganda about how the new 6 wheels family killer wagon is still chill even if you’re going through the desert.

      I just don’t like ads and unnecessary consumerism.

      • Gray@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        God, this is tangential to your point, but car and housing aesthetics have gotten terrible. Everything is BIGGER BIGGER BIGGER. People need to buy huge fucking hulked out monster trucks now for their suburban ass lives so they can make sure to fit their entire home when they commute an hour to work in soul crushing traffic. And they absolutely NEED their giant ass monstrous mcmansions. How can they survive without the extra dozen rooms that they can fill with more cheap bullshit? And don’t get me started on color. Houses are all beige, grey, monotone terrible. Cars are silver, white, grey, black. There’s no color anymore. It just feels like what’s the point? Why bother trying when this is what success looks like. We have this beautiful planet and this is the shit we fill it with. I’m sorry. /endrant

  • Grizzzlay@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I imagine folks wouldn’t have a problem with this if the ads weren’t already so aggressive. Numerous ads before and during the content break it up too much. And if the content is extremely short form, it completely ruins the experience.

    The number of ads and their length should be proportional to the length of the video. And any creator doing built-in ads should also not be able to inject a bunch of other ads. Burying content is an easy way to get avoided.

    Print media had limits for advertisements, heck, in magazines they were premium real estate for the finest graphic designers to put together incredible imagery to get your attention. This level of care (not necessarily images or what have you) has yet to translate to the web.

  • jamesravey@lemmy.nopro.be
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    1 year ago

    Wow the enshittification is at full throttle across silicon valley! Guess those investors gotta get those returns now that interest rates are spiking!

  • Square Singer@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    If they really block adblockers, I will subscribe. To Nebula. It’s got everything I want, adfree (including sponsored segments), extra content and is cheaper. And the content creators get a bigger share of the money.

    • nodiet@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      There is nothing stopping you from subscribing to nebula right now. Since I haven’t gotten any ads on YouTube in many years and even use sponsorblock to skip those annoying video segments I started thinking about how I am basically leeching off of most content creators. Subscribing to nebula was a no-brainer. It’s about $4.16 per month on the yearly plan and lets me support all content creators I watch on there at once rather than subscribing to each and every one of them on patreon and I still don’t see any ads

    • Slashzero@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      While YouTube, or any service, has bad users/channels, there are also many great users/channels for people with varying interests to enjoy. You can ignore the channels you don’t like, and get to watch some of the best content from regular people you’ve never heard of, who aren’t major television studios or corporations with an agenda. All they want to do is make videos of things they are passionate about.

    • blackbelt352@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      That entirely depends on who your subscribed to. Personally all my stuff channels like Numberphile/computerphile, or SmarterEveryDay, and plenty of Blender3d tutorial channels, animators, and a whole bunch of other informative channels.

    • janeshep@feddit.it
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      1 year ago

      to be honest YouTube has great content because of the video length allowed. You can find all sorts of tutorials on pretty much anything. Instagram and TikTok, on the other hand, fit your description much better.

  • Sam@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I’d be happy to pay for video content/video hosting, but I’m not happy with any of my money going to youtube or google. Peertube is the future. 😎

  • Plume@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I pay for Prenium. But that’s only because I also use YouTube Music. Otherwise, I wouldn’t pay for it and I would do everything that I can to get rid of the ads. YouTube with ads is just hell now. There are so many of them now, it’s ridiculous.

    Don’t get me wrong, I recognise the value that YouTube provides. Most things I watch and listen to are on YouTube. It’s the website I use the most and I’ll be glad to pay for it. I understand that it costs money to run and I want to support the creators that I watch.

    HOWEVER.

    I refuse to be strong armed into paying for it. Music brings me the value that I want and comparing with other prices, such as Spotify and so on, the actual “YouTube” part of the package just cost me 1€ per month which is one hell of a deal if you ask me.

    But if you don’t care for YouTube Music, 11€ a month (worst in the US apparently), just to get rid of ads is… ridiculous. I’d happily pay 5€ a month. It’s not much and for the thing that I use the most? Yeah, I’m willing to! And I know that there is YouTube Prenium Lite. However, it’s not available everywhere and it comes with a giant “fuck you” to the costumer.

    You see, YouTube Prenium Lite is YouTube without ads. And that’s it. So, no Background Play (which I use ALL THE TIME), no downloading of videos, none of that. You want that, well, you have to pay full price. Even though these are basic features.

    Paying for getting rid of ads is one thing, and maybe accessing special features is one thing. But paying for artificial limitations that are put into place? Absolutely not. And I know the line between what’s a prenium feature and what’s an artifical limit is blurry. But for me it’s basically this: If I can do something for free on desktop, but can’t on mobile without paying. Such as background play.

    I am convinced YouTube Prenium would be way more appealing if YouTube weren’t being such dicks about it.

    It’s simple:

    • Get your prices back to normal (I hear that in the US, prices have been going up for… no reason).
    • Roll out YouTube Prenium Lite to everyone and rename it YouTube Prenium. So it has all the features of current Prenium except YouTube Music (put ads and disable background play only on music videos?).
    • Make it at like 5 bucks a month.
    • Make a variety of plans based around that. So a Prenium Family and also, a Prenium Duo, just like Spotify, for just two people. Reasonably priced.
    • And you make a YouTube Prenium Music plan, which includes YouTube Music as well. So on top of all of that, for 11 bucks a month, you now have a really compelling offer because you can go, Hey, for just 5 more bucks a month, you get all of the features of YouTube Prenium AND you get a complete music streaming services.
    • Oh and also: STOP DOING THIS SHIT.

    Bam. All of the sudden you have compelling options. Some people will say: “Uuuh, jUsT uSe an AdbLocKeR!” and whatever. Those people are not the majority, so many people watch YouTube from their phones and their TVs now, they will be much more inclined to buy it…

    …I think.

    That last part is important. I recognise I’m just playing armchair business developper here and that I don’t know shit, but still. I’m convinced this could work. The real issue comes down to YouTube being a monopoly and thinking that they can do whatever the hell they want, which… they likely can, due to the position they’re in. It’s an issue but this comment is already long enough and that is another discussion entirely, but basically: Monopolies sucks.

    • naeap@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      I’m using NewPipe, which gives me music in background and no Ads
      that’s enough for me

      out of interest, what other advantages does a premium account have?

  • dog@yiffit.net
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    1 year ago

    oh look, another web service who wants to strangle its users for money and ad views :D when’s a peertube instance going to get some big creators on it supported by viewers? that’ll do it, i bet

    • wade@fedia.io
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      1 year ago

      I’m confused about this take. YouTube clearly has hosting costs and also pays creators. That money has to come from somewhere. They offer two options, ads or subscription. You could argue that the number of ads is too many or the cost of the subscription is too high, but demanding a service be free just because it’s technologically possible to block ads seems weird.

    • poop@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      Seems unlikely that a creator would jump ship from a platform that pays them to a platform that doesn’t. That being said, lots of creators also constantly complain about demonetization, so maybe they’ll start to get fed up and move to purely in-video sponsorship things. Seems most likely from a creator that’s already on a platform like nebula

      • dog@yiffit.net
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        1 year ago

        you’re definitely right on most points. but, to your point, if a creator was on a federated instance of peertube then they don’t have to worry about the wishy-washy, everchanging rules of youtube :3