• @neatchee@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • @AeroLemming@lemm.ee
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      011 months ago

      I’m saying that they charge you way more money to avoid ads than they get from the ads because consumers have learned to expect such prices from professional streaming services, while the price has no actual justification other than that people are ignorant enough to pay it.

      • @neatchee@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        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.

        • @AeroLemming@lemm.ee
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          011 months ago

          Why are you assuming that supply and demand is automatically an ethical system for pricing? Just look at American medication prices.

          • @neatchee@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            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

            • @AeroLemming@lemm.ee
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              111 months ago

              And charging an exorbitant amount of money for ad-free videos because you have a monopoly isn’t how, exactly?

              In both cases, they charge what will maximize profits because it’s what consumers are willing to pay, not the actual value of the product. YouTube Premium doesn’t cost $500/mo because it’s not life-saving, but it’s still way more expensive than it should be because like patented medication, they have no real competitors.

              • @neatchee@lemmy.world
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                111 months ago

                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

                  • @neatchee@lemmy.world
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                    111 months ago

                    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.