I get that it started for free with less intrusive ads, but YouTube has had a huge impact on the way we all share and consume information. Understanding how much money it takes to run a service with the technology needed to provide high definition videos on a site that is up 99.9999999% of the time, I have no issue paying for a service that has changed my life in many positive ways. Now I do hate price gouging like everyone else, but it’s inescapable from gas & groceries to all streaming platforms.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgMEnglish
    622·
    2 months ago

    Upvoted for a truly unpopular (and valid) opinion.

    In a vacuum, I agree with you. Had it started off as a paid service, or if the paid version was substantially better on its own merits, I’d consider it. But in order for them to incentivize people to pay for Premium, they intentionally made the “standard” experience worse. I just cannot bring myself to reward that behavior/business practice.

    • osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org
      184·
      2 months ago

      I’ve been a youtube premium subscriber since like 2017, long before the enshitification went terminal. I have a family plan so my kids can watch videos on the TV or on the tablet for the older kid without being bombarded by ads. I get not wanting to encourage youtube’s shitty behavior these days, but I’ve always gotten plenty of value out of my youtube subscription, more than I ever did out of hulu or even netflix or paramount most months.

    • lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      41·
      2 months ago

      I got grandfathered in when they shutdown Google Play Music and it made Youtube so much more enjoyable of an experience. If I were to sign up today, I wouldn’t pay for Youtube Premium, but I’ve been spoiled and don’t want to go back to how shitty Youtube has become.

    • Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Hard agree. I’d love to have decided to most due to the convenience and quality of the service but I decided to pay because the frequency and number of ads wa ramping up. These fuckers know exactly the point that which I broke and they’re going to use that information to break others.

    • Eww@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1917·
      2 months ago

      I’m not rewarding them for bad behavior, I am paying them for running a sophisticated system that delivers any and all information in a digestible format to my fingertips. I do agree their free service has gone to shit, but it should have been a paid service from the start. I’ve built my own personal cloud and it is prohibitively expensive for me to have it stream HD video. Definitely more than a YT Premium subscription.

      • Mushroomm@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        88·
        2 months ago

        Don’t conflate services with goods. If your grocery bag boy showed up at your door when you were 3/4 through your loaf of bread and said you owed an extra dollar before you ate the rest you’d tell em to get the fuck off your property before you called the police.

        If you want to compare them as the same, you’ve got to use every example.

        • GhostCowboy76@lemmy.worldEnglish
          22·
          2 months ago

          No I would ask my partner if they did a doordash order and ask how did they do it for so cheap…