Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."
Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."
While I think Google is a monster that needs to be destroyed, it's silly to me that your two options are either block ads or leave. The third option would be pay for the service. If your only problem is the ads and not the tracking (which probably isn't true, but it's the only complaint you made in the comment), then paying for it is a valid solution. It shouldn't be controversial to say video hosting costs money to run, which obviously includes YouTube. So giving it out for free is simply not a realistic option. You're free to leave, but you won't have anywhere else to go that meets the "free and no ads" requirement. If you realistically don't want ads, you will have to pay. And if you're fine with paying, YouTube is currently the platform with the most content to offer.
Honestly, I'm thankful paying is an option. I wish Google would offer a paid package overall to stop the tracking/data collection. I would literally just give them my money for actual privacy with their services.
The problem is that the paid option eventually gets ads anyway.
The problem is that YouTube hasn't done something, but you think they will? Cable television has basically always had commercials. When it started, it was mostly just government broadcasts, but when it got popularly commercialized, adverts were introduced. Netflix has a paid option with ads, but they also still have an ad-free option, so that still doesn't really substantiate your argument either.
There is no real evidence to think they will add ads to their paid service. Of course it's possible, but we don't need to make up things Google might do in the future to call them evil. There's plenty of things they're currently doing.
YouTube will make more profit by having ad contained paid tiers
The fist point is a fact of life.
The second one is simply not fact. It could be profitably, but it is far from guaranteed. They could just as easily make far more money by keeping the paid tier ad-free to avoid the loss of subscribers.
I value YouTube, at most, at about $5 a month. I can easily do without it.
There you have it. If the cost of the service is not worth it, then users won't buy it. Either enough users will pay for it that the service will stay as it is for the price it is, they will decrease the cost of the service, or improve the service they are offering. Or, given Google's track record, just kill of the service entirely.
I will also point out that many users pay for Spotify for $11 USD a month. YouTube premium includes YT Music, which is a direct competitor to Spotify. So for users who pay for Spotify, it would be virtually $3 for ad-free YouTube. Of course this doesn't work if you don't pay for a music streaming service, but as far as services go it certainly isn't unreasonably priced. Sure, it may be unfair that they don't offer just a YT ad-free package, perhaps with all this backlash they will. Or perhaps not. It's Google, they'll do whatever they fuck they want.
You CANNOT opt out of data collection from youtube
Right, and that's exactly what I said. Though Google specifically doesn't really need to sell your data. They just use it themselves to advertise to you.