I mean, I dont actually mind ads… within reason. But over the past few years I have watched less and less youtube content due to the ratio of ads to the actual bloody content I wanted to view.
One recent video about a bloke's guitar amp was great. The ads not so much. I had to view two lots of 30 second unskippable ads before the 9 minute video would start. The guy starts this amazing guitar solo half way through, only to be cut off by TWO MORE bleeding adverts. The solo continues, the guy shreds it out then the video ends… two more adverts, 30 seconds each no skips (I reloaded the browser in the end which seemed to trigger a 2 minute ad at the start of another video).
Use Piped I hear you cry. Great idea. But how long is that going to last? I am certain that youtube and their parent company are feverishly pushing their engineers to find ways through, around, over and under any tool that stops them making money. The real solution is to tell everyone we know to use other platforms as much as possible and avoid Youtube. Tell every creator we love and respect to diversify where their content goes.
I know people here dont like the politics and trolling that happen on other platforms but thats because they're insulated. With more exposure those platforms will tackle it. Or quarantine it. The other danger is if we dont diversify our viewing and creator hosting then Alphabet will just hold a monopoly and strangle any other real chance.
I've have premium because of YT music (formerly Google Play Music) which imo is the best music streaming service. I have the family plan that is me my wife, and three friends, the friend paying their portion of plan.
I like giving money to Google less and less by the day, but I don't mind paying for an ad free service that I use extensively. If they start putting ads in the paid service, I will be dropping immediately.
I've been subscribed to the same family plan, since about 2014ish. I like it, but really don't appreciate that they raised the price for basically fuck all. Only reason I haven't canceled it is that creators I watch on YouTube get far more from me as a Premium user than ad-based viewership
Yea, the annual/semi annual price increases are getting old, especially with no new features.
Patreon?
Netflix and Disney are threatening ads in their paid services, with maybe a higher priced tier to then avoid them. I think this is the model streaming is going for now.
I do my best to not give money to Disney. They're like Nestle in that they have their dirty hands in everything, so it's hard to completely avoid, but I do try.
deleted by creator
Yup, same for me. I had Ublock for youtube on my computer, but couldn't figure out how to block ads on the tv. Since I was already paying for another music service, it made sense to just drop that and pay essentially the same price for ad free youtube and a good music streaming service.