> because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay
People don't want to pay for half-baked products:
- Workspace accounts don't work
- Even with standard accounts, it won't work on many devices (eg. TV apps), so you still get ads even as you paid
- As Google regularly kills people's account, it also means most of us have multiple Youtube accounts that we check in different contexts, and paying for premium on all of them is way more of a commitment that you make it sound like.
>Even with standard accounts, it won't work on many devices (eg. TV apps), so you still get ads even as you paid
I really don't think this is true. I can't think of any official YouTube app where this won't work - across mobile devices, smart TVs, streaming boxes/sticks, games consoles.
I assume it got better with time, the main issue being that it needs to be dealt with client by client.
I tried a year ago and it was a miserable experience outside of the phone/computer browser landscape. I actually hope what you're saying is true, while also fearing that the next platform adding a youtube client will hit the same issues for the first X months until someone does something about it.
> People don't want to pay for half-baked products:
This is disingenuous, to be blunt. People do not block youtube ads because workspace accounts don't work or because Google kills off niche products or that people lose youtube accounts when switching devices. Switching profiles is already considered an inconvenience, due to the way the algorithms tailor so well, regardless of how often you may engage in it.
People on HN seem to have very different experiences on Youtube than I do. Do people here actually like Youtube's video recommendations? Youtube is my go-to example I give when I need to explain to people why algorithmic recommendations generally don't work well.
> People do not block youtube ads because [...]
I'll take a hardline position on this -- if Youtube Premium was free, it would not be worth using it to watch Youtube videos. The cost is not actually the main issue. The product itself is inferior to using 3rd-party tools.
I spent a decently long time paying for Youtube Premium because I wanted to pay for content, and deliberately not using it anyway because I also wanted to have a decent viewing experience. I can't speak for other people, but for me at least when I talk about the quality of the service, it's not an excuse. I deliberately paid for a product and I still didn't use it; that's how much I disliked it.
>People do not block youtube ads because workspace accounts don't work
Ohh me! Me! I do!
I was one of those people stupid enough to go along with Google Plus when it was still a thing. I had no problem with my account for that but didn't want my real name associated with my YouTube browsing habits. So I used the option that allowed me to keep my username in YouTube. Fast forward a few years and Google Plus goes away and somehow my YouTube account is some kind of brand account and Google needs me to verify that I am of age somehow. (As if they don't have this information already) But no matter what I do now somehow I need my administrator's account to approve my ability to watch YouTube uncensored.
So to make a long story short, after trying things constantly and getting no where I created an account for just YouTube videos and spam emails. I have absolutely no interest in giving Google any more than I absolutely have to in order to keep watching and will never give them money for YouTube. The whole thing is broken with no way to loop in an actual human being. Hell I even had people blaming me saying it was my own fault for using G+ (as if it was truly optional at the point this happened.)
The ad blocker problem is less people explicitely blocking ads on Youtube, than people blanket blocking ads everywhere. They'd need to white list Youtube to disable it for that specific case.
So the question is whether they really _want_ to pay for Premium or not, the ad-blocker will probably stay on either way.
> Switching profiles is already considered an inconvenience
I'm not following. For instance I have a work profile, my main profile on my phone (mostly due to paying for Google One + apps + a bunch of services on that specific account), and other profiles on my other devices (home laptop + ipad)
I absolutely do not want my work account to share my personal algorithmic recommendations, or my main account getting killed because of anything happening on other devices, including facturation issues.
Funnily enough, even as those accounts are separate, there's still cross-contamination of the algorithmic recomendations, probably because they share the same IP or geoloc.
> Switching profiles is already considered an inconvenience, due to the way the algorithms tailor so well, regardless of how often you may engage in it.
The dealbreaker for me with YouTube Premium is that I'd have to sign into YouTube. And I'd need uBlock Origin anyway to block all the suggested video divs...
What? YT Premium doesn’t block ads on the TV apps? Really? If that’s true, they will never see a cent from me. I was on the fence, mainly since my usage varies a lot month to month in rather unpredictable ways. If YT Premium means I still see ads on the 65” screen, then no way no how.
nonsense. these are not anywhere in the top hundred issues with the service.
workspace accounts are irrelevant to 99.99% of normal users. google hasn't encouraged using workspace accounts for consumer use for like ten years. the only place people care is on hacker news.
People don't want to pay for half-baked products:
- Workspace accounts don't work
- Even with standard accounts, it won't work on many devices (eg. TV apps), so you still get ads even as you paid
- As Google regularly kills people's account, it also means most of us have multiple Youtube accounts that we check in different contexts, and paying for premium on all of them is way more of a commitment that you make it sound like.