You will be surprised to see how much money you need to pay in order to match the ads numbers. And running a global video platform needs very high CapEx/OpEx numbers compared to other web businesses. YT premium is very likely a much less profitable business, mostly meant for mitigating user complaints against ads + revenue diversification.
> You will be surprised to see how much money you need to pay in order to match the ads numbers.
I'm well aware of that. Advertising is clearly the most profitable online business model. It has a low barrier of entry for users, it scales with the amount of users, and is simple to implement. Companies can collect user data and use it in perpetuity to monetize it in infinite ways beyond just ad impressions. Data is gold.
My point is that it's all corrupt to the core. It's driven by generating wealth for companies over anything else, least of all the well-being of people. It actually relies on manipulating the human psyche, pioneered by the machiavellian mind of Edward Bernays nearly a century ago. It inserts itself as a leech between the goods producer and people, to not only connect producers with interested consumers as its proponents would like us to believe, but to create consumers out of people who wouldn't otherwise be interested. And then the internet came along, and made it more profitable than it's ever been. Oh, and it's also being exploited to spread propaganda, influence elections and topple democracies, but no matter, the charts must go up and to the right.
So, yeah, sorry for the rant, but my point is that there are plenty of ways that companies can monetize their business that doesn't involve advertising. It might not be as easy or profitable, but I have this silly opinion that the well-being of society should be higher priority than generating wealth for shareholders.
Explain what role advertising plays in you not paying a subscription to have access to ad-free videos.
You are using a lot of words to justify the fact that you would prefer to steal from the same creators that you rely on for information and entertainment. You do not care about their well being but you’re standing on that soapbox nonetheless.
And please, don’t tell me that you support them in other ways because I don’t believe you. People that are too cheap to pay for a service that all parties have agreed to the terms of are too cheap to support in other ways too. No to mention there’s no practical way to compensate every creator whose videos you may have watched.
> Explain what role advertising plays in you not paying a subscription to have access to ad-free videos.
Paying YouTube to not show me ads simply removes the inconvenience of not interrupting my watching experience. It doesn't get rid of any of the other issues I mentioned inherent to advertising as a business, which Google still is, whether I pay them or not. My data will still be used to show me ads on other Google sites, I'm still training their algorithms on how to keep me on their site for longer and how to better show me ads in the future, etc. And I'm supporting their empire, which I'd rather not do.
> And please, don’t tell me that you support them in other ways because I don’t believe you.
I don't care whether you believe me or not. The creators certainly don't get compensated nearly enough by alternative means, and I don't do regular donations or have any system to keep track of how much I've spent. It's surely a minuscule amount compared to what they earn from advertising. But it's not my problem they chose to rely on a business model I refuse to be a part of. If this bothers them, they're free to put up their content on other platforms, or behind a paywall. If, however, they upload their content on a public site, I have no qualms with accessing a public resource on my own terms. The fact you equate this to stealing is laughable.
