Google really is the king of “you don’t REALLY mean ‘no’. Try again.”
Reasons not to buy premium:
- Google having a history of all the videos you watch via your account.
- Even if Google provided an option to opt out of tracking there would be no reason to trust then since they have lied about not tracking people in the past.
- YouTube seems to redirect any Premium profits intended to creators to the entity which made a copyright claim on a video. This would be sensible if YouTube’s copyright claim system wasn’t so vulnerable to abuse. Normal (yellow) demonetisation will pay out from Premium though. https://youtu.be/PRQVzPEyldc?si=5-wFn2SqPZLdOlqa
- Features are removed from YouTube to incentivise Premium such as playing videos while your phone screen is locked.
- Similar to above, Google have been increasing the amount of ads particularly on phones where ad blockers are harder to use. I.E. pushing users to Premium not by making the service better, but by making non-Premium worse.
Your utub link seems to contain a tracking Id.
Not particularly surprising. It was copied from the YouTube iOS app…
Google having a history of all the videos you watch via your account.
They already do this anyway. They also do it whether you have an account or not.
Point one: I’m pretty certain they already track that. With or without account. And you’re on the internet, without a VPN there is no privacy. You are also able to remove that history any moment you want. Is it Ideal? No. But you should’ve acted 10-15 years prior if you wanted to stop this. It’s still not ideal though.
Point two: I agree. There does need to be space for them to repent, but they aren’t actively trying to, so don’t trust them (see the next point as an example of that).
Point three That’s a shame. They really need to fix that, though with how corpos do things nowadays, not sure that’ll happen.
Point four: That’s normal, expected and a reasonable business decision. Most of these features they likely added after premium, and they’re meant as incentives. Why else would you want to but their premium, if not for the added features?
Point five: This is shitty and mostly inexcusable behaviour. It’s god awful, and they really shouldn’t do it. I do have to play devil’s advocate a little. They are fully, 100% in their right to do this. If you don’t like it, vote with your wallet (and time). If we stop using their services, they’ll stop making it worse. They are still A-holes for doing it though.
I would be very interested to know how good they are at tracking a user across brand new browser sessions. I have mine set to delete cookies, cache and history (minus a few trusted domains) on close but I’d imagine it would be easy to differentiate between me and others in my household by browser fingerprints alone. The only question then is whether those guesses are reliable enough for Google to essentially treat those sessions as 1 person, or throw it away since there are bound to be quite a lot of cases where 10s or 100s of people on the same IP have very similar browsing habits and configurations and trying to figure out who is who would be incredibly difficult (think offices where everybody could have exactly the same laptop and share similar browsing habits due to working for the same company). That’s my cope anyway. The alternative is Youtube over Tor for which would be painful.
Points 4 and 5 on my end are essentially two sides to of the same coin. I should clarify, I don’t have a problem with YouTube introducing a new feature and making that Premium-only.
I would be very interested to know how good they are at tracking a user across brand new browser sessions
It’s called fingerprinting
Point one: I’m pretty certain they already track that. With or without account. And you’re on the internet, without a VPN there is no privacy. You are also able to remove that history any moment you want.
I mean sure, they could try combining the user agents my unofficial apps provide with my carrier’s NAT IP to build a profile on me, but it would be highly inefficient and imprecise to the point where it’s almost useless for them. With a Youtube Premium account they have an identity tied to an email address, full name, and payment info that they can relate every click in their apps and websites to. If I also use their other services with the same account, I would be paying them to spy on everything I do and sell my data, so other companies can sell me crap.
If you’ve already got that much of a set-up to guarantee privacy, it’s a very good point. Most people aren’t that dedicated to privacy (I think), but it’s still a very valid point in your case
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I mean, fair. The two big reasons are that your views are worth much more than normal viewers to creators, so it does mean you’re helping support the content you watch. Further, the more people who pay for content the less influence advertisers have. All this said, I would assume that $5 a month to your favorite creators (Patreon, Paypal, Librepay, etc) would be worth more to them than a share of your YouTube Premium subscription fee.
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I will pay for premium when it means they will not sell my data and will allow me control over my algorithm to prevent it from playing to my vulerabilities. Since they won’t change, I won’t pay.
when it means they will not sell my data and will allow me control over my algorithm to prevent it from playing to my vulerabilities
The problem is that this will never happen. That boat has sailed - companies will never give up on their existing revenue streams. They may say that paying today will exempt you from the ads, but it’s only a matter of time before they ramp up the cost and start showing ads anyway. That’s how cable television started, and it’s how internet streaming will end as well. And as for the not selling data/controlling the algorithm, well you have no way of proving that they don’t do that so they’ll do it no matter what they say.
There’s no reason for google to do this whatsoever. They have their business model - any new revenue streams will 100% definitely not reduce the other ones at all. It’s just gonna be another giant dump into the pile of enshittification.
Who are they selling your data to?
Literally everyone. Have you been living under a rock?
Google doesn’t sell your data, they’re one of the few that don’t. That doesn’t mean they aren’t misusing your data though. They’re more the dragon hoarder than the thief selling off stolen goods. They want all your data so they can learn everything about you. Selling your data to others makes it worth way less. It’s a difference in strategy. Google retains the data to enhance their products, Facebook sells your data because they have no products that would be improved by keeping it.
Sorry if I miscommunicated. No, they’re not selling your home address. But the idea that they aren’t monetizing your personal data aggressively is laughably wrong and heavily documented.
I had YouTube when it was YouTube red and I was a part of a family plan with my friend for a couple years. I split the family plan with a few people and ended up paying $3 a month. Eventually he moved across country and YouTube said that since we didn’t have the same IP address that I could not be a part of the family plan so I ended up signing up for my own account. At some point I was trying to pay off my debt so I cancelled all my subscription services. YouTube premium included. I started watching YouTube and then I saw it. An ad. Something I hadn’t seen in years. It was the most annoying thing ever. I couldn’t believe that people put up with that. I was so annoyed by the ads that I looked at how to obtain YouTube and YouTube music for free without ads because I needed to save the money and the ads were so intrusive that this was what I was going to do and that is what I still do to this day.
I would be fine paying for a YouTube premium account if I could get one for like $3-4 that just removes the ads. I don’t want their music service.
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I don’t get what you think that “realization” changes. I occasionally watch videos on YouTube and I’d be willing to pay a certain amount to watch to those videos without ads. Since they don’t offer that, I’m not paying them any money. For the record, they did offer such a plan called “YouTube Premium Lite” not that long ago and they axed it.
I am pretty sure that yt music doesnt increase the price by 9 Bucks. Lets not push the blame on that.
I’m stating what I would be willing to pay for and how much I’d be willing to pay for it.
shows me 3 ads in a row
“oh, you don’t want to see ads? too bad”
sounds kinda cynical
They should include sponsorblock with youtube premium, I won’t pay 12€ per month to watch more ads than on free tv. Youtube doesn’t even make their own content. 5€ max for youtube would be okay with no ads.
YouTube cannot do that. YouTube’s content legal system does not allow this.
That said, I use SponsorBlock and love it to the degree of finding it necessary depending on what type of content I am watching.
Why do people hate YouTube Premium anyway? I don’t quite get it. I have had it since it was available in my country, and I love it.
Also, I have to say I use the YouTube Vanced app with SponsorBlock and custom layout (no shorts, no uploads, no etc.) and YouTube Premium subscription. I don’t like the default YouTube app.
So, I don’t know if I like YouTube or just the model and content/creators behind it.
Absolutely. 5$,sponsor block, no ads and no music premium bullshit. I don’t want it.
Edit: I forgot! Give me the fucking downvote count back so I can quickly know which videos are bullshit you assholes!
FTFY"They do want to pay for premium! They just don’t understand what a great value it is! SHOW THEM THE AD AGAIN! SHOW THEM ON EVERY VIDEO SO THEY WILL UNDERSTAND!!! "
Not to be rude, but I’m struggling to believe half the comments in this thread are legit. Do you really mean to tell me that Lemmy, a platform notoriously populated almost exclusively by anti-corporate tech people that really value FOSS and privacy –hence the reason why all of us are here instead of Reddit– has this many users thinking it is a remotely acceptable idea to pay for a Premium service for one of the most invasive companies online?
I think most of us understand the many underhanded techniques used by Google to achieve an almost monopolistic control of some aspects of the internet, but when talking about YouTube, suddenly all the logic is reduced to “if you use a service, pay for it, or else let them show you ads”?? what??? Also, what’s with comparing adblocking to stealing???
My own answer to the topic of this thread is that no, I won’t be paying for YouTube Premium anytime soon, possibly ever. Google has betrayed my trust many times in the past, and on top of that I don’t consider adverts as a legitimate source of income, so I will block any and all ads everywhere without paying an extra cent.
“But if you keep using their service, so you need to give them some form of revenue! Otherwise you just want free stuff!” I only keep using their service because Google has spent many years dumping on other platforms so that YouTube is –almost– the only platform that still exists where all the good creators are, so I will begrudgingly watch them on YouTube because there aren’t any options. But I will resist Google’s many insidious attempts to monetize me to the best of my ability while doing so.
That said, it’s really dishonest to claim that people who block ads on YouTube just want free stuff and don’t understand that services have a cost. Personally, I pay for Nebula because I do support the project and the creators involved. But YouTube won’t see a cent from me, not with my consent at least.
Not everyone is on Lemmy because they’re anti-corporate, FOSS enthusiasts. For example, I came here because Reddit became a dumpster fire of unreasonable policies and very restrictive accessibility to the site. I simply will not install their app. Everything I’ve seen and heard about it is revolting. I’m certain I will hate it and I’m not going to bother trying at this point. Since a nontrivial amount of my time on Reddit was via an app, and that app no longer works, I’m just not going to use the service.
I like FOSS, and I support FOSS whenever I can, but I’m hardly anti corporate. The big G has tried and failed at getting monopoly status for most things. Arguably their most successful services are search, mail and YouTube.
Me, personally, I pay for Google’s services and share those benefits with my family. We have extra Google drive storage, YouTube music/YouTube premium, and all the benefits that come with that (I don’t recall all of them right now). One payment takes care of my entire household. So for less than $20/month we all enjoy all the benefits of those subscriptions. It comes out to less than $5/person/month.
I don’t blame anyone for not wanting those services. I certainly don’t hold that against them. I completely understand the viewpoint. YouTube is very aggressive about everyone having premium. I see ads on YouTube when I’m using it on my work PC for music or to look something up on there; because my personal Google account is not and will never be associated to my work PC. I see what it’s like “on the other side” so to speak. I can see how aggro their efforts are to get people to subscribe to premium. How invasive the ads have become, and how annoying it is to deal with all that. I get it.
I also don’t really hate Google for it. They want people to buy their premium service and they have taken steps to try to encourage that. I understand, but I don’t necessarily agree with their choices.
In my mind they’re not the most egregious offender for being anti consumer in their methodology. Good examples of anti-consumer behaviour is Netflix trying to put an end to account sharing, or Reddit’s API changes that basically kicked out a nontrivial number of its users for seemingly no good reason. There’s plenty more anti consumer actions from other companies that I can point to that are far worse than what YouTube is doing.
In my mind, Google has supported FOSS more than most big tech companies. Android, at it’s core is FOSS, built on Linux. Chrome is based on chromium, which is FOSS as well. There’s numerous other examples of Google supporting FOSS. Sure, they have their own versions of that integrate Google services into the products and provide extra features on top of what the FOSS versions do. But I can’t think of any company that even comes close to the support of FOSS that Google has. In my mind they’re simply not the worst offender. They’re not innocent, but not the worst.
That’s my opinion though and it’s just one of many possible opinions. Far be it for me to impose my opinion on anyone else. If you want to distrust Google and use FOSS things instead, that’s fine. It’s your choice. If you agree but still don’t want to pay them for premium, that’s okay too. Or if you want to drink the Kool-aid and pay for all of their services, that’s also your choice.
Have a great day.
1 Ad - Fine. 2 Ads - Ok. 3 Ads - Closed YouTube.
4 Ads - uBlock Origin installed on Firefox
Should have been from the beginning
The problem is that they actually don’t mean that. And truthfully I don’t mind the idea of paying for video hosting, that shit’s expensive, but YouTube is going about it in the worst way possible.
slowing my buffer down is not how you get me to turn of my adblocker. no thanks.
Paying for spy-ware,
how dense do they think we are?!Let Google rot :)
You have a phone, right?
Yes,
But the software on it has been completely re-done to enhance it’s privacy and functionality.
I’m running LineageOSforMicroG,
with Magisk/LSPosed,
to run things like AdAway/XPrivacyLua/Blocker.Additionally I replace everything I can with FOSS from F-Droid,
and scan all apps from Aurora (Play Store) with ClassyShark3xodus, against well known trackers, to either look for better alternatives, or to block the spy-ware in them with Blocker.Further, a premium no-log VPN, which has been vetted (servers confiscated in the past, though 0 logs retrieved), configured as always-on + block connections without.
Yep, that might actually do it lol. Not even being sarcastic here 😅
But to be fair, I don’t think most people are tech-literate enough to set up and use all of that properly. I think it would help if someone compiled a one-install package of all of that, but lots of people just don’t like change.
I don’t expect that average users will become android/privacy experts.
I don’t even think of my own privacy being all that important.
However systematic privacy,
through laws that protect us all,
that’s what the average joe should be made aware off and stand up for.
Im not holding my breath for someone to start hosting petabytes of videos for free. I don’t like ads, so I’m just going to pay.
imagine paying to remove ads
They started the war, never forget, never forgive.
Used to be ads on the side of videos, and they were still scams like “Hit the target to win a FREE ipad!” At least they didn’t block the actual content. No one should ever feel bad about blocking ads lmao.
Firefox + ublock origin on desktop, and youtube revanced on android 👍
