Ads Are Ruining Everything

Ever since the turn of the century, we have seen a massive rise in freemium services. For the average user, these services are completely free like Google, KZbin, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Instead, these services make money through alternative modes of monetization such as running ads, collecting data, or even offering a paid premium tier. This model has been extremely successful at growing massive platforms with not just millions of users but billions of users. However, a lot of these platforms are starting to hit a breaking point at which they have reached market saturation. As such, they’re shifting their focus from user growth to user monetization. This has unfortunately led to these platforms slowly degrading in quality as they’ve been pummeled with ads, data collection, and other monetization efforts. This video explains the history of freemium services and the breaking point that the industry is currently undergoing.
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Timestamps:
0:00 - The State Of Freemium
2:05 - The Freemium Debut
6:01 - Freemium Rules
10:29 - The Race To Monetize
Resources:
pastebin.com/fDDgnXKS
Disclaimer:
This video is not a solicitation or personal financial advice. All investing involves risk. Please do your own research.
www.silomarkets.com/disclosures

[@canibeaninja]

Remember the good ol days where we had a yellow marker showing when ads would play. Simpler times

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Yep hahaha

[@Opeyemi.sanusi]

Totally forgot that existed 😂

[@casev799]

I forgot that... When'd that get remove?

[@tigerstudios]

This simple thing would make ads a lot less annoying now.... Personally, I don't mind ads, and I did go several days with no adblocker because of KZbin.... but, the thing I cannot stand is the placement of them, and the volume of them... I know it's not the end of the world.... but, for me... I can't enjoy videos without being on alert that my ears will be blasted with stupid loud ads.. Honestly, ngl, I started downloading every video that I wanted to focus on.... watching on vlc was much less stressful and less shocking to my mind... I don't want to do that.... and I would have no issue with ads if they weren't jump scares for me!! I am happy to say now that I have stopped doing that because I saw that my ad blocker is actually working again, and I can peacefully enjoy videos once more. Sorry for the tangent, lol... my point really is that I LIKED having a little yellow marker showing when ads would play ;)

[@Akash.Chopra]

KZbin has brought it back. I see it for (half of) the treasuries advert in this video.

[@toxicdragon323]

Honestly, ads on KZbin were tolerable at first. But then KZbin decided to make ads longer, chain multiple ads together, and then making them unskippable. The ad chaining and making them unskippable was the last straw that made me get an adblocker. The fact that ads have gotten more disruptive, intrusive, aggressive, and obnoxious just added reason to have an adblocker.

[@letyoufindme]

Right, when it was just a popup in the lower third that you could x out of, perfectly acceptable. But, NOW? Absolutely not.

[@coleeto2]

Have you seen the latest ones where they are unskippable AND you have to then hit skip at the end of the ad to start the video? Super annoying! Especially when watching something semi in the background

[@doktork3406]

Practically zero people in my country had adblockers until some 2015-2017. From the early 2000's, scum advertisers absolutely pummeled the internet into oblivion with ads. They went from 2-4 margin jpegs to 50+ scum and disgusting, flashy, sticky scrolling, pop up/under ads. Their dicks got rock hard thinking they're maximising ad gains by increasing ad counts from 4 to 50 per page. Idiots decreased the value of all ads in doing so, and they had to put more ads to make up the diminishing gains... see the loop? They started it... from 2000 to 2015 i saw how brutally devastated the internet was... my 2015 computer slower than my 2000 computer navigating the web because of all the ads. Then adblockers got popular and i got one too. I COULD NOT BELIEVE THAT IS HOW USING THE INTERNET FELT LIKE. It has since been an obligatory, immediate install on any machine i touch. Corporate bootlickers can kiss my arse, i'm not paying for this "Premium", getting the same as you. And watch how your premium account will start getting ads back up... you think the trillion dollar megacorporation is going to let you slide for a small fee? That fee will increase either in the form of $, or more tier subscriptions, where each stage will have fewer and fewer ads, but not zero.

[@espurrseyes42]

​@@coleeto2 Have you seen the ones that are as long as whole KZbin videos, even TV episodes or movies?

[@heavymetalelf]

Same. I even put up with them until one of the creators I subscribed to started including midroll ads and sponsored in-stream ads in the same videos. Then it was off to find an adblocker and discover sponsorblock. I've even paid for YT premium since my wife uses YT music. In-video ads killed the whole thing. I'd never pay for KZbin in the state it's in now

[@ahernandez50]

the other problem is that once "paid users" become the norm, the platforms will still find a way to justify bombarding you with Ads, just like it happened with cable TV.

[@costelinha1867]

And I'm pretty sure even Netflix started considering putting ads. If you give greedy people an inch, they'll take a mile.

[@doktork3406]

I'd go so far as to say ads are harmful to the mind for many reasons. Corporate bootlickers that are so desperate to suck the "poor little content creator and the trillion dollar company" off, will tell you otherwise... i suspect it's braindamage from watching 1.4 million ads

[@ArariaKAgelessTraveller]

I'm still convince that the usual ads on non-cable television are more entertaining since they are both expensive and properly thought out (at least they tried)

[@LadybugsOpin]

Heh, this makes it sound like those of us with adblockers are the last line of defence. If that's the case, then I'm happy to be of service!

[@user-rz3hz1sp7t]

Companies will always be under pressure to monetize anything that they can get away with... it's the users that decide what they can get away with.

[@Mushroom38294]

Fun fact: _Anti adblockers are literally illegal under EU regulations._ Fun fact: _These actions are an inexcusable case of corporate greed._

[@Kosmiczna]

you're not wrong on that but how will they sustain their company if they're not profiting? there's a reason why most companies that don't profit aren't here today

[@Skywarslord]

@@KosmicznaThat reason is because of reckless growth mindsets rather then growing at the rate the growth can sustain. Most users would be fine with Ads if they were quality, or less of them, or not intrusive. That’s why people use ad blockers.

[@VirtualGab]

Guess the EU thinks that users wouldn’t need Adblock on each device if ads weren’t annoying

[@SpeedofShadows1]

​@@KosmicznaGoogle can pay for KZbin out of its one trillion net worth.

[@josephbruceismay6832]

on that, that'd mean KZbin is effectively breaking EU regulations. (BIG NO-NO)

[@middle_digit]

KZbin was the reason I started using ad blockers.

[@ceu160193]

For me reason is being charged for internet based on how much data I use. Ads are like spam - they effectively waste data you paid for, making getting even non-free adblock lucrative, as over time you end up with plenty of money going towards stuff you actually want, instead of being wasted on downloading ads.

[@eugenekrabs141]

same

[@thelastknight9367]

​@@ceu160193if Google serves free internet, I'm ready to pay for KZbin premium.

[@kyled00m]

I started using ad blockers because of the page loading speed went from millionths of a second to more than 1 second (sometimes 5+ seconds). Ads went from few to many, from banners to overlays, from simple linked images to complicated scripts (that I assume includes attempts to track personal information). The linked image ads were great but now they're cancerous to me.

[@fissis1955]

for me it was visiting sites and getting bombarbed with ads that would make reading anything a pain

[@trappedcat3615]

The worst is when KZbin plays Ads that are longer than the video. At that point, you know they are just trying to annoy people into buying the paid plan.

[@tapafon_red]

Or they (Google) are preparing to make KZbin paid for everyone, by eliminating the free tier altogether.

[@Bizarro69]

which is incredibly naive because it's never going to happen at the scale they want it to.

[@monkeydog8681]

If you spend 2-4 hours a day on YT I think the premium is worth it. Shit I don't think I can ever watch/use YT again without a premium account.

[@ishredder4006]

Ads and planned obsolescence are the best "innovations" capitalism has to offer.

[@swish6143]

​@@ishredder4006just because people don't want to pay for the services they use. If people were on premium, no ads.

[@silascooper3217]

The issue with KZbin Premium is you still are forced to watch ads. Yeah, you get to avoid the KZbin ads but the creators are imbedding "sponsored" ads into their videos and the majority of creators are doing it. Ads on KZbin are inescapable.

[@livinghypocrite5289]

There is a plugin for that! Sponsorblock works fine, to get rid of most of the sponsoring ads of creators, too.

[@NatureShy]

As someone who uses adblocker for desktop KZbin currently, I really don’t mind sponsored ads because I can easily skip them in just a second or two. It’s super easy to just press the right arrow button on my keyboard to skip forward until I reach the end of the ad. It’s the unskippable and skippable ads that I hate (even the delay for the skip button is annoying but i deal with ads when watching on mobile because the app is better than using a mobile browser.)

[@daydays12]

Yes. Sometimes it is You Tube ad followed by creator's in video ad followed by You Tube ads followed by creator asking for subscriptions, Patreon etc then more You Tube ads , then the end of the video.

[@indnwkybrd]

There are browser extensions which detect & skip the "sponsored" segments of YT videos. Can recommend. ;)

[@chongus1072]

@@indnwkybrd yes!! i use sponsor block with u-block origin, 10/10.

[@paxdriver]

One last rant - KZbin chooses to stream 4k. Nobody on earth needs KZbin to be 4x more expensive to serve and render per video. They removed features that already existed - they went out of their way to make the platform worse just to spite their customers while conveniently looking past copyrights when it happens to lower their own costs.

[@KGBSpyGeorgeCostanza]

Worst part is their copyright system is so flawed

[@thehint1954]

The worst thing is that lots of ads are scams.

[@r3dp9]

Or push food I can't eat due to allergies, or push products that don't fit my lifestyle, or push politics that are destructive, or push wasteful spending...

[@TracksWithDax]

Right! Fake ads for apps that are nothing like what they advertise, serviced and products that don't work or practice unsavory cost-cutting measures, or just straight-up scams

[@fastertrackcreative]

I found for KZbin it's more the repetition you're basically spammed with certain companies endlessly.

[@Mr._Sherwood]

Honestly it's safer to assume that every ad is a scam at this point.

[@GamingPandaCat]

I especially love when I buy a thing or play a game and then I got ads for that thing or game like yeah I got the thing and I went looking for it myself, then I got my adblocker and honestly, can't go back now

[@kamrankazemifar]

If they are not going to let us block malicious and scam ads, then they are should be liable for hosting those ads since they arent letting us protect ourselves against it.

[@AkeruZikora]

You make it sound like ad blockers differentiate which ads are scams or malicious & block ONLY those ones. They block all ads, which stifles revenue for these platforms. Also, let's not pretend blocking malicious or scam ads is the reason why folks are complaining. Many of them just want free stuff, which requires ads, except they don't want to see those ads. Who knows, there might be one they're interested in or one that could provide them with valuable info. Besides, you can protect yourself from those malicious ads. You don't get scammed from watching an ad. Clicking one doesn't scam you. It's when you make the mistake of typing in sensitive info & all that (without prior verification of the business that owns the site/page the click (re)directs you to), that you expose yourself to harm. Since those actions are yours, you can't hold someone else responsible for it. It's like suing internet providers or search engines because you downloaded a malicious app from a website that popped up in your results. Making the download was your choice. Also, they can't always know which ads are scams. That's like asking the police to know every criminal before they commit the act & prevent it, or to successfully solve every crime That said, I think youtube is going too far with the number of ads. Maybe they should find a way to cut costs so they won't need to stuff this many ads in the videos in order to break even.

[@altrag]

@@AkeruZikora Its not AdBlock's job to vet Google's customers. Its Google's job to do that. AdBlock's job is to block ads. You're right that most people don't block ads because of the potential for malicious behavior, but that potential still exists nonetheless and it absolutely should be Google's liability if they're forcing malicious behavior on people. They should already be liable for forcing malicious ads to those who don't currently use AdBlock of course, but when they prevent the use of AdBlock they aren't just forcing malicious ads on people - they're forcing malicious ads specifically on the people who already hate ads and are looking for any excuse to attack the concept of ads.

[@chrishunter9294]

@@AkeruZikorai think the point is that if they are going to focus on ads then why are they overlooking scammy ads that sometimes obviously violate guidelines

[@ericneo2]

This, it's why my whole family uses ad block. Google opened the flood gates of google hosted malware 10 years ago and now a malicious ad hi-jacking your pc is more common than a virus. People are leaving android for iOS too because of all the garbage google has allowed onto their app store without first vetting or scanning. Google put profits before doing the right thing and until they fix the problems instead of hiding in their uncontactable ivory tower people are going to keep avoiding to give them money for an ever declining experience.

[@lovelysakurapetalsyt]

Literally. I wish I could block shit like the scammy better help bullshit, but I can't

[@ShashotoANur]

Loved what Telegram did. They just introduced a premium tier with more features while the existing features remained free. And Telegram's lack of attempt to be evil also encourages the users to upgrade.

[@r3dp9]

Remember when google had the "Don't be evil" slogan? When that slogan disappeared I knew things were going to go south.

[@everythingpony]

And telegram just made those "free" feature in the paid tier now

[@jayanspaliwal5907]

@@everythingpony Yup, they just nuked fast download speeds for free users, now it takes a lot of time to download a single video

[@daydays12]

Yes. That slogan no longer appears. $$$$$$$$$$ instead. @@r3dp9

[@FarazMazhar]

Honestly, platforms as essential as KZbin should be converted into non-profit organizations. This corporate enshitification has gone too far.

[@billweir1745]

Nationalize all social media.

[@eugenekrabs141]

@@billweir1745 except twitter and 4chan, those ones suck

[@STCatchMeTRACjRo]

but there are other streaming & online video services besides youtube such as netflix, twitch. so you would make youtube non-profit organizations but exclude the other such services? where is the fairness there?

[@eugenekrabs141]

@@STCatchMeTRACjRo netflix is movies and twitch is streaming, 2 completely different things, sure yt has streaming and movies but nowhere near as much as twitch or netflix, yt should be non-profit, it is used by hundreds of buisnesses and schools, i have not seen a single school mandate that students watch a movie on netflix and i dont think i ever will

[@daydays12]

does netflix host the scientific, artistic, educational etc creators that you tube does? Netflix is 'entertainment'. @@STCatchMeTRACjRo

[@R33F3RMONSTER]

Ads suck. I will sometimes just abandon watching a video if it starts with an ad.

[@Vassilinia]

I will just switch to stronger adblockers to dodge ads.

[@marclaaq]

Yep.

[@ethanwasme4307]

i skip videos who put sponsor segments in the first minutes of starting a video... it's cringe

[@chrisanderson7906]

@R33F3RMONSTER be like me turn you brain off when an ad plays and zone out and forget what the advert was in the first place they are just noise with pictures to me at this point tbh

[@prplt]

​@@ethanwasme4307I just use sponsor block lol 😂

[@georgesmith4768]

I’m pretty sure the strategy of pricing something in a wildly unprofitable manner to capture the entire market then jack up prices used to be called predatory pricing and it was a crime

[@michaeltorrisi7289]

This is why I have zero sympathy for companies that engage in Blitzscaling. They're pushing out competition not by having a better product than other conpanies, but rather by pricing in a way that more traditionally grown companies simpky cannot compete with. And the government abaolutely should have been involved decades ago. You're 100% right as to what it is.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Interesting point for sure

[@yubtubtime]

@@michaeltorrisi7289The government has really done nothing but encourage it. Between unregulated buybacks and the Fed's penchant for creating boom-bust crises, blitzscaling seems all but inevitable.

[@yubtubtime]

We haven't sufficiently abstracted the legislation to prosecute price discrimination broadly, so the spirit if the law's been deliberately left unenforceable across a broad set of contemporary circumstances as a result.

[@stuart6478]

maybe KZbin should charge everyone money especially uploading

[@alok.01]

The problem is most people usually use 100s of services per day, and if every one of them started demanding money, then most can't even afford their other daily necessities. Ads were a good alternative until they became way too much intrusive and annoying, and people started blocking them

[@hgbugalou]

This is exactly why I don't feel bad using adblockers. Ad networks refuse to police themselves and set standards that respect people they are advertising too. Instead the rely on annoying, tricking, or flat outlying to people. That's not even getting into the bad actors using ads to spread malware. I will just pay foepd a service if I like it. I pay for KZbin to support the creators and not deal with ads. I'd much rather do that with Yan freenium.

[@daydays12]

They don't respect the advertisers either .... go to a channel about the holocaust, or the gulag or torture and you will find many many ads.( I did it just to test my theory). Do these advertisers appreciate being associated with such horrors? You Tube's moral compass is ZERO.

[@willsmith4584]

scammers are allowed to advertise on youtube!

[@MinkiOfficial]

I don't feel bad either because KZbin does not listen to it's content creators. I seen so many content creators over the years get mistreated, blocked and banned from KZbin when they've done nothing wrong and it always left a horrid taste in my mouth.

[@colourbasscolourbassweapon2135]

same here no cap

[@Denastus]

If you want to support the creators directly, buy their merch. More of the money will go to them instead of corporations.

[@boblangill6209]

Freemium actually started much earlier: Broadcast TV and, before that, radio were supported by ads. Weirdly enough, their inability to aim at tight demographics (narrow casting) forced companies to a better job of integrating the ads into the broadcast package. Before ad blockers, there was taking a trip to the bathroom, fixing a snack, or stretching and taking a brief walk during commercial breaks. The quality of the ads had to exceed a floor level to work for the company paying for the ads. Streaming hasn't figured that out. An annoying crappy ad for a product that is correctly targeted for the consumer is still an annoying crappy ad.

[@johnrehwinkel7241]

What streaming has figured out is that the advertisers who can afford to spend a lot of money is the scammers. While broadcast will stoop to shady law firms, dubious medications, and the like, they're stuck with some rules. The streamers, mobile games, etc. cheerfully run repeated ads from obvious scammers, who can easily afford big ad spends as they're netting huge profits from each sucker.

[@GazzaBoo]

Ads on those are a big reason I don’t watch tv or listen to radio any more, and haven’t for well over a decade. My ad tolerance is low.

[@pokepress]

Yeah, ironically some of the more popular videos on the service are ad blocks from the 80’s and 90’s.

[@jerbear7952]

It seems funny but back in myyyy day, we would talk about good commercials. Old people still think "where's the beef is funny". There were very high quality commercials. Every super bowl would have a "best commercials" round up the next day.

[@Hr1s7i]

Broadcast television in my country was owned by the people, as it was funded by the ministry of culture, therefore taxes. It had no ads until about 20 years ago.

[@elfo7918]

I think, many people forget, that Google or any other company, could reduce the amount of ads pretty easily, if they would increase the cost of advertising. Many people forget, that advertising on the internet is dirt cheap, and with that, I mean really cheap. Per Ad it costs the advertiser 1-5cts, so for 1Mio ads, they pay in the "worst" case $50k. This is nothing compared to ads in tv... This is also, why you have so many scam and spam ads on yt.

[@swish6143]

You can just pay for premium directly instead in form of higher prices when buying a product.

[@altrag]

@@swish6143 To copypasta my response from a similar comment just above: That may not be as easy as it sounds. The advertisers have to see a return on investment or they'll stop advertising entirely. So each advertiser has to do math on things like click-through rates (how often somebody clicks your ad), conversion rates (how often someone who clicked your ad actually buys something), the profit off the items they buy, etc. If that profit is less than the cost to advertise, then you don't create the advertisement. At every price point, some percentage of companies will be in the "profit" category and the remainder will not be. Google has to try and estimate that percentage and price their ad spots accordingly in order to maximize their own profit. Its not quite that simple due to Google's ad auctioning system (meaning pricing isn't fixed and deeper analysis is required to estimate that percentage), but the fundamental principle is the same - there's only so much they can charge advertisers before it becomes unprofitable. Beyond that point, the only way to increase revenue is to show the ads more often. And given Google's near-monopoly over the ad market its quite likely that they're riding pretty close to that point already.

[@NeilHaskins]

But if Google, or any other ad company, raises their prices, fewer people will buy ads. It's a balancing act to find the right price to get the most money while not annoying people so much that they start to seek out adblockers or avoid the sites showing the ads.

[@auraguard0212]

No one will buy expensive online ads. 😂

[@swish6143]

@@NeilHaskins well Google perfected finding this balance by letting people vote on ranking high for popular keywords

[@SoupRoutine]

I will never forgive KZbin for allowing The LEGO Movie to run that 5 hour ad.

[@angelomendez21]

In my personal opinion. Social media should never be a paid thing. Ever.

[@pierreclawfield]

What bugs me the most is that if you search something, you’ll get completely different results

[@prplt]

ikr half of the results are videos that you've watched earlier and have nothing to do with the thing you're searching for 🤯

[@Kvomii]

Jepp. you can literally copy-paste the name of a video with a long title into the youtube searchbar and there's a significant chance that it won't show up. Like just why?

[@oldyboy2057]

KZbin search bar is broken after this update I have 2 search based channel since this update my videos are not showing up in search and my views is going down Even if I give the long title and filter it for today it's still not show up in feed sometime

[@med2904]

It's google's evil idea. Now they "refine" your search prompt instead of showing you what you've searched for. Basically, they're showing you what they want you to see. Bigger and more popular channels. Channels with content that advertisers have less problem with. More politically correct channels. Channels they know you might be interested in based on your view history. Etc. They won't let you search for what you want too see because that's not "optimal" for them.

[@thephoenixhasflown]

Not just Google either but a lot of search engines are getting like that and don't even get me started about looking for anything that's not trending on KZbin. Also a little off topic but I'm subscribed to old Time radio researchers and they honestly don't believe that I haven't got a notification in over a year. Oh, those sweet summer children, sometimes I wish I was one still.

[@foufoufun]

The marketing people really have to understand something: ads are annoying and people have become very good at detecting ignoring ads. The idea that if you bombard someone enough, they'll eventually be interested in the product is completely wrong. Targeted advertising is a good start but has terrible ethical issues. The advertisement world is in a dire need of a new strategy.

[@warrenlewis4349]

I'm good at ignoring ads. Granted, the mute button helps a lot too.

[@pixerpinecone]

I think it's a bit arrogant to assume that most people who have dedicated their entire career to advertising and statistics stuff just have "no idea" that people are annoyed at and ignore ads.

[@wingedpanther73]

That reminds me of how ads in games for other games will straight up LIE about what the game is. If you know the game you're advertising is popular, build that game instead!

[@foufoufun]

@@pixerpinecone Then, if they do, they are doing it on purpose. They shouldn't be surprised if some of us will go out of their way to not see what we don't want to see.

[@daydays12]

If the ads i see are targeted at me then I must have many more diseases and psychological hang ups than I knew about!

[@misanthropic_tendencies]

I honestly want back the days where you paid once for software and stuff and owned it lol

[@JezElectro13]

Don't they (youtube) have enough money to NOT annoy everyone with ads that they blocked or clearly don't care about?

[@lyokofans]

I think freemium is possible. The problem is companies get too greedy.

[@lovelysakurapetalsyt]

Yeah, if they didn't need to pay their CEO's billions of dollars, maybe they wouldn't be so bad off

[@NeilHaskins]

​@@lovelysakurapetalsyt It's not CEOs, it's shareholders. The board of directors (which often includes the CEO) is legally obligated to produce as much profit as they can for the shareholders. They can get sued if the don't.

[@lovelysakurapetalsyt]

@@NeilHaskins That's what I meant, I just couldn't articulate it at the time. Thank you for helping me clarify

[@TracksWithDax]

This is the thing right here!!! I absolutely despise the fact that companies have to constantly be making more money to be more profitable for rich people- rather than actually improving the platform and experience for their users and not getting greedy

[@Ben31337l]

@Neilhaskins Is this true? Really? I would love to see a source on this. It would explain why everything in the world is shit.

[@lockout125]

I will restart a video repeatedly until I get a skippable or no ad. I do everything in my power to avoid ads

[@simontratter2434]

Same

[@1God1Fury]

are you gonna do that every 1-3min of the video? Because that's how often they can spawn

[@lockout125]

@@1God1Fury if it’s a mid video, I mute my volume and set phone down for a moment. I do everything possible to avoid ads. If I want a product, I will search it. I don’t need Temu and Shein garbage advertised to me constantly.

[@Luke-os6kr]

In my case at least, i do it a few times then watch 3 or 4 vids and then do it again, never got spammed ads

[@TBpepe]

I mean you kinda people make it clear why subscriptions model is getting more and more popular. Hope youtube will do more and more to get you type people out of KZbin..

[@xLanzer]

I remember having a blast listening to my KZbin Music Recap in 2022. Right now, I can't, because ads keep showing before every song and they keep ruining the mood. It's so freaking annoying.

[@lewismbugua7012]

Finally this is now being talked about. This is a total nightmare. If someone comes up with something like youtube with no ads but other better ways of getting revenue I'll support and join them fully

[@eugenekrabs141]

the problem with that is if that was the case it wouldn't have all the videos youtube does and probably never will

[@icanhasutoobz]

Depending on what type of content you're looking for, Curiosity Stream (largely documentary/long form video essay type of content) or Nebula (more aligned to artistic content) might constitute viable alternatives. The former, as I recall, was actually founded by YT content creators who wanted better paths to revenue, more control over it, and wanted to avoid bombarding their fanbase with annoying ads. It used to be possible to get them bundled for a frankly ridiculously low price, but I recently got a notice from Curiosity Stream that they were not continuing that bundling (didn't specify why). Still, even if each separately cost twice as much as the bundled price, it would still be a good deal from my perspective. Neither is _free_, but neither is overpriced, either, at least IMO.

[@-1_void]

This is possible. Just need to query the KZbin database, get the link, then stream it on your own website

[@XerxesTexasToast]

"Have you been noticing the KZbin experience has been getting worse and worse for users?" I've been noticing since the day they removed custom HTML for channels and implemented the first video ads over a decade ago. I miss the banners, dude.

[@bretbuckley704]

Banners? I miss the customizable channel layouts where you could add background pics, mess around with fonts, opacity settings, color code everything...man KZbin back in the late 2000's was so colorful, and it felt like it had personality and navigating through people's channels was so fun. I knew this place was going to start sucking some fat balls when they canned all of that for these basic bitch corporate looking channels.

[@kaden-sd6vb]

The Old Internet was a beautiful place... I miss the freedom of those days Now there's just the cold iron grip of the corporations that just keeps tightening.

[@Palexite]

I didn’t know they had custom html, wtf. Thats fucking amazing, it’s unfortunate that due to the current size of KZbin, it’s simply not possible. Too much storage.

[@jimster1111]

im okay with all of this because its convincing me to spend less time online. social media sucks now, phone apps arent worth my time, the only thing i really do online anymore is watch youtube. and only because of revanced and adblockers.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Well, I guess spending less time online is for the better haha

[@CollectiveConsciousness1111]

Choose apps by looking at data safety, then go into "about this app" scroll down till you see highlighted colour "see permissions". I choose apps that are less invasion. If you want to learn more seek Naomi Brockwell NBTV channel Tech Journalist teaches phone privacy and security and incredibly helpful 👍 these apps have way less ads and work on donations which l happily support😊

[@shivadarling18]

I just hope that paying to use services would clear the normies out so those actually passionate about their videos will stay on.

[@jordanjscoo1468]

at this point KZbin is almost impossible to use without getting a ad every minute

[@CriIp]

the BIGGEST problem with ads online (not YT) is that they LAG SO MUCH. How in the hell can my PC run AAA games, but not run a website with 10 ads playing videos, and moving around.

[@PwandaWanda]

no the biggest problem is some of the ads are malicious and if you accidentally click it like I did when I was searching ads now pop up where videos are meant to be which makes it a lot more uncomfortable to KZbin because now you have to always be on the edge and very careful every click you do I did get rid of the malware and everything’s safe btw

[@christemplet4720]

My fear is: They start to charge for it and if that becomes the norm, they will the add advertisement even to the paid version.

[@notbacon__]

that will most likely never be the case

[@letyoufindme]

Hulu 😂😂🥴🥴

[@LoganV3535]

@@notbacon__ that’s what happened to tv though. Why wouldn’t it happen again?

[@ArariaKAgelessTraveller]

​@@LoganV3535*cable tv

[@daydays12]

Surely..They are shameless and unscrupulous.

[@silvahawk]

The reason Microsoft's strategy worked was because it was a one time payment, not all this non-sense subscription. If KZbin premium has a $100 price for one time payment, I'd easily ditch my adblocker

[@BuggsOp]

Your logic doesn’t make any sense. You want to pay a flat $100 for premium KZbin for how long now? Forever? Data centers needs to be maintained staff and equipment. You can’t compare a piece of software which is windows to a service which is what YT is

[@OzixiThrill]

@@BuggsOp If Google comes out and shows how and where every cent of money that flows through their accounts goes (as in, get the FBI to make them do it at gunpoint to keep them ACTUALLY honest), and the actual numbers show that they are genuinely losing money, THEN we can talk about poow wittwe Google and their financial problems. Until then, I'm staying skeptical, considering that they more than likely are selling aggregate data at insanely high profits and use their platforms for AI training (and likely selling some of it as training data on top of that).

[@ChrisShawUK]

Microsoft never had a one time payment for their products. Updating to the next version always cost money. Obsolescence was built into each software release to generate the next payment. No-one is using word 6.0 any more even though it does basically the same thing as today's word. But I would pay a fixed annual amount for KZbin if it was a discount to the monthly fee.

[@Sunrise-d819i2]

@@BuggsOp i say 100 for ever 4 to 5 years is fair.

[@OzixiThrill]

@@ChrisShawUK That's not exactly how things were going. Initially, those "generational" updates were needed to accomodate for the rather massive architectural changes that were occuring all the way up until the mid 90s. Only past that point did we really enter the iterative stage of hardware development, which has made software upgrades substantially less important than they used to be. That is to say, as opposed to what you're implying, this actually was a necessity that turned out to be a decent business model they kept, rather than some insidious 2-3 generation wide ploy.

[@chronorust3359]

What's funny as hell about the majority of ads to me is that they mostly expect you to ACCIDENTLY press on them. Most people don't give af.

[@chris.18045]

I have the right to protect myself against harm... Advertisers on TV don't follow you to the grocery store to check what's in your shopping cart to see if they can sell (advertise) their brand of yogurt to you the next time you turn on your TV, do they now? They also don't break into your house and steal your stuff while setting fire to your home on the way out. The FBI recommends using ad blockers because ads have the capability to install malware onto your computer without you ever even clicking on them. Also, You Tube ads are mostly scam ads these days (buy my program to drop 50 lbs. overnight, get rich quick with passive income etc.). It violates the TOS for YT but they don't ever enforce their own rules (when it comes to advertisers), so... If TY chooses not to protect their viewers, they have the right to protects themselves!

[@PerkythePro]

What really makes me mad is that I'll load a video and go to the comments and stupid ads sweep across the entire screen in the youtube app. This is the reason that i started using web browser ad blockers. When they had those banners that grew and covered the page playing crap in my way, i said no more. I never minded the ads on websites until about 7 years ago, as i knew they gave the website revenue to keep providing content. I'm seriously considering getting an ad blocker for KZbin. They forced me into it by making them more intrusive than ever.

[@Adam_U]

Do it. Life is too short to be watching ads.

[@IgirlbossedTooCloseToTheSun]

God I hate those If they show up while I'm in a comment thread it will boot me all the way back to the top and it's horrible

[@PerkythePro]

@IgirlbossedTooCloseToTheSun exactly! I had to disable moving to the next video for the exact same reason as well. If I'm typing something, it should not be moving to the next video... seems like a no brainer, but apparently not.

[@NatureShy]

@@PerkytheProOmg I hate that so much

[@andromeda8418]

I would buy ad-free premiums if they wouldn't be so damn expensive. Okay, 10 bucks per month for a single service isn't super bad. But nowadays one service just won't cut it. To near an ad-free experience, you gotta have like 5-10 different services, each starting at 10 bucks per month. The cost just starts to add up.

[@Strepite]

That’s the problem with subscription services. It easilly adds up. Fuck subscriptions…

[@TheMasterPandaBear]

In the case of YT I think the subscription would be worth if they did offer more than just ad free platform, such as true downloadable videos ( you have to be online to watch them and that defeats the purpose of downloading it) or if they did a better job of enforcing their policies (such as not banning creators that dox people) or work on getting rid of bots or malware/scam ads

[@NeoTheLynx]

Downloaded videos on a mobile device should work offline, from my testing anyways

[@kevinwong_2016]

​@@NeoTheLynx but you can't use it in other apps💀

[@phemeloseotlolla]

I think it's safe to assume that most of us don't have problems with ads that are skippable or one 8-10 sec ad. The problem comes when they hit us with 2 ads with the first one being 15 secs long and unskippable every time you click on a video. Ad blockers were always gonna be banned by YT at some point, they need ads to make something on their platform, but they got so intrusive that it makes watching vids annoying, especially long ones.

[@colourbasscolourbassweapon2135]

true no cap

[@jiawei9022]

What's worse is KZbin not regulating their advertisers properly, resulting in scam-mish ads constantly pitching me on "ways of attaining financial freedom" ...

[@TheTimeOfYear]

Oh god, that and the Mr beast scam ads

[@IveBeenWithBruma]

Or worse Teemu ads...

[@beaniemac]

KZbin is literally unwatchable without premium or ad blockers

[@TacticaLLR]

I actually don’t mind them, I’ve gotten used to it, and adds themselves have gotten more bearable/ funny or interesting for me, it’s really not that bad; especially if you have patience.

[@eugenekrabs141]

@@TacticaLLR ecacly, if you have patience, you are probably the only person on the entire internet with patience

[@chloeprice9544]

@@TacticaLLRthis comment is the most dystopian thing I’ve seen. Dude literally wants cyberpunk 2077 to be real

[@TacticaLLR]

@@chloeprice9544 I don’t prefer adds, I just just don’t find KZbin “unwatchable” as of now. Just don’t watch until you skip them or something. These people are impatient, and not used to adds. You’ll get there when you get there, it’s just routine, you need to have patience to enjoy this platform regardless of adds.

[@doktork3406]

@@chloeprice9544 Human brain after watching over 1 million ads like ^

[@Tzankotz]

It's really impressive how well you managed to not only understand but also explain the whole situation in an unbiased and thorough way!

[@draugr7693]

Corporate greed always ruins everything.

[@costelinha1867]

Corporate greed isn't the problem, only the symptom. The problem is capitalism, capitalism ruins everything.

[@AndreiPaul14]

Greed will always ruin everything 😢

[@tiagocoelho94]

Nothing is free

[@markanderson7236]

It's not about greed; it's about the moment they face the consequences of providing freemiun services, as they see their profits dwindling.

[@LordOfTime23]

It's not greed. It's capitalism and its infinite growth shit

[@holleey]

yeah it's not greed. it's the natural incentive under our economic system. over time this is always the expected outcome.

[@AndreiPaul14]

​@@weird-guy I will be more than happy to pay for what I use. The problem is I am not paid enough to pay for all of this. Access to YT, internet, 1-2 games/month, to be able to afford new mid-tier hardware every 2-3 years, Spotify and Netflix subscriptions + all the bare necessities like food, shelter, and groceries + 1 vacation a year should be paid by your salary not salary + side hustle. I don't want to take a loan to pay for entertainment or vacation. All those companies have record profits and year over year and the base pay was not increased. That is the reason why I said greed will always ruin everything because it is not about the operational cost, it is about the profits.

[@HippieInHeart]

That's actually a very good point which I haven't even thought about before. Like, as an example, imagine if KZbin/Google somehow figured out a way to bill ISPs for traffic to their website. The ISPs obviously would pass this cost down to the end-users, but no one would really notice it or get annoyed by it. One major issue I see in this video is how *Netflix* is lumped in with all the free things. At the same time, at least as far as I know, Netflix cannot be accessed (legally) without a subscription. It's the same as me saying "Yo, I'll clean your house for free. But I'll only do it if you pay me 10 $ per hour that I spend cleaning it." That's literally the exact opposite of a free service. I find it worrying when people start labelling things as "for free" which are actually not for free at all.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Ah, the ISP idea is quite intriguing. I wonder if it’s actually possible.

[@HippieInHeart]

@@LogicallyAnswered Doing it exactly like that, with billing the ISPs, would probably be rather impractical though, because many (and eventually all) other websites which are operated on a for-profit basis would follow suit, which would drive up the costs for ISPs a lot. A general subscription for access to the internet as a whole would likely become prohibitively expensive and only a few very rich people would be able to afford it. Everyone else would need some sort of split-subscriptions, where they'd have very limited and restricted access to only a few websites and pay a certain amount for each website that they'd want to access. It might shift public anger and annoyance away from the website owners and onto the ISPs, but wouldn't really do much to actually solve or improve anything in any way. It'd certainly lead to a pretty dystopian scenario, maybe one that'd be bad enough to cause a revolution of some kind. Not sure if I'd like or hate that.

[@dragonhero14]

@@LogicallyAnswered This is a bit tricky, but technically KZbin and other services can't do that. This requires some understanding of how the internet works. KZbin has servers that host and make published content avalible for streaming around the world. But it's the ISPs that are needed to deliver that content to users. ISPs charge webhosting companies and large groups like Google and Apple for their bandwidth usage for delivering their traffic(similar to postage from the post office). There is no legal way for KZbin to try and push costs onto ISPs. If they tried that, the ISP could just charge it back to them or deny them service. This is one reason why Netflix has been really smart about this. They will provide basically no cost high spec cache servers to ISPs for hosting purposes. That way the traffic requests stay on their network, Netflix doesn't spend as much on the bandwidth, and it reduces the bandwidth load for the ISP. It even improves service quality for consumers. This is me speaking from a Network Enigneer's prospective.

[@backlogbuddies]

Someone tried the ISP thing in the past during the usenet and other dialup providers era. It was deemed illegal because sites were able to hide these fees behind complex EULAs, which had no way to guarantee if the person was of age to agree. Some porn sites tried this again during the dsl boom and were struck down

[@jamesyoung151]

@@LogicallyAnsweredI recall services trying that once. I also remember it backfiring very badly.

[@climbeverest]

I pay for premium and still get bombarded with KZbin shorts, it is so unusable now, I wish there was a competitor to KZbin

[@Rafael96xD]

So much unused ad space on my youtube, yet they still decide to use the main screen...

[@johnrehwinkel7241]

I'd be willing to pay for youtube if the cost were anywhere reasonable. But as you point out, the price they're asking is hundreds of times what they'd make on ads. $4 a month, I'd have signed up long ago, but they had to get greedy. A bunch of platforms are realizing that having a big spend to get a user base, then making everything crappy, doesn't work, the users just leave. There's always another service.

[@daydays12]

What's the alternative to You Tube?

[@StraightcheD]

I feel conflicted about this. I like the fact that there are useful apps and such for free and I rely on them in some cases. But it just seems to be escalating. Eventually everything will have many ads at this rate.

[@GeoStreber]

The only option in the long term is to open-source everything. It's the only way to ensure both data privacy and add-lessness. That's why I'm in the process of switching from Windows to Linux, from Discord to Matrix/Element, from Twitter to Mastodon, youtube to Odysee etc.

[@notbacon__]

​@@GeoStreberhow will those services get money to host their servers and such?

[@GeoStreber]

The same way that the entire GNU/Linux software stack finances itself. Lots of donations, and some corporate backing.@@notbacon__

[@livinghypocrite5289]

@@notbacon__ Wikipedia seems to be doing good running on donations. Then there are open source projects, that demand money for service/support. Then there are those that let people pay, if they are making money using their product.

[@kaden-sd6vb]

Earlier I was listening to an Angus McSix album, and there were double ads between EVERY song, And once even right in the middle of a song. It's unacceptable and excessive.

[@GetThatGlitchBandit]

As someone who mainly watches yt on mobile, there are stuff out there that allows you to not just skip ads, but also skips sponsorships without the need to pay for anything (at least for mobile). Frankly, I don’t blame people for going down this route because not everyone can just pay for it (or want to) and with how many ads are being played in a row… You can’t blame them.

[@DragonKingGaav]

Ads have ruined everything since their inception!

[@TBpepe]

Not really.. its just people feel entitled too much.. ads always been there. We enjoy a lot because of ads even in the world of TV

[@0bashie]

@@TBpepe Entitled how? It seems your very existence is entitled, because ads are absolutely everywhere, the very world you are conceived in is full of billboards and ads plastered around every corner. And saying we "enjoy a lot because of ads" is a stretch. Isn't TV by itself an expensive service that people already pay tons for?

[@Skeeballman64]

@@TBpepe I believe it's really based upon how the ads are shown. On KZbin, ads are shown in videos now disruptively and it's driving people to say things like this. They're just upset and I don't blame them.

[@kitsunekaze93]

@@0bashie paid channels arent supposed to run ads! only free tv runs ads

[@KronosTheRevenant]

To quote someone i've heard regarding advertisements: "Your intrusive ads dont entice me to buy your product/service, they make me hate it and refuse to give it a second glance. If I was ever interested in your product, I would look into it myself."

[@ramseywilliams2617]

I think I have figured Hari out. He started this channel by showing his face but when the channel began to grow he slowly went into the background. Just as he is about launch his product he starts showing his face again so that we can attach a face we trust to the product . To be honest that's a really good idea. Keep it up Hari. We'll be cheering you on

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Good eye haha, that was definitely part of the thought process :)

[@MoneyGist]

What stops Google/KZbin from charging advertisers more to access the global population? Why do users have to pay more?

[@Noob-oh6hw]

I got two unskippable 30 second ads before watching this. You’re right.

[@sohigh10]

This all assumes these companies aren't massive tax evaders, underpaying employees and maxing out shareholder value cost be damned. I don't mind paying for the service, but I'm not paying for rich guys' bonuses while I'm just trying to get by.

[@joelpichette]

thanks for pointing to the real issue.

[@jasonkoroma4323]

Taxes are bullshit to begin with

[@doktork3406]

Bait and switch. Premium will have ads in no time. Trillion dollar megacorporation would applaud your death on a pyre if it brought them 1$ extra revenue, they won't let ad free Premium users slide for too long. Keep in mind, TV was supposed to be ad free at first. They lied. Money just shows you how someone really is all along

[@NatureShy]

This

[@KtCleansAlot]

There's no way they're not making enough money off peoples superchats and memberships. They take like 30%. That's alot! And if you've ever been in a live chat with several thousand people and about 1/3 of them are donating to the channel, you'd know that's a lot of money YT is collecting.

[@thelight3112]

It costs an absolute shitload of money to run just the infrastructure that KZbin needs: Servers, network devices, ISP appliances, bandwidth/cable costs, etc. Then they have to have teams of programmers, network engineers, systems engineers, etc.

[@KtCleansAlot]

@@thelight3112 you're not wrong, but I'd still be interested to see what they take each month from all the content creators. Its gotta be a crazy high number

[@Demortra]

@@thelight3112 Unlike netflix though they do not create even a 1/1,000,000 of their content if any at all. They essentially are profiting off of others works which is fair, then they demonetize that person and still run ads which the creator does not get paid for. I would love to see their profit margin alone.

[@lovelysakurapetalsyt]

​@@thelight3112They take a bunch of money, and a lot of payment is from superchats. There's always live streams going on and superchats happen everywhere, so they make plenty, they just only show ad revenue so they look poor

[@ceu160193]

There is no such thing as "enough" money, when it comes to business.

[@fisch723]

Based on the title I thought this video would, at least in part, talk about how ads have ruined websites, making them virtually unusable. Between auto-starting videos, ads taking up more than half the page, severe slowness waiting for ads to load, and painfully unstable with all of the JavaScript running on the page. Especially on a mobile device. Trying to read an article from my Google home page feed on an iPad is an exercise frustration. 😢😢😢 What ever happened to user experience?

[@Latnman101]

i refuse to pay 15 bucks for ad free content

[@Bajolzas]

I mostly avoid anything that is advertized to me; If I need a product I'll search an unbiased opinion/review. also abvertizing cost money, if you buy a highly advertised product, you are paying for it to be advertised to you.

[@ineffable0ne]

Exactly this ^ I've done that since I can remember, but also, recently I've even started actively avoiding companies from sponsor segments - even from creators I completely trust. A few rotten sponsors can spoil the bunch, so to speak.

[@swish6143]

Exactly that's why KZbin increases the number of ads. It's just not a viable business model, either buy advertised products or pay for KZbin premium. The last one is more honest.

[@doktork3406]

Take everything i say with a grain of salt, since it is only my opinion, no more. The purpose of ads is to make you buy from the seller. Ignore the "no, it's just for building 'brand awareness' " or any of that crap. "brand awareness" ultimate goal is to make you buy from said brand. Advertisers will stop at nothing. Every psychological trick in the book is on the table. They take their "brands" (this word makes me sick), products, and seek to associate it with natural concepts of your life. Advertsers, expert scammers, expert salesmen (similar to previous terms) inch their way into your mind until they get the sandbox they want. In that sandbox, they parade these concept associations in front of your entire self, until that foreign concept is no longer recognized as foreign by your mind. That is when they win. Your natural flows of concepts, being posioned by deceit of this kind will breed the DESIRE to buy said things FROM WITHIN. You will actually, truly believe you want to buy that. A healthy individual will take zero account of ads, as he hopefully evaded all attempts at manipulation. The individual assesses strictly based on needs maybe some slim desires for more comfort. The individual spends considerable time researching everything he needs to know about how his need can be fulfilled, performs inquires, evades biases, performs tests. Individual balances all costs and benefits, and implements the solution. An unhealthy individual is far more eager to satisfy even passing desires, and decisions, analysis, comparisons are non existent. Need is either a passing mood or bred from within after long exposure to ad -> immediate reach of biased conclusion towards marketed stuff -> impulse buy. Take everything i said with a grain of salt, since it is only my opinion, no more.

[@Mysticth]

things have gotten so bad, I'm using a browser literally built around being an adblocker and VPN. it's beyond frustrating.

[@TBpepe]

Just think the creators need to make money to offer you content.. as simple as that.

[@CyborgLikesDucks]

lets be honest, who would even care@@TBpepe

[@thecoolestduck45]

Which browser plz tell me

[@Daniele63]

Just so you know, unless your browser is called TOR then the VPN is most likely a proxy and does not improve your privacy at all, while also slowing you down

[@theoneafterthelast]

The problem is that for a long time ads were bearable, short, and/or skippable. KZbin was losing money. Fair enough. But they drove out so many competitors with an unsustainable business model. You can't drive out every competitor, set an unrealistic standard, then get mad when people get used to that standard. Now I'll keep cheating KZbin as much and for as long as I can.

[@illuminum8576]

If I have to pay for everything I use, I will be broke after 1 month

[@bruce-le-smith]

This is the central problem, every app is 'just $10USD/mth'. Suddenly 10 of them are $100, 20 of them are $200, etc. If you make $15 per hour, $12.50 after taxes and fees, then you have to work 8 hours to pay for 10 apps. Doesn't sound like the end of the world, but what about rent, what about utilities, what about food, what about healthcare, what about transportation, what about retirement savings, etc. That's when people start to realize that social media isn't a true service, it's mainly entertainment and it's the first thing that gets cut from the budget.

[@swish6143]

Well, if people pay for this, it is also easier for the employees to earn a living, since you can make products like that and these people buy stuff from your services again.

[@jamestate858]

I was happy to pay for premium until they increased the family price from 22 to 32 AUD

[@swish6143]

Yeah that was a bit much. But inflation I guess. Energy prices are up everywhere.

[@Kaz7.]

​@@swish6143KZbin had a revenue of almost 30 billion dollars last year, they can afford to keep the lights on, what they're doing lately is just classic predatory capitalism shit

[@jamestate858]

@@swish6143 inflation doesn't excuse it. They'd be lucky to get 40 bucks of ad venue for my entire family. Yet they demand I pay 480 dollars to go add free🤣

[@So1]

Why is it that much anyways like jesus chirst

[@tina4621]

To many ads from one company, my reaction: I don't buy anything from them because they are more concerned about ads then quality

[@zukuioblue]

With the way things are going, i feel like it’d be hard to buy every premium for the platforms we use, its hard enough just to survive alone, it’d be even more difficult if we had to pay for everything we want to use let alone everything we need to use to live.

[@hgwells35]

Cable TV birthed KZbin and streaming because an hour show would have 30 minutes of ads. Now KZbin has become Cable TV. In the beginning, paid cable TV was adopted by the public to remove ads because network TV was saturated with ads. History repeats itself.

[@DrPizza-mn6kk]

Why do all services think they deserve $12 a month from me? my energy bill already gone up 50% from last year, I can't afford all of this

[@KaiTheMemeKing]

Getting KZbin premium would certainly reduce my annoyance by an exponential amount, but it would also be falling into exactly what KZbin wants from me. It's like those mobile ads that are so blatantly easy but the "player" fails, enticing the watcher to download it because "I can do better than that!"

[@rogerbartlet5720]

I don't mind seeing an ad once, but not the same one dozens of times a day.

[@jzytaruk]

I grew up in the 80s with VCRs. Ads suck, but aren't the worst. Shareholders demands of more profits suck the life out of good services.. and subscriptions suck.. everything sucks. Lol

[@BlackHoleQueen]

I’m getting 3 ads in a row on Spotify, and they are usually 30 second ADs. Sad that I cannot skip them.

[@hifumibestgirl]

KZbin has given me more value, by far, than any other website. I would gladly pay for KZbin Premium, but KZbin continues to censor and make the platform worse. If there was any viable alternative, I would never use KZbin again.

[@dave23024]

They crossed the line with the eye-tracker. When an ad pops up every time glance away, that's too much. Annoying AF and I'm so tired of running back to mute my TV every time I leave and KZbin has an ad blasting at max volume.

[@Bizarro69]

I believe it's a sign of something very serious coming in the financial horizon. people need to start saving some money under their pillow. when big businesses are acting so desperate, they are in trouble.

[@TBpepe]

Stop spreading misinformations and speculations like this .. we have already been through 2020 so its not a unkown to us anymore

[@Strepite]

Nah the issue is we are fucking sheeps that are easy to milk… Imagine half of KZbin users just leave the platform for a week or two, or a month… and demand less ads… they would do it in a minute to get us back… But we clearly don’t know our value, that those greedy corporates are dirty rich because of US!!!

[@iebeopel]

The only problem i have with youtube ads are those literally 100% scam ads & fake guru courses. KZbin become so absurd that they accept scam ads.

[@pidojaspdpaidipashdisao572]

"ads are ruining everything" Serves an ad on this video... nice man.

[@michaelnovak9599]

I am looking forward to see how they plan to resolve this Cobra Effect they created. Now that I think about it I heard Twitch already went through the conflict between the platform and creators about embedded sponsor ads in the videos which platform can't monetize. They tried to restrict them but had to step back? Not sure since I didn't really care...

[@dabluflcn]

I'd love to see an analysis and breakdown of users who cave to the companies vs. those who find work arounds.

[@SteinerArts]

It's become so bad, that whenever I want to watch an 8 second anime joke video, you'd sometimes get two long ads and they'd amount to about 50 seconds of unskippable commercials... In the end, I am just giving up on said anime joke video. :/

[@agoosecalledxaro6679]

I spend too much time on the internet. I think most of us do. If I cannot afford to use the internet, I won't. If anything were to cure my addiction to a service, it is over monetization. I think overall this push to monetize freemium services is a positive regardless of how addiced and entitled we have become.

I honestly do not mind advertisements nor subscription fees. What I do mind is the nature of the advertisements by which I am being targeted as a young male from the Western hemisphere. They are mostly get-rich-quick schemes (scams) and gurus (fraudsters). They make me sick.

[@SeattlePioneer]

And the audio of ads seems to be particularly obnoxious. I usually turn down the audio to avoid listening to what is on the screen.

[@hoshiro.exsharaen]

I don't mind watching ads as long as they are relevant to me (i.e., regional to where I currently live). Somehow, when watching on my laptop, I get useless Kickstarter ads over and over, and the frequency is staggering. That doesn't happen in my phone/tablet, where ads are local foods/drinks/shops etc.. I suspect my DNS over HTTPS setting messes up with the location detection, but I don't want to turn it off. And yes, while KZbin Premium is less than USD 5 in my country, I don't want to pay for Premium, at least for now. I don't need the KZbin Music offer since I already have Spotify. If I want to support the creators, I'd rather pay for super thanks or do a one time Patreon or maybe buy their merch.

[@bassbeat12]

Damn, KZbin's invasive amount of ads jumpscares just cure my addiction, Thanks for that KZbin!

[@annameyl]

I am currently learning business in school And one thing that we're often talking about is how to make prices What is the optimal price to sell something for? To put it simply, the cheeper something is the more people are willing to buy it. For example. 1 person is willing to use 100 3 are willing to use 50 And 20 are willing for 10 Which of these three prices is the best one? The third right? It's 20*10= 200 But what if the product costs 15 to make? 20*15= 300 200-300= -100 Now you're loosing 100 And the best price is actually the second one It's not always good to sell to as many people as possible And it seriously looks like all of these companies forgot one of the most basic facts of profit.

[@ProductBasement]

I've been seriously considering youtube premium, especially since they starting blocking ad blockers

[@nightmarezer0507]

Get Revanced Extended

[@pegcity4eva]

​@@nightmarezer0507seconded

[@supergenius6256]

Adblockers win, and they'll always be justified.

[@mephistophelesgg7963]

@@supergenius6256 they won already

[@creedolala6918]

The power of "this is what I'm used to" can't be overstated. Between the fact that piracy is easy and mostly risk-free, and the rise of freemium, people are so used to free that they actually get pissed at reasonable charges. Charging just one dollar for an app or game will massively decrease the number of downloads and get a bunch of negative reviews. I'm not thrilled with the idea that I might have to start paying separately for YT, FB, reddit, and whatever else I'm getting for free. But I am looking forward to a future where they don't need to be so ruthlessly shitty with blasting ads. Even with adblocking, you run into things and have to keep on top of it. Unfortunately, shitty monetization strategies like endless microtransactions, or mini-ads popping up in the corner during a TV show, or audio ads for the restaurant you're already eating at... those are also becoming "what we're used to". So companies will do that even when we pay, and people will accept it.

[@altrag]

> I might have to start paying separately for YT, FB, reddit, and whatever else [...] a future where they don't need to be so ruthlessly shitty with blasting ads You say that as if they won't just do both. Sooner or later they'll cap out on people willing to pay for premium and then they'll start showing ads to premium users and create a higher "tier" of premium to get rid of the ads again. Then they'll phase out their free tier all together while jacking up their lowest paid tier to similar levels of ads as free used to have. Rinse and repeat every time they hit saturation. The cycle will continue until they finally hit the point where the number of people who just give up and quit their service entirely exceeds the revenue they gain from selling higher premium tiers and blasting more and more ads.

[@fuckshit8208]

@@altrag As Hari mentioned in his video, the average KZbinr makes $0.018 per ad view. They split ad revenue 50/50 with KZbin, so we should assume that YT is making the same amount. So if a user watched 1,000 ads in a year, which is impressive, that's only $18. A KZbin subscription is $14 per month. Each subscription is therefore 833.33% more profitable than a free user, meaning that for every 833 free users that watch a very high number of ads, there's a single subscription user. So think about what you said in your post concerning showing ads to subscription users. Do you really think KZbin would take that sort of chance if they would need (at least) 833 free viewers to make up for the deficit of losing a single subscription? By showing ads to paid users, they're risking it all to chase nickels and dimes. They would lose subscription viewers because KZbin seriously isn't worth it at the end of the day. But I'm honestly okay with Alphabet taking it to the chin once in a while. They made the investment of buying KZbin and it's not your responsibility (or mine) to make sure it's profitable.

[@altrag]

@@fuckshit8208 > Do you really think KZbin would take that sort of chance if they would need (at least) 833 free viewers Absolutely. You're not thinking far enough into the future. Your logic might make sense today, but what about in 5 years where free users are now getting 47 unskippable 3 minute ads before every video? Probably not going to be very many free users at all. But they still want that sweet ad revenue. So they start off by you know, maybe putting up a small 10-15 second ad for paid users. That's not too bad right? Then slowly its two. People complain of course, so they add a "better" paid tier for "only" another $5/mo to get no ads at all again! Just as they did with the free tier, they just slowly push more and more ads into the "low" paid tier which drives people into the next paid tier. Then when that's saturated they divide their tiers into a "bronze/silver/gold" system where each tier pays "just a couple extra bucks" over the previous to get fewer ads. Of course that isn't something they do next week. That's something they do a small step at a time decade over decade. If they do it fast then people will just get pissed off and leave outright, but if they do it slow enough that any individual change doesn't seem "that bad", they'll be able to push paying customers up a tiered system in the exact same way they're pushing free customers to paid right now. It happened with cable TV. It happened with subscription newspapers. Its happening with Netflix. Its happened in more than a few video games. It'll happen with KZbin eventually. Not soon (probably), but eventually.

[@michaeltorrisi7289]

As a comment above pointed out, the government used to go after companies that sold things at unprofitable prices in order to bankrupt competition and monopolize a market. That includes Alphabet (then Google), with Maps, which killed a number of eMap companies. There's no good reason for the government *not* to nail some nuts to the wall. Giving these companies a pass to ramp up monetization AFTER they've ensured there's no competition doesn't dissuade companies from using these tqctics in the future.

[@creedolala6918]

@@altrag it may reach a point where we accept ads on any form of entertainment, a generation will grow up thinking it's just as normal as the fact that you can't avoid getting some junk mail every single day, and tons of spam in your email, and a few telemarketing calls every week.

[@oie27]

I live in a country where there aren’t any KZbin ads! But also I’m in France and was in Belgium (Antwerp) for the holiday and the ads were sort of tolerable? But in France there are ads everywhere, like I’m watching a video under 10 minutes and there’s an ad before I could even watch it so hmmmmmmm

[@oie27]

An ad just played.

[@usernotavailable4559]

I live in a country where there are no ads on KZbin

[@Gimmick_]

Just want to say, at 1:43, Puzzle and Dragons has always been that way. Invest stamina into entering a dungeon, lose it and your dungeon progress if you fail, use premium currency to continue. I get it's just a passing sight, but I think its context should be established since it's been a mobile game that's been running for over 10 years with this model.

[@dorianodet8064]

I believe we'll slowly move back to what was the norm before the "monetization of free user" model, which is limited free version with paying full version. Making the base version a nightmare to use due to add and shit won't work long time

[@liberty-matrix]

I couldn't watch KZbin without an ad-blocker.

[@Makerboi88]

remember the little banner ads we used to get sometimes instead of video ads?

[@salvadormuro7346]

After a few years of premium and the occasional few days gap between paying I haven’t been able to pay the last 2 weeks and dear god is the experience different after all that time not seeing ads. I’m not on social media and only really watch KZbin or occasionally a streaming service that someone else has paid for. I feel like I’ve been through a barrage. My sleep, my head almost ringing with the stupid chimes and tunes in the ads. I can’t wait to have them gone again. The experience is much better when you forget you’re a product.

[@Sloppyjoey1]

I honestly thought you were going to talk about how sponsors are ruining content 😅. On the front end, they want to control content with bribery and association. On the back end companies want to claim IP over any and everything.

[@SebastianKurek]

Consider that we live in a world in which after creating some intellectual property (like a tv show) it is more viable from a profitability standpoint to write it off in taxes and have said property never see the light of day than selling/showing it to actual viewers. We've allowed companies to lobby intellectual property rights into actual insanity.

[@Sloppyjoey1]

@@SebastianKurek I couldn't agree more. What kills me is the rampant trolling around fair use and believing they own intangible things such as musical chords and fictional "personalities". They liter everything with ugly, repetitive ads, influence content with bribery and threats, and then ruin the aftermarket industry with IP trolling on content they don't even commercialize anymore.

[@pixerpinecone]

@@Sloppyjoey1 Let's not forget about copyrighted colors. COLORS! (Home Depot orange, Barbie pink, etc.)

[@TheSkullverine]

South Park taught me that Free"mium". The "mium" is Latin for "not really."

[@climbeverest]

Extremely disappointed with KZbin

[@dhayes907]

If you aren't paying for it, you are the product. Be the customer, not the product. If we pay for it, we decide where the line is. Right now, the advertising companies are the ones gatekeeping because they sign the cheques.

[@tonytins]

Google kinda wrote themselves into a wall when they brought KZbin. It was just a humble project by some collage guys at a time when the only thing that ever costed were MMORPGs, hosting, domains and enterprise services. KZbin is freemium because that's all they knew.

[@r3dp9]

Honestly, I liked the old days of youtube where it was a hobby, not a job, and content creators didn't expect to make money. Good luck putting THAT cat back in the box, though.

[@Daniele63]

@@r3dp9 money ruins everything good