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Youtube The Almighty Buck

YouTube Considering an Ad-Free, Subscription-Based Version 225

Posted by samzenpus from the premium-pay dept.
Walking The Walk writes YouTube is looking at creating a paid-subscription model that would allow users to skip the ads on their videos. (A more condensed summary from CBC.) No firm date has been announced, and it sounds like tentative steps right now, but YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki did mention that ad-enabled music videos would still be offered.
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YouTube Considering an Ad-Free, Subscription-Based Version More

YouTube Considering an Ad-Free, Subscription-Based Version

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  • Ad-enabled music videos? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    How about removing ads on videos that don't have any commercially copyrighted music in the first place?

    • Re:Ad-enabled music videos? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ganjadude ( 952775 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @03:21PM (#48263603) Homepage
      ads??? i havent seen ads on youtube in forever. granted i know what adblockplus is

      • Re:Ad-enabled music videos? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @03:31PM (#48263717) Journal
        If Google will now be directly earning money from people subscribing to ad-free service, the AdBlock situation could change quickly. Frankly, I'm surprised Google hasn't already made the ads inseparable from the content - it's not hard. I suppose there hasn't been enough incentive for them to do that. If they bring out subscriptions, maybe they will have the incentive.

        • Maybe if this works, Google could offer a version of all of their services that no longer tracks your individual activity for ad revenue.

          Of course, Google insists that their tracking is only done to make their services work better - and beyond targeted ads, which would go away, there are still many aspects of Google services that wouldn't work as well without tracking you. But at least the tradeoff would be clearer - and if you paid them, but still allowed tracking for the purpose of providing more appropr

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by aralin ( 107264 )

            Yes. Every online service should have this option. I would even require it by law. I don't mind to pay for my privacy and my time. This was my main gripe with Hulu for example. There has to be price that will make it worth it for them not to show me ads. I want them to take my money, but no... there is no option of that. So I am not customer. No service without this option would have me as a customer.

            If you don't pay, you are the product.

          • I thought the same. I'd like to see a control panel that lets you dial these settings if you were a subscriber. Unfortunately, you're still probably screwed when it comes to Google Analytics on machines you weren't signed into Google on.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Trogre ( 513942 )

          What are you talking about? In New Zealand we already see video ads appearing right in the middle of some YouTube videos.

          I guess that particular treat hasn't reached your country yet. For it, I place the blame squarely on ad-blockers. Google know that a percentage of their viewers never see nice static ads, so they resort to these obnoxious aggressive tactics.

      • I have AdBlock installed, and I still see pre-roll ads sometimes.

      • I didn't think there were ads on youtube either. Granted I don't use it all that much. Maybe they're talking about those stupid boxes that pop up blocking part of the video which are trying to get me to watch a different video .

      • I re-imaged my PC for the first time in ages and forgot to put ABP on it. I was shocked how horrible the internet is these days. How do people regular cope with this?

  • pay money for youtube? (Score:3)

    by alen ( 225700 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @02:42PM (#48263147)

    is this november fools?

    who is going to pay money for russian driving and ice bucket challenge videos?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by i kan reed ( 749298 )

      People who haven't heard of adblock?

      Some of us reaaaaaaaaaaaaaallly hate ads.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        That doesnt stop ads in the middle of a video though. I would consider this if it were cheap.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by SeaFox ( 739806 )

          That doesnt stop ads in the middle of a video though.

          It does for me. Either that or I haven't seen any vids that have those ads interrupting it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by arth1 ( 260657 )

        Wait, YouTube has ads? I didn't even know.

        • Funny, I discovered Youtube ads had invaded my FireTV YouTube client after updating last night. I was also previously unaware youtube was forcing ads. Adblock FTW.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sycodon ( 149926 )

      I'll *watch* the ads as long as they...

      1. Make their player respect the volume level I set and not jack it up to the maximum for every new video.
      2. Disable those stupid, inane, idiotic, moron bait Popups people can put in the videos that typically say, "Subscribe", or, "Click here for the latest version!" and more often than not, are just plain blank.
      3. Quit "suggesting" shit unrelated to my search. If I search for "Lava Lake", I don't want to see videos of Russian Fails in the list.

      And for fuck sake, ditch

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Also make sure the content justifies the ad. If the content proves to be shite and stopped after going through the ad, then that is theft of time and pleasure. No ads prior to content, only after content and align the ads to the content, it is far less jarring. As for searches, the video spammers just flood their content with all kinds of popular tags, so allow users to block specific uploaders and drop them from all search returns.

    • Re:pay money for youtube? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ninjacheeseburger ( 1330559 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @04:55PM (#48264661)

      Youtube has come a long way recently in terms of production value some channels host shows that even surpass TV shows in terms of quality such as VGHS https://www.youtube.com/show/v... [youtube.com] or even full length movies such as Ashens and the Quest for the game child https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      Users like TotalBiscuit regularly provide high quality coverage of video games, so depending on your interests, there are defiantly videos worth paying to watch, obviously depending on prices. It would have to be pretty low to be justifiable though, a TV licence in the UK is just over £12 a month which funds multiple add free channels with for the most part high quality content.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

        How about letting individual channels choose if they want to go subscription? Cuz what a subscription model will cut down, drastically in the case of casual-content videos, is the impulse watcher who generates ad revenue whether they really care enough about your video to watch it or not.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Are you in the future? We're still in October.

  • My current problem with Youtube isn't the ads, it's that Youtube runs like crap on my AT&T Uverse connection at home.

    I'm sure this is a problem with AT&T and not Youtube, however. :-(

  • Maybe if the paid version allowed channel design customization like before vs all channels looking the same shade of bland.

  • thats odd (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It's already ad free for me...

  • Still doesn't change that proxies are necessary to get around the region restrictions of some videos.

  • All-you-can-eat monthly subscription with download links for all videos (including commercial music videos) in various formats (mp4, mp3, ogg, etc.).

  • Umm, more power to them I guess. So for money I get to skip the adds, or I don’t have to see them at all? Seems unclear. Most of what my wife watches only requires a 5 second wait before allowing a skip. I expect that wait will skyrocket if subscription fees don’t bring in what marketing thinks they should.

    From TFA:

    She did say YouTube would continue to offer the option of music videos with ads for those who don’t want to pay.

    Seems to suggest other previously commerical supported feeds might no longer be available to non subscribers.

    All and all sounds like a bumpy road ahead.

    • Yeah, but where does the money we're paying them go to? Aren't there youtubers that rely on adsense profits? If the ads are gone from the videos, how are they making money? I can't possibly see how Google would divvy up the profits of the subscriptions to the youtube channels making money off their videos.

  • Ads always load fine (Score:5, Funny)

    by Russ1642 ( 1087959 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @02:54PM (#48263281)

    Ads, even full top quality HD, load up just fine. Then when your video is actually supposed to play you just get that stupid waiting symbol. Then the video starts to play and just as it's getting to a good part it pauses while it loads again then rapidly skips the part you actually wanted to see. Maybe, just maybe, YouTube could make their site not suck before asking people to pay for it.

    • It makes Real Player BUFFERING look fantastic.

    • Re:Ads always load fine (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @03:36PM (#48263791) Journal
      I've been very disappointed in how the YouTube video player has been getting worse on a technical level. In fact, it's been many years since it was in a state that I'd consider "good". Between videos failing halfway through, or just failing to load period, requiring a refresh... not to mention the extreme bandwidth waste while seeking. It used to be, once a video had loaded, you could seek to any point in that video and it would simply start playing the loaded video from that point. Now, it begins re-downloading the entire video, beginning at your seek point.

      • I never understood why they changed this... used to be, okay my connection sucks. Let me just wait for the video to load and I'll watch it. Now it's, well my connection sucks, I can't watch youtube videos; or watching them becomes a chore.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by stms ( 1132653 )

        Try using a plugin to enable HTML5 video if you're using Firefox. It works much better if you don't have much bandwidth. It consumes a bit more computational resources than Flash Player so your mileage may very.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by itzly ( 3699663 )
      Youtube works fine. Maybe your ISP doesn't.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        No, that's not it. Just because something isn't broken for you doesn't mean you're a representative sample.

        I have a 50 Mb connection and my ISP and YouTube are friends, all needed money having changed hands. YouTube still blows goats on some videos, while working fine on others. They have some serious issues with their back-end.

  • I wish Hulu offered something similar - I'd happily pay a higher monthly fee not to have the ads.

    • Ad free...until they reach critical mass (Score:5, Interesting)

      by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @03:18PM (#48263567)

      >> I'd happily pay a higher monthly fee not to have the ads

      You must be new to the planet. Remember when the promise of cable TV was "you pay for it, so it's ad-free!" Once YouTube has a critical population writing monthly checks for content, they'll surely add the ads back in.

      • >> Once YouTube has a critical population writing monthly checks for content, they'll surely add the ads back in.

        Thank you, this was my first exact thought! Anyone old enough to remember when Cable TV first came on the market, subscriptions were marketed as "you pay a subscription fee, so we won't have commercials" We all know how that worked out. It's just another "thin edge of the wedge" scenario.. lube up the thin edge, delicately place it in, apply ever increasing pressure until you're so stretched out you wonder how we got here. Ughhhhhh.. lather, rinse, repeat....

      • Premium cable TV you mean? Cable was originally mostly rebroadcasts of transmissions that already had ads in it for people that couldn't get a signal.

        Most media companies dream of having everyone paying a monthly fee instead of relying on ads. You have to constantly seek out people to sell ad space to and you're always at the mercy of the price of ads and seasonal changes. The usual issue is that people are totally unwilling to pay anywhere near what advertisers will pay to show them ads. Youtube's per-pers

  • enjoy adblockers while it lasts. you know they'll embed the ads right in to the stream. then we'll have to resort to some dvr like client to fast forward.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by itzly ( 3699663 )
      Before they can put ads in the stream, they would need to prevent random skipping. And not being able to skip randomly would make the videos unusable.

  • Ads? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Youtube has ads?

    I guess my subscription free noscript/ABP must be ahead of the times.

  • I'd rather watch the ads. Though, annoying, I don't wait long. I don't need to pay another subscription service especially YouTube. I'd rather spend it on Hulu+ and Netflix.

  • Price needs to be realistic (low) (Score:4, Interesting)

    by timmyf2371 ( 586051 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2014 @03:57PM (#48263989)

    For this to work and reach a mass market, the price needs to be (i) realistic and (ii) generate an impulse purchase.

    There are too many subscription services out there; everyone wants their £5 per month or £7.99 per month or £9.99 per month, and it all adds up. I think an ad-free YouTube at £1.99 per month would entice a lot of people. Any more would probably not be worth it.

    BTW, Adblock is great and I love it. But it doesn't stop the adverts which sometimes play before a video when I'm using the YouTube app on my iPhone.

    • Fuck that, I'd be expecting WhatsApp type pricing, of $1/year.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RyoShin ( 610051 )

      I'd like them to experiment with different payment options. Possible options:
      1) Flat fee, no ads ever
      2) Tiered fees, going from no ads to ads for some things but not others, or only X ads/day
      3) Micro fees, where you load up your account and can choose to pay Y cents to not view ads for this view, Z cents to not view for a day, etc.

      Regarding micro fees, I've always wanted to see suppliers that do both one-time payments and recurring payments have a system that will automatically put you in the recurring paym

  • I have a better idea. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What about paying us to watch ads? That would be a better incentive. Give the target audience a cut of the advertising revenue. I don't think we would mind watching advertisements if it was paying for our bandwidth.

  • Instead of selling this directly to customers they should work out deals with existing subscription services. Subscribe to Netflix and Youtube is add free. Subscribe to Hulu Plus and Youtube is add free. They would get less money per subscriber but have alot more subscribers.
  • Paying for car videos? No thanks, I have my own cat. So are most readers here.

  • Nice, so Google can just charge for everyone else's content they don't own copyright to now?

    If this were any other company in the world talking about doing this they would be sued into oblivion.

    But since Google is owned directly by the NSA and CIA, this is perfectly acceptable to you retarded sheep, and all copyright holders.

  • Already does this. I haven't seen an advertisement on youtube in years.

  • That was the big selling point of Cable TV when it came out in the 70's...remember? By paying a subscription fee, subscribers could watch ad-free TV. We all know how well that worked!

  • Remember when cable had no ads? Lets see how long the "no ads with subscription" lasts.

  • to be posted here? Perhaps it is an example of online mob rule. Chances are, any response here will be along the same lines.

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