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Youtube Advertising The Almighty Buck

Google To Offer Ad-Free YouTube - At a Price 358

Posted by samzenpus from the pay-up dept.
First time accepted submitter totalcaos writes YouTube announced today its plans for an ad-free, subscription-based service by way of an email sent out to YouTube Partners. The email details the forthcoming option, which will offer consumers the choice to pay for an "ads-free" version of YouTube for a monthly fee. The additional monetization option requires partners to agree to updated terms on YouTube's Creator Studio Dashboard, which notes that the changes will go into effect on June 15, 2015. We talked about the possibility of an ad-free model back in October.
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Google To Offer Ad-Free YouTube - At a Price More

Google To Offer Ad-Free YouTube - At a Price

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  • ad blocker? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09, 2015 @02:07AM (#49435991)

    My youtube ad blocker works perfectly. I never see advertisements while watching youtube.

    I'd happily pay for the ad blocker. I won't pay google for the joy of them not spamming me.

    • Re:ad blocker? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09, 2015 @02:44AM (#49436085)

      I don't mind the idea of a paid service to remove the advertisements. Unfortunately I would then need to log into Youtube and be subject to their tracking and profiling algorithms. For the time being I'll just stick with Adblock and an anonymous VPN.

      • Re:ad blocker? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Pieroxy ( 222434 ) on Thursday April 09, 2015 @04:08AM (#49436343) Homepage

        There is another catch to it: I will not pay a fee to all websites I visit in order to avoid ads. Not even talking about the money spent, there is just no practical way for me to micro-pay for every site I go to... Even though I think it would be a nice way to avoid ads while still giving something to the sites I visit. After all, they provide value..

        In other words: it doesn't scale until there is a way to expand the model to the internet. As such, I will still have AdBlock installed for all the other sites I visit. So even if I don't pay for YouTube, I won't see any ads anyways, making the YouTube subscription of little value.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by orasio ( 188021 )

          There is a way to expand the model to the internet.

          Say you pay a youtube subscription, and you get ad-free youtube, and for the same price, or for an additional, you get ad-free adsense.
          That means you won't ever see an adsense ad again. The sites will still have the adsense code, and google will just micro-pay, based on your usage of their site, from your subscription money.

          Doesn't look like a bulletproof strategy to me, but something like that might end up happening.

          Additionally, those who don't use adsens

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Chrisq ( 894406 )

      My youtube ad blocker works perfectly. I never see advertisements while watching youtube.

      I'd happily pay for the ad blocker. I won't pay google for the joy of them not spamming me.

      Does your ad blocker cope with the ads at the beginning of videos, you know the "you can skip this advert in 5 seconds" things?

    • Re:ad blocker? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jones_supa ( 887896 ) on Thursday April 09, 2015 @03:53AM (#49436285)

      My youtube ad blocker works perfectly. I never see advertisements while watching youtube.

      I'd happily pay for the ad blocker. I won't pay google for the joy of them not spamming me.

      Aren't you worried about the ethical choices you are making there?

      • The ethical choice I make has to be weighed against the ethical choice of offering a "free" service in exchange for obtaining the metadata of every person connected to a one or a zero. At the end of the day, my own integrity means a lot more than however much "They" might choose to make off my expense. Am I worried about that choice? Excellent question.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by itzly ( 3699663 )

        Aren't you worried about the ethical choices you are making there?

        Not at all. Why should I worry ?

      • Re:ad blocker? (Score:4, Funny)

        by xonen ( 774419 ) on Thursday April 09, 2015 @04:29AM (#49436409) Journal

        Which ethical choices you mean, the ones made by me as consumer or by them?

        Spotify - 10 euro to get ad-free version
        Netfix - 9 euro, ad free
        HBO - 15 euro
        Youtube - ? euro.
        Torrents - free & ad free
        National television - tax. about 50 euro / year - and still loaded with ads

        So there are options, but they cost quite a bit, especially if you would want more than one. Having said that, maybe youtube will offer a really reasonable price (like $20 yearly) and i would consider it, but i doubt their pricetag will be that low.

        I can't help that the 'default' state is to bombard listeners or viewers with ads. With up to 10-30% airtime spend on ads on some commercial TV but also on our national (tax payed) radio. With 30 second ads to watch a 2 minute video. And webpages with 75% ads and 25% content. And worse: the most annoying kind of ads, the ones that makes you pull your hair and actively makes you mute or switch channel.

        If ads were not that obtrusive, no-one would bother to block them. However it became an arms race - where the blockers got better and the ads even more annoying.

        So, i have no idea why you find it unethical that i, or any other customer, protect myself from ads. Or is it unethical to wear a safety belt, or earplugs at a rock concert, or safety glasses when using machinery, because i see very little difference between physical and mental damage (annoyance). I have the right to protect myself from unwanted influences.

        I could even turn the argument and say no-one has the right to (un)consciously steer my (shopping) behaviour. Others would even make the argument that obesity and smoking addictions are largely caused by advertising. So again, who's being unethical here?

      • Why is the ethical responsibility on the end user? Does YouTube not benefit from the hard work of "content creators?" Keep in mind, there are plenty who YouTube doesn't compensate at all, who don't even have the option to display ads. There are a few ways they could level the playing field.

        1. Display ads on every video and give every channel the option to collect a portion of the total revenue based on how many views they generate. This way, YouTube partners who call their ad-blocking viewers "unethical, free

      • > Aren't you worried about the ethical choices you are making there?

        [Citation]

        You're begging the question.

        You haven't defined ethical choices, and you are implying / assuming there are some when you haven't even proved there are.

        • Let me explain then.

          YouTube allows you to watch videos in exchange of seeing some advertisements. This is the deal that they offer. If you use AdBlock, you drop your part, which is viewing those advertisements. My claim is that breaking the deal would be unethical, as you are being unfair towards the other party.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

      My youtube ad blocker works perfectly. I never see advertisements while watching youtube.

      I'd happily pay for the ad blocker. I won't pay google for the joy of them not spamming me.

      So you don't recognize YouTube brings any value to you? Shouldn't they be able to decide how to monetize it? After all, it's their website.

      As for the spamming part, I don't see as spamming if you actually willfully go there al by yourself.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by itzly ( 3699663 )

        So you don't recognize YouTube brings any value to you? Shouldn't they be able to decide how to monetize it? After all, it's their website.

        Of course. If they want to reduce the value that YouTube brings, they can do that. I've seen mention of a fee of about $10/month. That would bring the net value for YouTube below zero, so I would probably stop watching it. I mostly watch it for entertainment anyway, and there's plenty of other entertainment available for free.

  • Given that adblock stops ads cold... meh (Score:3)

    by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Thursday April 09, 2015 @02:26AM (#49436039)

    I turn my adblock off most of the time. However sometimes ads are really obnoxious. I saw one that came up on every little video I wanted to watch. The ads were like 30 seconds long and you couldn't skip it... and I had seen the exact same ad 10 times in a row. So I turned adblock on because I was done looking at that ad.

    I also turn it on whenever I really don't want to support the video or site. You know what I'm talking about. Sometimes you need to go to a site and hear them repeat their stupidity just so you know that whomever told you that information second hand wasn't exaggerating. And often as not they weren't and I'm quite happy they didn't get the penny or whatever they get from my click.

    • Google may be testing adblock-blocking. Yesterday and today, Youtube stopped working from any device in my household in the evening. Everything else including other google services kept working fine, and nobody else on the internets seemed to be having the same problem.

      • youtube is annoying youtubers lately. There is a possibility they'll be an exodus if they annoy them enough.

    • I've tried to turn my blocker off a few times, but ads are so pervasive and annoying that I can't even last 5 minutes and re-enable them.

  • I'll just keep muting the audio and reading another tab until the 30 seconds has elapsed.

  • ... of AdBlock?

    Why would anyone pay for this?

    • Re:Have they not heard (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kohlrabi82 ( 1672654 ) on Thursday April 09, 2015 @03:38AM (#49436239)

      From my experience and knowledge, browsers on mobile devices don't have ad blocker plugins, and certainly the youtube apps for mobile platforms don't have them. I guess that's the market they're aiming for.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by itzly ( 3699663 )

        There's an adblock plus proxy server app that works for wifi connections. I've never looked for a 4G solution. My data plan is only 1GB/month, and youtube eats that too quickly.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jesrad ( 716567 )

        I use MxTube on (jailbroken) iPhone to store offline copies of youtube videos I want to watch, there are no ads left there except for the discreet bottom banner in the main menu of the app itself. I have to store the videos because my commute train goes through big no-reception zones most of the time and I only have a 2Gb/month plan anyway, I grab the videos at home from the wifi the evening before.

        I would so use an official Youtube app that would let me store the videos locally, even with the ads. I have n

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

        Various ad blocker are available for Android. They fall into two categories, those that use passive blocking with the hosts file and those that set up a HTTP proxy running on the device and re-write HTML on the fly. The latter are pretty similar to how AdBlock works, only done in a proxy instead of in the browser's DOM.

        Both work with YouTube. I don't get YouTube ads on my phone.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by LoneTech ( 117911 )

      They have heard of adblock. In fact, when I specifically requested to pay them so they could pay the content creators without showing me ads, they refused and even mentioned ad blocking. Note my motivation in that sentence; this is actually a feature requested by some of us. This announcement got my hopes up just a bit, but it remains to be seen if it's like the offline watching, which was riddled with strange restrictions, never worked properly, and was quietly removed. I see they're still talking about th

    • Why would anyone pay for this?

      Because some of us don't take all of the pennies from the "Take a penny" plate, and we don't take all the free chips home. [xkcd.com]

      Servers cost money to buy, power, cool, and replace. Networks cost money. Getting that cat video to you isn't free, why do you expect that you get to take and give nothing?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by itzly ( 3699663 )

        Getting that cat video to you isn't free, why do you expect that you get to take and give nothing?

        I don't expect anything, but as long as it works, I'll take it.

    • [Have they not heard ] of AdBlock?

      Yes we have.

      Why would anyone pay for this?

      Because some people appreciate the value that YouTube and (some of) the content creators that post there provide and would like a safe and convenient way to kick back a few bucks to ensure that everyone involved is able to pay their rent.

  • Ultra low usage tier (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Quick Reply ( 688867 ) on Thursday April 09, 2015 @03:01AM (#49436135) Journal

    I like the concept of paying for content to support my usage instead of going through annoying ads, but I don't use Youtube all that often, usually only because someone else has given me a link to something in particular. Those 30 second ads which sometimes lets you skip after 5 seconds and sometimes don't let you skip at all are really annoying. I hope that they give a low-tier option. For example $1 per year which is good for ad-free (or no forced ads) up to 500 videos.

    The most important thing is that I hope that the subscription options are compelling enough that someone would WANT to use it over the use of an Adblocker without any Adblocking counter-measures put in place.

    If it is successful (for consumers) it would be great if an ad-free pass could be extended across any other websites too that participate, not just Youtube.

    I use Adblock because the quality of advertising is too invasive, not because I don't to deprive websites of revenue.

  • More likely it is for syndicated or special content only available for paid subscription. IOW, films, tv series, shows, anime & cartoon, presentations, etc.... It is also most probably not in the interest of content producer to suddenly shift behind a pay wall : this would completely dry instantly revenue up. Far more probably some part of the content of higher quality would be behind a subscription, while the lower quality content to bait people would be publicly available.

  • Already there for music videos (Score:3)

    by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Thursday April 09, 2015 @04:48AM (#49436475)
    If you subscribe to google play music, you tube music vids are ad free, and you can download for offline viewing on a mobile device. In addition you can finally listen to any youtube video with the screen off.

  • Useful in education (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pjpII ( 191291 ) on Thursday April 09, 2015 @07:03AM (#49436939) Homepage

    I teach language classes, and this would be useful since I often use Youtube to show songs, listening exercises, etc. Sometimes I'm forced to use the in-class room computer, and nothing throws off a listening exercise like warming everyone up, getting their mental schemata activated, and then some ridiculous ad immediately preceding a listening. I hope that perhaps my university could get some sort of educational rate, since this is really for my work rather than my personal use.

    I'd also love to make the scourge of autoplay go away somehow - suddenly it's everywhere that shows videos.

  • Pay to get ad-free videosa (assuming Google gets the content owners to agree to it)

    OR

    Pay nothing and ignore the ads/use them as guide of who NOT to buy from....

    Hmmmmm.... tough choice (NOT)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      Actually, that's incorrect. Here's your choices:

      Pay (or someone else does because they like you) to get ad-free youtube (and probably other perks)...

      OR

      Use an adblocker like you should be doing today (advertisements ONLY exist to hurt you, so ofc you should have one)

      OR

      Watch advertisements, have them become part of your subconscious, be more likely to buy things they sell you, be MUCH more likely to respond to your friend mentioning brand X with familiarity (thus rewarding your friend for buying brand X, as

      • Wow, pretty narrow view there. I use advertisements mostly as a "what not to buy/who not to do business with" gauge. Sorry to hear you have sucj a weak mind that you buy whatever they tell you to ;)

        I do use ABP, so it's not an actual issue for me with YouTube, but ABP doesn't block all ads everywhere...

  • So, if I monetize my video and all the viewers pay the monthly fee and don't see the ads, will I still receive money?

  • Rest assured, google knows that you, I, and everyone else who is slashdotting use adblockers. They know we only see youtube ads at ludicrously rare situations.

    So:
    A premium mode that offers things they can't normally (specifically, anything that involves per-viewer resources that would open them up to DOS style attacks if they allowed it for just any account) is definitely something I'm interested in. And I'm sure free ads would be part of that.

    I bet it's "youtube gold"- something you can gift to commenter

  • I can't think of a single thing I see on youtube that I would pay even a penny for.

  • I never noticed...uBlock must do it's job VERY well.

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