Only so long as Google decides to continue serving content for free to people who contribute nothing to their bottom line, which isn’t guaranteed to last.
Ultimately, there’s no real way to get around the fact that operating huge platforms like YouTube that serve hundreds of millions of people every day comes with very significant costs, and someone has to pay them. Either users pay them directly, advertisers pay them in exchange for ad space, or investors pay them in exchange for the ability to control the platform for whatever purpose they want.
Given that, I’m personally pretty happy to settle on direct subscription fees. For the sheer amount of content you get, I don’t think it’s really that unreasonable, though I am of course speaking as someone in a position where I can afford them.
An argument could easily be made for Spotify as well. There are plenty of options for streaming music for free to your device with download support. Just about anything can be done for free if people are willing.
Except what YT Premium does is easily doable with free tools.
*with free tools from thankless efforts.
You can donate to projects you like tho
Preach. I’d rather donate to those folks than give google money lawl
Are you actually doing that though?
I used to. And I will do it again once I have an income where I don’t have to count pennies.
Yep! Recently to Yuzu and a mod creator that personally helped me get TotK running at 60FPS with no drops or stutters!
Are you donating to them?
Only so long as Google decides to continue serving content for free to people who contribute nothing to their bottom line, which isn’t guaranteed to last.
Anyone that thinks Google’s WebDRM is going to stop with ads is a fool.
Ultimately, there’s no real way to get around the fact that operating huge platforms like YouTube that serve hundreds of millions of people every day comes with very significant costs, and someone has to pay them. Either users pay them directly, advertisers pay them in exchange for ad space, or investors pay them in exchange for the ability to control the platform for whatever purpose they want.
Given that, I’m personally pretty happy to settle on direct subscription fees. For the sheer amount of content you get, I don’t think it’s really that unreasonable, though I am of course speaking as someone in a position where I can afford them.
An argument could easily be made for Spotify as well. There are plenty of options for streaming music for free to your device with download support. Just about anything can be done for free if people are willing.
YT is just the more egregious example of this imo.
Sure, for now. YouTube is cracking down on ad-blockers, don’t think they’ll let those free tools work forever…