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Comment by decasteve | Hacker News Reader

Serving videos without ads was how YouTube's monopoly was built. It became an ad platform later. That created an expectation that YouTube was a library in the public interest. Pre-2010 Google marketing had that public interest and internet stewardship angle to it.

Serving content over the web assumes that the content will be downloaded by a browser for rendering. Control over what and how that content gets rendered is controlled by the user. I think this aspect made, and still does make in the present tense, the web what it is. That's why the browser is called a user-agent--an agent that acts on behalf of the user.

YouTube could also move to another protocol, or develop a proprietary one to protect its interests. Otherwise it feels like they want to have their cake and eat it too.

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> Serving videos without ads was how YouTube's monopoly was built. It became an ad platform later. That created an expectation that YouTube was a library in the public interest.

That's hard to believe, from my POV. Way before the Viacom lawsuit, and even before it got bought out, YouTube (the startup) was notorious for its sky-high burn-rate: serving video is not cheap. I don't think any reasonable person thought Google spent billions on YouTube without intending to recoup the costs (Google was already serving ads by then).

You're mentioning the end user's learned expectation to get videos for free.

But what about the creator's expectation to get paid for their hard-earned views, to then pay for the gear purchased and the production of the entire video, including team members?

If you're really anti ads, don't take the content for free, find another piece of content that answers your ad-free philosophy.

I'm saying platforms can't have it both ways. If they want to avoid ad-blockers and video downloaders then pick another medium, or invent one and create a new thing that achieves this objective. The web is not TV. Public content on the web is public and user-rendered. That's what made the web and YouTube what it is today.

YouTube has every right to create a proprietary YouTube client (which they do on mobile devices) and prevent browsers from accessing it. Don't serve files to my browser if you don't want me to use them.

Creators, for better or worse, are putting themselves at the mercy of YouTube, as serfs to feudal lords. I'm sympathetic, and happy to pay (and do) for your goods directly, but don't complain to me if your lord mismanages your affairs.

Even TV users had VCRs to save content "offline".

Sure, it is all on YouTube/Google's fault if you decide to install an adblocker and not participate in the compensation of the creator who made the very video you are enjoying.

Definitely not illegal to do so, so do as you please, but don't turn yourself into a white knight by some mental gymnastics with the sementics behind what a user agent is. You want to enjoy the video without ads, regardless of the consequences on the creator who made that video — and accessorily, the service hosting it and streaming it to you!

Most YouTube creators offer side channel donations via Patreon. Prefer paying the value generator than the middle man.

Youtube provides the hosting and audience. That has value.

Maybe they should charge the uploader then

Why would they when ads pay for it? Why would you not pay for premium if you don't want ads since you're consuming the video?

Well, a different middleman.

> If you're really anti ads, don't take the content for free, find another piece of content that answers your ad-free philosophy.

Google is in the process of breaking this deal themselves - they're now adding ads to videos which users did not opt to monetize, and they're keeping 100% of the revenue. Taking the content for free, if you will.

They, at least, offer a free hosting service. Not ideal to monetize on the back of the creator's work, but it's not comparable with friendly piracy rationalised through semantics behind what User Agent means (as per parent comment).

Not free anymore - they're now adware that's monetizing your viewers after unilaterally changing terms and cutting you out of the deal. It arguably puts them on equal footing with people who unilaterally change the terms of the site usage deal and block their ads.

Remember, forcing you to watch ads means it's not free - it's you trading irreplaceable moments of your life for something. Unless your time is worth absolutely nothing, ads are extremely expensive to you.

Why are you constantly ignoring the fact that they also keep paying for all the bandwidth, encoder CPU use and development of playback platforms for any device brand capable of showing a video out there?

Try running a hosting platform yourself and you'll quickly see just how crazy expensive bandwidth is. It's just ridiculous to expect that someone will 100% subsidize your video bandwidth for free.

Was YouTube losing money before they made this change? Their monetized content more than covered the bills for the content that wasn't monetized, and that free content their users gave them kept viewers on the site and watching ads. YouTube wasn't running a charity before they made this change, that free content they were given was valuable. They're just hoping that if they squeeze the golden goose harder it will lay more eggs.

They're a for-profit business, so again, why do you expect your content to be hosted at a complete loss while you monetize on external channels? Seems a bit entitled to expect corporations to give you things for free because other people pay for it.

> They're a for-profit business, so again, why do you expect your content to be hosted at a complete loss while you monetize on external channels?

This is begging the question that hosting non-monetized content is actually a net loss for YT. I'm saying it's actually not, instead the aggregate volume of free content keeps viewers on the site longer, and the higher viewership numbers result in a significant net profit.

More likely, YT decided that this arrangement, while profitable, wasn't making enough money for them, and because they must show their investors ever-increasing profit margins they decided to mildly poison their user experience in exchange for higher profits.

YouTube only had 100 million users in 2009[0] - not an insignificant amount, but even after introducing ads in the same year[1], they've gained 2 billion+ users.

0: https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-Releases/2009/3/YouT...

1: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/infog....

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