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Comment by justapassenger | Hacker News Reader

I understand people who block ads on the sites where you have no option to pay to remove them, especially if they're intrusive and you get served tons of random JS and popups everywhere you click.

But here - you can pay. And if you think it's too much and doesn't reflect value it brings - well that's your choice, but its not a charity and they can (and should IMO) fight with ad blocking.

Disclaimer - I pay for YT family plan that I share with my wife and it's most useful subscription we have - YT is our main source of media consumption.

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YT Premium only makes the problem worse by requiring you to log in using an account that is tied to your real world identity and was used for payment processing. You just end up giving more data points to Google to track you, cross-reference with other sources and shove more ads in other platforms, still get native ads, and Google can just add their own ads later (as it is happening step by step with streaming companies).

I used to pay for youtube premium but it would still show ads sometimes so I cancelled it. I'll never watch ads and I sure as hell won't pay to remove them and still watch them. Turns out the most consistent and easiest option is also the cheapest, so I pay nothing and never see ads.

I’ve never seen a single ad on premium (except for when creators embed it) and never heard anyone else talking about.

> never heard anyone else talking about

well now you have lol

There's an interesting contrasts in our opinions.

You say you are paying for youtube because it's your main source of media consumption. While I think youtube is merely (ab)using its position as a main source of media consumption to generate wealth.

For one Youtube is currently the default way to include video somewhere, even in situations where it would be inappropriate to redirect people to a paid service. Also since youtube is the main way people find content it is hard for free and open alternatives (e.g. peertube) to become popular enough to replace it.

Sure, they may abuse it. But blocking ads doesn’t change that - sure, it reduces their revenue, but it still entrenches them in their current market dominant position, as they still get the views and market share.

As long as they respect some fundamental freedoms I'm willing to tolerate them.

I'm not going to help them entrench any further though.

YT premium starts at $20/month in Australia for a single person, that’s far more than most other streaming services and you still have to put up with advertising and clickbait from creators.

Then don’t watch it.

That’s a non sequitur, my comment on the price is in reply to a comment on how supposedly cheap it is.

I never said it’s cheap. I said it’s useful for it being main source of media consumption for us (and I can add it’s a good value for how much we use it).

Good things don’t have to be cheap. Even more - very often they aren’t.

Where do I pay to remove sponsor segments?

Ask channels you watch about it. It’s not youtube doing that.

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