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Comment by ulrikrasmussen | Hacker News Reader

You can use uBlock and pay your content creators via Patreon if they have one. I believe that the ad-based freemium business model is harmful to society and unfixable due to the incentives it creates to engage and enrage rather than entertain and inform. So, I use uBlock to use YouTube for free to explicitly drain it of resources without giving Google any ad income, and then I pay the creators that I like using other platforms.

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I'm not a big believer in this. It simply doesn't scale. So I might donate chunks of income to 1, 2, maybe 5 or 10 people like this. What about everyone else? It's not a fair system. I engage with lots of youtube channels, read lots of things on dozens/hundreds of websites. Add a few podcasts to the mix and it starts adding up to quite a lot of mouths to feed with individual donations. It's not reasonable for all of them to expect something from me.

At least with Spotify and Netflix there is some kind of rev share thing in place. It's not very fair of course and a bit biased towards rewarding content creators that I don't necessarily like (or are in need of more money). But it's better than having to cherry pick creators. Somehow publishers have resisted creating such a thing for written media. We have this broken model of ad supported media and media outlets taking most of that revenue and paying really shitty wages to journalists, many of whom are working on a freelance basis and get paid pitiful amounts per word. Why do we have all these middlemen?

Spotify doesn't solve that problem at all, it just helps you avoid feeling bad about it. I know artists who sell their music on both Bandcamp and on Spotify, and they all say that their income from Spotify is utterly insignificant unless you are already a big and established name with lots and lots of streams.

You are not the only one consuming a given podcast or YouTube channel, and even if you don't subscribe to their Patreon, maybe someone who likes it even more will. Sure, some content creators will not get enough income to continue, but is that really a big problem? We have no shortage of musicians, blog authors and podcasters, and if you don't care enough about a podcast to give a little bit of money to it, then maybe you won't miss it that much if it disappears.

Advocating for a different market structure than the ad-tech fueled one will of course change the supply side and I am not claiming otherwise. I just don't think it's necessarily going to be a problem, on the contrary it will optimize for content that people love rather than content that just stimulates them.

Paying 1 is better than 0. You’re assuming support has to scale perfectly to be fair, but that’s a false binary. Creators don’t expect everyone to pay but they rely on _someone_ paying. Refusing because it ‘doesn’t scale’ just reinforces a broken system where nobody pays, creators lose and we end up with the shit quality media and content we have now

> we end up with the shit quality media and content we have now

I'll just say that looking back on my life consuming media (that started long before the consumer Internet was around), there has never been a better selection of media that I enjoy than now.

I've never watched reality shows or sitcoms, the kind of stuff that dominated mass media for a long time... I have interests that don't necessarily fall into the mainstream, so finding interesting or quality content was hard, and shows/films/docs were few and far between..

But now? The current system, while imperfect, at least allows for every possible topic and niche to be somewhat sustainable.

The sheer quantity of media has absolutely grown exponentially so there's definitely a lot more bad media, and media that isn't for me, but in terms of choice for myself, it's incredibly good.

Obviously YMMV and this is just my anecdotal experience, but I don't consider the system to be broken (even though, again, it's certainly not perfect).

Can you share how you do this? For example, you've listened to a song on YT a few times, liked it. Do you try to find the artist on Bandcamp or iTunes and buy their album? Or order their merch? How much do you spend on this monthly on average?

I buy on average 2-3 albums on Bandcamp every month. This month I've bought 4 already. If I like an artist enough that I want to listen to the full album more than once, then I generally buy it. If it's not available on Bandcamp I use Qobuz as a backup.

For videos and podcasts I subscribe to content creators on Patreon. I currently have four subscriptions for a total of around $12, and I give roughly the same amount to each.

I also avoid services that are monetized by ads elsewhere and pay for Kagi to get ad-free search. I will avoid all services that offer free tiers with ads and paid tiers without ads as I just fundamentally do not believe that the business model can work at scale without causing harm.

I also host my own email as I do not believe that it is possible to provide free email to people without somehow also doing things with their data or attention that goes against their interests.

I always find these conversations strange.

If you offer content for free I'm not going to pay for it. I don't tip, I don't buy micro transactions in games, I don't pay for discord nitro or buy "collector's edition" versions of games or twitch subscriptions or anything like that.

Simply, if I don't have to pay I don't. And I certainly won't waste my life watching ads just so someone can earn a fraction of a cent.

I don't feel any need to justify that, I don't feel bad about it. These tactics earn tons of money, and if that ever stops they'll stop doing it and do something else instead. Until then I'll happily take advantage of all the free stuff. Someone else wants to donate to subsidize me that's great, go right ahead. I'm gonna keep my money.

Exactly. Their business is to serve content which, if consumed using software in its default configuration, will give me a degraded experience. When the content has left their server and resides on my hardware, it is up to me - no, actually, it is my human right - to process it in the way I want. It is not my moral obligation to make sure that their messed up business model makes sense on a large scale. The alternative is Black Mirror Season 1 Episode 2.

I hate ads as much as the next guy, but this way of thinking feels the most unsustainable of them all. You said it yourself; the only reason you get to watch content ad-free is because other people are either watching ads, or paying for the content.

You justify with 'if you offer content for free, I'm not going to pay for it'. Agreed with microtransactions and stuff. But with youtube videos? The content is not actually offered for free. It precisely relies on ads to exist. So the content is offered with ads/with subscription (i.e. not free), and you are using an adblocker to bypass this. So you are just leeching out of the other users, and is not sustainable.

Honestly I don't care. I wouldn't sit through a 30 second ad to earn a cent, and i definitely am not doing it so that someone else can earn a cent.

As long as I can use youtube for free with an ad blocker (and sponsorblock, amazing plugin) I will. If google doesn't like that they better figure out a solution. Not my problem.

I don't really care if their business model is sustainable. If they go under so be it, someone else will offer it. Whether it's some hobby bob or whatever. I thought the internet was a lot better when it wasn't run by mega corporations anyway.

The thing with ads is: it's not free money. We pay for it. All of us. It's part of the price when we buy goods and services.

If advertising wasn't possible, items would be cheaper and we would have more money to pay for content directly. Cutting out the whole advertising industry out of the content payment loop would save so much money.

And yeah people would still buy stuff they need because they need it. And stuff they didn't need? Well good then that they're not buying it. Saving natural resources and money.

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