Comment by drnick1

16 days ago

Why are you still paying for Youtube? I run uBlock and haven't seen ads in years, don't see any cellphone format crap now thanks to this list, and VacuumTube on my TV defaults to 4K.

36 comments

drnick1

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driverdan  16 days ago

I'm not OP but I pay because I want to support content creators. It also removes ads from players that don't have blocking, such as Roku.

Of course there are other ways to support creators such as donating and buying swag. I do that too.

IG_Semmelweiss  16 days ago

i'm the same as you, but YT has started to place its content behind sign-in wall

Anon usage + uBlock and VPN, is a dead man walking

  • drnick1  16 days ago

    > YT has started to place its content behind sign-in wall

    Any examples of that?

    • IG_Semmelweiss  10 days ago

      Try opening any monetized video behind a VPN service, with a clean browser cache, and not using chrome .

      50/50 it will play, without logging in 1st

    • wpm  16 days ago

      yt-dlp has to have you install an entire JS runtime for it to function now.

madaxe_again  16 days ago

Because it’s $6 a month where I live and at that price it’s easier than any faffing or arms race with Adblock.

  • drnick1  16 days ago

    uBlock Origin updates its lists automatically. If you want to spend $6, just donate to uBlock instead and never see an ad again on 99% of the Internet.

    • codecutter  16 days ago

      uBlock origin does not accept donations. I would have loved to donate to them, but they don't.

raw_anon_1111  16 days ago

Hacker News commenters: “I don’t like ads. They are evil”

Also HN commenters: “I don’t want to pay for goods and services”

  • AlexandrB  16 days ago

    I pay for plenty of goods and services. Just not YouTube. As others have noted, YouTube premium makes ads go away, but none of the other engagement baiting and user disrespecting anti-patterns. As far as I'm concerned, Google is in adversarial relationship with its users, whether your paying or not.

    • sam_bristow  16 days ago

      I currently pay for YouTube premium but I'm strongly considering stopping again. For me it's a combination of prices creeping up (small part) and the worsening UX and engagement-bait (big part). It's the same reason I dropped Spotify a few years ago.

      1 reply →

    • raw_anon_1111  16 days ago

      I don’t know. But most of the time when I don’t like a service, I don’t use it. I know that’s a crazy idea. I find YouTube like everything Google does a piss poor user experience. I’m forced to only use it to watch official AWS videos and those don’t have ads.

  • calmbonsai  16 days ago

    I pay for plenty of other media (music, games, sports, comedy, books) and even do some Patreon for a few podcasts and YT channels, but I refuse to directly support a publishing monopoly that has had an actively user-hostile interface for over a decade.

    • raw_anon_1111  16 days ago

      I do too. I don’t use YouTube with the one exception of official AWS videos. But those don’t have commercials.

  • dietr1ch  16 days ago

    And how do I pay for a YouTube competitor that's libre or at least won't spy back without losing access to its monopolisticly large catalog?

    • raw_anon_1111  16 days ago

      Yes I know that Google just reported YouTube’s revenue is larger than Netflix’s. But I really don’t find anything interesting on YouTube. Every time I try to find an interesting tutorial on for me AWS, if it isn’t produced by AWS itself, it’s usually subpar and I end up just paying for it on Udemy or using my company paid Pluralsight.

      1 reply →

  • Bender  16 days ago

    Also HN commenters: “I don’t want to pay for goods and services”

    People became used to getting a thing for free then it slowly enshittified over time into the current blend of grift and bait. They also strongly promote via shorts the very things they discouraged because sex sells. Now they are promoting AI generated bait. As such they deserve any and all vitriol in my opinion. I personally would never pay for that hot mess.

    I watch a few popular channels because I can but probably not much longer. Eventually I will just watch the videos people copy over to Rumble until that platform follows the grift patterns of YT. It won't be long.

  • AngryNPC  16 days ago

    With the change in culture here, especially in the last 2-3 years, HN might as well be called Reddit News now. So it's not surprising that most people aren't consistent with their principles.

    • shermantanktop  16 days ago

      Was HN known for consistency of principles before? I don’t remember that.

      Whenever an online community is anthropomorphized as an individual, it looks hypocritical. The only groups that don’t look hypocritical are monocultural backwaters of groupthink, permabans, and self-editing.

  • PlatoIsADisease  16 days ago

    Normies who can't figure out the 3 buttons it takes to use ublock pay for such things.

    Its a tax on not being smart?

    I'm mostly kidding, but I just use ublock and I've never considered buying youtube premium. Try harder google?

bluehex  16 days ago

I pay mainly because a really like being able to play the videos in iOS pip background mode. I do find it crazy that Apple allows that OS level feature to be paywalled by apps.