this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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So "pay or you don't get shit" is okay, but "pay or see ads, your choice" is bad somehow?
Somehow? Paying to remove ads is rewarding ads thus causing more ads in the world. It's not mysterious at all.
There are plenty of ways to not make it an all or nothing service, but that is at least the most straight forward. You could potentially give some of it away and then have to pay for the rest. Or have some stuff for free and more premium content is paid for. Or perhaps based on bandwidth with video quality / resolution.
Anything that is not ads is going to be an improvement.
All those are fine suggestions, but a "free with ads" option isn't that bad either; the real problem isn't the ads themselves. The real problem is how intrusive the ads are, how many of them there are, as well as much information they (and YouTube) collect on you. Plus, in this case, the company in question isn't exactly a small company who is financially struggling. It's the classic capitalist problem of "infinite growth", where your profits have to be constantly increasing.
But there's nothing inherently wrong about the idea of having ads, just like there's nothing inherently wrong about youtubers having sponsors.
That's a fine opinion, but I happen to disagree.