I think it says a lot that we all just expect everything on the internet to be free. YouTube doing all this stuff to try and crack down on adblockers - yeah, we know it won't increase their revenue in any way, but can you really blame them for trying? I think it's probably not unfair to say YouTube is the most expensive website on the planet to run in terms of how much bandwidth they have to serve the entire globe.
Now, yes, Google can probably run YouTube for all eternity and keep it alive via their profits from everything else they do, but I mean, if we did not specifically have Google essentially sinking their infinite money into YouTube just because it's got a captive audience, it would basically Not Exist. The only truly sustainable, economical way to video hosting and streaming really is to paywall it, whether it be paid access for viewers or charging people to upload. So, basically, the Vimeo model.
And then we can talk about how capitalism shouldnt be making these kinds of things effectively impossible unless you're an international multibillion dollar tech firm but that's a whole other conversation. At a certain point the internet just can't be Free anymore. Shit costs money.
Anyways subscribe to Cohost Plus.
I know there was just discourse about "enshittification" but I think that really is the problem here. If YouTube wants to say "$10/month for all the Yous you can Tube," please, take my 10bux, I'm not that cheap, I used to pay for cable for goodness sake.
But there's no trust that they would sustain that deal for any amount of time. That we'd get more than a few months before oops, actually the 10bux level only covers ad-supported basic content at 720p30 but would you like to learn about our exciting upgrade packages?
Yes Ask Me Later
100%. I'll pay for things to be less shitty, but when I can't trust them to stay that way, I won't pay. I'm absolutely behind people getting paid for their work, but that's not what these companies are about. They're about profit hoarding and data mining.