alt Hacker NewsTaking the YouTube example, and many others like it, I only use it because it is free.
If YouTube was subscription only, hypothetically, I would just not use it, and my life would be same as it is now.
There are a great many services that are nice to have, but very few I would bother paying for out of my wallet. Given the choice of paying for them or not using them, I would just walk away from most of them.
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The biggest problem with paid services is that they are often not satisfied with just being paid. Why not add small ads for your own services - you're just letting users know what's available to them. Then why not an ad when you're not actively watching. Then it's constant obtrusive ads. Then it's a pay even fucking more to remove ads. Then it's ads even on the no ads tier.
It's more money. Why would they refuse more money? It's so fucking frustrating too.
This would be fine if you also don't use Adblock. You can't say I use the bakery for free as long as I have the backdoor access key and therefore "free".
What would you replace YouTube with? To my its educational value is unmatched. I owe so much of my learning to it.
On the flip side, I’ll pay $10/month for 10 streaming services I never use (and have forgotten about), but on a Saturday night if a movie isn’t available and I have to pay $3.99 to rent it I never pay that. Instead I’ll drive to the corner store and spend $20 on snacks, and come home and watch YouTube with ads.
People are curious creatures indeed.