alt Hacker NewsUgh.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I have a very strong, borderline-irrational distaste for ads. I hate advertising, I hate having to watch advertisements, I will go out of my way considerably to avoid ads. I have over 400 blu-rays specifically because I wanted to guarantee that I don't have to risk seeing ads in my media.
I liked YouTube Premium because it was an ethical way to avoid ads on YouTube; there's always been adblock but I always felt bad depriving creators of their revenue; most of them (at least at the time) weren't big heartless corporations, they were individuals creating stuff.
If I start seeing ads unless I'm extorted for more money, that might end up being a final straw for me.
Replies
> I liked YouTube Premium because it was an ethical way to avoid ads on YouTube
Why would you behave ethically towards a company that is anything but?
The slight remorse I feel by not using official YT frontends is towards creators I enjoy watching, who I try to support via other means, if possible. But then again, any creator or business who chooses advertising as their only business model doesn't deserve my support.
Advertising is a scourge on humanity. It corrupts every medium of information by allowing sleazy middlemen to psychologically manipulate one party not just into buying products out of manufactured desire, but into thinking and behaving in ways that serve someone's agenda. It is weaponized via platforms built by adtech companies, which have played a major role in the current sociopolitical instability in the world. It is so insidious that even though it has concentrated incredible amounts of wealth into the hands of a few, most people see it as harmless because they get products and services for "free". To hell with all of that.
>I have over 400 blu-rays specifically because I wanted to guarantee that I don't have to risk seeing ads in my media.
Don't Blu-Rays and DVDs have unskippable ads built in, including the FBI notice?
>If I start seeing ads unless I'm extorted for more money, that might end up being a final straw for me.
How is it any different than the price increases that have happened up until now? Or do you mean $27 per month for up to 6 accounts is the most you will ever be willing to pay?
Yeah I have literally spent tens of thousands to host media that I could technically have access to for a handful of $10/month subscriptions, but I can't stand ads and cross promotion. A nice bonus is that a movie or TV show can't just randomly leave licensing window and disappear from my catalog.
I gave up ~2021. Bought one of the 10tb 5200rpm disks and just started yt-dlping entire channels when I found something good. With mixed 360p/480p/720p backups, I've used ~1/5th of the disc across nearly 50,000 files.
This does make me the unethical bad-guy, but my aversion to advertisement is so strong that I can't feel any remorse. AdSense is a scourge on the internet, and once Google is held accountable for it they'll immediately try to extort their licensed library of millions of videos to make a living. And they'll have to try a lot harder than that if they want to deprive me of a daily Tom Scott video with my morning coffee.