this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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YouTube has been in the red since day 1. Now Google wants their payback. OK. Seems fair. But I don't have to participate.
Everybody acting like Google is taking away a basic human right, or somehow "taxing" them is getting exhausting.
Facebook is up to even more shenanigans, proposing to charge users to keep ads off the screen. Again, fine. I don't have to use FB.
"But muh free content!"
It was very damned long ago that "content" was what you could see at the movie theater, see on your 4-channel TV selection or grab at the library.
/old_man_rant
Payback is fair? Even though these very digital megacorporations are just now facing antitrust lawsuits for very good reasons? The only argument for having to use these platforms as a content creator is reach. But if Google, Amazon, Meta, etc. only got their market-dominating positions by illegal means, nothing is fair about wanting payback.
I am paying money to people creating content for me directly, even for some YouTube channels. If I were to abide by Google's rules, I'd have to pay double. For the infrastructure & the people actually producing the content. Sorry... Why would I? I will not pity a monopolist because of their lost profits as long as I can circumvent it somehow.
It's not fair, it's literally illegal under antitrust law. The DOJ has been accused of "taking a nap" and not enforcing those laws for 20 years... but they're awake now. Which is probably part of why Google is suddenly changing course. They're involved in a few antitrust investigations as it is and don't want any more.
You can't run a company at a loss leader until nearly all your competition is dead and then start charging more than customers are willing to pay (or showing more ads than customers are willing to watch).
I'm happy to pay for video content - but I won't pay the prices YouTube is charging and their ads are even worse.
It's not fair to pay money for services to a company involved in unrelated lawsuits? Does the antitrust investigation negate the expenses associated with running the operation of serving you content?
Are all competitors dead? You can switch to watching TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, for random user generated content. You can go to nebula if you want YouTube style documentaries. You can go to any movie platform if you want to watch random stuff. They are all either in the red, backed by VC, waiting to do the same thing, or serving aggressive ads, or selling your data, or costing money.
How much people are willing to pay is irrelevant in the context of fairness. Fairness is about a company breaking even. Customer readiness is however relevant to business, and in this case I'm afraid that the evidence is against you - after countless similar complaints in the past, people haven't left the platform, and people have signed up to pay.
Paying for services is normal. It's unrealistic not to. It's unproductive to pretend otherwise.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing
Google offered content for free and so played a part in making generation(s?) of users expect content for free.
I used to watch films in cinema before they started playing them on TV but now I 99.8% don't care about them, or shows. I use Crunchyroll for a couple of anime but most of my content is only on YouTube.