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YouTube is reportedly slowing down videos for Firefox users (Update: Statement)
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Unpopular opinion: YouTube has run at a loss for years, yet virtually everyone relies on them for content. It is not greedy to attempt to break even by enforcing the exchange of value the platform is built on. Video creators on the platform also rely on a share of ad revenue to make a living. If you don't like ads, you should pay for premium just like you would for any other video streaming service.
And for the pirates out there, why would you expect YouTube to treat you differently than any other streaming service? If you want to sail the high seas you better download the video and seed torrents, stop vamping off of YouTube's servers. Self host, ye scallywags, lol.
Alternative take: Google have deliberately run the platform at a loss using their vast wealth and market postion to destroy all competition and capture the market. Youtube is now the only viable mass-market facing video hosting platform left and has been for a while. Now they have a de-facto monopoly for the type of content they host, they're trying to monetise the audience. Enshittification has begun.
Perhaps worse they have prevented competition as the business model is basically broken - people now don't want or expect to pay for that kind of video on the internet, nor do they want to watch ads. But maybe Google forcing people to watch ads will rebuild the expectation of paying for what you consume on the internet rather than it all being "free" because you are the product.
This isn't a moral issue. Google has full control over who they offer services to.
So they can of course block people using ad-blockers. If my ad blocker manages to get around that and still let me watch the videos, I can of course do that without feeling guilty, too.
They decide what data they serve and to whom, I decide what I load on my pc as long as it's still served.
Right on, this is all completely true. That's why people complaining when YouTube stars slowing down or blocking are in the wrong right? If they are losing the arms race it is their fault and they should be complaining to their adblock developers, rather than complaining about YouTube's behavior, right?
Right.
Youtube is funded by one of the most profitable companies in the world. I understand the desire for Youtube itself to be profitable, but it could just as easily be a loss leader into Google's services and ecosystem.
Ad revenue paid to content creators is notoriously low. There's a reason that content creators these days are all sponsored.
Actually YouTube's revenue share model is widely regarded as the most generous of all mass content distribution platforms. YouTube Partners not only control how many ads are served for their videos, but make 55% of ad revenue generated by their videos. Your observation about "notoriously low" ad revenue is actually showing that the total ad revenue for YouTube as a platform is low. This is why more ads are being served now, because the price that advertisers are willing to pay for placement on YouTube (and across display ads generally) has gone down over the past few years. As a result, creators choose to max out the number of ads served on their content. Part of the drop in value of ads is attributable to the relatively high value target audience of sophisticated, tech literate, generally younger viewers who use adblockers removing themselves from the market. YouTube is telling this group "pay up for premium, or opt in to ads" in order to convince advertisers to pay higher per-ad prices.
To @bananatriffleviolin's point below, this hopefully will drive a shift back towards pay for service models for creator submitted content at large. YouTube Premium subscriber views pay creators way better than ad-revenue from the same video viewed by others for example.
Well, it's certainly unpopular, but I'm of the same opinion. Google core business, serving ads in ad searches, is already slowing down because of the way the Internet landscape has changed. For all the complaints about YouTube, it's the one platform that isn't going to shut your account because you criticize, advertise, or try to get your subscribers to move onto other platforms, that is hosting high footprint, high bandwidth media for you and your subscribers freely, and that has the highest concentration of users.
I'd rather see YouTube continue running than get Yet Another Google service shutting down. Otherwise, it will become a fractured landscape where the conditions for channels and viewers alike will drop because the lenient market norm will no longer exist. It's probably way off until that happens. It will leave the longtime monopoly with a persistent history of trying to screw over its users, Microsoft, free reign to wheel into the market with something far, far worse.