Google AI Ultra

I suspect Google sees the writing on the wall, and needs to move to a more subscription based business model. I don't think the ad model of the internet is dead, but I also don't think it was particularly successful. People block ads rather than forgo those services, ads conditioned people to think everything on the internet is free, and the actual monetization of ad views makes people pretty uncomfortable.

So here we are, with Google now wading into the waters of subscriptions. It's a good sign for those who are worried about AI manipulating them to buy things, and a bad sign for those who like the ad model.

Is the future going to be everyone has an AI plan, just like a phone plan, or internet plan, that they shell out $30-$300/mo to use?

I honestly would greatly prefer it if it meant privacy, but many people seem to greatly prefer the ad-model or ad-subsidized model.

ETA: Subscription with ads is ad-subsidized. You pay less but watch more ads.

It will eventually be subscriptions PLUS ads combined.

They already do subs for YouTube w/o ads and for storage (email attachments + Google Photos + Google Drive), for Stadia while it was around.

This doesn't seem like new territory ("wading in"). This is an extension of the existing Google One plans to reach people with extreme demands.

I think this is a bit too rose tinted glasses. Being a paying customer doesn't necessarily mean you won't get ads, look at Netflix for a start. Their cheapest paid tier still gets ads. The subscription model will be an addition to the ad revenue, not a replacement.

I wonder how viable the referral link/referrer code method is? Based on my own YouTube viewing habits it seems like a lot of prominent channels have gone that route. Seems like it could work for the web overall. Ads would no longer have to target via cookies or browsing history because you could just serve links or offer codes related to your site's content.

YouTube is probably the most expensive streaming app, and there are still ads (sponsored sections) in nearly every video.

Sponsored sections are baked into video and very easy to skip.

Unlike platform ads which disable video control while the ad is playing.

Cannot find any factual basis for the claim that YTP is the most expensive streaming app. Is this the case in some non-US market?

> I also don't think [the ad model of google] was particularly successful.

Only on HN.

Heh, although I'm a cheapskate, the ad-based world is a fucked up one. We now have an attention-economy, trying to keep you hooked on the content so "the platform" can serve you ads and earn money off you. And they do that by serving content that engages you, and apparently it's content that stirs up a lot of emotions.

"Worried about refugees? Here's some videos about refugees being terrible". Replace "refugee" with "people celebrating Genocide", etc, etc...

> Is the future going to be everyone has an AI plan, just like a phone plan, or internet plan, that they shell out $30-$300/mo to use?

Not the people who haven't been trained to require the crutch.

It should mean that though.

Ads are well and truly the cancer on the service industry.

It’s an outright abuse to force ads and then make you pay for the bandwidth of those ads on your own plan to render them.

Yeah, only a few trillion in revenue over the last decades including Facebook and others. Not particularly successful.

> ads (sponsored sections) in nearly every video.

SponsorBlock for YouTube resolves the issue.

How does this relate to the parent?

I don’t there was a claim that nobody would ever offer a partially subscription partially ad funded service.

No idea if this is right but based on AI summary google results, annual operating costs for Youtube is ~$3B-5B and Netflix is ~$25B-30B. While YT probably spends most on CDN/bandwidth, they have a mostly free content cost which is by far Netflix's largest expense

By that metric, every streaming platform has ads since they serve movies with product placement.

Anyone can say A should mean B, that doesn't mean it's obviously true.

Very few services still commercially viable today actually force ads - meaning there is no paid tier available that removes them entirely.

I don't particularly like ads but this idea that any advertisement at any point for any good or service is by definition a cancer is a fringe idea, and a pretty silly one at that.

Actually hilarious, the distribution of comments on HN is truly bimodal

I mean that in that I don't think it lived up to what Google envisioned. People have extremely hostile views towards ads but have a full expectation that everything is just an account creation away, if not outright just given away.

30% of people who use Google don't view their ads. It's hard to call a business where 30% of people don't pay successful. The news agencies picked up on this years ago, and now it's all paywalls.

This doesn't even get into the downstream effects of needing to coax people into spending more time on the platform in order to view more ads.

Google used to let you pay a flat rate to avoid (most) of their ads. It was nice. This program was, of course, canceled.

Maybe if you ignore objective reality.

Google ads revenue AND income has consistently risen basically forever. Its ~75% of Alphabets total revenue and corresponds to over ~%50% of all Ad revenue in the world.