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YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

(iter.ca)
990 points smitop | 9 comments | 20 Jun 25 17:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.848s | source | bottom
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ttyyzz ◴[20 Jun 25 18:06 UTC] No.44330288[source]▶
Having to pay for something so that's "less annoying" is the worst business model. YouTube Premium is very expensive. I had it for a while when I got a Pixel smartphone with a few months of YouTube Premium included. It was great. I also understand that streaming on this scale must entail incredibly high operating costs; the money has to come from somewhere. It's simply a dilemma. But there has to be a better way. Any ideas?
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1. mbac32768 ◴[20 Jun 25 18:23 UTC] No.44330460[source]▶
In 2025 it's actually not that expensive. CDNs aggressively drive down the cost of streaming video.

A 1080p music video costs about one tenth of one cent to serve to one person at retail CDN rates.

You could easily host this yourself and decide what the terms are to view it. E.g. ads, or paywall or free because you benefit from the exposure.

Once upon a time AdSense/YouTube saved you from getting an unmanageable $5,000 bill from your ISP because your content went viral but nowadays their value proposition is more about network effects plus built-in revshare scheme.

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2. briffle ◴[20 Jun 25 20:39 UTC] No.44331878[source]▶
Youtube is $14/month. netflix is $17/month. That is VERY expensive, considering that most of Netflix's cost is production. Youtube has almost no production costs. Their users create content.

Maybe if they paid their users more, so they didn't also have to add 'sponsor segments' inside their video's it would make more sense. The bundling music for the same price is the same crap cable and phone companies have been doing for decades, that most people hate. Let me buy just youtube without ads, and keep spotify.

But as it sits right now, $14/month for video's without youtube ads, but still with ads added by the creators themselves (or paid promotion, I guess) is pretty expensive, compared to $17/month for actual movies with no ads at all.

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3. dieortin ◴[20 Jun 25 21:31 UTC] No.44332300[source]▶
Assuming your numbers are correct, you’re ignoring all the rest of the infra
4. BXlnt2EachOther ◴[20 Jun 25 21:52 UTC] No.44332454[source]▶
YouTube gives, I think, 55% of revenue (not just profits) to creators, which could be considered similar to production costs making up a majority of expenses.
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5. smoe ◴[20 Jun 25 23:39 UTC] No.44333147[source]▶
I switched from Spotify to Youtube Music a couple of years ago because of Spotify showing disruptive ads/promotions on the premium plan. YT Premium for Music + Videos is worth it for me, being about 2.5USD more expensive per month than Spotify where I live. But I agree that one should just be able to subscribe to them separately.
6. mirashii ◴[20 Jun 25 23:45 UTC] No.44333179{3}[source]▶
Just for comparison, Netflix in 2024 spent somewhere between $14B and $17B on content, and made $34B in revenue.
7. vunderba ◴[21 Jun 25 00:00 UTC] No.44333267[source]▶
You're not wrong, but the amount of content on YouTube (that they need to index, store, and stream) is several orders of magnitude more than what's on Netflix.

And for that matter, the number of active viewers is also significantly higher since there's no paywall. AND they also support live streaming.

8. blinding-streak ◴[21 Jun 25 00:21 UTC] No.44333393[source]▶
But Netflix doesn't let you upload your own videos and show them to anyone on earth. The businesses are different.
9. bobsmooth ◴[21 Jun 25 01:16 UTC] No.44333692[source]▶
$14 is the average cost for a McDonald's trip. It's really not that much.