YouTube locks 4K playback behind Premium subscriptions in latest test(theverge.com)
theverge.com
YouTube locks 4K playback behind Premium subscriptions in latest test
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/4/23386782/youtube-premium-subscription-4k-quality-resolution-restriction-google
6 comments
I just use ad blockers. I haven't a YouTube ad in years.
I couldn’t do that. There are some amazing content creators on YouTube, and to deny them of ad revenue for their hard work would feel very wrong.
That's not how revenue works on YouTube since about 10 years ago.
Interesting. Can you elaborate? Last I heard creator revenue is a direct result of total ad views. A quick google search would seem to confirm this is still the case.
It's much less direct than it used to be. The raw revenue from advertising sharply declined, any of your videos will be "demonitized" by an opaque black box "algorithm" that seems to have no actual rules, and the other half of your advertising money gets rerouted to nintendo because you showed mario for ten seconds or to some weird fly by night company that claims to be the rightful copyright owner of white noise and actual silence.
Oh, and if you don't keep up with stupid recommendation algorithm updates, which change how things work seemingly on a whim, youtube will decide you don't have a competitive click through rate for your spammy, clickbaity thumbnails, and just stop showing your videos to people so that your viewership and revenue hits the floor.
Oh, and if you don't keep up with stupid recommendation algorithm updates, which change how things work seemingly on a whim, youtube will decide you don't have a competitive click through rate for your spammy, clickbaity thumbnails, and just stop showing your videos to people so that your viewership and revenue hits the floor.
I think he is talking about other revenue streams that most large creators use. Such as ads the creators place in their own videos, merchandise, and direct payments (Patreon, subscribe star, etc).
I think everyone is aware of those additional revenue streams. For the vast majority of content creators they’re a tiny drop in the bucket and the real money is still overwhelmingly in YouTube placed ads.
Op suggested advertising hasn’t been the revenue model for creators in 10 years which, upon further research is plainly false. He completely made up the claim in an effort to justify his use of ad block.
By blocking ads you’re harming content creators, it’s really that simple. Blocking ads on indie content is nothing short of theft as far as I’m concerned.
Op suggested advertising hasn’t been the revenue model for creators in 10 years which, upon further research is plainly false. He completely made up the claim in an effort to justify his use of ad block.
By blocking ads you’re harming content creators, it’s really that simple. Blocking ads on indie content is nothing short of theft as far as I’m concerned.
I suppose it depends on the size of the channel. If you have more subscribers than you can negotiate higher pay for in video ad placements. From channels that I have heard talk about it, google ads make up a minority of their revenue. Perhaps it is not the most representative example but Linus Tech Tips only made 26% of their revenue from YouTube AdSense in 2020.
https://youtu.be/-zt57TWkTF4?t=537
https://youtu.be/-zt57TWkTF4?t=537
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7060016?hl=en
> If you're a YouTube Premium member, you won't see ads, so we share your monthly membership fee with creators.
> If you're a YouTube Premium member, you won't see ads, so we share your monthly membership fee with creators.
You'd probably do your favorite content creators better by directly donating to them, as opposed to relying on ad views.
This is reasonable. However, I don't like being forced to also pay for their music streaming service because I already pay for (and prefer) a different service.
If you watch a lot of youtube video's it's worth it for just the ad-free experience alone. I actually did some math a while back and figured out based on my hourly bill rate that it's technically costing me money to not pay for YT premium (that is the time spent watching ads times my bill rate was greater than the monthly subscription cost).
Firefox gives me a great ad-free YouTube experience.
If I only watched YT on the browser sure. But I mainly get it so I can go without ads on mobile and on my TV. Yes I know there are apps like Vanced but I personally find it worth it not have to always look for workarounds.
I'm referring to watching it on mobile. Firefox lets me run YouTube in the background too.
I don't watch YouTube on the TV. The experience is horrific.
I don't watch YouTube on the TV. The experience is horrific.
Yes but then creators and YouTube don’t get paid.
I don't care about YouTube getting paid, but apparently YT Premium is lucrative for the creators (in comparison to ads). It's a very cheap way to support the people who make the content that you enjoy.
I honestly was fine before when there was only one ad, but now that YouTube ads are as long as some of the clips I watch I generally avoid it.
When people use YouTube, I'll use Firefox.
When people use YouTube, I'll use Firefox.
The Premium Lite subscription doesn’t include Music.
Seems to be a pilot and it available in all regions.
Not available in my region (USA).
You're not really, it just doesn't cost YouTube any more in terms of licensing the music for their music streaming service than it does to clear the rights for YouTube Premium, so they literally may as well include it.
A YouTube Premium lite is available in a few territories, but where it isn't that's because the music situation means it could cost single cents a month less than the full service and therefore isn't worth doing.
A YouTube Premium lite is available in a few territories, but where it isn't that's because the music situation means it could cost single cents a month less than the full service and therefore isn't worth doing.
Can someone tell me how YouTube is supposed to make money without ads and premium service? No one has been able to give me a straight answer.
Cute thought experiment:
Google is notorious for snuffing products they consider unprofitable. Yet persisted with Youtube for 16 years. Why?
Google is notorious for snuffing products they consider unprofitable. Yet persisted with Youtube for 16 years. Why?
Why? Because its probably the largest video hosting website by multiple orders of magnitude?
And you still hasn't given me a straight answer. Let's say YOU are Youtube, and you are trying to be an honest businessman (while staying alive). What would you do?
1. Turn it into a fully paid service. Which means you will probably never take off and some other guy will create an ((((free)))) alternative like Youtube.
2. Free service with premium features but people apparently don't like it because they feel like they are missing out.
I personally prefer 1 because that would remove 99% of the shitty videos that plague the website. I was saddened when I saw that people don't share my sentiment. That was the one moment where people have the opportunity to say "yes, let us pay you and you give us a direct and simple service". I easily "watch" around 12 hours of HD Youtube videos counting all the music in the background that I listen to. It is _definitely_ worth the premium price.
And you still hasn't given me a straight answer. Let's say YOU are Youtube, and you are trying to be an honest businessman (while staying alive). What would you do?
1. Turn it into a fully paid service. Which means you will probably never take off and some other guy will create an ((((free)))) alternative like Youtube.
2. Free service with premium features but people apparently don't like it because they feel like they are missing out.
I personally prefer 1 because that would remove 99% of the shitty videos that plague the website. I was saddened when I saw that people don't share my sentiment. That was the one moment where people have the opportunity to say "yes, let us pay you and you give us a direct and simple service". I easily "watch" around 12 hours of HD Youtube videos counting all the music in the background that I listen to. It is _definitely_ worth the premium price.
Because owning the world's biggest video distribution monopoly was worth 16+ years of losses for them. Same like owning Twitter.
They have almost no competition.
They have almost no competition.
bingo bango.
Youtube is worth it for them. This is just squeezing extra blood out of its users and seeing what they can get away with
Youtube is worth it for them. This is just squeezing extra blood out of its users and seeing what they can get away with
bergenty(1)
The same way YouTube was making money from 2005 till today?
Have they been profitable all this while though? They were operating at massive losses for a long while.
I think the right question is: are they free cash flow-positive? I don't know the numbers off the top of my head. "Operating at a loss" means different things to different people.
Profit is an irrelevant metric for a company like YT that would reinvest every dollar of FCF into growth. (See Amazon for the well-fleshed out reasoning as to why this is so.)
Profit is an irrelevant metric for a company like YT that would reinvest every dollar of FCF into growth. (See Amazon for the well-fleshed out reasoning as to why this is so.)
The fact that they chose to operate at a loss for decades in order to unfairly monopolize market share is their own self inflicted problem.
You reap what you sow.
I'm not paying YouTube/Google one single dime. They already monetize all my private data and viewing habits.
You reap what you sow.
I'm not paying YouTube/Google one single dime. They already monetize all my private data and viewing habits.
> YouTube locks 4K playback behind Premium subscriptions
... and HD behind compression.
... and HD behind compression.
Uncompressed 1080p60 video is on the order of 3gigabit a second
I guess hulitu meant to say "very, very aggressive compression with rather noticeable artifacts and banding which are hard to ignore even for a layman"
Does Vimeo compresses the uploaded videos? I found their videos to be more "clearer" if that makes any sense.
All video is compressed in a lossy manner.
I have some 444 10 bit progressive files, you could argue that the mere act of sampling an analog domain is lossy, but if you accept a typical YUV422 as being non-lossy then I have a fair amount.
But yes you're right that typically video today will be stored in the 150-250mbit range which is lossy.
I imagine a typical youtuber will then compress that again out of their video editor to something like a 20mbit long-gop file and upload to youtube/vimeo. That platform then takes the original upload and makes a dozen or so versions and different frame sizes, bitrates and codecs to cater for different consumers
But yes you're right that typically video today will be stored in the 150-250mbit range which is lossy.
I imagine a typical youtuber will then compress that again out of their video editor to something like a 20mbit long-gop file and upload to youtube/vimeo. That platform then takes the original upload and makes a dozen or so versions and different frame sizes, bitrates and codecs to cater for different consumers
this is risky move. lot of artist already moved to Vimeo because of quality in the past.
Vimeo is no longer trying to compete with YouTube. They are becoming a B2B solution:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-cr...
You can build a creator career on YouTube, but on Vimeo you'll pay for the privilege.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-cr...
You can build a creator career on YouTube, but on Vimeo you'll pay for the privilege.
Curious if any of the creator are actually getting something out of the premium if they're locking this...
I haven't seen any recent numbers or information, but I believe Premium views do generate some amount of money for the video creator.
I believe it shows as a different line item in their revenue dashboard.
Super basic official answer: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7060016?hl=en
Edit:
From a creator at https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/xv8k6n/i_have_yout... (so take it as you will):
> Income from premium is distributed by your watchtime. YouTube takes a portion of your monthly fee and divides it between the videos you watched. You watch only a single creator, that creator will get all of it. You watch only few videos, those videos will earn a larger chunk each. You watch hundreds of videos, each video will only earn a small amount. You pay a lot for premium, more will be paid to creators. You use a vpn to buy premium from india or so, only a fraction of that payment will be distributed accordingly.
> If you are not using premium creators get paid from advertisements that are actually watched. So either you have to watch the full advertisement, if it is shorter than 30 seconds, or at least 30 seconds from a longer advertisement, before you skip it. Skipping an advertisement after 5 - 29 seconds means no payout to the creator.
I believe it shows as a different line item in their revenue dashboard.
Super basic official answer: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7060016?hl=en
Edit:
From a creator at https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/xv8k6n/i_have_yout... (so take it as you will):
> Income from premium is distributed by your watchtime. YouTube takes a portion of your monthly fee and divides it between the videos you watched. You watch only a single creator, that creator will get all of it. You watch only few videos, those videos will earn a larger chunk each. You watch hundreds of videos, each video will only earn a small amount. You pay a lot for premium, more will be paid to creators. You use a vpn to buy premium from india or so, only a fraction of that payment will be distributed accordingly.
> If you are not using premium creators get paid from advertisements that are actually watched. So either you have to watch the full advertisement, if it is shorter than 30 seconds, or at least 30 seconds from a longer advertisement, before you skip it. Skipping an advertisement after 5 - 29 seconds means no payout to the creator.
IIRC, premium was a large part of the reason behind those wacky auto-generated kids streams that was in the news a couple years ago. Parents don't want their kids watching ads, so a good number of kids have premium accounts. Premium pays a lot better than ads, so targeting kids can be quite lucrative.
I have heard in the past one Premium viewer is about the same revenue for a creator as 6 non-premium viewers.
Surely this attention economy model must be a loss for humanity as a whole, no?