They really had no other good choice except force them to sign up, or loose revenue sharing status.
Hulu 'No Commercials' Plan: "A small number of shows are not included in our No Commercials plan due to streaming rights. But we’ve still made them available to you uninterrupted. They will just play with a short commercial before and after each episode. These shows are: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon A Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder. "
- they reserve the right to add to this list over time
That's exactly what Hulu did with their new "ad-free" option. There are a handful of shows they couldn't license with no ads, so they have a pre-roll ad, and a disclaimer about why.
Didn't care about any of those shows so I signed up. Seems reasonable and fair. Hopefully they will get a chance to change the licensing at some point.
* I'm paying for ad-free (in this hypothetical - I'm actually content with the above post mentioning that they clearly tell which shows are exceptions in advance), so yes, ads bother me.
* Why do ads bother me? It's a combination of: ads tend to pander to the lowest elements of the psyche/society; ads are explicitly manipulative - I don't enjoy exposing myself to manipulative people, why seek out or even tolerate this sort of exposure?; ads are disruptive to the experience I'm trying to have (pacing/tone/subject matter); ads consume time, something I have a limited capacity of.
* I stopped watching cable TV in college (some 15-20 years ago), and I immediately found I felt "smarter", more focused, with more available time, and (as a con) less in touch with the common zeitgeist (an experience somewhat similar to not following facebook or twitter today). This, despite the fact that I still "wasted" plenty of time watching movies and shows. As Netflix became prevalent (first in DVD, then in streaming) I found I could remain entertained without exposure to ads.
As I relied on the web for more news/entertainment, I found that ad blockers vastly improved the experience. Perhaps I've been oversensitized to the topic, but I usually find I'm more than willing to pay to get my experience ad-free, as the experience is just better then.
I've been frustrated at things like Huluplus and Youtube where I previously didn't have an ad-free option, despite my willingness to pay for such, so I have little doubt that frustration combines with the earlier sensitivity to make me more bullheaded on the topic.
But you do get less videos though. So they really either should say that, or figure out a better way... while the latter may be an unreasonable request, the former not so much.
PS: downvotes for facts without any actual explanation is really lame.
And what about this do you not like specifically? Are you unhappy that they didn't wine & dine you?
Blindly defending Google is very passé, you know.
Why? You haven't yet explained what's bad about it.
> Blindly defending Google is very passé, you know.
Blindly attacking Google, however, is very hip these days.
The other comments do a great job of that. I don't need to repeat them.
No, they simply don't. At best you are using circular logic. At worst you don't explain anything.
Again: Forcing content creators into this, is the only sensible option. It's the user-friendliest too, because why the fuck would I pay for an ads-free subscription service, if I then have to watch ads? So, as it's friendly to the users (i.e. the non-content-creators), the only way forcing content creators into the deal could be construed as not user friendly is if it would have any negative effect on content creators.
What is this negative effect? Because I simply can't see any. Why would any content creator be against signing this deal, what are the specific reasons? And your answer can neither be "because it's bad for the users" (it isn't), nor "because they are forcing me to do it". Because that's only sensible and also what every business does all the time, including the place where you shop for groceries. Terms and conditions change and if you don't accept the changes your contract becomes void and you are no longer able to use a service. Any service that ever changes their rules.
Or seems to me that this is a pro-user action. People are gradually using ad-blockers because video ads are fucking annoying. People (like myself and my wife) are also using YouTube downloaders to have some content available offline. YouTube Red is exactly what I wanted and if it didn't happen, oh well, I can go back to being a pirate.
And you seem to forget that users are often content creators as well on youtube. This is akin to saying "This doesn't affect users on our website, just a subset of them".
Maybe they want all the rarely viewed videos gone so that they can cut on storage costs?
Also if you ripped and posted some old disk then you are not holding any rights so this content is also gone.
Gives them a financial incentive to sign up but allows them to opt out without making google eat the loss.
They could have a modified version of Option 2, which is make the ad supported videos discoverable if the user chooses to allow id. They could also have a button to 'tell the content creator to support ad free mode'. It would essentially spam them into supporting it though.
Pay content creators who don't participate and are on monetised accounts as if the Red views had been seeing adverts, show adverts to everyone else.
I'd extract money from the red customers for the no advert feature, who would be more invested in the feature because their favourite channels would be on it. The Red customers would extract value from viewing that user's content. I'd still be getting paid for the adverts seen by everyone else. The content creator would still getting paid.
I honestly don't see any loser in that besides the content creator maybe not getting as big a cut as they would have if they chose to take the deal. If the Red deal was better than the ad-content deal then I'd be better off treating creators that way and letting them opt-out.
Doesn't Google's ability to do that depend on the details of the old agreement? Does anyone know those details?
I could imagine an agreement along the following lines:
1. YouTube will show ads on all of creator's videos.
2. YouTube will pay creator based on some formula (in terms of ad revenue, plays, etc.).
Nothing in that would let YouTube (a) not show ads on the creator's videos or (b) pay the creator based on the hypothetical revenue the ad they didn't show would have earned. YouTube could try to get content owners to sign onto a new agreement that included that, but, um...
In any case though, I imagine that the agreement would be far more acceptable given an only slightly modified version of business as usual as the alternative, than it would given an ultimatum between this and death.
A typical example of this type of contract would be a shipping contract, which usually does not guarantee pricing. Another example would be electronic components, which are well-specified, but whose mask (implementation on silicon) can be changed at any time (and notice may or may not be given).
The potential backlash is just too big, if you don't sign up you do not get revenue from the views that will push pretty much any YT contributor to sign the deal if the amount of YT subscribers gets even to single digits as a percentage of the total YT userbase.
Not all views are equal already, views from non-western countries generate little to no revenue as they either do not show ads at all or at a very low rate, the people that do generate ad revenue are people from countries that most likely won't mind getting the subscription and can afford it so even a small percentage of them moving to YTRed can have a drastic effect on the revenue of YT contributors which will force them to sign.
So option 7 and the reasonable one will be show videos, there's almost no loss for YT (many ISP's cache YT videos to save money which reduces YT bandwidth costs) but don't give money to contributors, they already don't get money if people use adblock, why would this be any different?
This feels more like a 'we are switching, it will benefit everyone, but everyone needs to be on board or this wont work' move.
What loss, they get your subscription revenue and don't have to pay out ad revenue to anyone. How is that not a win (and a loss for the creators)?
edit: nevermind I got what you mean.
Is google under an obligation to show ads to everyone who watches certain videos?
Edit: False dichotomy. Monetization does not necessitate ads. But you get what I meant.
Option 8: consider ways to monetize that don't involve video ads.
The problem is why would people pay for it without incentives. People will pay to not have shitty youtube ads forced more and more often.
-KEEP WORKING the way it works NOW. Red subscriber = no ad and no monetisation for the video if no RED specific agreement with google.
[1] This comment claims that YouTube said over 98% of content watched is signed up ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10429470 ).
Option 1: Don't show you videos from creators who don't sign it's deal.
Option 2: Show you videos from creators who don't sign it's deal, but include ads.
Option 3: Show you videos from creators who don't sign it's deal, but eat the loss.
Option 4: Remove videos from creators who don't sign, and you as a paying customer now have access to all videos without ads.
Really, for Google it's a loose loose situation, someone is going to be pissed one way or another, or they loose money. What would you do? Eat the loss? Easy to say, but hard to do. So they picked the one that benefits both them and their paying users (if you ignore the fact that a portion of youtube is going to go dark) at the same time.
Option 5: move ad based content to a new medium that isn't youtube so that content creators aren't tied to a single service for hosting.... But I only mention that because this is Hacker News and it's what I think we'd all want to be done, but Google isn't going to create that service.
Edit:formatting, and if I see another option someone has in a subsequent comment I'll bubble it up.
Edit 2: From JoshTriplett https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10428378
Option 6: take advantage of whatever "we can change this agreement at any time" term in the partner agreement to just say "this is our new approach to getting revenue, and we'll give you a cut of that just like we give you a cut of ads".