Well, you could say "this service has no ads" and then include ads. Hulu did. People just may not like it or respect you for it.

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

> You can't say "this service has no ads, then include ads"

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.

...and as someone that is considering paying for said ad-free option, this is the sort of thing that makes me think twice...

When you sign up they have a clear disclaimer underneath that list the shows, tells you why they have to show ads, and states that it an ad before and after.

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.

Out of curiosity, is there some reason a 15sec preroll on 7 shows is so off putting? Are they some of the main things you'd watch? Is it the principle of ads in an "ad free plan"?

If some videos don't go ad-free, then it just makes it really unclear what you're buying, when you are paying money to get rid of ads. It is much less confusing if paying money to get rid of ads, actually gets rid of ads.

My reasonings are:

* 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.

Wanting things to be ad free can be a strong response to the overwhelming amount of ads that we are presented with every day. These advertisements program us unconsciously and often to our detriment, so yes it is important for there to be an option to remove all advertising for a price.

I feel a strong motivation to punish companies who commit bait & switch product promotions. Don't promote ad-free premium service to me, then send me ads.

If you think about it, the only thing you're buying is freedom from ads. If they show you ads, they're taking back the only thing you paid for.

> and you can't say "if you subscribe you see less videos"

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.

You get the same vides everyone else does, which is all that matters when you're considering whether to take out a Red subscription or not.

Just because Google is forcing everybody's hand doesn't mean everybody will follow suit. My channel certainly won't, simply because I don't like how they're doing this - to hell if I lose viewership because of it.

PS: downvotes for facts without any actual explanation is really lame.

Well then your channel won't be on Youtube.

Either not on Youtube or it will stay up but won't have any ads, and he won't have any revenue.

Is your channel even a "partner" channel? If it's just a regular channel you don't get asked, you are just part of the new thing.

And what about this do you not like specifically? Are you unhappy that they didn't wine & dine you?

Yes, it is (not my personal channel obviously). And I couldn't care less how they ask me, I care about how it affects the users. And frankly, your thinly veiled attempt to defend them asking me if I'm unhappy that they "didn't wine & dine" with me is utterly disgusting. This is a bad move for users and a bad move for content creators.

Blindly defending Google is very passé, you know.

> And I couldn't care less how they ask me, I care about how it affects the users. And frankly, your thinly veiled attempt to defend them asking me if I'm unhappy that they "didn't wine & dine" with me is utterly disgusting. This is a bad move for users and a bad move for content creators.

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.

> Why? You haven't yet explained what's bad about it.

The other comments do a great job of that. I don't need to repeat them.

> The other comments do a great job of that.

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.

I don't understand. How does it affect users?

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.

If you looked at my comment history you'd see I'm extremely against ad-driven business models so I welcome the idea of this subscription service. What I don't welcome is how they go about it. Forcing your channels to adopt your policy and silently removing videos you could have accessed yesterday is awful.

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".

I think it will make YouTube much smaller - if a channel has been abandoned then content is also gone. Too bad, I like to see lectures and documentaries, or some old and forgotten music, so all this will also go ...

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.

This only applies to YouTube partners, not any creator.

At least a few years ago, thinner media catalog with deeper viewership ends up being better financially. Some friends and I looked at what it'd take to put up a competing service and there's a lot of cost in all the CDN traffic, when a video gets dropped off from a regional distribution node then has to be pulled again from storage. I'm sure YouTube don't need to worry about it so much, but a higher eyeball-per-MB means more ad revenue per MB and lower infrastructure costs, I think.

(Off Topic Aside: Does anyone have a theory on why "loose" and "lose" are so often confused? I swear I didn't notice people doing this until this century.)