> I see very little friction to any of them - $10/year YT subscription disappears into the background
So there are several problems with this:
1. You restated the above commenter's cost from $10/month to $10/year for some reason. For context, Google's annual revenue seems to be $180B. That makes $10/month far closer to the likely alternative;
2. That $10/year or $10/month "disappears into the background" for you. That's a far more significant cost for the majority of Internet users who are in the developing world. Cost aside, there may be issues with even having the payment infrastructure to actually pay for that (eg due to sanctions or US foreign policy).
I agree with the post's author: there are significant benefits to an ad-supported model and high on that list is low friction (paying for any service is a huge point of friction) and that those in the developing world get highly-equivalent services to the developed world.
There are definitely problems with advertising. The over-collection of data is of course one. But it seems convenient and disingenuous to overlook the benefits as they're inconvenient to a shallow anti-advertising diatribe.
>You restated the above commenter's cost from $10/month to $10/year for some reason.
fyi... That was my fault because I later edited it without realizing others had quickly quoted it. I made a typo "$10/year" which was clearly a mistake because no mainstream service for videos/music/books charges 84 cents a month.
> 1. You restated the above commenter's cost from $10/month to $10/year for some reason.
Parent's comment originally read $10/year.
> For context, Google's annual revenue seems to be $180B. That makes $10/month far closer to the likely alternative
I don't see how the first part of your statement at all supports the second. Google's revenue now, with many different services in wildly varying stages of profitability, has very little connection to the hypothetical subscription price that would be applied to a service that is now ad-funded - you seem to be engaging in wild speculation.
> 2. That $10/year or $10/month "disappears into the background" for you.
First, YouTube is a luxury service. Second, I specifically addressed the problem of "it's too expensive" later on in my comment, with "That's a price problem, not a pricing model problem." - which still holds. Third, market segmentation is a thing. Fourth, those in the developing world will pay with their personal information - which can be far more devastating if e.g. they're a dissident living in an oppressive regime. Fifth, I never said the ad model should be removed.
You seem to be making the assumption that I am suggesting that the ad-funded model be replaced with the subscription/microtransaction models - I do not, and my comment was carefully worded to not make that claim. I specifically believe that models where payment is made in money should always be available, with ads as an option - not that the former should be completely removed.
> paying for any service is a huge point of friction
False. I can relatively easily design a microtransaction service that has very little friction for payment. Meanwhile, there already exist many extremely low-friction payment services. If you have a credit card in the US with the new contactless payment technology, it's extremely easy to pay for things - you just swipe your card. If you have a Google Play account, it's similarly easy to purchase a new app. If you have a subscription service with auto-renew, paying for another month/year is literally frictionless - there's absolutely no interaction necessary.
> But it seems convenient and disingenuous to overlook the benefits as they're inconvenient to a shallow anti-advertising diatribe.
See previous statement about your mistaken assumption that I said that advertising should be eliminated. Attacking a strawman does nobody any good.
So there are several problems with this:
1. You restated the above commenter's cost from $10/month to $10/year for some reason. For context, Google's annual revenue seems to be $180B. That makes $10/month far closer to the likely alternative;
2. That $10/year or $10/month "disappears into the background" for you. That's a far more significant cost for the majority of Internet users who are in the developing world. Cost aside, there may be issues with even having the payment infrastructure to actually pay for that (eg due to sanctions or US foreign policy).
I agree with the post's author: there are significant benefits to an ad-supported model and high on that list is low friction (paying for any service is a huge point of friction) and that those in the developing world get highly-equivalent services to the developed world.
There are definitely problems with advertising. The over-collection of data is of course one. But it seems convenient and disingenuous to overlook the benefits as they're inconvenient to a shallow anti-advertising diatribe.