Google Planning New Ad-Free YouTube Subscription Service

[StewShearerOld]

Google Planning New Ad-Free YouTube Subscription Service

Google may debut its new YouTube subscription service as early as this year.

Advertising is, for many websites, a necessity of life. While they might not enjoy forcing annoying ads down the throats of their readers and viewers, their survival can often depend on squeezing every last penny they can out of their content. Luckily, if you're one of those people who simply can't abide advertisements, many sites provide <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/registration/subscribe>built-in options to help you support your favorite content while also slipping past the latest Geico jingle. Now, it appears as though <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/youtube>YouTube may very soon be one of them.

According to a letter recently sent out to content creators, Google is currently working on plans to launch a new subscription-based version of YouTube. Users who sign up for the service will be able to play a flat fee that, in turn, give them access to all of the site's millions of videos without have to deal with any advertisements. While no pricing has been revealed for the service as of yet, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/google>Google affirmed that it will share profits from user subscriptions with creators who publish their videos on YouTube. There is no official word as to when the new service will launch, but anonymous sources have indicated that it could debut as early as this year.

While the new subscription options will likely be welcomed by many of YouTube's viewers, one can't help but imagine that its independent content creators could find themselves feeling a bit apprehensive about what the new service will mean for their bottom line. While Google has promised to share revenues, YouTube overall has something of <a href=http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/10/5198276/youtube-video-game-shows-hit-with-copyright-blitz>a bad record when it comes to the way it treats its creators. To put things more succinctly, we'll be interested to see just exactly what Google has planned.

Source: <a href=http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-08/google-plots-new-youtube-subscription-service-as-soon-as-this-year>Bloomberg


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[Mister K]

Considering that the only reason I've white-listed Youtube and Escapist in AddBlock is to allow content creators to get money from ad revenue... Yeah, no, thanks but no thanks.
And no, I don't care that Google representatives are saying that content creators will get their share. They are either a)lying or b)will try to take more money than they already do.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I have noticed more unskippable ads on YouTube recently. Maybe it's just my imagination or maybe they are trying to create more of an incentive for people to pay them to eliminate the ads.

 

[NLS]

Got this email as well from YouTube, and....
About fucking time. I've daydreamt of a paid YouTube service for years, no nonsense or ad-shit, just give me the content from my favourite subscriptions without interrupting me every 5 minutes.
And yes, I'll admit to using a plugin in my main browser that does away with the ads on YouTube (and YouTube only, no other form of adblocking, especially not The Escapist), but I feel dirty, and it's not synched across my plethora of devices. YouTube on my phone? Comes with ads. YouTube on my TV? Comes with ads. YouTube on my laptop where I haven't bothered to setup any plugins? Comes with ads.

Sure, They have to make their money somehow, but watching the same ad 5 times a day doesn't change the fact that I'm not interested. I prefer to pay for a quality service, than having a service poorly given to me for "free" by bombarding me with ads and shady privacy.

To YouTube: Shut up and take my money!

 

[JoJo]

Depends how much it costs. I don't mind paying a subscription to the Escapist, where for about a pound a month I'm ethically free of adverts and get additional benefits, since I use these forums so much. I use YouTube less, mainly for listening to music with short adverts I can skip after five seconds, so I certainly wouldn't pay any more than I do for Pub Club here.

 

[cikame]

I have a subscription for Giant Bomb, not to avoid ads but because i'm a fan of the site, it's fair to say i use Youtube all the time to the point where having to watch the ads becomes a huge burden on me so this might be a good option depending on the price.
I am concerned about content creators losing ad revenue in favor of Google taking all the sub money.

 

[loa]

I want to subscribe to the drunken peasants, jim sterling, total biscuit etc.
I DON'T want to subscribe to "youtube", hoping that google may or may not forward my subscription to the drunken peasants, jim sterling, total biscuit etc.
Googles track record of treating content creators doesn't make them trustworthy in that department at all.

Also I guess that means google will start blocking adblockers and possibly make ads even more obnoxious to "incentivize" people to subscribe to their "service" soon.
Fun times.

 

[Zipa]

I want to subscribe to the drunken peasants, jim sterling, total biscuit etc.
I DON'T want to subscribe to "youtube", hoping that google may or may not forward my subscription to the drunken peasants, jim sterling, total biscuit etc.
Googles track record of treating content creators doesn't make them trustworthy in that department at all.

Also I guess that means google will start blocking adblockers and possibly make ads even more obnoxious to "incentivize" people to subscribe to their "service" soon.
Fun times.

Well in the case of the DP podcast and Jim Sterling you can donate to their patreons where you know they do get the majority of the money (they take 5% and pass on Credit card fees)

Some Youtube channels also have a tip jar button now which is another way to support someone directly. Not sure how much they get though.

 

[NLS]

So whats to stop Youtube from slamming us with ads after ads after ads (even more than they do now) to artificially give this service more value?

And who determines who gets the money? Does youtube compensate those whose ads were legally blocked/skipped through the service?

There's only so much ads on YouTube as their advertisers are willing to pay for. From what I remember (though it's been some time since I last had a look at AdWords), their advertisers pay for lets say X thousand viewed ads, or as many views as Y amounts of $ will get them. Usually the money is also distributed on a per click basis, not so much views. So if YouTube were to artificially inflate the amount of ads shown, they'd get in trouble because: 1. Showing the same ad 50 times won't engage someone who isn't gonna click it anyway. 2. Their advertisers would be wrongly billed for these inflated ad views without any clicks.

In short: Advertisers control the amounts of ads shown, not YouTube.

As for your other concern, 55% of your premium fee is supposed to go towards the content creators of whatever it is you're watching that month, the rest goes to YouTube.

 

[loa]

Well in the case of the DP podcast and Jim Sterling you can donate to their patreons where you know they do get the majority of the money (they take 5% and pass on Credit card fees)

Some Youtube channels also have a tip jar button now which is another way to support someone directly. Not sure how much they get though.

I know, doesn't solve the adblock cycle though.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

I'll stick with the commercials, Youtube. It's not too bad. Besides, I cannot afford any Subscription Services right now.

 

[viranimus]

And so the deathblow comes to youtube after google has stabbed at it for years. Seriously what is googles obsession with ruining everything they touch and forcibly trying to claim brand recognition over the entire internet?

They plan a subscription service, which will first prioritize subscribers with ad free experience, then when they see people do not care about their ad free service they will keeep trying to hide more and more content behind that ad free service in order to get people to subscribe to it. Ultimately the more content behind the subscription means the less content available for all, and thus google as always misses the point. When people see that youtube is no longer where most content is deposited then people will migrate away from youtube and eventually It will get to a point where youtube is as relevant as Myspace.

TL;DR Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and I am tired of being surrounded by an internet populous of people who flunked history.

 

[Zydrate]

I want to be mad but this is kind of a thing many other websites/services do anyway.

My only complaint of the ads is with Game Grumps, who only do videos in 10 minute chunks. So every 10 minutes I have to listen to that annoying scare-chord spamming commercial for "Unfriended".
I'm not a fan of that.
I'm more against the annoying commercials.
For example, Geico got it right. Those "You can't skip this one because it's already over!" are kind of funny, and remain silent for the last ten seconds of their thirty second commercial. A+ Marketing.

 

[Covarr]

I'm kinda pumped. I can't form a proper opinion on the matter until a price point is announced, but my initial thought is that I'm probably going to pay for this. There are a few YT channels that I watch an absolute ton of, such as Rooster Teeth and its sub-channels, YourMCAdmin, and Ashens, and I genuinely want to support them; for the amount of time I spend watching them, it's only fair. But ads get annoying, especially for Achievement Hunter content which is typically 20-60 minutes long and often has ads interrupt action or jokes, so another way to support them aside from ads is definitely something I can get behind.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Nurb]

I don't want the internet turning into cable TV. Cable TV is currently failing.

 

[L. Declis]

I don't understand this.

The people who use the internet enough to want to pay more than £5 for a YouTube ad-free service are people who use the internet enough to know Ad-Block exists. (Ad-Block is bad for creators, don't do it, but come on, we all know that it is an option out there).

Patreon is still a better service for this. I'd want my money to go to the people I watch (Super Best Friends, Jim Sterling, Rabbit Reloads, strangely enough the Escapist) and they're not such massive e-celebs that I think YouTube money would go to them. No, it'd go to those talentless but popular hacks who I don't watch and therefore cannot support.

You know what I'd pay for? I'd pay for a YouTube from 5 years ago before they started fucking it up with making it slowly and more unreliable.

 

[Seishisha]

This topic interests me greatly, i wish more information was available.

If i pay £5 or dollars or whatever and google takes 50%, how is the remaining calculated and passed on to the content creators?

Does every video with a parternship flagged for ad revenue recieve an equal amount of my money or does google only pay my money to the videos i have watched. (The latter being more complex but a better way to support the channels i care about rather than splitting the pot with people i dont want to support)

Does subscribing to a channel increase the amount of my money content creators recieve? (Probably not but worth asking)

Does the length of the video or the number of adverts that should have ran change the amount of money recieved by the creators? (This is pretty important, more adverts directly increase profit for creators so if i pay to remove six ads from one video does the creator get more money than if only one ad was removed)

Do creators recieve the money regaurdless if i watch or not? (Again i feel this is worth asking*)

Will content creators be able to opt out of this system or is it mandatory? (*)

Realy i want to know all of this and more before making any descision.

 

[BX3]

Youtube have a bunch of other things to fix, manage or alter for the better before I start giving a shit about a subscription service to get rid of ads I skip already or have the patience to wait out. I'd like it if they had more options and more sensible solutions to copyright rather than the... method... they've been using for a while now.

 

[sXeth]

Yeah, on basic paper, this isn't a terrible thing.

Look up the whole Spotify mess, and I can see it being a horrible thing for content creators. Not that they're necessarily going to with that inane profit division method.