Cable started the same way. No commercials. That’s literally what the selling point was for the subscription.
Comment on Why advertise on YouTube?
adam_y@lemmy.world 8 months ago
And the problem is, when those of you who aren’t susceptible to ads start blocking them, the service has to force a subscription model on everyone.
At one point most things on the internet were free because of advertising.
That’s free as in “free”. Our eyes were the cost.
Older folk will remember the insane pop ups, the animated gif banners, misleading links… But ultimately it let anyone, no matter what monetary status, enjoy the same content.
And now we pivot to a subscription based internet as traditional advertising falters. And then, the crazy thing that will happen is they will start advertising in the subscription services too.
We’ll never escape, we can only keep running.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 8 months ago
AlteredStateBlob@kbin.social 8 months ago
I also remeber the plague of malvertising with drive by viruses and Trojans. I haven't had a single positive virus on my systems in over a decade thanks to adblockers.
It's insane, because the internet looked entirely different as well. Not these monolithic sites but scattered around.
adam_y@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’m not sure why I got downvoted for saying that. I’m not anti-ad blocking, just describing the economics of it all.
But I have been thinking about the situation, specifically with YouTube.
I think that the problem is that the adverts, as they are, interrupt the content, whereas they should be part of the platform instead.
Like old Google search results, you could be offered sponsored content that you can choose to engage with.
That would force companies to come up with things that people want to watch, and would effectively kickstart the creativity in advertising again, rather than the brute force interruption.
Also, the branding of the platform and content. Shows “sponsored” by a company don’t need to run a two minute advert within a video to gain association. A logo, brand awareness, links and a decent service should be enough for them to get value in backing creators…
anothermember@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
I use a content-blocker to block ad-networks that track me. It was never about blocking ads, but taking a necessary security measure against being tracked. They could still put ads in videos, like on TV, that aren’t part of ad-networks and don’t invade privacy - but they don’t do that, they want to invade users’ privacy instead.