YouTube Premium users across the globe are facing significant price hikes as Google increases subscription costs in over a dozen countries. This follows earlier price jumps in various regions, including the United States last summer. The latest increases vary by region, with some countries experiencing hikes between 30% to 50%. For instance, in Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy, the Family plan will rise from €18 to €26 starting November, while the individual plan will increase by €2 to €14.
Countries affected by these changes include Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, UAE, Switzerland, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Colombia, Thailand, Singapore, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, and Denmark. Although most Reddit reports are from European users, the price hikes also impact the Middle East, Colombia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. YouTube had already raised its subscription prices in India by 15–20% in late August.
Or just not watch.
Not watching has a much better moral argument.
Yup. But people would rather just carp on about Revanced and Insidious or whatever, as if everyone has the time to and the inclination to set that up.
Meanwhile, everyone else will piss and moan for a month, then pay up and keep watching.
If you have the time to watch YouTube enough that you’re considering premium you have enough time to set up these systems. The time it saves you makes back the setup time very quickly for someone watching even a moderate amount of YouTube.
If you have time to relax and watch your favourite creators, you have time to set up arcane systems to avoid seeing ads!
No. YouTube is relaxing time, not doing work time.
I can concede Insidious especially with the recent news but Revanced is so easy and quick to set up, calling it arcane is laughable. It’s done in under 5 minutes.
It takes less than 30 seconds to install uBlock Origin. It’s the first thing I do on a new install after replacing Edge with Firefox
I’m aware, I’ve done the same myself.
What the hell are you talking about? I download an apk, I install it, I’m done. How many ads will you sit through before you’ve wasted the whole minute it would’ve taken to do?
You say that as if it’s obvious to everyone what an APK is.
It’s an installer for an app on android. Android has been around for half of my lifetime at this point. Not know that is like not knowing what an exe is on a PC.
First of all, you said time or inclination, the latter is caused by the ads, the former wasn’t really an issue as I’ve already said. Now you don’t know what APKs are? YouTube won’t stop with the ads. You either find an alternative, whether it’s Newpipe or just abandoning YouTube entirely, or you put up with them and stop bitching.
You can’t sit in the middle throwing your own shit at one side because “people will whine and then use it anyway” and then also at the other side because “it’s too hard to install a different app and don’t know what APKs are!”
Let’s make it even easier then. I downloaded Firefox Focus from the App Store (also available in the play store)
Boom done. Ads blocked on YouTube. Even the most tech illiterate people can install an app from the store.
You can install ad blockers from within the browser, why are people doing it the hard way?
Firefox on iOS doesn’t have extensions.
I see. I don’t use Ios, so I didn’t know that.
an adblocker is much quicker and easier to set up
Doesn’t work on a Chromecast though.
Easier said than done when you talk about the global video sharing platform that is used everywhere by everyone…
It’s like telling someone to just ditch their smartphone… not practically doable. Blocking ads is morally correct when you are forced to use it.
I highly doubt anyone is “forced” to use YouTube, unless you work for a YT channel or something. There are plenty of alternatives, and while they don’t have the same content, they have other enjoyable content.
I’ve moved about half of my watching to Nebula, and almost a quarter to Odysee. There are still some channels I really enjoy on YouTube, but I could totally stop watching those.
No one is forced to use youtube in the same sense no one is forced to use a smartphone.
In the real world you’ll eventually have to use those things to participate in society, just by the sheer reach those things have in our daily lives.
Just look back into any time a friend or family shared a link, or it was embedded in an article, or a company made an announcement only in youtube, or if you’re in school and you were asked to view some lesson, or those college lectures that get uploaded to youtube.
I can get more examples, the thing is you’ll need to click a youtube link at some point. Is it ok for us to deal with an enshittified platform? should we act like a luddite because we don’t agree with the TOS? is this fair for us?
My current usage of youtube doesn’t involve following creators, for that I use odysee/twitch. But the point remains, its morally correct to block ads, the platform is unfairly dominant.
i dont like being addicted to their platforms and limit my time using it.
however, the idea of being a luddite and isolating myself from the useful things in them just because their current owners are greedy capitalists sounds even worse.