I have heard that the ads are getting worse and longer/unskipable. I do wonder how YouTube determines what the ‘balance’ should be. You know they have the usage and engagement statistics to back up the increase. It did get to a point where I said there was no way I could continue to use YouTube as it was; but it was also around the time that I pretty much switched to YouTube for content over Netflix/Hulu/Disney+/TV so Preimum was a no brainer as I could drop 3 or 4 streaming services for YouTube.

The comments in here are interesting to me. Ads and Premium are a way for your favorite content creators to get paid for the content that they produce. I’ve listened to a number of creators talk about the YouTube revenue sharing model and most of them (LTT and Hank Green) says that YouTube is actually really fair with how they share ad revenue and how Premium is actually a good alternative that meets the needs of the platform, users, and creators. And YouTube, the platform, DOES need to get paid as well otherwise your videos can’t get to you.

I also hate ads, like a lot, and I do whatever I can to get them off of my screen because I think they are intrusive and we have proof of how they enable tracking across the internet at large. However, for those platforms that I find extreme value in (YouTube being the example here) I see how and why ads/Premium pump value into their system. If your favorite content creator isn’t getting paid for their content, they won’t be able to sustain it long term.

One last thought about video streaming and the content we all love that is hosted by YouTube: if we were to say that we would rather our money go directly to our favorite content creators, we would end up with a very fragmented ecosystem akin to the Streaming Service MESS we are in with TV/Movies. I would LOVE to pay LTT directly through Floatplane, but then where would I be with being able to watch other content creators?

My biggest gripe with these game is how much time they take away from my other buddies who play them. I, in general, just really despise PvP games and the ‘collect gear to be good enough to survive’ mechanic sucks within the timeframe these games lock you into. I’ve been able to stay away from them without feeling any sort of ‘I’m missing out’ attitude, but I have lost some friends to these games exclusively and that kinda irks me.

I’ve been feeling weird about leaving Reddit; mainly because it’s been my main source of entertainment, news, and community for over 10 years but this is a really good point about any ‘social’ network. Even the link aggregator sites like Reddit. Over the past couple of years, I feel like my engagement has dropped significantly because it hasn’t been FUN to engage with the communities I was a part of the same way it was when I first joined. I’m hoping to recapture that a bit here specifically on Lemmy and in the fediverse at large.