I Paid to Get Rid of YouTube Ads and Now My Life Is Better
Last month Google introduced YouTube Red , a paid tier for YouTube that removes ads, among other cool features. I have been using it since the very first day of its release. What I thought would reduce the discomfort actually changed my perception of the Internet and my enjoyment of it.
To say that the reaction on YouTube Red has been mixed would be generous . On the one hand, this is a great service in and of itself. No YouTube ads, you can download any video offline, and it includes a Play Music subscription, so you get unlimited music too! Stupid name aside , it’s not a bad deal.
On the other hand, you pay for YouTube . Why bother? If you’re really annoyed with ads, you can just use AdBlock , right? Well, technically yes. However, I’ll try to do the impossible: I’m going to argue that paying cash to an ad removal service is better than using a free ad blocker extension.
Living without ads is great
I have to admit, I’m usually not the type to get so annoyed with ads that I look for ways to block them. Instead, I usually roll my eyes, maybe grunt angrily, and then hit Skip. If it’s really bad, I grab my phone and check Twitter for a second. However, I was already paying for a Play Music subscription, so without doing anything, all my YouTube ads disappeared in no time. It woke me up a bit.
You see, ads don’t just pop up on your computer. They are everywhere . When do I watch YouTube videos on my phone? Ads. Chromecasting videos? Ads. Watching a music video on some DJ site that’s not dead yet ? Built-in ads! To get rid of it all, I would need to add a browser extension to my computer, install an Android app , and I would still need to learn to live with ads on my Chromecast.
However, my YouTube life is now completely ad-free. From a purely technical point of view, YouTube Red removed more ads than an ad blocker, was more reliable and, most importantly, didn’t consume a single metric scrap of RAM . Paying for a service without ads is better than blocking ads. So gratifying that I decided to hike the bid and pay (mostly) for the commercial tier of Hulu free use . I used to have a regular $ 8 a month plan, so now I was paying $ 12 a month. A $ 4 raise is a pittance to get rid of the constant, repetitive and irrelevant Hulu ads.
It was at this point that I almost completely forgot about the existence of advertising. Netflix, Plex, Hulu, and YouTube are my main sources of video entertainment. Except for one 15-second ad before the commercial when I watch Agents of SHIELD, I haven’t seen an ad while watching TV for over a month. All in all, I pay $ 28 a month for three subscription services that offer a collective huge library of movies, TV shows, music, and video clips. I don’t have access to every show or movie on Earth, but I never want to be entertained, and there are almost no ads.
This is life. More importantly, it is not very different from my previous life. I’ve already paid for a subscription to Play Music and regular Hulu. Except for the extra four dollars I pay Hulu every month, nothing has changed for me. It may not be for everyone, but I appreciate the opportunity. As a consumer, I have a choice . I can watch ads if I don’t think it’s worth paying for the service (or if I can’t afford it), but if I want to clean up a few annoyances, I can shell out a couple of extra dollars. Now I want this option everywhere.
Using ad blockers for optional ads is kind of a jerk’s move
Without even thinking about questions of conscience, I have already convinced myself that giving up advertising is a good idea. However, there is another aspect here: people who do things you like should get paid. Blocking ads is a bit of a hazy ethical area because ads can be intrusive and even intrusive . While many content creators rely on ads to make money (including us at Lifehacker!), You can’t just say ad blocking is always a bad thing. However, when it comes to services that offer the ability to pay to remove ads, the problem becomes much clearer.
Content creators have to make money somehow. We know from experience that if they fail to earn a living in a respectable way, they can become even more desperate . This is why advertising gets so unpleasant from the start. Ads that hijack your screen, hijack your window, or even those that are just plain obnoxiously loud are all attempts to get a little more of your attention as they can’t get your money.
The ad-free paid option is a truce between creator and consumer. It’s a white flag that says, “Look, I know ads suck. If you don’t want to see them, you can pay me directly, but I will not force you to do so. ” Ironically, this is the best option in a world that demands endless free content.
However, the flip side of this truce is that there really isn’t any good excuse left for using an ad blocker on services that allow you to pay instead. It’s one thing to block mandatory ads that make a service unusable, or to protect your privacy. Another thing is that you simply do not like advertising and do not want to pay for what you like. This is similar to the problem with piracy : in some cases, there are better alternatives that support people who do the things you like instead of giving them a boost.
If you’re worried about being tracked online, you can still protect yourself by not blocking ads. We have considered the best browser extension that protects your privacy , and told , how to prevent trackers to track you on the Internet . Protecting your privacy is about much more than just blocking ads, and while the two often go hand in hand, you don’t have to do both.
For the wider web, this question is likely to remain complex over time. It’s nice that YouTube, Hulu, and a few mobile games allow you to pay a small amount to remove ads, but until the rest of the world catches up, there will still be an ad blocker market. We will certainly never say that using an ad blocker is 100% bad. However, if a company offers you the option to pay to get rid of ads, it is recommended that you consider accepting that offer. Otherwise, the Internet can get much worse.
This trend won’t stop and we all asked for it
If you’ve worried that YouTube and Hulu will remain anomalies on an ad-filled Internet, don’t worry. This trend towards paid models is n’t going anywhere . You see, over the last couple of decades, all the cool things you loved on the Internet have been funded in one of two main ways: advertising or venture funding. And both wells are starting to dry up for many of the companies you might care about.
Ads are getting harder after a combination of factors has made ad blocking easier than ever. Apple has made it easier to create mobile ad blockers on the iPhone, and regular ad blockers are only getting better . This has led to more and more people using ad blockers , which means that sites big and small are looking for alternative ways to make money.
If a particular company with a free product didn’t make money from advertising, it was probably funded by venture capital. In simple terms, it means an investor comes in and gives a small company a ton of money to get started, hoping that they will make money in the end. This is how companies like Twitter can become publicly traded in the stock market without ever actually making a profit . In the early days of the Internet, this led many companies to release free products to build a customer base. However, many now large media companies are reaching a point where they have to make money or risk shutting down. Of course, new companies receive funding all the time, so the Internet won’t go away and it’s not the end of the world. But that means YouTube really had no choice but to start making its own money.
It all revolves around one simple truth: the businesses and content creators you love have to make money. If they can’t do it with soft, unobtrusive ads, they’ll either turn off or have to get creative. Some creators may offer reasonable solutions, such as paying for additional features or launching Patreons . Others may try more nefarious conspiracies, such as tracking more personal data, using even more obnoxious advertisements, or using abusive microtransaction systems . By not paying for products directly and then blocking ads for free products, we drove them to despair. Perhaps we will not be happy about this .
There is some good news though. It turns out there are a lot of people out there willing to contribute. In 2012, we conducted a survey asking if our readers were willing to pay to remove ads from our service. A full 70.41% of you said yes if the price was reasonable or if the ad was too annoying. Of course, paying to remove ads isn’t for everyone. Some people can’t afford it, and others just don’t use sites like YouTube or Hulu enough to pay for them at all. Overall, however, it may be time to rethink the way we pay for items online. We can either pay for things with money, or pay for it with a little attention to advertising. Ultimately, this deal is better than some of the alternatives we already have to deal with.
After living a month in a world where I pay to get rid of advertisements for services I like, I can’t imagine going back. It sucks when you get something for free and the ads only get worse or they start charging you money. The knee jerk – anger or resentment – is completely normal. However, I have tried, and in at least one small area of my life, this is the experience I have always wanted.