YouTube Set to Introduce Paid Subscriptions This Spring

http://adage.com/article/digital/youtube-set-introduce-paid-subscriptions-spring/239437/

by jdrummond • 13 years ago

52 16 13 years ago

nextstep• 13 years ago

It's disappointing they're going to have ads on these paid videos. Like with Hulu+, I see no point in paying if the experience is still shitty.

timdorr• 13 years ago

Is it so crazy to offer an ad-free option? I see a video interstitial on nearly every YouTube video I watch. Maybe I'm not aware of the costs involved, but I feel like I would be willing to pay whatever the cost of those ads are back to YouTube to avoid them. Same goes for Hulu+.

Does anyone with some more insight know why they don't offer such an option?

yajoe2• 13 years ago

At least in my industry (I work with digital media and ads), part of the terms large advertisers insist on is being able to advertise new content on existing content. Part of the reason for that is people's eyes are on existing content, so it makes sense. But part of the reason is to ensure that people know when episode 343 of sing-covers-together show ends that there is another, new sing-covers-competition show ready to watch. How else will you know to keep consuming if you only use the youtube search box and have an ad-free existence?

The ads are there not because of costs (they help, of course), but ironically as a mechanism to ensure you keep coming back.

smackfu• 13 years ago

Advertisers are very opposed to "pay to get rid of our ads". The people who choose that obviously have more discretionary money and are the exact people the advertisers are targeting.

Osmium• 13 years ago

Tip: HTML5 videos don't have ads. I use Safari on OS X, so I use a "ClickToPlugin" extension (linked below) which gives me the option of replacing the Flash plugin with just a plain mp4 video when you click on the plugin placeholder. This has the side benefit of bypassing any ads and also not showing any annoying annotations that've been added to the video.

http://hoyois.github.com/safariextensions/clicktoplugin/

TruthElixirX• 13 years ago

YouTube has gotten really bad with ads. They have a higher proportion of ads than regular TV. Want to watch a 3 minute music video? here is an ad.

I am against using ad block, so I just quit going to Youtube as much.

csense• 13 years ago

> they're going to have ads on these paid videos

Please read the article; that is not what it said. Ads will be at the discretion of the content provider.

This means there will be within-Youtube competition between ad-free and ad-supported content providers. Which should hopefully help the free market establish the standard premium for an ad-free experience.

rayiner• 13 years ago

There is a price discrimination opportunity here, as well as the opportunity to take advantage of parental paranoia. "Subscribe to Facetube for only $49.99 per month and ensure that your kid's viewing habits won't end up in some employer background check in the future!"

I'd buy it.

ScottWhigham• 13 years ago

OP's link served an ad to me before I could see the page. Screw that - this is all over everywhere else w/ no ad-before-you-read:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/report-youtube-launch-paid-...

http://mashable.com/2013/01/29/youtube-paid-channel-subscrip...

http://www.dailydot.com/news/youtube-subscriptions-networks-...

http://thenextweb.com/2013/01/29/youtube-could-roll-out-paid...

Evbn• 13 years ago

But those links don't give the immersive YouTube experience. Interstitial ads are the core of the experience.

YouTube Set to Introduce Paid Subscriptions This Spring

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