Hi guys I've written an article on why I think YT premium is a shíte idea, and why they should explore crowd-funding instead. The article is due to go on my website. Any help with grammar or critique of the content would be a massive help.
Thanks!
Article:
According to recent reports; YouTube will consider offering an ad-free version of its site to paying subscribers. This will be seen as an obvious move to combat the rising popularity of ad blocking software used by many to achieve an advert-free experience. In the past year the number of people using ad blocking software has risen from 54 million to 120 million and continues to rise. YouTube as a business relies heavily on this advertising revenue, and it has been suggested that they’ll be implementing their subscription service as early as this year.
I don’t believe that implementing a subscription service is at all the right way to go. Firstly, this does not solve the problem of people using ad-blocking software to get an ad-free experience. Who would pay a fee to get rid of adverts if they could do so for free? Spotify’s premium service works mainly because you can’t get rid of the ads otherwise and access to many of the songs is restricted as a free user.
In order boost enthusiasm for the service; YouTube will have to invest in other premium features to appease paying subscribers. Nevertheless, these services would need to be on the scale of a Netflix or Amazon Prime type of offering to be worthwhile to the customer.
All that being said, I believe there is much a simpler option:
Crowd-funding
Allow users to make financial donations at their discretion: not for YouTube as a whole, but for individual channels. YouTube should be honest about its situation with ad-block and trust in its customers to support the channels that they enjoy. Give each channel a facility for donations as little as 5p. As donations increase, adverts become less frequent, and once that channel reaches its financial target for the month, it stops showing ads completely, but users can keep donating. YouTube would obviously acquire ‘service costs’ from a percentage of the donations every month, in the same way that eBay collects a fee for every sale completed on its website.
Crowd-funding is a process that is tried, tested and works very well elsewhere; maybe it’s time to customize the idea and make it more mainstream. This will also encourage authors to put out quality content, which retains subscribers. This feature (in theory) should lessen the overall amount of adverts needed on YouTube, and should improve the user-experience, lessening the likeliness that consumers will want to use ad-block software.
Restrict adverts to one showing per video
One of the reasons people use ad-block is because of excessiveness with advertisement. I watched one video that was 45 minutes long and it had 6 or more different ad breaks; that’s way too much. On TV there’s no ad-block software and they can show as many adverts as they like; YouTube don’t have that luxury, so they should try to improve the user’s experience with video advertisements. The majority of people want to support the authors of the content they enjoy and will disable ad-block software on the sites they like, in exchange for an improved experience. Ad-block can't distinguish between YouTube channels, so YouTube need to find a way to improve user-experience with adverts as a whole on the site to prevent the temptation to use ad-block
YouTube initially became successful because of the social effect it has on media. I don’t think it’s lost that. Over 1 Billion people use YouTube around the world, they don’t need everybody contribute to make this work, but if they conducted a trial of this, I think it would surpass expectations. The best thing that they could do is actually ask their users what they want, I’m sure there are many other ideas from consumers that could be explored. Communities respond well to consultation; too much tinkering without communication can be risky and costly for any business.
Why YouTube Premium is a Bad Idea...
posted on 5/5/15
comment by Robb Lannister - Summer is coming (U20351)
posted 25 minutes ago
Porrn will always be free from now on because the genie is out of the bottle. I remember paying up to £30 for dvds back in the day from the dodgy shop down the road. I'm sure most of us did. Now I look at all this free porrn and facepalm at how much i spent.
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Don't be so hard-on yourself.
posted on 5/5/15
You can get add block on your phone if you root it...
I'm still surprised that adblock exists and that it still works. Sites like 4od wont play the video if is turned on. Google still hosts it on the Chrome store, so they must still think its worth keeping the mainly techy core users in return for the lost ad revenue.
posted on 5/5/15
Adblock won't last forever. It'll grow to the point where the content providers need to do something about it.
As for your article:
"Crowd-funding is a process that is tried, tested and works very well elsewhere"
-where? needs elaboration and examples
"On TV there’s no ad-block software and they can show as many adverts as they like; YouTube don’t have that luxury, so they should try to improve the user’s experience with video advertisements."
-this doesn't make sense, what are you trying to say? Youtube can't show as many ads as they want so they should try to improve our experience with video as? Using video ads? Our experience of the video ads?
"YouTube need to find a way to improve user-experience with adverts as a whole on the site to prevent the temptation to use ad-block"
-need or needs? Also, as Admin1 said, once people have turned it on it's not coming off again, I don't think. And people will continue to keep turning it on in increasing numbers, as you yourself have said.
posted on 5/5/15
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 5/5/15
comment by Hooplar (U15824)
posted 22 minutes ago
Adblock won't last forever. It'll grow to the point where the content providers need to do something about it.
As for your article:
"Crowd-funding is a process that is tried, tested and works very well elsewhere"
-where? needs elaboration and examples
"On TV there’s no ad-block software and they can show as many adverts as they like; YouTube don’t have that luxury, so they should try to improve the user’s experience with video advertisements."
-this doesn't make sense, what are you trying to say? Youtube can't show as many ads as they want so they should try to improve our experience with video as? Using video ads? Our experience of the video ads?
"YouTube need to find a way to improve user-experience with adverts as a whole on the site to prevent the temptation to use ad-block"
-need or needs? Also, as Admin1 said, once people have turned it on it's not coming off again, I don't think. And people will continue to keep turning it on in increasing numbers, as you yourself have said.
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Thanks, your feedback was a great help
posted on 5/5/15
np, and just re-read it - I think 'need' does make more sense given you've used 'they' earlier!
posted on 5/5/15
I'm trying to understand your crowd funding idea.
So every channel I want to listen to ad-free, I have to donate to?
I set off a youtube mix before I drive, and it's so frustrating to have to listen to an ad every 3 songs or so.
I'd much rather pay a small sum to get ad-free for the year, than have to donate to every individual channel or user I don't want to hear ads on, or hope they have enough in other donations?
posted on 5/5/15
When you say adverts, do you mean all ads or the ones you can skip after 5 seconds?
posted on 6/5/15
comment by Chris H (U15205)
posted 5 hours, 52 minutes ago
I'm trying to understand your crowd funding idea.
So every channel I want to listen to ad-free, I have to donate to?
I set off a youtube mix before I drive, and it's so frustrating to have to listen to an ad every 3 songs or so.
I'd much rather pay a small sum to get ad-free for the year, than have to donate to every individual channel or user I don't want to hear ads on, or hope they have enough in other donations?
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No you wouldn't have to donate to every channel, your service would resume as normal, but you have the option to donate if you're a regular visitor to that channel. They channel has a financial target that it wants to meet, and the closer it gets to that target, the less frequently adds appear. When the target is met, no ads appear, until the target is reset for the next time period.
If you set donations as lop as 5p and allowed it to be taken from mobile phone credit, as well you could end up making a fair bit from donations and significantly reducing the amount of ads on YT.
posted on 6/5/15
comment by Ledley's knee surgeon: Football Manager legend - The Barca MSN...... 48-0 (U20121)
posted 4 hours, 45 minutes ago
When you say adverts, do you mean all ads or the ones you can skip after 5 seconds?
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All ads.