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YouTube Red — Google's new ad-free, premium subscription video service
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@rrhoover Damn. Was just about to hunt this ;)
I opened the YouTube app on my iPhone last night and noticed the UI overhaul, and immediately liked it. Glad to see YouTube finally making moves again. For me:
1. I love YouTube and am often on train rides and flights, so I can't use it because it either eats up my data plan or I don't have data at all.
2. I often put on gameplay videos like Deus Ex or Uncharted while I'm working, to mix it up from listening to music all day. The ads are jarringly loud sometimes. Dunno if that'll get me to pay $10/month; we'll see. If it also turned off the player's audio commentary during gameplay then it'd be a no-brainer.
So $10/month is likely a buy for me. It's definitely at least at the value where I'll try it for a couple months. I don't see this as being a Hulu situation where I tried it because I *wanted* to watch more shows; I already *do* watch tons of stuff on Youtube so the habits are formed and little luxuries like convenience can make a huge difference.
(I'd do the same with Netflix but I don't think that makes strategic or bandwidth sense for them yet.)
@rrhoover Yes. I will happily pay $9.99 a month for this. Even though I don't watch hours of videos a day, I think it's a nice way of supporting creators and I won't have to worry about ads anymore either. I'm curious whether this will actually cause people to disable adblock for YouTube and switch to this. But the offline part sounds pretty cool as well; I have a data allowance of "only" 6.5GB/mo and I often run out, partially because of YouTube.
@rrhoover Obviously a biased opinion, but "Yes".
I'm especially excited about the ability to save videos for offline viewing.
My YT view time is probably higher than the time I spend on Netflix thanks mainly to Vlogs like Casey Neistat's.
@rrhoover I won't be paying for it because none of these features are particularly valuable for me:
- I watch a lot of YouTube, but most of the time I'm on WiFi, and the ads aren't terribly long.
- Most of the times I'm on cellular data, I want to spontaneously watch a video, so I wouldn't have it saved offline, even if I could have. Maybe I would save some videos to watch on the metro, but my commute isn't long enough to justify paying for it.
- Background play used to be a feature of the YouTube iOS app a couple years ago, so it's weird to be charging for a feature they used to have and removed. Also, I would only use that for music videos, but if I wanted access to a lot of music, I'd pay for a music service. There's nothing better about playing music from YouTube.
@rrhoover I'd be pretty interested once I learn more about how the content creators are paid. I'm happy to support the folks I watch, but if its not a fair shake i'll look for other ways to do it. Also: time watched doesn't necessarily always translate into value/entertainment generated for me.
I was SO excited until I clicked the link:
And people wonder why we pirate everything here
And people wonder why we pirate everything here
No one seems to mention that this includes a Google Play Music Subscription. To me this is a game changer. The same value than Spotify or others (I actually like Google Music better) plus ad-free YouTube for the same price? If I wasn't a subscriber I would definitely start now.
By the way, background play is already live for me in the Android app, and it's glorious. Offline and no ads still only for music videos for now (the old YouTube Music Key).
@martiferrer This comment definitely needs to be higher. That's a pretty big kicker.
Hunter
Ad-free videos: watch the videos and music you love without interruptions.
Save offline: save videos and songs on your mobile device to watch offline.
Background play: keep your videos playing while using other apps or with your screen off.
Works across all YouTube apps on every platform.
$9.99/month
Yup, that's another $9.99/month, but the free trial is there to seduce me. Cool!
As someone with a business in the YouTube field I have to say I am very excited about this step. Not only does it add an interesting feature for many, it also increases potential revenue for creators. Even if only 1% of a channel's viewers would be a YouTube Red user, that would mean significantly higher earnings than through regular advertising. I'm curious to see where they'll be taking this and if it'll actually gain a lot of users.
@rrhoover The real question is would you replace Spotifty with Google Play Music and YouTube Red for $9.99? Larger music catalog (YouTube has everything), same price as Spotify and no ads plus downloads on YouTube.
@rrhoover I won't be subscribing but couple of interesting points w/ regards to their strategy:
1. Will YouTube ramp up number of ads shown to non-premium users to make it more "valuable" to upgrade to Red. I found Spotify has used this tactic in the past few months leading to more upgrades.
2. Many younger Gen Y and most of Gen Z primarily consume their content on YouTube. This includes music, YouTube stars, etc. So this will be a valuable feature for them, although many of them don't have the disposable income to make the decision at this point.
I just don't watch enough YouTube, maybe if they started adding "premium channels"? Example: I wanted to watch the full WSJD Tim Cook interview, there were only 2 clips on YouTube. The ads are not nearly as annoying as on Hulu.
i wouldn't pay $10 a month. the ads aren't that intrusive (a lot let you skip them). and adblocker plus removes them entirely.
I'm currently unsure whether some of the reports coming out about YouTube Red are hyperbole, but it sounds like content creators were forced to sign the new terms and conditions:
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/21...
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