I've used most available services, but discontinued one after another along with promises that a better user experience will be provided with reduced content and removed functionality with the slight price hike. YouTube was my first and last video service I paid for, only Spotify remains on the borderline.

    • Zap@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      ·
      9 months ago

      Yep. Same reason I will never pay for it and I point this out to anyone who has it. They simply created a problem only to sell the solution. Scummy to the end.

    • MrSqueezles@lemm.ee
      ·
      9 months ago

      As someone who has worked on free Internet services, it used to be easier to make money from ads. A video ad view was worth nearly a dollar US. Audio ads were maybe 7 or 8 cents a listen. Now, a video ad view makes a few cents and audio ads are worthless. They likely did the math about how many audio ads they'd have to play on the phone in your pocket to break even and decided you'd hate it more than they would. Since content owners get just over half of what YouTube makes, they'd probably be pissed about seeing the drop in income too.

      Feel free to hate YT. This was an economic decision at around the time when ad revenue had just fallen off of a cliff.