I am a working mom with an 11-month-old baby. What sort of picture does that paint for you? That of an individual who has little to no time to spare? Well, you’re right. I am neck-deep in it right now, and I’m sure there are many other folks, parents or not, who can empathize with an absolute dearth of leisurely time. You know what I’m talking about — those precious few minutes in the day to just lay back and watch a YouTube video or two. Thanks to Google’s aggressive YouTube Premium push, those moments no longer exist for me, and I am not alone.
For me, YouTube has always been more of a resource than a habit.
Where I live, YouTube Premium launched back in 2019. While the prospect of paying to watch YouTube videos without ads was an enticing one for many around me, the subscription service failed to win me over. It wasn’t for the lack of good quality content to watch on YouTube; it’s just that I was never an avid tuber in the first place.
For me, the platform has always been more of a resource than a habit. I only go to it for specific content and nothing more. Unlike die-hard YouTube consumers, I don’t subscribe to multiple channels and follow each and every video they put up. So paying to remove ads, watch YouTube in the background, or use the multiple other features a YouTube Premium subscription offers didn’t really make much sense to me. Little did I know YouTube wasn’t going to leave me be.
Pop! Goes my heart
Fast forward to 2022, and I cannot open YouTube without having an annoying pop-up urging me to subscribe to Premium. Before I even start my five minutes of streaming, I am constantly badgered to enroll in the free one-month Premium trial. I hit skip and start watching a video. God forbid I switch apps midway, and there it is again, another pop-up asking me to go Premium if I wish to continue watching the video in the background.
No, YouTube, I’ll never sign-up for Premium. I wish that were an option I could tap on the pop-up. Because even after dismissing the thing hundreds of times, YouTube clearly hasn’t gotten the message.
I’d rather take my video-watching business elsewhere.
The persistent, naggy YouTube Premium pop-up is unlikely to be a bug or an algorithm snag. Google surely wants to push its paid products over its free ones. Over the past year or so, the company has increased prices for most of its services, including Google Cloud, YouTube TV, Workspace, and more. I get that it’s Google’s prerogative to do so. After all, it’s a business, and price hikes can be influenced by several factors, including rising inflation and the need to remain competitive. But there’s no excuse for YouTube’s repeated hounding to go Premium. Not only is it self-destructive, given many like me promptly shut the app after seeing a pop-up for the millionth time, but it’s also anti-consumer.
If being a free YouTube user means I have to put up with this aggressive pop-up, I’d rather take my video-watching business elsewhere. That said, the pop-up isn’t my only issue with YouTube right now. It’s also the burgeoning number of ads free users are forced to watch.
‘Ad’ding to the trouble
I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed that YouTube has progressively shown more and more ads to free users. I’ve seen up to five or six unskippable ads on videos that are just a few minutes long. Other users report they’ve had to endure as many as 11 ads before a video! That’s quite a price to pay for a free service.
hmm…this may happen with a certain type of ad format called bumper ads, since they’re only up to 6 seconds long. if you’d like, you can send feedback directly from YouTube via the send feedback tool
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) September 7, 2022
That ain’t shit pic.twitter.com/QNhFijvqoY
Originally published at Sydney News HQ
No comments:
Post a Comment