Slashdot Mirror
Would You Pay For YouTube Videos?
secmartin writes "A couple of weeks ago, Google's CEO mentioned to investors that they might start charging YouTube's users for viewing content: 'With respect to how it will get monetized, our first priority, as you pointed out, is on the advertising side. We do expect over time to see micro payments and other forms of subscription models coming as well. But our initial focus is on advertising. We will be announcing additional things in that area literally very, very soon.' With the recent Disney-Hulu deal, Google is under increasing pressure to generate more revenue and at the same time attract more premium content. That means we might see payment options coming even sooner than expected, with control over the pricing models being handed over to the studios providing that content, like the way Apple caved in over variable pricing on iTunes. This raises an important question: would you actually pay for premium content on YouTube and other sites, or will this draw viewers away to other video sites?"
No
no
The simple answer is no. I think people will go to pages were the video is prefaced with a short commercial before paying for Youtube. That's my humble opinion though.
is that no product is going to want to be placed next to a monkey urinating in his own mouth.
Take Audiogalaxy for example...
Task Mangler
$x = number_of_slashdot_readers;
while($x--)
{
print 'NO LOL!'
}
That content's already free, and much of its public.
The media companies already have other venues, namely their websites and the channels they own. And bittorrent covers the rest.
So, why pay, when its free?
Why not? If the price is right and the content is worth, I have no problems in paying for it, just like I don't have problems paying for a ticket to a movie theater or for a nice and shiny DVD.
As most things in life, it all depends on the value you get in return for your money.
The beginning of the end for youtube.
How much of the revenue would be going to the people who produce the videos?
We all know that Youtube costs Google money, that much is certain. But what do you do when you've been offering a free service for this long and then say, "Ok guys, you're going to need to pay for some things." I don't think it'll work. There's too many people that are used to the service being free, and not only that, but there are many alternatives should this arise.
Whether I'd pay or not, charging for videos would kill the platform. Why? Because there's a (more than one, actually) free alternative. Why would someone pay money for getting exactly what they get other places? You might get a few people to pay, in general, though, it would mean that people move elsewhere.
No, "what about Windows and Linux" does not count. YouTube doesn't come with your PC, YouTube has nothing you can't get elsewhere (like, say, Windows Games before the advent of Wine, and even with it). There is no "YouTube only" content that is so important to people that they wouldn't move to another video hoster in the blink of an eye.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'd pay a pittance for HD if there's content worth watching in HD. I'm not sure what that would be ... perhaps well stitched together gags and more obscure TV shows. There's also a great market there for entertaining kids. 4 year old will search for airplanes and then watch every video with airplanes. If that were stitched together and HD and kept her attention for an hour, I'd pay for that.
Starting your post in the subject line is irritating to many readers. Congratulations!
If YouTube becomes a pay-only site, people will leave to find a free alternative.
It goes on the list right after
paying for slashdot commentary on my posts.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Hey, it worked for Napster, right?
Right.
I can see a system of inexpensive youtube videos tied to google payment. At say $.05 for a 10 minute video I can easily imagine not worrying about it. The problem is that if they are greedy and it is say $1 for a 10 minute video this will kill the model. I can also see that working well for low distribution content. 10k people at say $.25 per yr x 500 shows is not a bad revenue stream.
The standards for a paysite are much higher than for a free site. That means customer service. I do agree that this isn't likely to happen and the result is going to be that content fragments to dozens of sites all indexed ironically enough by google.
And I'd say that includes file-sharing and network tv. Americans are pretty trained to their video stimulus, and they'll find it. They also, however, have been trained to expect it for free. The box is open, I don't see it closing now.
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
I think you are missing the point here. Most likely they are planning to charge for access to premium content like full TV shows, similar to how you have to pay to get premium TV channels.
Of course there are always torrents, but when you look at how well the iTunes store does selling videos I think there is clearly a market. Youtube has the advantage of not needing to installed the bloated piece of crap that is iTunes, just watch in your web browser.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
They may get paying customers by adding a premium membership, where commercials were removed and speeds were better. If this premium membership also allowed access to a number of full-length movies, series etc, they may have a winner on their hands.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
...not.
If the Youtube video would be the movie showing right now in cinema, in 720p @ 3-4mbps, then yes, I would pay up to $1-1.5 to see it.
Without any kind of commercials. Not once. Anytime I want (I would be allowed to view only one of the movies I bought at a time so it wouldn't be abused).
The reality is movies won't be available outside US anyway, because of all the deals movie studios make with local distributors and resellers so I couldn't care less.
I would certainly pay a moderate amount for a High-quality, big pipe site with a wide selection of videos. And I mean wide, none of that "its from this provider, so it's in this other service". Of course with no DRM, I want to see the films at my mom's where there is no broadband. I say "a moderate amount" is a flat rate of about twenty dollars a month, perhaps up to forty if you use really a lot of bandwidth.
In the other corner, rather more likely, seeing what's on offer today, we could have an anemic selection of videos, many of them old, most of them in less-than-optimal quality (meaning you can get them in better quality in bittorrent), with a time lag for new releases, lots of DRM, and lots of service hiccups too.
Well, I can wait.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
That idea only works if you take the accountant view to running a business. But accounts don't run businesses. Entrepeneurs do.
What would be the cost to google of NOT having youtube. Shareholders make lousy businessmen even worse then accountants. At least accountants care about the bottom line at the end of the year, not the next quarter.
Shell recently said it would no longer concetrate on alternative energy. Smart short term move. VERY short term. The world is changing and you never know when you need to be ready to diversify. When Shell invested in alternative energy it cost them money but it was considered to be worth it because IF alternative energies became more important it would stop Shell from becoming UN-important.
Google didn't buy youtube because it thought youtube made money, it bought it because it saw a future there and wanted to be part of it. What better way to search through online video then to be the one hosting it. You may not like youtube searching but compare it to googles image search. Why do you think the first is more reliable? IF youtube had remained a 3rd party or even worse, had become MULTIPLE small time third parties, might another search engine take over if it became more capable of vinding the vids people wanted?
Wether google is right in this logic, or has another reason remains to be seen. Maybe they saw a huge future in ads in front of the vids. That means they need to control the vids. No ads in front of vids they don't control. if the ad market comes back or video ads become better, they are to late if they have no way to get them connected.
So, yes, right now Youtube costs money, but that is called investment. It is what shareholders were supposed to be for.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
YouTube could much more easily make money by charging a small fee to UPLOAD video to YouTube. If they charged you $1 per video upload, they'd make a mint and most people would be happy to pay it.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Pay to view? Sorry. There isn't much quality content on youtube worth paying for.
Pay to post? That might work. People who pay could have more control over their content. They could keep it from being compressed to hell, do things like swap the youtube logo with their own, have embedded links in their content, etc... I bet there is money in that market. But I'll tell you one thing... there ain't a damn thing on youtube I'd pay for. Cover bands doing cheesy remixes, teenagers getting their 15-minutes, and videos of cute pandas eating bamboo aren't worth paying for.
Nada, nope, No, nein, niet, ne
Just because they have to make money, doesn't mean I have to pay.
If you want premium content, you need another brand. Youtube stands for "us", not them!
Disney-Hulu is a joke compared to YouTube. YouTube is a library of user-made videos and some commercial stuff. Hulu is a limited rotation of 5 TV episodes for series they own. It's a webby sample of cable, ads mixed with what amounts to more ads for their cable TV. If any Google employees are out there reading this, please spin off the YouTube brand with a new one for competing with Hulu ("GoogleTV", "YouTube2", "TvTube", etc). Come up with a better system to attract users and advertisers. Don't try to warp YouTube into something it isn't currently (it's not a clone of Hulu). You're going to burn a lot of bridges unless you beta-beta test this with some new system without trashing the current one.
No thanks. Why would I?
Quick way to get 30% Funny 70% Troll: defend Opera browser on
How would you feel if you pay per video and got Rick Rolled? Or accidentally watched a Chris Crocker video? This will never work for user-submitted videos. Only if they offer HD, full-episode shows that I want to watch on any PC I own with no DRM would I even consider looking at it.
That's just a matter of waiting until the VC money runs out. (ie not long)
And if forcing a profit out of the platform kills it.... maybe that's in Google's best interest anyway.
long term, in 10 years when everyone has the bandwidth and software to back it up we'll be serving our own damn videos and Google can go back to what it does best.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
I mean really, half the articles are like this. Who really cares? There are people that already go to the movies, and buy shit online.
The "summary" is just trolling for the standard hate that always gets posted on /.
"I hate copyright"
"I hate paying for stuff"
"I hate Microsoft/any other company that tries to exert _any_ control over my computing experience"
Really, it mostly comes down to money. Most people want it. Some try to get more of it (those companies) and others cling to it (consumers who want free shit).
There are a few really smart people on slashdot. Some funny ones too. But why are so many of the topic postins SO stupid?
This raises an important question: would you actually pay for premium content on YouTube and other sites, or will this draw viewers away to other video sites?
WTF are you asking?! What, do you just want me to hate on youtube, for... whatever? Fine, I hate youtube. I hate hulu. I hate all the movie/TV show makers that want to put there shit on the net. I hate... whatever, fuck it, the internet.
/me goes out side
/yells_from_a_distance I hate IRC too...!
This is the problem:
Video was never meant for your computer. It was meant to be viewed with your fat ass parked on a couch holding a beer and a remote. Anything else is for the birds.
I'd only pay for content if I could stream it to my SageTV (i.e. mythtv, only with a high WAF). I can stream Youtube content to it now so I would hope they allow me to watch paid content the same way. Doubt it though.
Embed a modified-for-streaming torrent client into the youtube flash app?
This signature is typed manually.
I MIGHT take the option of making a micro payment to make the video ad-free for me. That way anybody can access videos. It's not easy to charge for a user-generated video across the board because that will likely diminish ability to share videos. For example, now I post videos to my blog, facebook page, email the link to many people, etc. To require my viewers to pay for what I think is neat or nifty is slightly absurd especially when they're doing the same thing with their video links.
Pay for streaming of full length TV shows/movies/whatever else YouTube can make a deal with? Possibly.
Pay for seeing the latest WTF webcam gag? No.
"Just like before, except now you're paying for it" is a really rotten value proposition. The sites that try moving to payment/subscriptions yet don't do anything different are just making a quick suicide, User's don't care if your numbers aren't adding up, if they are to pay more they want more. But I think google knows, they're trying in the longest to extract money from everyone else using your data before they start asking money from you.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Point me to the bittorrent client that I can embed into any webpage, click "play", and with little to no wait, watch a video. Make sure it can work with 95% of all browsers on the market without installing a plugin*.
If you think bittorrent competes with Youtube, you dont understand what Youtube does.
* flash is a plugin, but since you already have it installed, it doesn't count.
If I get rickrolled, will I get my money back?
How can I pay a small amount for a vid when there is no existing world-wide service to pay a small amount without it costing me a fortune?
1 dollar (iTune cost) for a vid? Like hell. That is way to much and already in that case the costs of the actual transaction makes up an insane part. Imagine if your shopping for a new coat cost 50 bucks to pay with your bank card.
That is the reason micro-payments have not caught on. It is not that people would mind paying a a nickle, it is that paying a nickle costs 25 cents.
Perhaps google should go in the banking business to break through this. The banks sure as hell aren't going to. In the netherlands we got the cheapest pay system (PIN) and that is being replaced in the future because .... well because a working reliable secure cheap system just ain't good enough. We got to get the unreliable, not working expensive system everyone else uses.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It could be interesting if they established a model whereby a person could develop and market a video or series of videos on their own. Allow the individual to set the price within certain guidelines and youtube would take a piece and the person would take the rest. Then just sit back and let market forces do the work.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
...what google service WOULD you pay for?
blogger - maybe
chrome - no
gmail - maybe
docs/spreadsheets - absolutely!
google desktop - maybe
youtube - no
picasa - yes
earth - yes
sketchup - yes
gtalk - no
toolbar - no
calendar - maybe
then what the hell is the point of the subject line in the first place? Seems to me the problem isn't the parent, it is a flaw in the comment system. Really, what function does the subject serve?
The majority of YouTube video is so worthless I couldn't imagine ever paying for it. Sure, those forwards you get from people are cute and/or amusing for about 5 seconds, but nothing I would ever want to pay for.
On the other hand, perhaps giving users the opportunity to make some money in the form of micro-payments could actually increase the quality of what is made available. In this case, it would definitely be worth it. I would just like to see the money going to individual user-content-creators, not big, professional media companies.
The "entertainment" on youtube isn't good enough for me to want to pay. I'd rather buy my content on DVD or Bluray, with their higher-quality video, and use that to fill-in my spare time than pay youtube for grainy vids.
Or just take up reading books with the radio playing in the background - a cheap form of entertainment.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
and more important do you want to upload files to a service that charge users for access. and what would youtube be without the worlds funniest home videos. And this is what those services thrive on they connect someone willing to publish but without a name with someone willing to consume.
With a big potion of the content comming from the userbase and the low entry to market for competing services, it's hard capitalise on your userbase without destroying your userbase. if you push to hard they will scatter out on the many different ways they can do most of what you offer on the web.
Pay works when the media hype have already told people they want something, it's harder when the product is unknown stuble upon stuff like what youtube really is all about.
Only if they got pr0n.
The purpose of the "subject" is self-explanatory. It briefly describes what the post is about, so people can skim the subject lines without reading the whole post. It is not for posting the first half of a sentence (poor netiquette).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
to state the subject of your post.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
No.
How much would you pay to read comments on digg...
Please comebody shoot me...
You are correct. I've been watching TV over thirty years for free, with just an antenna. The advent of VCRs and DVDs made it easier for me to collect my favorite shows (like Star Trek), but I still prefer to see my television without a charge because, let's face it, a lot of it is trash and not worth buying.
Youtube falls into the "not worth buying" category. I'll simply boycott the site rather than handover a single dollar, and get my entertainment someplace else for free (like over-the-air television).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Google confirms it...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
No, I would not.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Re: Clearly it exists
If people have to pay for it, they will drop it like a hot potato, and it will become a site devoid of any new content in a very short amount of time. It's too user-driven for them to start actually charging for its use.
None.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Q: Would you pay for YouTube content?
A: No.
YouTube content is rarely worth paying any amount of money for, even $.05. Guess what, Google - there are countless other free video sharing sites out there (Metacafe, DailyMotion, Veoh, etc) that would love for you to start charging users extra money to watch content. Just think of how many users you'll send their way by doing that. They'll pick up the free, sharing community you're looking to alienate.
Down with the career politician! SUPPORT TERM LIMITS
With a service like Hulu, definitely.
With a service like Youtube, maybe. There are some videos worth seeing, but the vast amount are rubbish. Without a good preview feature (num of hits and rating is not a good indicator), I'd just watch a commercial before-hand, and 99% of the time I wouldn't return to watch that video. For returning videos I would if I could see them in high-quality and the price was rather cheap (I'm thinking in terms of dime/minute). Let me load up my account with some money, and then use that credit over-time, getting an alert when I get below a set threshold. It works for google, they get to store the money and collect interest, I don't have to finagle with a CC every time I want higher quality.
So the main problem for Youtube is lack of quality content. If they were to get more "official" content, then they'd have an easier time making a sell to people, but I'm not that interested in paying for America's Funniest Home Videos writ large.
Google said "Trust us, investors: We're going to continue giving away Search for free and figure out how to monetize it later. But trust us, you'll get rich!"
... and they were right! This gave Google a lot of credibility when they said "Trust us, investors: We're going to continue giving away YouTube for free and figure out how to monetize it later. But trust us, you'll get rich!"
... except they were wrong. YouTube costs Google investors more money than it returns with no signs that dynamic will shift. In fact, it's probably getting worse over time: Google loses money on every YouTube visit; increasing market share or total visits just makes the investor loses worse.
So Google must do something to turn YouTube profitable or their credibility with investors to "Give away free for now and monetize later" will be shot.
I didn't think so, either.
Guess no, because I click through a lot of vids that might be perhaps worth watching. Sometimes just, because someone else has pointed me to it, but I don't know before if it's even worth my time, not to mention paying for it.
If a vid bores me, I stop, before I've seen the whole thing.
I'd rather accept more adverts than to pay for every click I do. I would't give anyone any credit card info for that stuff anyway.
Hulu has probably the best advertising model for web video content ever devised. And now that Disney has agreed to place their content on Hulu, I think the fight for premium content may be over and done with. Sorry Google, you lose this one.
Try http://www.hulu.com/ and come back and let us know what you think of this revenue model over anything that Google has tried so far.
That's true, but it's often the case that the subject is already obvious, especially in the middle of a thread (not the case here). I think starting a sentence in the subject line can be an effective rhetorical technique. It can definitely be overused though.
If the videos were downloadable,and not poor quality you can download with all addons and programs but HQ and HD videos,and there were shows that are showed on CBS,ABC etc. and these shows were downloadable too.Well once they got that and few neat features.
Charging for access with a global economic crisis will turn it from YouTube into YouLube, because X-rated content appears to be the only thing selling right now. Given the quality of their age control mechanism I suspect it will take just over 0.43 msec for the first lawsuit to appear.
To put it mildly, I would question the value of that idea. I understand the drivers, but there must be other things that can be done.
Just my two cents.
Insert
But how does the concurrence do it? Vimeo? MetaCafe? DailyMotion? Surely one of them must be _not_ losing money.
Plus, it's important to keep in mind that there's very little that makes YouTube better than Vimeo, if anything at all besides being the defacto leader. Sounds to me like YouTube is at a moment where it could lose to a concurrent who's ready to take the #1 spot just like MySpace lost to Facebook a few years ago.
You just got troll'd!
i shit out an obama.
plop!
I can see myself paying for a subscription. I would not pay per video, even as a miropayment. I'm not spending my money on being rickrolled.
What I would pay for however, are shows that are currently on cable. If I had the choice to only download the shows I wanted, ad free, for 20 bucks a month, I would jump at it. To be able to catch up on entire seasons without downloading the torrent and risking all the nasty stuff that comes with it would be awesome.
On the data mining side, Google could find out who is watching what. This would give them an enormous amount of data for their AdSense program. I wouldn't care. I get my tv whenever and where ever I want.
The only real way to answer this question is to give it a try. Slapping a fee on everything could hurt the YouTube brand a lot, so it needs to be done slowly and starting at the fringes. I think they should let content providers charge subscription fees for their channels. Of course, YouTube/Google would get a cut of the revenue. Regular viewers shouldn't complain because this is new content above and beyond what is currently offered. YouTube could assess how users react and everyone could get a feel for how the price structures should be set up. My guess is that the content provides will seriously overprice their content. Content providers have pretty consistently overestimated the value of their content and what consumers will pay. We will probably end up with a model where short commercials are injected into long content. Viewers will have a choice to either watch or pay a subscription fee to skip the ads. Consumers will have the choice to 1)pay 2)watch commercials or 3)find entertainment elsewhere. Content providers tend to forget about this third option.
being an irritant to the anally retentive. THANKS
Watching a YouTube video is already a painful expreience. The very low quality of the video, and the extremely small size of the video frame just don't add up to a good viewing experience. So why should I pay for such crap. I won't. I'll just keep watching the free sites like Hulu. Sure there's a few commercial breaks in the program, but they are at least reasonable. 4, 30 second, single advertiser commercial breaks per TV show episode is far better than the massive advertising overdose that cable TV providers force down your throat and charge you for it as well.
- James
For the vast majority of YouTube videos I would not pay any money. I just would not miss them enough - basic usage should stay free, or we'll use good alternatives like Vimeo.
However, I see a place on YouTube for professionally produced documentaries. For example, there's Straight Up - Helicopters in Action. There's Helvetica - The Movie. Stuff that I can buy on DVD, but that is just too expensive this way - more expensive than movies, and I will probably ever only watch them once.
So I downloaded them. If I could have watched them for, oh I don't know, 3 EUR, I would have. Provided that I could watch them again later for free - for reference or to introduce a friend to them. Both activities might result in further sales by other people, so this should not be suppressed.
Other people might not pay for those, but I do not even own a TV, so I miss out on a couple of documentaries, about the only thing I miss from regular TV. Oh, and I also download TV shows that I cannot legally buy in my country shortly enough after they aired or in the original language. Then again I wouldn't want to pay as much as they cost anyway. Maybe that's also something for YouTube: TV shows, 0.5 EUR per episode or something like that.
My simple answer is the same, but my extended answer is different: I won't then run off to some other ad-supported site and endure advertising... I'll simply stop watching such things in that medium, period. I don't go to YouTube for commercial content at all in the first place, and I'll be damned if I'll pay for the privilege of viewing the non-commercial things I do want to view, not will I tolerate "interstitial" ads for that privilege.
I'll simply do without, if it comes to that, in the same way that some people eschew television. The absence of YouTube videos does not significantly diminish my life, any more than the Web's complete absence diminished my grandparent's lives (and quite the reverse, they'd probably argue now).
If they get a selection of high quality videos that are comparable to what I already regularly watch on TV, and if it is priced in a way makes economic sense, I'd seriously consider dropping cable and just watch what I want online.
I figure I probably actually care to watch no more 6 or 7 different shows a week. At a price of $0.25 per show, that would cut my cable bill significantly. Plus, having the option to not pay when I'm not watching anything is also nice. The rest of the stuff I watch more randomly (e.g., news, etc.) can be obtained free OTA or online.
A few years ago Google filed a patent for a method of making micro payments from a cell phone under the name GPay. The idea being that you would text message a number and have it automatically add $x to your cell phone bill, which would make it into the hands of whoever you just paid for a service or product.
This system has been around for a while, it's especially common here in Europe, but so far Google hasn't followed through on the implementation. Maybe that will change very soon (I was sure it would be included in the Android phone).
With a system like this in place it becomes very easy for someone to tip a person for an enjoyable YouTube video. There's been times where I would gladly have given the creator a dollar or two for his video (the John Freeman adventures for example), but there's just no easy way to do it. Give me a number to text that will automatically give the creator a dollar and I'd be all over it, and I wouldn't have a problem with Google skimming a percentage for themselves (as long as it's reasonable). The first John Freeman video has 1.7 million views, if 0.1% of those viewers like it enough to give a dollar that's $1700 for the creator, not a bad hobby, and not a bad source of revenue for Google when you expand it to the millions of videos on YouTube.
The beauty of this system is there's no need for credit cards or accounts at third party websites, just text a number and the transaction is done. Anywhere, anytime. Whether it's technically and financially feasible I don't know, but it would certainly be a step ahead of a Paypal like service.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
I agree. Look at the ebay purchase of skype. I think everyone is looking to the future for all this money that will be made, but it never will. Most skype users pay 0, and those that do, don't pay very much. Similarly, if I wanted to watch a youtube that cost me even a nickel, I'd pass. Too much trouble. I *know* they'd data mine the crap out of it as soon as I entered payment data and who wants payment data easy to grab from my web browser? Because alot of people would be like me and pass even at a nickel, means there would be no "volume" in the sales, which means the nickel would not cover costs. The "ad" model used by people like cnn and yahoo works, except I (and I'm betting alot of others) go read email or whatnot while the ad plays and it gets totally ignored. Ads work on tv as one person commented because our lard-ass is sitting on the couch and we are too lazy to get up. Most tv ads get watched if the remote is too far to channel surf. Lastly, I still don't know why anyone would use youtube type data for tv watching. The quality is crap. Why did we all upgrade to 1080i/5 channel tv so we could sit on a computer and watch ultra-compressed video? I for one even use the OTA when possible as the data stream looks better than cable. Call me crazy but I like to see technology provide a better picture like HDTV offers over NTSC instead of downgrading to what looks worse than NTSC (youtube).
"Steak makes me orgasm". Honestly, I'm not making that up. She actually said it.
this is yet another epic fail of the internets,....I'll go somewhere else to view my "all your base are belong to us" videos or whatever,...as will everyone else.
At work, some people use the email subject line to refer to the place, event, object, or concept being discussed. This is the "subject" of the message's content in a grammatical sense.
So instead of meaningful subject lines like "Application X fails to load when used with Y" or "Project Z planning: Please review before Tuesday's meeting" I see subject lines like "Application X" and "Meeting" - only slightly more useful than nothing at all. So when I want to look for a specific email I received in the past, I frequently have to browse through messages with subjects like "Update".
Online forums are even worse - there are too many topics with subjects like "Please help with my configuration" or "Audio question".
From the summary:
"We will be announcing additional things in that area literally very, very soon."
As far as I know, there is no figurative use of "very, very soon". So, there is no need to say that you are using the literal meaning of the term, as that is always the meaning being employed. A possible response to "He bought the farm" might be "Will there be a funeral?" A possible response to "He literally bought the farm" might be "How much did he end up paying for it?" You can see the importance of the "literally" there. What possible use could it be in "We shall do it literally very, very soon"?
For the most part, I already boycott the site.
It was cool for the first 50 vids, over the course of a few months.
Now, I only very reluctantly visit the site, perhaps on a whim, but I rarely feel compelled to visit.
They should consider paying me.
cheers,
They have it all wrong. It isn't how much would I pay to see youtube content, more like, how much are they willing to pay me to look at their terrible videos.
Since Deja News, I've felt that the NNTP technical newsgroups were worth paying for - even more than for YouTube.
But back to the major topic. Yes, YouTube technical articles, e.g., "How to disassemble a Microwave", etc. ) are an excellent learning tool and worth paying for.
I would expect Google to pay authors for providing content on a per-view basis.
Let me say first that I don't spend much time on YouTube, so my answer would definitely be NO.
But I seem to remember back in the Stone Age BG (before Google), some guy from Yahoo was talking about micro payments for search results. Never happened. If YouTube started charging people to view vids, everyone would find another site where they could see a low res vids of monkeys throwing footballs and hitting someone in the crotch.
I mean you can't throw a dead monkey without hitting a free vid site. Charging would be like saying "Move along, nothing to see here..."
The question is not "IF", but "HOW MUCH".
If youtube offered full-length feature films with good quality, then I'd be ready to pay a reasonable amount. Let's say about the same price I pay to rent a DVD for a 700 MB download. The DVD has a better quality, but downloading is more convenient.
It's about time the media industry learned about this thing they call a "market". It's up to the seller to set a price but it's the buyer who accepts to pay the price or not.
If there would be some special channels, such as a channel containing ITV/Channel4/etc or movies, then if I was interested I wouldn't mind paying for it so long as the price was right. The quality would need to be fairly good, though.
However, if they mean paying just to use youtube at all, or paying for each and every video I watch, and paying to upload videos, no way.
I haven't watched YouTube since they broke the player for Firefox.
There's some bug which, for some versions of Firefox, causes YouTube's player to randomly switch between full size and 1/4 frame size, every few seconds. It's been reported, it's Firefox-only, it occurs with Firefox 2 and 3, it's related to newer versions of Flash, and it's not fixed.
Then YouTube put in some kind of common login system with Google logins, and because I had both a Google login and a YouTube login, it forces me to a "Link your YouTube & Google Accounts" page, which I don't want to do.
Unless they're going to offer a premium service where I can vote to bury these horrible horrible videos to a section of the site segregate from the rest of it, and also don't have to put up with "You can't view this in your area" bullcrap, then I'll just use one of the loads of other services available. Absolutely no skin off my nose.
Yeah, i would. So long as the charges were sane and the contributors got a reasonable cut.
I don't spend much time watching stuff on youtube, but i reckon if it's worth watching, it's worth paying a bit for. And if it's not worth paying for then it's not worth google paying to host it.
I'd rather pay for it than see it disappear.
So...
Very...
No.
In B.C., our fascism is green.
If a business is losing money on a product, then they will make changes to churn revenue. I'm not happy about this, but I completely understand it and hope that Google makes a smart decision regarding it. Hopefully they'll only charge for said "premium" content and not user-generated content. If the premium content is offered at a suitable price and has a lot of content from a lot of different providers available, then I would pay for it. Especially seeing as how Hulu doesn't allow countries other than the US.
I could consider paying for better comments. Seriously, most commments on Youtube are so stupid it hurts. A premium account with access to a premium comment section could be interesting.
There's nothing like $HOME
They should pay people to watch them.
They want us to pay for dubious quality, with unknown content videos created by complete amateurs? What are they smoking? Thats a good way to kill it off, even better then the 'IP cops' that now monitor it.
If they cant pay for it via the offensive "commercials" that have been added, then they need to get out of the way to make room for someone else who can.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
No.
We do pay the $9 a month to stream movies on Netflix.
We occasionally watch movies on Hulu (small, slow changing movie selection, otherwise great).
No longer have cable, simply re-purposed an old $50 Dell as a media server, upgraded it with an inexpensive but functional graphics card, and connected to our Sony HDTV. Running the Alpha of Boxee.
..start using some saner format and provide fair pricing, yes.
What if your post is (n/t)? Slashdot doesn't really support that (short subjects), so the convention that many people have adopted is to post half a sentence. Since the first line of the comment shows up, I think it works great.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Would you pay ...
Woah woah woah. Stop right there. No.
Some content is not accessible to me. It happened today with some "Penn says" videos. I am getting over it easily and I won't miss paying content either.
No.. There is some funny stuff on there but not funny enough to justify paying!
It would rock utterly if the big TV and video libraries could be on it. e.g. the BBC's.
This is all just my personal opinion.
Google's loosing a cool mil a day on youtube, so is it just me or is it another example of dot com shit ran wild when youtube was sold/valued at ridonculous sums
Second, maybe they should either cap the number of videos someone can post or set expiration dates based on views. If no one is looking at it, let it expire. If someone wants to post a zero interest video for longer, let them pay.
Third, how about a little advertising? It doesn't have to be annoying, but if I'm looking at a video of the YZF-R1 race, why not allow Yamaha to have a link or a banner displayed?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
"would you actually pay for premium content on YouTube and other sites, or will this draw viewers away to other video sites?"
Assuming it is done right (HD, no latency/delivery problems), then Yes. Google surely seems to be one of the top leaders in understanding quality content delivery. That said, the offering has to equal or supersede the payment.
Sorry to reply to myself, but it just occurred to me to mention that the idea of having to watch adverts is repulsive - I'd much rather pay directly.
This is all just my personal opinion.
But this begs the question... "Would you pay to see a video sight unseen?"
There is a lot of crap on You Tube and also some gems. How are you to know which ones are the gems? Word of mouth will not work in this scenario. Nobody will want to pay for that new gem out there if nobody has reviewed it first.
no
No is too mild a word.
I have better things to do with my time ... erm ... like post on slashdot.
Seriously, never, no, nada, nein, nyet, or as we say in Soviet Kanuckistan, "No fucking way, eh!"
Not everything can be monetized - and not everything that you can extract a revenue stream from will generate a profit. "First we get the eyeballs, then we figure out how to make money from it" is dead, Jim.
No way in hell!!
I don't understand how Google keeps afloat anyway. Their main business is advertising, right? But WTF doesn't block ads. Or even then, who clicks on ads? So where is their money coming from anyway?
If you want money gOOgle, give us what we want.
If I have to pay for premium content like TV shows and movies, I can use filesharing, regular TV, and Netflix to see these in a more convenient and high quality form.
If I would pay to see people with ass burgers singing to their favorite R&B song in front of their webcam, then definitely no.
There's no way in hell I'm paying any money to see videos on youtube.
Oh wait! ... ... Darn it, a large pink flying pig nearly took my head off. Can't be too careful these days...
if I could pay a reasonable subscription price to see new episodes of shows that were prematurely cancelled (Angel, Firely, Farscape, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, etc.). We need fan-supported shows that don't depend on selling advertising time.
Premium content? Seriously -- what the hell is premium content? You might as well say "Premium Crap". I can't think of a single thing that is so wonderful that I would be willing to pay to see it on YouTube.
$0.50 to get unlimited and permanent watching rights to a TV show episode, or $1 for a movie...$10/mo for Netflix
Haven't you ever heard of Bittorrent? For exactly $0.00 you can have all that, and the file is already on your computer without the D.R.M.
So not only do you continue to own your content, you even retain the right to revoke their license to it.
hale naw.
So.. I see YouTube has taken out the final nail for its coffin.. all they need to do now it hammer it in. Good Bye YouTube, it was nice knowing you.
PPN
Not doing it at all is one alternative.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
That is where we differ.
Something that is bound to be as ephemeral, trite, as (most) television is should not be payed for by me; I should be payed for watching it. Though of course, many people also are voluminous readers of romance novels as well.
The media companies are already making a mistake when they make Hulu wait a week to show something; When I can't watch it on Hulu when I want to watch it, I download it via torrent and wait ten to twenty minutes.
I'll watch the ads, especially if it's not the same one over and over, but I won't pay a damn penny when I can watch publicly viewable content for free.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Pay to watch Youtube videos? Why not go to any of the zillion other streaming video sites instead?
Lately I'm getting ready to do that anyway since I'm sick and tired of closing a popover banner ad every time I watch a freaking video clip.
'Nuff said.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Because us grown-ups realize that this stuff isn't gonna get made for free. Thousands of actual people feed their with this money. Pretending it's alright to take the fruits of their labor and give them nothing in return is simply criminal.
Maybe Google's looking not to shift the cost to end-users, but to media producers.
Similar to their PPC/sponsored links on search, you can pay to have preferred listings in a designated area near the top of the page. SPAM can take out an ad on their own product, a music company could take one out for their artist, etc.
Of course, micropayments in the form of DRM free TV shows would work pretty well too.
The mind boggling thing, to me, is that Hulu doesn't offer a $1 buy option for each episode. Episode older than the past 5 episodes, or you want to watch ad-free? Click a button, poof, ads are gone, and it's downloading in the background in a DRM free format, automatically adding itself to iTunes when done. Hulu doesn't have a lot in their HD gallery now, but it would be an easy way to get the content providers to offer it on Hulu. A dollar or two, and not only can you watch the episode on the device of your choice, but watch it on Hulu in HD whenever you want. Embed the name in the metadata, and 99% of the users wouldn't know how to remove it. The 1% that do could already torrent it anyways.
Hulu has probably the best advertising model for web video content ever devised. And now that Disney has agreed to place their content on Hulu, I think the fight for premium content may be over and done with. Sorry Google, you lose this one.
Try http://www.hulu.com/ and come back and let us know what you think of this revenue model over anything that Google has tried so far.
We're sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States...blah...blah...blah.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
When I don't like what is playing on di.fm, I hop over to youtube and watch a music video from my favorites list, or wander around the related videos.
I would be happy to pay for a cleaned up version of that.
Give me TV shows I can download in good quality MPEG-4 for my AppleTV, at $1 each (say), and I'll be all over that.
I'm less interested in movies because I like to get at least DVD quality.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
If it's 1 cent per year all you can watch deal, but no more, final offer.
...but the problem is, most sites thing $.50 or $1 is a "micropayment" because you're not paying $12.95/month for it.
It's the same problem with downloading music for $1 per song. Um.. No. That's $12 for an album, which is what I can usually find it for in a store.
Micro-payments must be just that... MICRO. That means LESS than $.01. Along the lines of $.001 or less, and you have to CONSTANTLY keep people informed as to their balance and/or tab....
And, if you're counting on USERS to provide you your content (a la YouTube), you better PAY them for giving you their content...
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
I certainly find it very reasonable! -- Rick A.
I would gladly pay a few cents per a short video and more than a few cents for a longer one under a few conditions:
- decent video quality
- no ads except for unbiased links to related contets
- streaming server guarantees decent bandwidth to my location
- there is a "give me my money back" button (with possibly a few options for a reason) to discourage bad content
- I don't have to repay to replay a clip
Metacafe. They pay the video contributers based on ratings, and they seem to be doing well. just take all of the videos that have bad ratings and that have repeated/fake material on it off of youtube and you'll cut your video costs in half. easy.
Youtube falls into the "not worth buying" category.
I would watch Youtube videos if they paid me, but not the other way around.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
"will this draw viewers away to other video sites?"
You mean if other sites provide the same content for free, will I stay on youtube just because it is... pretty?
On contrary, if every second movie I click on leads me to a "not available in your country" text, I will eventually get bored and go to other site even if youtube provides the same content for free.
Glad to see there are other people who realize that simply taking content is ultimately defeating and are willing to pay for it.
Unfortunately now we are now supporting thieves like the grandparent post in addition to *AA scum.
* We dance where angels fear to tread *
Maybe if they did a spinoff on the name, so that Youtube was still the name of the free, user created content, and hi-def video was available for a small fee under a new name, maybe Blu-tube (though Sony might shit themselves over how much money they could make in a lawsuit).
The problem with making user to pay for YouTube is quite simple : Brand recognition.
YouTube was a huge success thanks to stupid short videos with bad to just correct video quality. See it, laugh at it (or facepalm) and forget it.
There is certainly a market for flash streaming of premium content (movies, series, animes, shows...), but not with the youtube name. Create a new site, allow only professionnal or professionnal-looking content on it, raise the minimum quality requirements to 480p H.264, find a cool name, and it should work.
The other problem is the insane CPU eating habit of the flash player, but that's quite another story.
Re:Not necessarily. I can use it for other purposes.
How would you feel if you pay per video and [...] accidentally watched a Chris Crocker video?
Why won't you leave Crocker alone??? Don't you people understand? He's a very sensitive woman!!!
Leave Crocker alone!
Yes, for some content - would I pay for Youtube content? Hell no. Rubbish in lowres. If they offer something in high res divx, that I could download and play on my DVR on the TV - perhaps. Watch small crap on the computer - nope.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Can you imagine paying $15 a month for YouTube access and then finding out that all the premium videos are Rick Rolls?
Youtube who? Never heard of them.
Do they advertise on Free TV?
and what may I ask do you think google does best at ??
I can say that no, I wouldnt, but that if I were going to pay for TV service from anyone, youtube would probably be my first choise. i'm kind of beyond the point of wanting to watch 20th century style production television. regular youtube is much more entertaining for me.
So, I pay for my television. Like, one of those expensive satellite packages with eleventy billion channels. I also have a DVR. Now, clearly, recording TV with the DVR is legal. Similarly, so is transferring the shows and movies from the DVR to another medium, like my computer. So, what if I just skip a step and torrent my TV to begin with? Is that simply criminal, too, or do you think I'm within my rights?
Of course, I would have to monetize the commodity of my attention, comments, feedback, ratings and navigation patterns and offer appropriate tiered rates for looking at ad content.
My rates for looking at ads directly would start from the low $150/hour and indirectly from $75/h. My comments are $3/word, rating content would be $5 per rating.
At the same time I wouldn't expect content rates to go much higher than Netflix' $20/month for unlimited use or that wouldn't be competitive.
In Soviet USA Advertisers Sell You!
dont support youtube, they support scientologists, how can u support a cult
As far as I can tell, nobody buys ringtones for content, they buy it for "branding" themselves. They use the ringtone to announce something about themselves to everybody they are with.
Some people are willing to pay $4 in an attempt to announce "look at me, gosh I'm hip" every time their phone rings... It is not about quality or work that went into the creation!
Not only no, but youtube for pay would be quickly mooted by new free services erupting elsewhere. Unless Google bought youtube specifically to destroy it, they should probably rethink.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It's great that it is free, but they lose so much money on it, if the options are shut it down or charge, I choose charge.
"Grown-Ups" or Chumps?
I'm really getting tired of these already. It's a great way to make a lot of money really fast, but I'm very concerned that this standard will be the demise of a simple what you see is what you get service. It's becoming very big in gaming and I see it as a way for companies to maximize revenue without remaining constantly challenged to produce better content. If you can make an extra 10% near pure profit selling costumes, then why produce anything for free ever again? It's "so cheap" anyone can afford it, after all.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
I mostly watch TV series nowadays, as no movies have really appealed to me. I used to use piratebay exclusively, but then I found most media companies provide "watch-for-free" content on their legit websites, with better quality at the cost of a couple 20-second commercials.
I feel like this is a reasonable compromise, and whenever possible, I actually watch from the site despite the commercials; advertisers get what they want, I get better quality and optional subtitles through streaming video (don't even have to wait 15 minutes to download with torrent), and the media company turns a profit to keep shareholders happy. I actually only found out about the Dollhouse series by sitting through one of those commercials in the middle of watching The Simpsons.
Everyone is getting distracted like they are supposed to. While you are discussing who will pay what, no one asks the real question.
What will Google do to make the Youtube site more money friendly?
The answer is Google will have Youtube take down any kind of content that offends paying users. Or any videos that aggravate their deep pocket partners.
Youtube is already censoring political and cultural videos that contradict the public news, corporations, or governments.
Add money in as another censorship reason and Youtube is going to turn into the equivalent of a public TV network. All boredom, all the time.
If you go to Youtube to see new ideas you never heard of before, better kiss those days goodbye.
There's premium content on youTube? I thought it was all cute videos of stupid animals and people.
Because us grown-ups realize that this stuff isn't gonna get made for free. Thousands of actual people feed their with this money. Pretending it's alright to take the fruits of their labor and give them nothing in return is simply criminal.
Since when can pretending be considered criminal?! There are millions of unlicensed children practicing medicine on a daily basis! We must inform the public immediately!
$0.50 to get unlimited and permanent watching rights to a TV show episode, or $1 for a movie...$10/mo for Netflix
Haven't you ever heard of Bittorrent? For exactly $0.00 you can have all that, and the file is already on your computer without the D.R.M.
Watching Netflix content on my TV is SO much more convenient than going through Bittorrent that it's not only worth the $10/mo, at that price, getting the same content via Bittorrent takes on a negative value.
Because us grown-ups realize that this stuff isn't gonna get made for free. Thousands of actual people feed their with this money. Pretending it's alright to take the fruits of their labor and give them nothing in return is simply criminal.
I agree with you, but not if it's DRM'd.
Also, for example, I can just pause YouTube videos until it is fully cached and seamlessly watch it, but not so on Hulu. Hulu will pause every few seconds, may be minutes, to cache additional data, and then continue, making the movie virtually unwatchable.
I watch a youtube video because someone told me it was cool. He watched it because someone told him...... Now if each had to wade the the rigmarole of signing up, paying, keep the piggy bank full, .... the chain would break. Somewhere, anywhere.
And the recommendation wouldn't reach me.
So I wouldn't watch.
Well, if I were to be paid for content I upload, which draws them users, and they take a percentage for hosting - ok..
But, if they are going to charge for my creations and not give me the majority of what they charge, then no!
Exactly. But here for example, you would be an exception.
Nobody I know would be able to watch so much stuff in one month that it would be worth $10.
And even if they tried: I don't think there is even enough stuff out there that is worth watching, to fill the $10 of content per month.
So either movies etc. are worth much more to you than to me (also quality-wise), or you're just a couch potato, watching every crap that comes along. ^^
(No offense. It's your life. And it's for you to decide what you like to do to be happy. I just do not think it could be my life.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Criminal or not I don't care, I'm still going to pirate it. I really couldn't care less if I destroy the industry. I'll just play some games instead of watching South Park. Then after the games industry dies I'll listen to some music and so on.
Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
Shut the fuck up, you CUNT!!!
As long as they never tried to charge for all of the user generated content that is literally given to them, I believe if they tried that a new or one of the many less-popular free video hosts would overtake youtube
See Subject.
This space unintentionally left blank.
... if the pay worked similar but not exactly like cable TV -- Flat fee, all you can view. But I'm not sure if the culture is ready for it IMHO. I mean even ad support online video I just can't see being profitable until bandwidth caps go away and bandwidth speeds and gigabytes become much cheaper (From the users standpoint).
Also you get highest quality vids that you can bookark/dl for offline viewing.
Not everyone has the time to sit there and find torrents of their favorite shows. I mean if they could categorize the content, I wouldn't mind reminiscing in a lot of old shows that are now no longer shown on TV.
Also the "you watch it when you want to factor" is probably the best thing about it. Also paying users should not be subject to ads.
Maybe, you could have the user-uploaded junk, and then people can upload links to related "professional" content on a "metube.com" or something.
This "metube.com" would be for pay.
Hmm.
paytube.com
ourtube.com
yourtubes.com
tubeyou.com
movietube.com
protube.com
outtube.com
intube.com
testtube.com
mafiaatube.com
Well, movietube.com would probably be the safest name for it.
Anyway, youtube as a paid sight^H^H^H^H^H site run by the "artists associations" would no longer be youtube.
But the idea (expanded on a bit below by others) of youtube as a portal for the internet version of guys playing guitars on the streetcorners might be interesting. Except, even there, I'd rather toss a fiver in the hat of the guy on the corner than pitch a youtuber a fiver via paypal, other things being equal.
Well, then again, I guess I don't see samisen on the street corner, even in Kyoto or Osaka.
Hmmmmmm.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I will never pay to watch individuals 30 to 3 minute rants on their perspective on things. What has made you tube what it is today is the amount and the different variety of content. If it was for full length movies to donwload and own i might consider it if their prices are as good as other sites. But as it is today with todays content NO, never.
This entire article depends on the idea that the .flvs uploaded to YouTube are somehow unique to Youtube and can therefore BE monetized...
Data can be duplicated.
Duplicated data can (and will) be re-posted elsewhere, EULA or no EULA.
I personally would never pay for youtube videos. The whole beauty of the youtube service is that it is free so anyone can upload their work and people can view without a fee. If they were to start charging a fee I'm sure they would loose a very large amount of their users. I do like the idea of charging for premium higher quality versions of the videos as I think that some universities or companies would subscribe to show a video with more resolution. Another option would be to have advertisements displayed before every video that all users would be forced to watch.
They would have to come up with a damn good model and good prices, otherwise, 'Hell NO! there's no NO WAY I'd pay!' Specially since there are a lot of crappy videos, rick rolls, etc.
I browse You Tube occasionally (once a month perhaps) and would definitely NOT pay for viewing amateur videos there. How would I know if it's worth whatever small price I would be charged BEFORE I view the video? It wouldn't take long, in my opinion, for people to get tired of paying for so-so videos and just give up and go elsewhere. The attraction is that it's free. Take that away, at any small price, and I think that the business model will fail. All the $$$ Google invested in You Tube will be lost. Well, most of it, maybe. There will be a few people who have lots of money and won't care how much they spend. But many people are suffering right now because of the wrecked economy caused by the greed of the people who once ran (or are still running) the monetary system. I for one am not working every week. But if I was, I still would not pay for you Tube content unless I had some guarantee that I would find it worthwhile. I would either give up what You Tube has to offer or go elsewhere if there are alternatives. And I think that people who put their videos on You Tube would decide to put them elsewhere if they knew that only a few people would be viewing their content instead of becoming "famous" because millions raved over something they put there.
YouTube videos are depressingly awful. They should allow users to submit high quality videos and charge extra for them. I would pay $10/mo for it.
...not a damned thing.
Seriously, while Youtube has some worthwile content (tutorials, etc) its not of sufficient quality that I'd actually plunk down money to watch. Hell if i see one more chick shaking her ass to some song...im going to retch (after the video is over of course).
Just my 2cents.
--- I was far from home, and the spell of the Eastern sea was upon me. -Lovecraft-
Are you kidding me? Everything now a days is moving from the charged and payed to the free and for everyone. Youtube is a great example of that, the freedom to express yourself in whatever way you want. Isn't that what the push is now a days? Open source programs and all that noise? If youtube starts pricing there might be a rebellion among internet users all over the world.
MOST Youtube falls into the "not worth buying" category. There are a couple good series that I might consider subscribing to.
Youtube is a massive distribution system. There's lots of free crap, but there is a market for premium and niche content. It has the potential to be a more open video version of the iTunes app store.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Ha, that AC post wasn't me. I do feel I'm being trolled here though, when one ticket to the movies costs almost $10, and television is commonly subscribed to for over $40/mo.
Regardless, my main point wasn't how much I need Netflix, it was more how little I need to bother with searching, downloading, etc, when there's a much more convenient alternative out there (which happens to be a legitimate means, as well). Perhaps it's not that movies & tv shows mean more to me, but that $10 means less. I don't see getting $10 worth to require investing hours every week. The idea that it would take a marathon effort to fit get the $10 worth of value seems pretty silly to me.
What does medicine, law, and school have in common?
alternatly
What do Lawyers, Doctors, and 5 year olds with future recitals have in common?
They are all practicing. Which to me is just a bit scary.
I don't pay for anything unless I get a physical object that I can sell to somebody else.
Extracting that object from the movie theatre is difficult, but it's worth it!
ill start paying for youtube when i start paying for myspace
Would I pay for YouTube videos?
Well, would you pay ANYTHING to watch this vid? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XBurkUkdFE&feature=related
Also, would I see any return on my videos that generate YouTube money? Probably not, and given the fact that record labels and film studios pay their writers and production staff beans and pocket the millions the film generates, I doubt it. If YouTube starts charging, it'll just demonstrate that:
A. They have a business model that depends on the submission of other people's work,
B. They are basing their income on videos submitted by people who know they won't be paid for their work,
C. They have no way of guaranteeing quality,
D. They really want to bankrupt. Maybe they're hoping for a bailout.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Give me a near-DVD quality, a price lower than DVD machines, and a foolproof system, for example with a URL/key/whatever that's valid during a certain time lapse (at least 5 hours), and maybe it can work. Also I find that going out to the cinema is fun, and I'm not going to stop watching movies this way. Fun is not always staying at home in front of the computer. And please don't advertise about watching movies on a cellphone.
hell no
courage mateship sacrifice endurance
I'd gladly pay -- I'm not sure how much, but up to say $10/mo. for unlimited downloads, or $0.10 each, is a no-brainer for me.
Doug Jensen
I bet no one will use Youtube once it start charging money...
I download purely because bittorrent IS the BEST solution available.
Compare the pros and cons of Buying DVDs vs Bittorrent and you will see why Bittorrent is so popular.
ThePirateBay gives me movies on demand, from home. It normally takes 5 working days for DVDs to arrive whereas I can download a movie in less than 2-3hours.
My ISP offers an online movie rental service, however I need to use their proprietary software to download an play the movie. I want to use VLC media player to watch movies not install a new piece of software which may or may not run on the system i'm using at the time.
DVD's are a pain in the ass to rip, files from the pirate bay are just easier to work with, you can't just right click a DVD and select "Send to Thumb drive"
The Pirate Bay just provides better service, it provides what consumers want.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
No.. wrong way... dont charge to view, charge to post content. Otherwise viewers will just wander away. The good content providors will have the dosh to pay for higher video quality postings. This will also cut down on the creators of low quality content and infringements because people posting content will think twice about putting something up if they have to pay to upload it. I keep noticing how many duplicate videos there are on youtube differing in quality. You dont see the same thing on flickr or at least I havent noticed it.
Could go with flickr's design, limit videos to 3 a month for free and require a pay subscription in order to unlock more uploads/mo.
Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
It would really depend on the type of premium video and if I could download a copy and keep it. I hate to pay for things I physically cannot do things with. IE purchased music, I'll burn to a cd etc...
And then I end-up reading the second-half of a sentence, and I get confused. Like so: "...to the female port and twist the screws." Huh?
You shouldn't split your sentences in half like that, unless your goal is to frustrate your readers.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I love YouTube; but I have zero practical use for it other than a time-killer; I wouldn't pay a dime when there's tons of other free time killers out there. In other words: No
Because us grown-ups realize that this stuff isn't gonna get made for free. Thousands of actual people feed their with this money.
But real grown-ups realize that if they have to pay for this stuff, they'll do without and those people that feed their family will have to get another line of work.
My argument is that the entertainment industry does not "deserve" to be paid automatically for anything they do. They are in the right to be paid when people buy their things, but they should not be subsidized by government or aided with its legislation or law enforcement more than any other working class of job.
If they don't like the ups and downs of the industry, they should have took another career.
I don't pirate, but I'll be damned if those people trample all over fair use rights and abuse government simply to get a subsidy when otherwise they would be paid none.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
(See subject line)
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
I *have* to do that on many occasions because my Comcast DVR decides to take a dump for whatever reason du jour. IANAL, but I'd say you are within your rights to watch the stuff you are paying for. The alternative is to sue comcast for not providing the service you are paying for (in my case).
No, I will not pay to watch videos on Youtube. By doing this, Youtube will have little or no viewers at all.
Would they allow it for premium pay subscribers? I'm weary of sanitized content.
Good reply. I'm curious. If a [content] has been out for [number] years, would that make it OK?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I agree but...
"I can download a movie in less than 2-3hours"
You obviously do not have TW/RR cable.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I wouldn't personally, ya know, but if YouTube offered an adult subscription site populated with lots of DVD-quality p0rn, they'd make a bundle!
Netflix streaming works perfectly fine on my computer. However, when you have a hiccup on your internet connection, netflix will transrate to a lower bitrate, so you can continue streaming... On youtube, when the same thing happens, the stream just aborts, and you have to start all over again. I don't know how many times on youtube, the content is rendered faster than it can stream, such that the video output is terrible.
You are talking about feature films? If yes then I agree. But the user-generated material? NO! We (I?) will just find a better (cheaper) way to spend time. Like post on Slashdot :P
otherwise I won't pay for viewing
i no
i wouldnt if it started charging people
You want to charge me for watching videos of people doing stupid stuff? Or clips of shows? Now, if I upload my own stuff, it'll probably be free to do since they want to be able to have a variety of content for people to choose from. But, if they are charging users to view content, where is my revenue?
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." General James Mattis
I'd pay to have it blocked so I can get back to watching TV like normal people do:P
0x or or snor perron?!
People hurting themselves acting like idiots, singing badly, ranting and being angry for the world to see. Exactly what am I getting here that I can't already get for free on my daily subway commute?
these are user posted who the F8ck would pay for user posted videos! if they were gonna play like this then they can be like hulu with advertise ments inserted!
rethinkafghanistan.com
If you travel to Mitchell County, NC there is an old emerald mine there. For a dollar you can purchase a bushel of dirt from the mine. That's kinda like YouTube charging to view content. Of course you may keep any gems you find.