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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?"
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.
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.
Yup, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't pay for YouTube. Now, if they set up some sort of system where you could tip the people who put up particularly neat stuff and skimmed a percentage off of that, I could see doing that.
Remember RFC 873!
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.
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.
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
Re: Clearly it exists
I work in a media corp that is currently in a long-term transition to all ad-supported, and, from experience, I'll tell you it's not going to work.
The problem with ad supported on the internet is that you can't charge what you charge for a TV spot or a newspaper ad...There are too many people vying for a slice of the internet ad revenue pie. But the majority of the costs for producing your high-end product remain.
So what's the alternative to charging for it? I mean, I've been thinking about this for (literally) a decade, and I really used to think that we could be self-supporting by ad revenue, and it's just not happening.
We've been riding the "free" gravy train for a long time. Lot of companies have been using their web presence as a loss leader, or justifying their losses on the potential for future monitization. This is going to end. It simply has to.
I can very easily see YouTube transitioning to what is effectively an a la carte cable TV provider...You pay a buck a month to the ESPN channel on YouTube, or whatever. The current configuration becomes effectively a massive public access cable channel, supported by subscription-based premium channels.
And, when it comes down to it, I see nothing wrong with that. I'd cancel my cable service in favor of something like that, in a heartbeat. It'd kill Tivo, and traditional cable.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I would consider paying, but there would be several hurdles. I'd prefer optional tipping, provided there was a dead simple way to tip a tiny amount, but I might consider paying even if it was a more traditional model.
First, I would only be willing to pay for higher-quality versions. If there isn't a low-quality (ie current normal youtube quality) free, I'm not interested in paying sight unseen.
Second, it needs to be a true micropayment, and they need to somehow make it really trivial to use. I'm not particularly interested in giving them blanket access to my bank account, and I'm not particularly interested in worrying about how much is left in my special youtube account and periodically transferring money. Yes, I realize that doing both of those is probably impossible right now. Their problem, not mine.
Third, they need to provide a download option, at least on larger things. I'm not interested in watching a TV show in my browser, or in having it stop halfway through because my Internet connection hiccuped and it couldn't keep streaming.
And fourth, it needs to be per-video, not per-viewing. I don't want to count the times I've seen something cool on youtube and then later pulled it up to play it for a friend on my computer. I don't mind paying a couple pennies for the good quality version of a neat video, but I mind paying it repeatedly.
Not only no, but hell no.
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.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
If you think I'm gonna pay $1.99 to watch a 30 minute video, you're dreaming.
And yet people happily pay $3.99 for a five second crappy quality clip of a pop song to use as their ring tone.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
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!