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YouTube Will 'Frustrate' Some Users With Ads So They Pay for Music (bloomberg.com)
YouTube will increase the number of ads that some users see between music videos, part of a strategy to convince more of its billion-plus viewers to pay for a forthcoming subscription music service from the Google-owned video site. Bloomberg: People who treat YouTube like a music service, those passively listening for long periods of time, will encounter more ads, according to Lyor Cohen, the company's global head of music. "You're not going to be happy after you are jamming 'Stairway to Heaven' and you get an ad right after that," Cohen said in an interview at the South by Southwest music festival. Cohen is trying to prove that YouTube is committed to making people pay for music and silence the "noise" about his company's purported harm to the recording industry. The labels companies have long criticized YouTube for hosting videos that violate copyrights, and not paying artists and record companies enough.
I've never understood this strategy, exactly. I mean, I know why Google/YouTube is doing it, but what's in it for the advertisers?
Flooding the system with ads that are specifically meant to drive people to ad-free subscriptions means you're removing all the people that have the money to pay for stuff AND who can't tolerate ignoring ads. What you're left with is either people that don't have the money, or are so good at ignoring ads they don't care.
(I know that ads work on a semi-conscious level; even someone that really claims not to be affected can't help but be to some extent. Still, I don't see it as a good value for advertisers.)
if DRM has taught us anything its that aggravating someone is the worst way to get them to participate in a market.
Well, to be fair, the argument against DRM had to do with the fact that it affects users who have already directly paid for the content. People streaming on Youtube haven't paid for the content, and thus must pay with some other means.
Youtube streaming is largely for convenience of getting to a single song easily; whether it would result in users paying for the tracks, paying for Spotify Premium or similar, or 'doing without' would accomplish the labels' goals...but the bigger concern I have is whether we'll see a renaissance in a Limewire-like service, which helps no one.
It won't. They might convince to pay for something. But they also convince me THEY don't get a penny of it.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.