YouTube Now Streams Free Ad-Supported Movies -- Including 'The Terminator' and 'Hackers' (techcrunch.com)

YouTube's "Movies & Shows" page added a "Free to Watch" section last month. They're trying to compete with free ad-supported online movie offerings from Roku, Walmart, and Tubi, while "Amazon is rumored to be working on something similar," reports TechCrunch: Before, YouTube had only offered consumers the ability to purchase movies and TV shows, similar to how you can rent or buy content from Apple's iTunes or Amazon Video.... Currently, YouTube is serving ads on these free movies, but the report said the company is open to working out other deals with advertisers -- like sponsorships or exclusive screenings.

YouTube's advantage in this space, compared with some others, is its sizable user base of 1.9 billion monthly active users and its ability to target ads using data from Google.
The 99 free movies include the first five Rocky movies, and four movies in the Pink Panther series (all from the post-Peter Sellers era, including the forgotten 1993 film in which the title theme is sung by Bobby McFerrin), as well as Pauly Shore's dreadful 1996 comedy Bio-Dome (which received a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Also available is James Cameron's original 1984 film The Terminator, the 2010 documentary With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story and the 1995 film "Hackers" starring Angelina Jolie.

"In this cyberpunk thriller, a renegade group of elite teenage computer hackers rollerblade through New York City by day and ride the information highway by night. After hacking into a high-stakes industrial conspiracy, they become prime suspects and must recruit the best of the cybernet underground to help clear their names."

Comments

Trying to compete...

[b0s0z0ku]

Trying to compete with Kodi and the Pirate Bay?

In the meantime

[bobstreo]

Criterion Collection (AKA WarnerMedia) has announced their plans to make their entire collection available for $9.99 a month or $89.99 for a year (for charter subscribers) to replace FilmStruck. It will be known as the Criterion Channel.

https://www.criterion.com/curr...

Bio-Dome? I don't even think they play that on cable.

Need to fix the ads first

[hackertourist]

In about 50% of ads I see on YouTube, the player fails to return to the video I want to watch at the end of the ad. I have to reload the page.

Re:Makes cord cutting that much easier

[markdavis]

>"Content with adds is most of what you pay the cable company twice for."

No, because I record everything on a TiVo and skip whatever I want. I haven't been forced to watch ads for 25 years and won't start now. Perhaps some people can tolerate it, I can't. This is why "streaming" is particularly dangerous- it is easy for a service to start adding ads that can't be skipped or fast-forwarded through.

Haven't listened to ad-laden radio for just as long.

Re:Makes cord cutting that much easier

[Tom]

I haven't been forced to watch ads for 25 years and won't start now.

This is how I feel about the Internet. I cringe every time I sit on some computer that doesn't have an adblocker installed, and I wonder how the heck do these people get anything done and not get seizures or something?

Once you get rid of ads in a part of your life, you understand just how much of an annoyance they are and you don't want to go back. In fact, I'd like to get rid of them in many more ways. Someone invented a prototype of glasses that filters out billboards. I'd buy that if it became available.