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This take is prevalent but not really true.

You can subsidize the cost of a full subscription by having ads.

I know that society at large is mostly hopeless, but here on HN we generally have the mental firepower to comprehend "It's a sliding payment scale from no ads to all ads"

Edit: You guys are welcome to be upset by this, but if you think it's wrong, please correct me. Ideally without using the one counter example of cable TV in the 90's. Monopolies bring bad behaviors.

No, if a company gets enough leverage the top plan will demand both payment and ads. We've seen it before and we'll see it again.
Examples would be the best way to prove me wrong.

Most (all?) streaming services offer an ad-free plan, and those are the most popular hybrid payment services by far.

I don’t know what you consider to be an advertisement but just off the top of my head:

Many (most?) streaming services advertise their own shows and other content ahead of other content you elect to watch even on ad free subs.

Hulu’s ad free subs have some shows that show unambiguous ads.

Prime and others muddy their interfaces with others’ “channels” and content that you can subscribe to through their service. They also show other content you can purchase or rent through them that aren’t part of your package. These things are included in search, viewing UI lists, and banner ads.

Cable TV in the 80s started out ad free. Then they realized they could only grow revenues at the rate they wanted with ads.
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Hulu: Disney+, Hulu Bundle Premium: For $19.99/month, eligible subscribers get Disney+ (No Ads)* and Hulu (No Ads)*.

*Ads will be served in select live and linear content

I won't be engaging in any mental gymnastics where there is some redefinition of "no ads" to mean "some ads".

Easy: YouTube. You cannot purchase a completely ad free experience on YouTube.
Creators including ads in their videos are not part of youtube. Youtube does not get a cut from those ads or play any role in making them. I know it's confusing, but those ads are part of the creator's videos that the creators put there themselves with deals they brokered outside of youtube.

Youtube likely tolerates it because even with a 60% revenue share going go creators, often half of viewers pay nothing (no ad views or subscription), so sponsored segments can fill the gap for the creators.

Note that Youtube premium does include the ability to skip sponsored segments though.

YouTube Premium still has """promotional""" content (read: ads). Ad cards, ad footers, etc.

https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/s/8CHWGReiQt

And your evidence is a screenshot in a reddit post from 2 years ago? Rather than "Open the app and check", which I did, and there a no ads. Nor have I ever seen that promo from the screenshot, or any of those other things you mention.

I'm guessing you are complaining about something that you don't even have?

You must love the taste of rubber
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YouTube has control of their platform. They have enough control to detect and demonetize people when they say such "harmful" and "dangerous" words as "kill" and "sex". This is further evidenced by the fact that they provide the sponsored segment skip feature that you reference[0]. They know this is going on and they allow it, despite it ruining the service that members pay for.

If content creators can't live off of the ad revenue that YouTube offers, then that is another thing to lump the blame of at the feet of YouTube. They not only turn a blind eye to content creators ruining the service I pay for, YouTube is the one themselves who has created the conditions in which the content creator feels the need to pursue external advertising.

There is obvioulsy enough advertising money in the world to support both YouTube and content creators, because that is exactly what is happening right now: advertisers are paying either YouTube or the content creator directly. For some reason, a lot of content creators can't make it by just working with YouTube, despite there being enough advertiser demand for it. That tells me that YouTube is being stingy.

[0] Which, BTW, many content creators are not properly marking up their videos to allow for the skip feature to work.

First off the content creators don't mark up where sponsored segments are, the algo builds on statistics of where people skip. So if a video is fresh, it might not work.

Second, you are capable of building a coherent argument, but left out that almost half of viewers don't pay. When you are a child, paying for things is frustrating and annoying, so the ones taking the money are bad. When you grow up, you realize that everything costs money to everyone, and taking money isn't really nefarious, and paying for what you consume is just honest. If you don't like the cost of something, you don't buy it. If you like the cost, you pay and it's yours.

Obviously you have passed that threshold of reasoning, so it might be worthwhile to rebalance your argument around the fact that almost half (30-50%) of viewers still feel entitled to free viewing of content. They don't boycott it, they still consume it, but they don't compensate. That leaves the honest ones to bear the cost of their consumption.

"You pay and it's yours." Which is exactly why, having paid for an ad-free service, people are miffed when ads appear anyway. I'm not going to take on the responsibility of educating you as to the examples that exist, because that's your own responsibility. Not only because we have to educate ourselves, but because you made the unsupported claim in the first place that the phenomenon doesn't exist. Proving a negative is very difficult, as we with all this glorious mental firepower know. In a world this large, it's a poor bet on a statistical basis alone.
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I can do without the condescending attitude. I caught it the first time but tried to give you the benefit of doubt. I didn't do anything to you.