Youtube has announced a new subscription program called Youtube Red. This subscription will cost $10 per month and allow you to use Youtube without seeing any ads.
Firstly, why would anyone with even just the tiniest shred of intelligence pay for something like this? Are there really people out there who can’t be bothered sitting through a 10 second ad, are you watching Youtube that much?
Ebb and Flow is a great Internet marketing company and they say the second part is a doozy. Youtube supposedly made its top video creators (Youtube partners) an offer they couldn’t refuse, or their content would disappear. Apparently Youtube is being run by a 1930s mobster with a tommy gun and pinstripe suit.
Any partner creator who earns their money from advertising revenue (like the annoying PewDiePie) who doesn’t agree to sign on for its revenue sharing deal in the form of Youtube Red will have their videos hidden from public view both on the ad-supported and ad-free tiers. Read this post to learn more about the ways to make money on YouTube are changing.
To quote Chief Business Officer of Youtube, Al Capone Robert Kyncl:
I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!
You’re probably thinking, but this makes Youtube look like pieces of shit extortionists who are essentially saying, “Where else are you going to go? Without us you are nothing, now pay up” and you are right. But guess what? There is nothing that Youtube partners can really do. What, are PewDiePie and The Fine Brothers going to jump the gravy train and board the steamboat Vimeo? Please.
On the same hand though, without Youtube PewDiePie would still be in his mother’s basement and as for the other strange content partners on Youtube, some might have gone out and got “real” jobs or become homeless and pick up a debilitating drug habit that ruins their life.
Either way, you can’t deny that these internet personalities have to pay their dues to Youtube, without Youtube they are nothing. Sure Youtube is making money off of these angry and occasionally funny people, but the back scratching has to go both ways and if PewDiePie can get his brain-dead fans to pay for a subscription, even just 10% of them, it would be an incredible payday for him.
The real issue here isn’t Youtube wanting to offer an ad-free subscription service for users who hate Youtube advertisements, it’s the fact Youtube think such a service is worth $10 per month. $10 just to watch cat videos, poor sketch routines and some Canadian guys wasting food without the displeasure of a 30 second ad before I get to watch?
For that same price I get access to Netflix which has considerably higher content and less creeps. What would you rather: Youtube or Netflix? Is there really any choice here.
They have way overpriced this, even $5 per month seems like a stretch. With the volume of visitors, Google could have decided to charge $2.50 per month and even I would consider paying just to never see another Ford ad again.
