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Youtube Advertising Programming Television Entertainment

YouTube To Allow Everyone To Watch YouTube Originals For Free 57

Last November, YouTube announced that it would be removing the paywall for its original programming starting in 2019. Now, we have more details on exactly how and when this will work. Android Central reports: Per a statement sent out by the YouTube team: "New YouTube Originals series, movies, and live events released after September 24, 2019 will be made available to non-members to watch for free, with ads. For series, members will get immediate access to every episode of a new season, while non-members will have to wait for each new episode to be released."

It appears that YouTube Originals content released prior to that September 24 date will remain exclusive to Premium subscribers, but going forward, it'll be fair game for everyone. While that does slightly water-down the perks of being a YouTube Premium subscriber, it's also noted that paying customers will gain access to additional footage that won't be available for free users: "In most cases, where available, Director's cuts and bonus footage for YouTube Originals movies and live events will be exclusive to members like you, as well."
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YouTube To Allow Everyone To Watch YouTube Originals For Free

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  • Thanks (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fenrif ( 991024 ) on Saturday August 17, 2019 @06:11AM (#59096592)
    But no thanks.
  • Make it cheaper (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

    YouTube premium or whatever it's called now is too expensive. I'd pay a couple of bucks a month for ad-free viewing, but they want 12 Euro and I'm not interested in their premium stuff.

  • by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) * on Saturday August 17, 2019 @06:16AM (#59096598) Journal

    No seriously, I'm so over them hassling me. I really don't want it.

    • >"No seriously, I'm so over them hassling me. I really don't want it."

      ^THIS

      I mean, EVERY time I open the youtube app on ANY device, I am forced to answer the question that I don't want it. What next? Say "no" and then wait 30 seconds being forced to watch a video about what I don't want? Or perhaps I have to solve a few captchas after as punishment?

  • How many ads? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Martin S. ( 98249 ) on Saturday August 17, 2019 @06:35AM (#59096618) Journal

    The number of ads on some content is getting absolutely absurd, the ads are getting longer and longer and increasingly common to be required to watch three ads before you can skip.

    The demands of maximising revenues has increasingly turned me off youtube.

    • Re:How many ads? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Saturday August 17, 2019 @08:03AM (#59096686) Journal
      Same as happened to every TV channel ever. Because if you can make someone watch 1 ad, you can make them watch 2.
      • The difference is that once you overdo it on the internet, people start installing adblockers. And once they're installed, there's NOTHING you can do to make people take them away again, as other online media already had to realize.

        Online ads have reached the level of obnoxious where people who put up with nearly everything went out of their way to install adblockers. There are people who suffer from enough "free browser bars" to make the actual real estate on a 30" screen the size of a stamp, people who pu

      • Same as happened to every TV channel ever.

        Untrue. There are at least three TV channels (here) which still do not carry adverts. (Unless you count trailers for up-coming programmes as "adverts".)

    • Just install ublock origin in your web browser and Newpipe on your phone.

      • by fenrif ( 991024 )
        It boggles the mind that in TYOL 2019, on Slashdot of all places, this still needs to be said. Why are people going about their days online without an adblocker? On Youtube of all places? Sometimes I forget Youtube even has adverts, untill I go round someone elses house, or someone in work shows me something on their phone.
        • I haven't seen a Youtube ad in years on my computer, and I watch it so rarely on my phone that I frankly just don't care.

          Where Youtube ads are truly annoying for me is on my actual TVs. One has a Roku, the other is a Samsung "Smart," (which is something of a misnomer,) TV. I've yet to figure out a way to block ads on either of them.

          • you can find dns-based blacklist that you can easily deploy on a raspberry pi (e.g.: pihole).

            think of it as a lan baes cousin of the hostfile approach.

            point your devices to the pihole (or have the router hand out the pihole as the default DNS) and no ad address resresolves anymore.

            • Yes, that is always an option. The thing is, from what I've read, it's really kind of a game of whack-a-mole. No one seems to know the full list of domains that would need to be blocked, and there are frequent reports of blocking certain domains causing problems in other Google/Youtube services.

              Of course, not having tried it myself, all of the above is just hearsay.

              That's what makes uBlock Origin and others so attractive. Unfortunately, there's really no way to have something like that on a streaming player

            • by Deagol ( 323173 )

              I've had a pi-hole running at home for a couple of years (I even donate monthly via Patreon).

              At first, it blocked YouTube ads, then Google fought back and now it doesn't. I assume they started streaming the ads from the same systems as the primary content, so pi-hole can't really do much to combat that.

              I'm not sure uBlock Origin still works its magic in the browser. I wonder if its methods could be integrated into a proxy like Squid. Maybe then smart devices and TVs like Roku will be advert free.

              • I'm not sure uBlock Origin still works its magic in the browser.

                As uBlock Origin can patch the HTML and JS themselves, it still works well on YouTube.

                I wonder if its methods could be integrated into a proxy like Squid.

                Traffic is HTTPS, so saddly: no.
                Unless you have stolen Google's SSL signing key.
                Or you have rooted the box to install you certs, at which point it's easier to just straight install a browser that support uBlock Origin (the Android version of Firefox supports web extensions unlike Chrome).
                Or the box's built-in web browser allows you to browse unsafe web.

          • thats why content creators do native ads, inside the content, have you not noticed,

            "and speaking xyz, have you tried product bizz buzz to wax your balls, it really works"

            • Yes, I have noticed that, although only one Youtube channel I watch does it.

              It doesn't bother me as much. It doesn't jarringly break up the content to the way that Youtube ads do, where the video is simply interrupted at some random point for a commercial, and then resumed.

    • Their recent 'enhancement' to the ad system fixed a bug that worked for a very long time. I can't imagine I'm the only one who discovered it, but I didn't dare share it online for obvious reasons. It's fixed now, so there's no point keeping it secret anymore:

      It used to be possible, once you clicked on a video (which typically began with an ad, but not necessarily), to click the "next video" icon (in the lower-left) and then click your browser's back button -- and presto, not only would the video start imm

      • Yesterday I was watching a YouTube video on my phone. The ad which was skippable started playing, but when I reached for "skip", I accidentally hit the back button below my phone's display. I went back to the page, same ad played, but this time without the skip button. I exclaimed "nuts to this!" went back and forth again, and my video started playing immediately. I watch YouTube through the phone's Chrome web browser, not the YT app.
  • How it works... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@[ ]ata.net.eg ['ted' in gap]> on Saturday August 17, 2019 @07:15AM (#59096664) Journal

    Now, we have more details on exactly how and when this will work.

    I think how it works is that YouTube was not making enough money off YouTube Premium subscriptions. So, now they're seeing if they can make more money by making it free and ad-supported. Good luck with that.

    • I never got the idea of monetising YouTube via paid subscriptions. What is they can offer I cannot get for free? Playback in background? You can do it in the browser and there are a ton of free third-party apps for that too. Original content? Get back to me when Netflix, Amazon or an Old Media company gets involved. Enhanced resolution? They already give 4K playback and uploading for free. Supporting the artists? Patreon does this already and isn't limited to YouTube. Seriously, what's in it for me to justi
  • by ruddk ( 5153113 )

    They is probably among the few videos that doesnâ(TM)t get demonitized.
    (Along with the ones from the old media companies)

    • You think you won't see ads just because the content creator doesn't get a cut? Cute.

      If you are looking for copyright infringement and revenue theft on YouTube, look no further than Google.

  • by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Saturday August 17, 2019 @08:40AM (#59096718)
    OMG. How have I been surviving without this free service (with ads)?
  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday August 17, 2019 @08:50AM (#59096734) Homepage Journal

    This is a clear sign that nobody is watching their content, so they're desperate to bring up their numbers so that they can sell ads on/in it.

    Reading between the lines, practically nobody is signing up for their pay service, either.

    I sincerely hope YouTube is never profitable for Google. I hope they sell it, and then it dies, and is replaced by multiple sites.

    • I gave up on them after they disabled audio only listening when locking on mobile unless you paid for premium. That was years ago.
    • Occasionally I agree with you.

      Here, i wholeheartedly agree. I regret not seeing Google getting to big as a problem until they became a problem.

    • I looked initially at the start but the premium content was not even open to countries like germany , france where i dwelve. Maybe it changed in the mean time, but I look only once after that GTFO.
  • by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Saturday August 17, 2019 @08:52AM (#59096740)

    Found a list of "Premium" "Original" content:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Has anyone actually seen any of this?

  • a new species of leech was found on youtube of the vlogger variety, that has patreon shaped teeth that try to attach themselves to your wallet and will try to bleed you dry, the only way to avoid this leach is to lurk without ever making a comment in their streams
    • Last I checked, it's easier to ignore a Youtuber asking you to fund their Patreon than it is a panhandler on the street. It's never stopped me from watching or commenting on anyone's videos, if I felt the need.

      That being said, I do support two Youtube channels on Patreon, (used to be three until that one started begging for money to go to Star Trek Las Vegas, on Patreon, the people who were already paying monthly subs. Totally classless.)

  • So now, it seems that people who have the Paid Youtube will be able to bingewatch the series and the rest of us will watch like with traditional televison, with weekly episodes.

    That sounds like a situation where we'll have to learn to shun people who've paid to bingewatch, because they'll be the people with all the spoilers.

  • 1) Youtube originals are worthless and are happy about every bit of attention.

    2) Youtube originals are carefully designed to provoke psychological responses that allows us to analyze you like a Pavlovian dog.

  • Giving Google your credit card number (and name and address) is a privacy suicide. You might think they already know all this information, and that might be the case, but level of certainty in such data is nowhere near 100% that they would have if you confirmed it with a payment. Even if you don't care about privacy, think of it in terms of criminal standard of conviction - reasonable doubt and you can go free.

    Paying for YouTube = Google identifiers you definitively while tracking your activities across
  • yeah i have heard about it before. They just want to sell their ads. I am kinda new to this side not able to get the comment system mcdvoice [mcdvoice.dev]
  • With Youtube deplatforming people of the wrong political persuasion, for "hate speech" that isn't, for showing imagery they deem inappropriate regardless of context, and for copyright "violations" that are just some troll trying to extract tribute, there was never any way I'd be handing them my money for a paid subscription to anything of theirs. If they want to try to reel me in with freebies, I'll consider it.
  • If I were a member of an "exclusive" club but they left the back door open and all manner of riffraff were walking in and licking the hors d' oeuvres I'd think twice before paying my dues. With BitTorrent and VPNs I can't understand anyone claiming to have truly exclusive content.
  • I've had access to them for years, and never wanted to watch.
    It's not why I paid for YouTube Red/Premium. Ads are.

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