Comment by Zahille7@lemmy.world on What are you surprised that people pay for, when there are free alternatives in existence?

I was going through my Wal-Mart+ subscription plan that I got for free and I saw their offers. One of which was EMeals, that was a 60-day trial. I thought that this was like Blue Apron or other meal delivery services so I thought I’d take a crack at it and hope that it would get me on a path to eat better.

Turns out, it’s just a meal planner. And it’s absurd to me why and how would anyone pay for something when there are countless and countless recipes and meal planners readily available for free. Who’d the fuck would want to pay for a planner? That’s like paying for a calendar app.

YouTube premium.

Just get uBlock or revanced.

The maintainance and unreliability is annoying

There is literally a discord, with a link here on Lemmy, with links in said discord to download sources. Plus there are help and troubleshooting threads.

And happen to need exactly none of that, thank you very much. I pay the fee and forget about it

Okay, to preface I really hate giving Google money, but I hate ads more, and paying for Premium also removes ads on YouTube apps across platforms. It also in some minuscule way rewards the creators I watch, but real support comes from Patreon.

Yeah I’m with you. I know there’s some way to block ads on any device if you are really dedicated but I don’t want to get a PHD in ad blocking just to not have ads on YT on my phone

Install Revanced, it’s literally better than the vanilla youtube app because you can customize basically everything

I can’t find it on iOS

*you can’t find it in the app store / apple safe space. If you’re in Europe, you can sideload apps. Otherwise, you might need an upgrade

On android the trick is to do the same as you would on desktop. So Firefox + unlock origin.

YouTube charges too much. It costs more than Netflix! They need like a $6/mo plan or something.

In Australia they offer premium lite for $9 AUD a month that removes ads on normal YouTube but still has it on shorts and music.

I mean, it depends on how much you use it, no? I use YouTube more than Netflix and the like (most of the time anyway). Not that I have YouTube premium but still.

It also gives a “free” music service, and while it’s not excellent by any means, that keeps me from spending MORE money on another music service.

I just like that I can log in on my AppleTV and it works immediately with no ads or bullshit.

YouTube + HDMI Cable from PC to TV + UBlock/Firefox = win.

I’m at a point in my life where I’ll pay for the media I’ll watch. If I’m not willing to pay for it, I won’t watch it. I also don’t want to watch ads.

"Ah, yes I see I see, and that’s very understandable. Thank you for paying us by the way.

Now, since you’ve been so loyal for all these years…what about [slides agreement across the table] you pay for it…AND you watch ads?"

– Basically every streaming service hopping on the bandwagon at this point

Streaming services are raising prices because prestige television was expensive and are using ads as a way to reduce the bill.

And you don’t have to pay for streaming if you don’t find it too be worth it. I’ve cancelled subscriptions because the increased price wasn’t worth it.

Sidenote: Lol I’m getting downvotes for mocking streaming giants and ads on Lemmy. That’s different 🤔.

Honestly, I hear you. Media isn’t easy to make and takes a ton of talented people a lot of hours to accomplish. I also drop off of subscribing to stuff if it was really nice but “enshittified” into forcing ads into every interaction.

Something needs to change fundamentally though, because we’re once again on the cable-TV slope of “20 minutes of entertainment extended to 45 minutes by interrupting it with the exact same ad of a mega corporation pretending to be an underdog influencer.”

My personal take is that if your average person were paid fairly, they’d have the money to spend on entertainment where ad-pollution wouldn’t be necessary, and if the entertainment distributors/platforms/whatevs asked the fair amount required to pay everyone involved fairly, everyone would be happy.

Lol a guy can dream.

And I wish that kind of world existed where people could fund that kind of media landscape.

I’ve just been aware that, for over a decade, streaming prices weren’t sustainable because they were subsidized by cable and broadcast.

Maybe the television being produced ought to stop being garbage that nobody wants.

They tried making prestige TV first, not enough people bought it.

I have lots of ad blockers. But my father watches YouTube on the LG TV app. I don’t live there anymore and hearing the ads from the other room became offensive to the family.

It was easier to just buy a premium family plan and call it a day.

Doesn’t work if you’re using a smart TV or console to view it.

Just solved this problem actually. Smart tube app. Download on your tv with a browser and sideload the apk. Dunno about console but I’m sure there’s some solution.

Yeah, not watching it on console. /s

Seconded on Smart Tube TV. Frankly, it works better than ublock on Firefox most days as YT doesn’t go out of its way to slow it down.

Also, I feel like it’s more lightweight too. The regular YT app was lagging a lot, Smart Tube TV was running great.

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What are you surprised that people pay for, when there are free alternatives in existence?

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