Youtube Rant from a paying customer

I used to use NewPipe back in the days of yore. Then I got Youtube Premium since it bundled in Youtube Music as well which I used. But the former’s app on mobile is a shit show. Even after paying, you are asked to tip random creators, purchase merchandise[ which are shown as actual ads below videos] and join channels to access exclusive videos for more money. Basically pay money once, and then pay more money for more content.

Okay, one could argue atleast the above goes to a channel’s creators and helps them. How would one say then that the Youtube app still doesn’t have a systemwide option to choose video quality for all videos. New Pipe had that option long ago, but Youtube thinks it’s user base are immature who need to be coddled with only two options like “High” and “Data Saver”.

Despite having a Premium thing, I finally crossed over to a Newpipe fork Tubular [available on F Droid] today simply because the paying experience on Youtube Mobile is so bad. I can’t fathom how bad it would be for free customers using the official app.

Mister_GothFvck,
@Mister_GothFvck@lemmy.studio avatar

I might be mistaken but, I think cellular carriers force 480p. I always use a VPN and PipePipe, LibreTube, or Clipious so, I don’t know for sure. Lol And, I do look for PeerTube content sometimes.

Yeah, I don’t think any of the “creator” advert things you mentioned have much to do with the big G. I’d guess that 70% of that goes to the channel. Hopefully that much or even more.

Either way, as someone who makes music and goes to local shows, I generally avoid YT and other big platforms. I encourage other bands to upload to PT and FunkWhale. They may as well upload torrents with how much artists get paid from streaming, and use whatever third party tipping platforms.

selokichtli,

I don’t even like the widespread use of the word “creator”.

datavoid,

I pay also, and use revanced. I watch YouTube more than any other service, and want to support some of the creators I like.

I would feel a lot less self hatred for paying google if they released a YouTube ‘Lite’ app that dropped everything related to shorts. Paying users should be able to use the app however they want, without having extra features rammed down their throats.

PrincessLeiasCat,

My god I wish there was an option to just not show shorts. Why that’s so difficult is beyond me.

Appoxo,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Because it’s the new trend to be like tiktok.
I enjoy the ones I get recommended. Usually from channels I am already subscribed to anyway.
Very rarely get a random one (I don’t (doom) scroll the feed) and YT seemded to get, that I am not someone to click on it.

Aussiemandeus,
@Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone avatar

I never open them, I come to YouTube for long form essay content not 5 seconds of gratification.

I see my wife for that

Appoxo,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

To each their own. I enjoy some posts.

GregorGizeh,

Am somewhat late to the (third) party, why are most people here using a newpipe fork? Is the original compromised somehow?

VonReposti,

No Tubular is just NewPipe with Sponsorblock. The original devs didn’t want to add that, so a fork was created to add it.

GregorGizeh,

Got it, just switched over myself because I liked the differences in the description. Thanks for letting me know!

RisingSwell,

I pay for premium as well and just use Firefox for YouTube. I get tabs and a better layout

azalty,
@azalty@jlai.lu avatar

Wasn’t it limited to 720p?

RisingSwell,

I don’t actually know, my internet can’t run 720p anyway so I never tried to do that or above.

ianovic69,
@ianovic69@feddit.uk avatar

But the former’s app on mobile is a shit show.

Revanced.

HotBeef,

The video quality problem really winds me up. Not gonna canc though because I bought through Turkey and it costs less than a dollar a month.

stardust,

YouTube is unwatchable for me without sponsorblock so I’ve liked the newpipe forks that include. And on desktop I love freetube because it goes further and lets me block channels.

kirk781,

Yes, I installed Sponserblock too on Desktop. Also, had to disable Shorts via uBlock Filters.

PrincessLeiasCat,

Please tell me what you added to configure this.

pinchcramp,
@pinchcramp@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Not the person you asked, but you can find ready made block lists for YouTube Shorts. For example: github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts

PrincessLeiasCat,

Thank you! I didn’t know about this.

pinchcramp,
@pinchcramp@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

You are welcome. You can find various lists for your content blocker on filterlists.com (click the (i) button and then subscribe).

PrincessLeiasCat,

Very helpful, thanks again :)

lechatron,
@lechatron@lemmy.today avatar

Are you using the YouTube Music app, or the YouTube app and loading the music section? I’ve never seen anything you’re describing.

iAmTheTot,
iAmTheTot avatar

Happy customer personally, never had these complaints.

Ilandar,

Save the money you spend on Premium, put it towards direct donations instead. Better for Youtubers, better for community-built FOSS alternatives.

Zagorath,
@Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

YouTube Premium costs as much for just two months as Nebula does for an entire year (if you sign up through a creator’s code—US prices. Australian prices it’s about 2.6 months) Highly recommend, probably the best bang for your buck option.

Dropout is quite a bit more expensive than Nebula, and narrower in range of content (basically comedy panel shows, sketch comedy, and D&D), but it’s still only 5.4 months’ worth of YouTube Premium in cost (for your second & subsequent year—4.3 months for the first year discount), and you’re directly supporting the creators. Still a very good deal.

If you’ve got both of those, that’s 8 months of YouTube Premium’s cost, leaving 4 months worth that can be spent directly on individual creators’ Patreons, Kofis, one-off donations, or on their merch.

kirk781,

How much exclusive content is there on Nebula? I was always under the assumption that it’s pricing would be higher than YouTube’s. If they have done localized pricing, maybe that might be better than giving stuff to Google once my YouTube subscription expires.

Also, off topic, but some companies just convert dollar values to local currencies. I think a year of Reddit Premium in my country is as expensive as YouTube, Google Play Pass and Netflix COMBINED.

Zagorath,
@Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

Nebula is US$50 per year if you go straight to the website, but $30 per year if you click through any one of the creators’ own referal URLs. No region-specific pricing as far as I know (but YouTube does have region-specific pricing, which is slightly cheaper in Australia than America using current currency exchange rates, which is why Nebula is more expensive here than in America, in YT-months).

The vast majority of Nebula content is available on YouTube, albeit with sponsors/ad reads removed, and sometimes a week or so early.

There’s a fair amount of Nebula “Plus” content. Extra or supplementary material to videos that are otherwise available on YouTube, or an extra video in a series where most of the series is on YouTube but this episode is not.

There are also Nebula Originals, where Nebula themselves helped fund the project and the video is exclusive to Nebula. There are quite a few of these, but they’re less common than the other categories.

The entire library is available to browse for free without an account if you go to their website and hit Explore so you can see for yourself. Look for the Nebula logo star for Originals, the + sign for Plus content, and the lightning bolt for Nebula First. You can also use the filters near the top to see only those, if you want. To give a rough sense of the relative abundance, my tablet displays up to 9 thumbnails per screen, and when sorting by most recent, the oldest I see without scrolling is 20 March for Originals, 30 April for Plus, just 9 May for First, and when unfiltered it only goes as far back as 19 hours ago, including 2 Nebula First videos.

some companies just convert dollar values to local currencies

This is what Dropout does I think. It displayed some weird numbers like $91.74, but didn’t actually say anywhere that this was AUD until I read the fine print, so I almost started out comparing it to the US YT price. I assume the US price is a more round number.

Nebula just displays US prices and charges US prices regardless, I think. It’s been a while since I actually looked at how they do it.

kirk781,

I actually checked Nebula and it’s the opposite of cheap in my country. It is THRICE as expensive as YouTube Premium on a yearly basis. I mean, even Netflix is cheaper than Nebula here, it’s so expensive.

I don’t think they have done localized pricing and have just converted dollar values to local currency. I doubt they even care if anyone signs up from India for their service.

Zagorath,
@Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

Oh damn yeah. I was comparing YouTube Premium in countries like Australia (US$11.07/month), US ($13.99), and UK ($16.41). If you’re somewhere that it costs a tenth of that, it definitely changes the calculus.

mannycalavera,
@mannycalavera@feddit.uk avatar

Then I got Youtube Premium since it bundled in Youtube Music as well which I used. But the former’s app on mobile is a shit show. Even after paying, you are asked to tip random creators, purchase merchandise[ which are shown as actual ads below videos] and join channels to access exclusive videos for more money. Basically pay money once, and then pay more money for more content.

You talking about YouTube Premium? I literally never see ads in videos and am never asked to tip creators.I listen to hours and hours of music absolutely ad free. Is this a regional thing? What country are you in?

kirk781,

i.ibb.co/Y3YdvMN/Screenshot-20240512-132547.jpg

There is clearly merchandising on some videos which constitutes an advertisement in my opinion. Also, a useless Thanks button that only exists(on certain videos I think) to tip large creators more money. Sure, I can ignore it, but why not give the user the option to completely disable it from settings?

I opened the same video in NewPipe and both of these atrocities weren’t there.

mannycalavera,
@mannycalavera@feddit.uk avatar

Pay to go see a concert. Band has merchandise on sale. Oh shit… What do you do? First answer wins.

kbal,
@kbal@fedia.io avatar

Is it t-shirts for sale at a little table off to the side somewhere you'll probably never see unless you go looking? Or is there an advertising billboard behind the stage that lights up after every song?

theUnlikely,

Easy! Lie down on the ground and throw a tantrum because a band I like has the audacity to provide an option for me to support them further.

RaccoonBall,

Yeah I really don’t get the argument that paying for YouTube premium should hide links that directly support a creator you like.

If anything I’d complain if YouTube hid them as it would be an easy “I got mine” response

Moonrise2473,

Also the problem of the algorithm that thinks it knows what you like to see instead of showing your subscriptions

“Six months ago you did a single search of a walkthrough for a Mario 64 level, so here is a feed filled with only Mario 64 speedruns”

I’m always wary of clicking a YouTube link scared it would poison the feed.

Newpipe solved this

Melody,

While this feed issue is manageable if you Pause Your Watch History and Clear Your Watch History before doing so; it does disable a lot of suggestions.

Unfortunately Google and YouTube do not make these options easy to find and they are quick to nag you about turning them back on; and You Must Refuse This and ignore the errors and whines at every prompt for a while before they leave you alone.

So by it’s very nature NewPipe completely defuses this garbage by simply being a much saner front-end than using the “Native” YouTube apps ever were.

You know I think YouTube might start learning their lesson if more and more people began refusing to use their scummy front-end more than strictly necessary. Unfortunately they’re going to go through the usual stages of grief while doing so and they absolutely are currently trying to attack apps like GrayJay and NewPipe with spurious lawsuits.

So instead; maybe those of you who “Pay” for YouTube Premium should simply cancel your service and start donating that amount to projects like NewPipe, when that is possible. (Yes I know Team NewPipe will not accept donations for legal reasons, but similar projects do exist, like FreeTube or Invidious, that can and do accept donations to cover costs for server hosted things in their developments.)

kirk781,

I wouldn’t be renewing my subscription once it expires. I mainly used YouTube Music from it but Google still hasn’t managed feature parity with either Spotify or with it’s previous incarnation Google Play Music either. I mean, they shoved the cast button that few people use replacing the next button used to skip to other track.

Play Music had a much cleaner interface on both desktop and mobile.

Melody,

Aye; I remember GPM, and before they enshittified it into the ground, it was damn near comparable to Spotify.

Retiring,
@Retiring@lemmy.ml avatar

I am still angry at google for killing Play Music. You could upload your own files, back in the day. It was a genuinely awesome and unique product that I used every single day.

kirk781,

You can still upload your own music files (50k is the limit, I think) via web interface.

Retiring,
@Retiring@lemmy.ml avatar

Huh… so you can. That’s interesting, I did not know that. Thanks.

kirk781,

I just checked Google support site and apparently the limit is 100,000 songs now, which is quite great. The problem is, they don’t tell if and how much, is the music compressed when uploading. Even flac is listed as a supported format but if Google starts storing bit perfect flac without compression, they are gonna give way way more than 15 GB before a power user can hit halfway their song limit.

wingsfortheirsmiles,

Functionality is also nonexistent on administrating uploads in YT Music. At least on GPM you could edit basic tags and upload/edit album art. None of that on YTM

stoy,

The algorithm issue is why I allways curate my youtube watch history, if I don’t, my recommendations would quickly be messed up after watching videos outside of my normal interests.

Tregetour,
@Tregetour@lemdro.id avatar

Ever thought about firing the algorithm and only watching updates from your subs?

50 people uploading weekly at ~10 minutes per video is 8 hours’ watch time per week. Compare with your actual time spent watching YT…

Ilandar,

I don’t think recommendations being messed up by the algorithm is the real issue with YouTube (or any big tech social media platform). It’s the fact that the algorithm is so good at predicting what you want to watch before you even think about watching it, that you slowly become pushed into an echo-chamber where your entire online space is inhabited only by people who agree with you, issues that you think are relevant, etc. It’s the entire concept of algorithm-based recommendations that is messed up and it’s damaging society.

stoy,

Oh most deffinately, I tend to match non political stuff, but I have no idea if/how I am being affected.

The main issue with the algorithm is that it values engagement over everythibg else, so it will allway bring more extreme view points as they have more engagibg videos.

Ilandar,

Yes, exactly. Negative emotions have been shown to drive more engagement in users, so the algorithms are designed to highlight conflict and increasingly extreme viewpoints. For younger viewers, the algorithm favours addictive content to ensure they stay glued to the screen.

kirk781,

Yes, the feed can be janky for some though I liked the new video recommendations it sometimes gave. It reminded me of another gripe on their mobile app. When you go to the Subscriptions page, it shows polls, comments and videos all in a bunch instead of just the latter by default. This behaviour can be toggled off but seems to revert back every few days in my case.

Either way, subscriptions page should be for videos only, not other forms of data.

misk,
@misk@sopuli.xyz avatar

Why not browse your subscriptions through subscriptions section? I understand that it’s annoying that you can’t make it default on startup in the app but it’s there.

kakes,

I always hear about people saying “my subscriptions aren’t showing up” and I don’t get it. They’re right there, sorted in reverse chronological order. I’ve literally never experienced this problem.

Tlaloc_Temporal,

There have been many an issue with YT changing notification settings, or even unsubscribing people. I don’t know if they still do that, but it used to happen to enough people at once that channels would mention checking your notification settings after seeing double digit percentage drops in base viewership.

Narc082,

From the app drawer in android you can long press YouTube to get this drop down:

1000006031

Then hold and drag subscriptions to your home screen.

Appoxo,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I didn’t know this was a thing and I want to thank you!

Narc082,

You’re welcome.

Aussiemandeus,
@Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone avatar

Bro life changing

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