It's no hypocrisy at all, the subscription business model is completely broken and has been abused by corporations to a point where it's ridiculous. I pay for Netflix, HBO and other stuff but I wouldn't give YouTube a single cent by principle.

The appeal of YouTube was that it was a place where people would share their videos with others FOR FREE, no one asked for obscene amounts of disgusting ads or monthly subscriptions. They are charging for what was once free, and I don't give a shit if it's because the stock holders want infinite revenue or the CEO wants to buy an island. For that same reason I will cancel Prime next month, if they had been honest and said "we need to increase the prices" then I may have considered staying, but forcing ads unless I pay even more money is fucking scummy.

If YT thinks what they provide has so much value then they should restrict their videos to paying users only. Let's see how that goes. Until then I'll keep using uBlock Origin, if it bothers them so much then they shouldn't make their video content streamable without authentication. Their problem, not mine.

And in McDonald's at least you get physical, tangible burgers and fries that you can eat. And eating is far more important than "entertainment", regardless of the quality of that food.

It is quite strange to compare coffee with a subscription. Coffee is one of the basic physiological needs appearing at the bottom of Maslow's pyramid of needs and Youtube subscription is somewhere at the top.

I have nothing against paying for whatever product or service, but when I can avoid paying without breaking the law, why should I pay?

TheMobRules wrote on 2024-01-26, 17:41:

The appeal of YouTube was that it was a place where people would share their videos with others FOR FREE, no one asked for obscene amounts of disgusting ads or monthly subscriptions

One big change has been the ever increasing resolution of videos combined with increasing platform usage. This has resulted in an exponential increase in both server storage requirements and bandwidth to deliver content.

We're not in the early days of 240p or 480p video any more.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2024-01-26, 17:49:

I have nothing against paying for whatever product or service, but when I can avoid paying without breaking the law, why should I pay?

One reason to subscribe to Youtube is that part of that subscription revenue goes directly to channel owners based on the content you watch.

Subscriber revenues contribute a much higher relative proportion of revenue compared to things like ads.

I used to watch YouTube with ads until they became ridiculously intrusive. In the old days, you'd get maybe one ad at the start of the video, possibly another one in the middle, and then a final one at the end. Now, some 10 minute videos have more ads than actual content. It's insane that Google expects people to watch that garbage.

If you want to support your favorite YouTube creators, there are better ways to do it. Many of them accept donations through various platforms, and don't rely solely on ad revenue.

I'm not a fan of how YouTube is run because of stuff like censorship and the abuse of copyright claims. However, I don't think it's ever been profitable, so I can't blame them for trying to monetize their platform.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-26, 18:20:

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2024-01-26, 17:49:

I have nothing against paying for whatever product or service, but when I can avoid paying without breaking the law, why should I pay?

One reason to subscribe to Youtube is that part of that subscription revenue goes directly to channel owners based on the content you watch.

Subscriber revenues contribute a much higher relative proportion of revenue compared to things like ads.

Wich seems to be so insignificant that everybody feels the need to beg for more.

To me Youtube never looked like a good source for my main income. But nobody wants to listen.
You are fully dependend on some random people to carry your whole channel. If you say something they dont like, you can go to McDonalds tomorrow and make burgers...

DerBaum wrote on 2024-01-26, 18:29:

Wich seems to be so insignificant that everybody feels the need to beg for more.

From what I've seen based on Youtubers who share revenue breakdowns and statistics, YouTube subscription revenues are a significant source of income. It's just that relative to total viewership, the individual number of subscribers tends to be low.

In effect, a small proportion of paying customers are subsidizing a much larger group of non-paying customers.

To me Youtube never looked like a good source for my main income. But nobody wants to listen.
You are fully dependend on some random people to carry your whole channel. If you say something they dont like, you can go to McDonalds tomorrow and make burgers...

This is true of self-employment in general. Reputation matters, especially when it comes to building a sustainable customer base.

Justifying one luxury consumption by the price of another luxury consumption is wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin explaining. And seeing it come from a consumer just goes on to prove how far down the consumerism hell hole we currently are..

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-26, 18:20:

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2024-01-26, 17:49:

I have nothing against paying for whatever product or service, but when I can avoid paying without breaking the law, why should I pay?

One reason to subscribe to Youtube is that part of that subscription revenue goes directly to channel owners based on the content you watch.

Subscriber revenues contribute a much higher relative proportion of revenue compared to things like ads.

Why should I pay the channel owners via Youtube (and then they will get only a part of that payment) if I can pay them directly?

And why should I pay the channel owners in the first place if I have no control over their videos topics and quality? I can understand when I'm asked to pay for some product that I can test before buying or for some service that has a good reputation and there are recognized experts behind them. If speaking about Youtube documentaries for example, I can understand if Bil Herd will sell his documentaries, he is a recognized expert. But who are those countless youtubers? They are amateurs just like me. I have nothing against them to integrate ads into their videos, but to pay money? To donate - maybe, to pay - first become Bil Herd, then I'll think about it.

The same time I have no problem paying for some amateur products like those numerous addons for vintage computers. I fully understand that there is no warranty and their quality is questionable and therefore I'm ready to pay only when those products doesn't cost like professionally made ones that come with warranty. So YES to those $10-$15-$20-$50 things and NO to those $399-$599-$799 ones. You want me to pay so much? Make it professionally, show me what it is before I buy it and give me also a warranty and after-sale service support.

The increasing infrastructure cost is a good point, but again I ask: why doesn't YT lock their videos behind a paywall? Netflix and others do it and it works for them. Maybe they suspect that the content they offer doesn't provide enough value for the current subscription prices? For example, free Spotify does have ads, but I consider that the value provided with the Premium service is worth it, so I pay it. But not with YouTube.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2024-01-26, 18:59:

Why should I pay the channel owners via Youtube (and then they will get only a part of that payment) if I can pay them directly?

To be clear, I'm not telling anyone what they should or shouldn't do. I'm simply pointing out that a portion of YouTube subscription revenues are shared with creators.

In the end, we all decide what we want to spend our money on and how we justify that spending.

TheMobRules wrote on 2024-01-26, 19:03:

The increasing infrastructure cost is a good point, but again I ask: why doesn't YT lock their videos behind a paywall?

Youtube Red was originally that: paywall locked videos that required a subscription.

Insofar as why YouTube doesn't lock all their videos behind a paywall is probably due to how disruptive that would be. Most people don't have subscriptions, so suddenly switching to a pure subscription model would eliminate the majority of audiences that YouTube creators depend on.

Netflix and others do it and it works for them.

A lot of businesses started with that model and were therefore able to build on it from the ground up. YouTube didn't start out that way, so trying to radically change their model would probably be fatal.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-26, 19:21:

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2024-01-26, 18:59:

Why should I pay the channel owners via Youtube (and then they will get only a part of that payment) if I can pay them directly?

To be clear, I'm not telling anyone what they should or shouldn't do. I'm simply pointing out that a portion of YouTube subscription revenues are shared with creators.

In the end, we all decide what we want to spend our money on and how we justify that spending.

Me neither. I'm also just expressing my humble opinion.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-01-26, 18:41:

From what I've seen based on Youtubers who share revenue breakdowns and statistics, YouTube subscription revenues are a signific […]
Show full quote

DerBaum wrote on 2024-01-26, 18:29:

Wich seems to be so insignificant that everybody feels the need to beg for more.

From what I've seen based on Youtubers who share revenue breakdowns and statistics, YouTube subscription revenues are a significant source of income. It's just that relative to total viewership, the individual number of subscribers tends to be low.

In effect, a small proportion of paying customers are subsidizing a much larger group of non-paying customers.

To me Youtube never looked like a good source for my main income. But nobody wants to listen.
You are fully dependend on some random people to carry your whole channel. If you say something they dont like, you can go to McDonalds tomorrow and make burgers...

This is true of self-employment in general. Reputation matters, especially when it comes to building a sustainable customer base.

I agree with this being the nature of self-employment, but there are a few differences that, imo, make it riskier. YouTube hasn't been around for that long, so I wouldn't consider it to be a stable profession for the self-employed. You are dependent on a platform that operates on a loss and can implement changes that can affect your bottom line. That's already happened with ad revenue. You're also susceptible to phony copyright claims. I think that it would be easier to know what to expect for more traditional self employed jobs. Even if you are just starting out, you should be able to find a mentor who can give you advice if you have questions. While the government could pass laws that affect your livelihood, I don't think this risk would be anything like depending on YouTube.

Demographics could also be a major difference, especially for the younger YouTubers. I doubt that many self-employed people did so right out of high school. I assume that by the time most people start self-employment, they have already worked for years in a given profession and have gained the maturity to remain disciplined and stick to a work schedule. I think that many people would agree that they didn't have this maturity when they were younger. I've certainly seen this in college, where a lot of students spend more time partying than studying.

leileilol wrote on 2024-01-05, 03:35:

Maybe a lull until there's new material on Vogons/vcf/msfn/etc to paraphrase from.

I don't watch these channels anyway. If i'm watching something on the internet related to retrocomputing it's 99% a livestreamer. they're far more genuine and less forced for a partner content quota or so.

Any particular names of interst?
I'm following a couple of these on twitch but tbh I don't have much time anymore to watch (let alone participate in the chat) twitch streams. Or they don't stream very often (or I miss their streams because I'm not on twitch that often anymore).
I was never really into youtube streams, but that has more to do with youtube I think.

So I didn't read all of the pages yet, but about LGR he recently did make a new thrifting vid which was fun to watch, but also explains exactly that the reason why he doesn't post a lot of these anymore is because thrift stores barely have anything worthwhile retro-related anymore. I'm experiencing the exact same thing. This has been going on since before covid even.

There's multiple reasons for this afaics, but it boils down to higher demand and less supply.
The gandmas attic finds have been drying out for a long time. The majority of systems I find or see these days are systems that were probably from another hobbist of other PC that had a very specialized task.

And not just customers will scoop up all the nicer stuff (and hope to make a profit off of it) but this includes second hand stores as well to some degree where they will also skimp the cream off of the milk before putting the milk for display.

Laws (especially recycling and privacy) have also not helped.

So thrift store retro computerparts hunting (including boxed PC games), from what I've seen, has been on the decline for years now. Which is very unfortunate as it's something I thoroughly enjoyed doing.

Personally I don't like most of those retro computing Youtubers. They are being perceived as all knowing gods by their subscribers, while in reality they share a lot of misinformation, tutorials/repair/DIY videos are often very amateurish (they don't show you what for tools they use, how they use them, where they got their information from, they expect you to have an electronics engineering degree etc.), the intros are often way too long (you think that I'm going to listen 20 minutes to your background story?), they hype stuff that's mediocre, they downplay stuff that's actually good, they tell what 'a good price' for a product is or for what they have bought something a million years ago, they are always begging for donations, some advertise stuff (that I'm not interested in) for minutes, and to be fair I just don't like watching old, bald, fat, grey bearded dudes with a soldering iron. Sorry.

Tetrium wrote on 2024-01-28, 19:13:

So I didn't read all of the pages yet, but about LGR he recently did make a new thrifting vid which was fun to watch, but also explains exactly that the reason why he doesn't post a lot of these anymore is because thrift stores barely have anything worthwhile retro-related anymore. I'm experiencing the exact same thing. This has been going on since before covid even.

Depends on what you are looking for. Computer hardware, especially vintage, has been scarce in thrift stores for the last 15 years or so (Netherlands). I think that the chain stores have rules about computer hardware, that could be one of the reasons why so little is being offered on the shelves. Maybe they just sell pretty much anything computer related to a recycler. Maybe people simply don't bring old computers to thrift stores anymore.

Tetrium wrote on 2024-01-28, 19:13:

There's multiple reasons for this afaics, but it boils down to higher demand and less supply.
The gandmas attic finds have been drying out for a long time. The majority of systems I find or see these days are systems that were probably from another hobbist of other PC that had a very specialized task.

Granddad is dying or is dead. Your uncles? They are retired too and have cleared their attics years ago. We are getting older too.

Tetrium wrote on 2024-01-28, 19:13:

And not just customers will scoop up all the nicer stuff (and hope to make a profit off of it) but this includes second hand stores as well to some degree where they will also skimp the cream off of the milk before putting the milk for display.

After years in this space I strongly believe that the majority of vintage computer enthusiasts are actually people who want to invest their savings in nice nostalgic stuff to flip for profit at a later time. Lots of IT guys with way too much money who simply don't know what to do with it. The other group are hoarders (or tinkerers as they like to call themselves), basically broke folks who want as much as possible for as little as possible to fill their emptyness, kill time and possibly to also flip their stuff for profit at a later time. People on this forum probably don't like these truths. Call me a conspiracy nut.

Yeah, certainly, thrift stores / second hand stores need to earn money to pay their bills. They can't afford to sell the stuff they get for free for a couple pennies. That ain't enough.

Haven't been caught up on the pages yet but I do remember enjoying most of LGR's content but never got around to watching his content in a long while.

My interest regarding watching videos about vintage computing has shifted a bit towards other channels like BlastFromThePast, Bits und Bolts, a some others, but I still enjoy PhilsComputerLab's content from time to time. I was watching his 3dfx Voodoo 2 temperature video not too long ago while researching ways to expand the card's lifespan.

In regards to the hobby itself and thrifting, I didn't have that much luck finding older hardware especially from the 90s, and will likely stay that way given the demand. Which usually explains why I relied on eBay to get most of the computers and parts I still currently have today. The earliest piece of tech I managed to snag and used to own was a HP Pavilion 4450 but that was many years ago.

Gotta be honest I didn't read any reply nut I can tell you one thing that doesn't need any prior context.
No it's not the end of anything, there's a ton of smaller YouTubers that produce waaaaay better content for retro hardware enthusiasts than the ones you mentioned OP, I know because I got bored 2 years ago and so I started searching, the real problem is that most people don't watch smaller channels, most of those people do it as a hobby and personally it works better that way.