It’s one thing to pay, and another to be squeezed dry.

When ads were mostly static banners on websites almost nobody was blocking them, because they were mostly unobtrusive.

However, they would often link to shady websites that would install random crap, so the usecase for blocking them was already there.

Then they became animated, and they multiplied. It was one at the bottom of content at first. Then a couple. Then two vertical banners on the sides too. Then more rectangular banners here and there for good measure.

Then they became unkillable javascript popups, then proper new browser windows. Then autoplaying videos with audio were added. And this is just the visible stuff. Add tracking pixels, tracking cookies, browser fingerprinting, and tons of other spying technology deployed under the guise of “but the content is free”.

After every step the use of ad and tracking blockers became more legitimate as serving ads moved further and further away from paying for free content and squarely in the space of selling user data collected without consent for huge profit margins.

If ads and subscriptions were enough to just make a normal amount of profit, very few would be blocking ads or pirating content, because the amount of ads or the price of subscriptions would be reasonable and affordable.

But since everyone wants to make a 1000% markup on the content they generate, they will drive their very own paying customers away.

Youtube could have served me a couple ads per video and I would have kept using it forever. Instead they served me a minimum of 20 ads per video, so now they will serve me zero, forever.

Netflix could have gotten 12 euros every month out of me for their dwindling and dwindling content selection. Instead they wanted 14 after a while. And 17 after a while. And 19 after a little while more. All the while refusing to serve me the 4k content I paid for.

So instead they now get zero too.

I am very happy to pay for content, and a lot of people like me. But the comment you originally replied to was in reference to youtube increasing the price of their subscription by ludicrous amounts. You replied there content isn’t free, and I replied that youtube has no problem making money. The increases are not to keep youtube afloat, is to make youtube make 10 billions in profit rather than 8 next year.

It’s not about paying a fair amount of money for content, it’s about making you pay all that you can give and suck you dry.

So to your question “how do you pay for content/services in general?” I answer “with money”, but that is not what is happening here.

Youtube revenue in 2023 (before these price hikes) was 31.5 billion USD.

The revenue for the entirety of alphabet in 2023 was 307 billion USD.

Youtube alone generated 10% of the entire revenue of alphabet’s portfolio in 2023.

Yes, revenue is not profit, but I could not find profit figures for youtube.

Alphabet’s operating income for 2023 was 84.3 billion USD. Assuming a similar proportion of revenue to operating income (I know, hella extrapolating, but again no direct sources for youtube) that would put youtube’s operating income in the ballpark of 8 billion USD.

It’s not that they aren’t making money because people are “stealing” as you say from poor little indie company youtube. It’s just that they want more more more MORE MORE MONEY.

Because of course they do. It’s never enough.

Edit: because I forgot to link my source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204424000014/googexhibit991q42023.htm

The entire studio behind Life by You has been liquidated and everyone in it fired.

Better hope Paralives and InZOI are good, otherwise Sims will be without a competitor for 20 more years.

Lol that’s what I noticed too.

One side wants less people to die, the other side wants fascism and racism. Please help me compromise.

So are you saying that me pushing a pregnant woman down the stairs is the same as doing so to a non pregnant woman?

Imo, no. Pushing a woman is assault, pushing a pregnant woman is assault and something else (another post suggested something akin to manslaughter, which I think fits if the assault causes a miscarriage)

the pro-life response is simply that the unborn child doesn’t get a say in the matter.

Correct. An unborn child doesn’t get a say in whether they are aborted or born. They have no opinions, they have no wants. The unborn child cannot consent to being aborted but they cannot consent to being born either. The only valid opinion and choice is that of the mother, because it’s the mother’s life that is very physically (and eventually also mentally, socially, etc) affected by the pregnancy.

Which is also why I said that pushing a pregnant woman should have harsher penalties than just assault: it also endangers or destroys something whose state of being only the woman should be in charge of.

It’s like if I pickpocket your wallet that’s stealing, but if I steal the wallet from your house that’s also breaking and entering.

My logitech G900 is plug n play on all my linux installations.

The same is true for the inexpensive logitech mouse that I have as backup (although it’s a piece of shit of a mouse and what made me decide to avoid logitech like the plague going forward).