this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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It's not fair, it's literally illegal under antitrust law. The DOJ has been accused of "taking a nap" and not enforcing those laws for 20 years... but they're awake now. Which is probably part of why Google is suddenly changing course. They're involved in a few antitrust investigations as it is and don't want any more.
You can't run a company at a loss leader until nearly all your competition is dead and then start charging more than customers are willing to pay (or showing more ads than customers are willing to watch).
I'm happy to pay for video content - but I won't pay the prices YouTube is charging and their ads are even worse.
It's not fair to pay money for services to a company involved in unrelated lawsuits? Does the antitrust investigation negate the expenses associated with running the operation of serving you content?
Are all competitors dead? You can switch to watching TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, for random user generated content. You can go to nebula if you want YouTube style documentaries. You can go to any movie platform if you want to watch random stuff. They are all either in the red, backed by VC, waiting to do the same thing, or serving aggressive ads, or selling your data, or costing money.
How much people are willing to pay is irrelevant in the context of fairness. Fairness is about a company breaking even. Customer readiness is however relevant to business, and in this case I'm afraid that the evidence is against you - after countless similar complaints in the past, people haven't left the platform, and people have signed up to pay.
Paying for services is normal. It's unrealistic not to. It's unproductive to pretend otherwise.