YouTube membership upgrade ---is it worth it?

[New Haven]

I am considering upgrading to an ad free membership. Is it worth it?

[wcmagumba]

1. For me it is worth it. I mainly watch YouTube videos these days, everything from news to sports to animal videos...

and others...lots of stuff there, even full classic movies...

[EYESORE 9001]

2. Depends on the value you place on your time

Or your sanity

[mimitabby]

3. Yes

I can’t stand having to watch some random commercial ( with awful music) while I’m looking for a particular recording of a tune.
I’m a musician and music is my primary reason for using YouTube.
Absolutely worth it

[ImNotGod]

4. My chrome ad blocker blocks yt ads , I refuse to pay for anything on the net as my tax payer money created the net. nt

[Hope22]

5. The premium membership offers multiple users.

I love not having commercials especially if I am taking a class or enjoying meditation music. If a family member has the membership see if you can be on their account. I’m not sure on the particulars.

[hlthe2b]

6. Well, they have some incredibly inane (and long) commercials--normally I don't care too much with streaming

services, but those ads on YouTube interrupt at the most inappropriate places on the videos so it is pretty interminable if you feel like paying the difference. How much is it now?

[KatyaR]

7. Totally.

I hesitated for a long time, but it is definitely worth the money for no ads.

[Egwinsi]

8. 100%

Not only do you have the ad-free YouTube experience, but you also get YouTube Music which is probably my favorite music platform. But, no ads is definitely worth it on its own

[hunter]

9. I have zero tolerance for television advertising, so yes.

I block all advertising that moves or makes noise on sites I don't regularly visit. I pay to make ads go away on sites I do regularly visit, including Democratic Underground. I do not regularly visit sites where I can't make advertising go away. I blacklist entirely sites that insist I turn my ad-blocker off and then show especially odious advertising when I do.

I find YouTube useful for home and car repair, gardening, and other "how to" videos. I also enjoy travelogues, the animal videos catbyte and a few other members post here on DU, and the YouTube channels of fellow retro-computing enthusiasts. ( I have my own personal collection of forty year old plus computers. )

I don't watch news or opinion videos on television or on the internet. Political advertising of any sort makes my skin crawl. Before twitter came along I always thought television was the worst medium for news and opinion.

I've recently deleted my Amazon account and I'll probably do the same with Google, including YouTube, as they turn further to the evil side under the Trump Administration. Without strong government regulation these giant corporations have the potential to turn very evil indeed.

[msongs]

10. probably have to login to an account to use the service....so data mining nt

[CloudWatcher]

11. Youtube ads

I find I'm not bothered by youtube ads if I don't go to the site. And given that it's owned by Google and that Google's new motto is "Let's be evil, it's more profitable!" ... I'm really trying to reduce my youtube watching to a bare minimum.

And I also set it so it doesn't remember any of my view history. So I can watch what I've subscribed to without "the algorithm" trying to offer up crap videos they think I might want to watch.

Just sign me Grumpy Old Man Looking for Youtube Alternatives!

[hunter]

12. I use the "not interested," "I don't like this," "thumbs down," options aggressively.

The YouTube algorithm seems to work pretty well for me. I rarely see anything I regard as crap on my landing page. I no longer see any political or pseudo-science videos there, so clearly the algorithms can identify that sort of content.

Unfortunately the algorithm probably works just as well for people who choose to immerse themselves in crap and that's all they see. And yes, a lot of this crap is evil and Google doesn't care so long as their pushing it is profitable.