Would You Pay For YouTube Videos? 475
secmartin writes "A couple of weeks ago, Google's CEO mentioned to investors that they might start charging YouTube's users for viewing content: 'With respect to how it will get monetized, our first priority, as you pointed out, is on the advertising side. We do expect over time to see micro payments and other forms of subscription models coming as well. But our initial focus is on advertising. We will be announcing additional things in that area literally very, very soon.' With the recent Disney-Hulu deal, Google is under increasing pressure to generate more revenue and at the same time attract more premium content. That means we might see payment options coming even sooner than expected, with control over the pricing models being handed over to the studios providing that content, like the way Apple caved in over variable pricing on iTunes. This raises an important question: would you actually pay for premium content on YouTube and other sites, or will this draw viewers away to other video sites?"
Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
As most things in life, it all depends on the value you get in return for your money.
Depends... what's my cut? (Score:5, Interesting)
How much of the revenue would be going to the people who produce the videos?
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
Yup, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't pay for YouTube. Now, if they set up some sort of system where you could tip the people who put up particularly neat stuff and skimmed a percentage off of that, I could see doing that.
Maybe (Score:3, Interesting)
If the Youtube video would be the movie showing right now in cinema, in 720p @ 3-4mbps, then yes, I would pay up to $1-1.5 to see it.
Without any kind of commercials. Not once. Anytime I want (I would be allowed to view only one of the movies I bought at a time so it wouldn't be abused).
The reality is movies won't be available outside US anyway, because of all the deals movie studios make with local distributors and resellers so I couldn't care less.
It depends (Score:5, Interesting)
I would certainly pay a moderate amount for a High-quality, big pipe site with a wide selection of videos. And I mean wide, none of that "its from this provider, so it's in this other service". Of course with no DRM, I want to see the films at my mom's where there is no broadband. I say "a moderate amount" is a flat rate of about twenty dollars a month, perhaps up to forty if you use really a lot of bandwidth.
In the other corner, rather more likely, seeing what's on offer today, we could have an anemic selection of videos, many of them old, most of them in less-than-optimal quality (meaning you can get them in better quality in bittorrent), with a time lag for new releases, lots of DRM, and lots of service hiccups too.
Well, I can wait.
Does it? (Score:5, Interesting)
That idea only works if you take the accountant view to running a business. But accounts don't run businesses. Entrepeneurs do.
What would be the cost to google of NOT having youtube. Shareholders make lousy businessmen even worse then accountants. At least accountants care about the bottom line at the end of the year, not the next quarter.
Shell recently said it would no longer concetrate on alternative energy. Smart short term move. VERY short term. The world is changing and you never know when you need to be ready to diversify. When Shell invested in alternative energy it cost them money but it was considered to be worth it because IF alternative energies became more important it would stop Shell from becoming UN-important.
Google didn't buy youtube because it thought youtube made money, it bought it because it saw a future there and wanted to be part of it. What better way to search through online video then to be the one hosting it. You may not like youtube searching but compare it to googles image search. Why do you think the first is more reliable? IF youtube had remained a 3rd party or even worse, had become MULTIPLE small time third parties, might another search engine take over if it became more capable of vinding the vids people wanted?
Wether google is right in this logic, or has another reason remains to be seen. Maybe they saw a huge future in ads in front of the vids. That means they need to control the vids. No ads in front of vids they don't control. if the ad market comes back or video ads become better, they are to late if they have no way to get them connected.
So, yes, right now Youtube costs money, but that is called investment. It is what shareholders were supposed to be for.
This is so stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope (Score:5, Interesting)
Pay to view? Sorry. There isn't much quality content on youtube worth paying for.
Pay to post? That might work. People who pay could have more control over their content. They could keep it from being compressed to hell, do things like swap the youtube logo with their own, have embedded links in their content, etc... I bet there is money in that market. But I'll tell you one thing... there ain't a damn thing on youtube I'd pay for. Cover bands doing cheesy remixes, teenagers getting their 15-minutes, and videos of cute pandas eating bamboo aren't worth paying for.
Youtube stands for "us", not them! (Score:2, Interesting)
Nada, nope, No, nein, niet, ne
Just because they have to make money, doesn't mean I have to pay.
If you want premium content, you need another brand. Youtube stands for "us", not them!
If any Google employees read this... (Score:1, Interesting)
Slashdot is irrelevent (Score:1, Interesting)
I mean really, half the articles are like this. Who really cares? There are people that already go to the movies, and buy shit online.
The "summary" is just trolling for the standard hate that always gets posted on /.
"I hate copyright"
"I hate paying for stuff"
"I hate Microsoft/any other company that tries to exert _any_ control over my computing experience"
Really, it mostly comes down to money. Most people want it. Some try to get more of it (those companies) and others cling to it (consumers who want free shit).
There are a few really smart people on slashdot. Some funny ones too. But why are so many of the topic postins SO stupid?
This raises an important question: would you actually pay for premium content on YouTube and other sites, or will this draw viewers away to other video sites?
WTF are you asking?! What, do you just want me to hate on youtube, for... whatever? Fine, I hate youtube. I hate hulu. I hate all the movie/TV show makers that want to put there shit on the net. I hate... whatever, fuck it, the internet.
/me goes out side
/yells_from_a_distance I hate IRC too...!
Optional payment for ad-free (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, micro-payments. They exist yet? (Score:5, Interesting)
How can I pay a small amount for a vid when there is no existing world-wide service to pay a small amount without it costing me a fortune?
1 dollar (iTune cost) for a vid? Like hell. That is way to much and already in that case the costs of the actual transaction makes up an insane part. Imagine if your shopping for a new coat cost 50 bucks to pay with your bank card.
That is the reason micro-payments have not caught on. It is not that people would mind paying a a nickle, it is that paying a nickle costs 25 cents.
Perhaps google should go in the banking business to break through this. The banks sure as hell aren't going to. In the netherlands we got the cheapest pay system (PIN) and that is being replaced in the future because .... well because a working reliable secure cheap system just ain't good enough. We got to get the unreliable, not working expensive system everyone else uses.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it depends on exactly how much you're paying for what content. paying for user-generated content? No. Paying for content available for free (ad supported) on Hulu? Probably not.
But if there were a site where I could pay a small fee (either subscription or per-episode) to watch virtually any show I want, then I'm game. The iTunes model works well enough for me, but the prices are too high. I generally don't want to "buy" TV shows for $2/episode, but if it were something closer to maybe $0.50 for a TV episode "rental", I'd be more interested.
But for me, at least, paying for TV shows online has to pretty much get to the point where I can replace my cable TV for cheaper than the price of cable TV, and it's at least as convenient. Of course, I don't expect that the content owners will go for that, because they have lots of profitable arrangements with the cable companies.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
I work in a media corp that is currently in a long-term transition to all ad-supported, and, from experience, I'll tell you it's not going to work.
The problem with ad supported on the internet is that you can't charge what you charge for a TV spot or a newspaper ad...There are too many people vying for a slice of the internet ad revenue pie. But the majority of the costs for producing your high-end product remain.
So what's the alternative to charging for it? I mean, I've been thinking about this for (literally) a decade, and I really used to think that we could be self-supporting by ad revenue, and it's just not happening.
We've been riding the "free" gravy train for a long time. Lot of companies have been using their web presence as a loss leader, or justifying their losses on the potential for future monitization. This is going to end. It simply has to.
I can very easily see YouTube transitioning to what is effectively an a la carte cable TV provider...You pay a buck a month to the ESPN channel on YouTube, or whatever. The current configuration becomes effectively a massive public access cable channel, supported by subscription-based premium channels.
And, when it comes down to it, I see nothing wrong with that. I'd cancel my cable service in favor of something like that, in a heartbeat. It'd kill Tivo, and traditional cable.
Maybe. Give it a try. (Score:2, Interesting)
GPay (Score:4, Interesting)
This system has been around for a while, it's especially common here in Europe, but so far Google hasn't followed through on the implementation. Maybe that will change very soon (I was sure it would be included in the Android phone).
With a system like this in place it becomes very easy for someone to tip a person for an enjoyable YouTube video. There's been times where I would gladly have given the creator a dollar or two for his video (the John Freeman adventures for example), but there's just no easy way to do it. Give me a number to text that will automatically give the creator a dollar and I'd be all over it, and I wouldn't have a problem with Google skimming a percentage for themselves (as long as it's reasonable). The first John Freeman video has 1.7 million views, if 0.1% of those viewers like it enough to give a dollar that's $1700 for the creator, not a bad hobby, and not a bad source of revenue for Google when you expand it to the millions of videos on YouTube.
The beauty of this system is there's no need for credit cards or accounts at third party websites, just text a number and the transaction is done. Anywhere, anytime. Whether it's technically and financially feasible I don't know, but it would certainly be a step ahead of a Paypal like service.
You've got to be kidding me... (Score:2, Interesting)
Let me say first that I don't spend much time on YouTube, so my answer would definitely be NO.
But I seem to remember back in the Stone Age BG (before Google), some guy from Yahoo was talking about micro payments for search results. Never happened. If YouTube started charging people to view vids, everyone would find another site where they could see a low res vids of monkeys throwing footballs and hitting someone in the crotch.
I mean you can't throw a dead monkey without hitting a free vid site. Charging would be like saying "Move along, nothing to see here..."
I would pay (Score:5, Interesting)
The question is not "IF", but "HOW MUCH".
If youtube offered full-length feature films with good quality, then I'd be ready to pay a reasonable amount. Let's say about the same price I pay to rent a DVD for a 700 MB download. The DVD has a better quality, but downloading is more convenient.
It's about time the media industry learned about this thing they call a "market" [wikipedia.org]. It's up to the seller to set a price but it's the buyer who accepts to pay the price or not.
Re:Does it? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, yes, right now Youtube costs money, but that is called investment. It is what shareholders were supposed to be for.
This particular investment is costing Google (and its shareholders) about 2 million dollars a day; subtract revenue from that number and they end up spending about 1.65 million a day. Google Losing up to $1.65M a Day on YouTube [internetevolution.com]. Now roughly calculated that means that Google will lose about 600 million dollars this year keeping YouTube alive. If I was an investor in Google I would be getting exceptionally sceptical to this particular investment.
Unless bandwidth becomes drastically cheaper in the immediate future Google will have to find a way to at least break even; if not they'll have to get rid of YouTube since despite any non-tangible reward they might gain from ownership is by far outweighed by the very tangible drain on the company's resources. Google might have more money than you can shake a big stick at; but 600 millions is not insignificant.
Re:No (Score:2, Interesting)
No
I would pay. But only if they don't expect me to pay the outrageous prices the MAFIAA has expected me to pay for online content in the last 4 years. If you think I'm gonna pay $1.99 to watch a 30 minute video, you're dreaming. I would, on the other hand, pay $1.99 for an NBC 3-pack or something... and then I get to watch them as many times as I want for a month (preferably permanently, but I can't ask TOO much of the mafiaa jews). And if you think I'm going to pay as much to watch a movie as I would to rent a DVD, we also have a problem. I'd pay $2.99 for a month-long movie rental... but no more.
Re:I would pay (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why not just use Bittorrent instead? (Score:1, Interesting)
So, I pay for my television. Like, one of those expensive satellite packages with eleventy billion channels. I also have a DVR. Now, clearly, recording TV with the DVR is legal. Similarly, so is transferring the shows and movies from the DVR to another medium, like my computer. So, what if I just skip a step and torrent my TV to begin with? Is that simply criminal, too, or do you think I'm within my rights?
Re:No (Score:3, Interesting)
The way YouTube is set up now, legitimate content comes in the form of user channels, where the users are the content owners (e.g. CBS, Discovery Channel, etc have user channels). So far these are free, and in many cases only hold older content, clips or promotional trailers.
However, I think this setup is a great way to approach premium/paid content. If they could provide convenient means for watching the content (e.g. Boxee, or Netflix via Tivo), I would be happy to pay for a subscription to a channel (I'd even purchase a reasonably priced set top box). I have no interest in paying per episode, or per show. Lost was the quickest to find on the iTunes Store, and it's listed as $2.99 for an episode or $49.99 for a season pass. That's simply ridiculous for one show.
Subscribing channel by channel, however, with the ability to watch content produced by that channel at my convenience, is exactly what television doesn't have today. If I could pick and choose the handful of networks I actually watch, pay something like $5/mo to each of them, it'd be a vast improvement over how things are with television today.
It's also a good opportunity to address a big problem I have with cable/satellite. Commercials OR subscription fees, not both thank you. YouTube is suited to address this also, since the individual networks could choose how their content goes out. If NBC decides they need both fees and advertising revenue to maintain their model, I'll happily not subscribe (whereas I might have with just the fees). I'll wager, however, that others like Adult Swim would get by just fine (or likely much better) without ads in their subscription model.