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Why I might change my mind about YouTube

Despite being a relatively successful content creator on the YouTube platform I've long been a critic of the company and many of its policies.

Ludicrous levels of "shaping", regular failures of its automated copyright content-ID systems, seemingly illogical decisions by its moderating and appeals team, plus a bunch of other issues make life on the platform perilous for anyone who relies on it for a living.

Then there's the ever-increasing tide of advertisements that sometimes reach intollerable levels of intrusiveness.

Of course you can get rid of the ads buy subscribing to YouTube Premium for a low monthly cost (cough, cough... splutter).

Unfortunately, that "low monthly cost" is actually quite a high monthly cost when compared to other streaming platforms such as Prime Video, Disney+ and even Netflix.

What's more, it seems that YouTube sells that subscription on a "what the market will bear" basis, rather than "cost-plus".

Proof of this can be seen in the form of the wildly varying monthly subscription fee, depending on the country you live in.

For example, those who subscribe to YT Premium in Ukraine pay a mere NZ$5 a month but here in Godzone, we're stung NZ$30 a month for the family plan. By comparison, the Netflix standard plan is just $21 a month and PrimeVideo is $11.

I swore black and blue that I'd never pay $30 a month to access user-generated content that YT itself pays either nothing or just a pittance for but I might have to swallow my words.

What has produced this rather strange turn-around?

Well it seems that YouTube has changed a lot recently and finally, in a good way.

There was a time when any copyrighted movies or TV series that was uploaded to the platform would be deleted and the uploader hit with a copyright strike. This meant that you'd have to be quick to watch such content before it was wiped from the face of the internet.

Today however, there's a huge array of TV series and movies to be had -- in fact far more than you'll find on the other streaming platforms.

If you're really rich you can "rent" latest releases on a per-title basis via the mechanisms that YT provides for this but if you're a cheapskate you can watch slightly older movies with the normal mid-roll ads or you can subscribe to YT Premium and watch them ad-free.

As a fan of crappy, B-grade science fiction movies I've found a great trove of material on YouTube. If you like action, horror, SciFi or just about any other genre then I have to point you at the Movie Central channel which has some great stuff with over 2,000 titles.

Have somewhat more specific tastes? Then how about a channel that caters for Jason Statham fans?

Although I don't watch a lot of movies/TV I have to say that on the odd occasion I sit down and browse Prime, Netflix or Disney+ there's hardly anything there that catches my eye. It's stuff I've either already seen or have zero interest in. By comparison, YouTube is now an Aladin's cave of movie and TV content.

It might just be time to get out the credit card and sign up for the ad-free YT Premium experience... damn!

Carpe Diem folks!

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