Thoughts on YouTube Red

I find it amazing that despite how much time I put into absorbing content from YouTube’s vast array of creators, I am not even remotely interested in paying a monthly fee for a Red subscription. The service comes with several features that would seem enticing, the biggest of which being that ads are removed from videos. The advertising on YouTube does not bother me very much. When considering that most videos I watch can go upwards of half an hour each, a 30 second advertisement is not a big deal. Further still, the advertisements that I see are frequently matched well with the subject matter of the video I am watching, so I sometimes watch the advertisement all the way through, instead of going straight to the skip option, at least when it is available. Other benefits, such as offline viewing and original programming from some of YouTube’s most popular content creators just do not sway me very much either.

The only real feature that I am interested in is the ability to listen to play videos while on another app or with the screen off, especially when much of the content that I watch is discussion-based, where audio is much more important than video. However, I believe that this “benefit” should have automatically come with the YouTube app in its original form, and it frustrates me greatly that it is being kept to Red subscribers only. It is an intuitive feature should be included in the standard app. There is no way that I am paying $9.99 a month just to be able to look at other apps while using YouTube, especially when other subscription services like Spotify Premium have student discounts that are half that price.

Despite all these reasons, even if YouTube Red were to add features that made me feel that it was worth my money, I would have to still refuse on principle. Almost all of the YouTube channels that I am subscribed to have to deal with false copyright claims on their material, and due to YouTube’s broken copyright claim system, they often are unable to resolve the issues in a timely manner, which leads to them losing revenue from videos that they worked hard to make. Many companies seem to place false copyright claims because they either do not understand copyright law, or they do not care. YouTube has made almost no attempt to resolve this widespread issue, which is making me lose great respect for it as a brand, though I continue to watch it to support my favorite content creators. I refuse to give money to a subscription service that is not even worth my money when its owner is not going to help out the content creators that have made YouTube the social media juggernaut it has become.