| General > General Technical Chat |
| EEVblog&some other YouTube channels, no longer free, at best (HD) quality levels |
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| MK14:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 14, 2023, 03:13:35 am ---And yes, many if not most of these services make too little or even lose money - at some point shareholders and investors are past the hype period and they start wanting to get some ROI. This time's coming. --- End quote --- I've heard that, conventional advertising revenues (such as with adverts shown between chunks of YouTube content, before it starts etc), have been declining over the years. Partly because of the trend of increasing number of users using Ad-Blockers, but also for a number of other reasons. Costs are tending to go up, inflation, Brexit (especially for the UK and EU), war(s) and their effects, increasing interest rates, people in general having less money to spend, post Covid slowdown/recession (opinions and what exactly it should be called vary, but the general consensus is things are going a bit down-hill for businesses at the moment). The internet is also becoming more of a standard commodity, rather than a new, shiny novelty item. So, it is sort of inevitable, that there may be changes (possibly big ones), afoot on the internet in other areas. |
| Veteran68:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 14, 2023, 03:13:35 am ---Most of my YT (and similar) uses are not full-screen anyway. I very rarely watch a YT video in full screen (maybe very occasionally on my TV set), so 720p looks fine. 480p can be ok if there's no text to read (or only large stuff), but otherwise not too great. --- End quote --- And see, I'm pretty much the opposite. I watch the vast majority of my YT content full screen, mostly on my 43" 4K monitor (the 4th monitor in my desktop setup, as I described earlier). Which was mainly the reason for adding it as my 4th monitor, so I could enjoy streaming content without tying up one of the three 27" monitors, all of which get constant use in my daily workflow. So I do appreciate the higher resolutions, and can definitely tell the difference between 1080P and 4K content (and appreciate the latter when it's available). I consider 1080P a minimum for my tastes, especially when there's visual content to focus on versus just a talking head. --- Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 14, 2023, 03:13:35 am ---With that said, yes the coming trend with "free" online services is to add more subscription options and make the free access more and more limited. That's not just with YT - they are all doing it. And yes, many if not most of these services make too little or even lose money - at some point shareholders and investors are past the hype period and they start wanting to get some ROI. This time's coming. --- End quote --- I agree. While it's easy to lament the commercialization of previously "free" internet resources, especially for those of us old enough to remember the early internet and its predecessors, the quality, quantity, and richness of information available today dwarfs those early days of free content, and wouldn't be possible without the massive servers, storage, and bandwidth to support it all. Add in the fact that commercial entities accountable to shareholders, as you point out, expect not just break even revenues but some degree of profits (otherwise why spend these resources for the "good of the people" when they could be put to higher revenue-generating purposes), and it's logical to see how we got to this point. So now I will have to pay for the content that has value to me, and I will tend to drop or find free alternatives to those that don't bring value. Kind of how a capitalist market works (not that I think capitalism is perfect -- no socio-economic model is -- but it's the one I live in and prefer over some of the alternatives). |
| nickds1:
--- Quote from: tom66 on August 10, 2023, 06:40:24 pm --- --- Quote from: langwadt on August 10, 2023, 06:31:55 pm ---don't you pay more for a TV license over there? --- End quote --- UK TV licence is optional, if you don't watch live TV. I don't, so I don't pay it. Streaming like Netflix is not included, but services like BBC iPlayer are. --- End quote --- Not quite. You need a license to use iPlayer, even for non-live programs. https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ291# |
| pdenisowski:
--- Quote from: MK14 on August 13, 2023, 04:53:40 pm ---I think as people get older, the resolution matters, less and less. Maybe because eyesight, can go a bit downhill, as people get older. --- End quote --- Or maybe it's because "older" people remember analog television with over-the-air reception and/or VHS tapes and have much lower standards than people born and raised in the internet age :) |
| MK14:
--- Quote from: pdenisowski on August 16, 2023, 09:13:34 am --- --- Quote from: MK14 on August 13, 2023, 04:53:40 pm ---I think as people get older, the resolution matters, less and less. Maybe because eyesight, can go a bit downhill, as people get older. --- End quote --- Or maybe it's because "older" people remember analog television with over-the-air reception and/or VHS tapes and have much lower standards than people born and raised in the internet age :) --- End quote --- That could be a factor as well. Expectations, potentially gradually change over the years (across a whole age connected generation). Ironically, I have fond memories of analogue TV and video tape recorders. Because, somehow they seems to have a sort of infinite resolution, to the picture. Which doesn't seem to be reproduced these days. As long as there isn't a problem with the source, such as weak/noisy TV signals, worn out or poorly recorder tape and/or low quality video equipment, such as in some cases, rather cheap, bottom end equipment. Another factor though, could be a humans minds ability, to make things that are from the past. Look shinier, more glossy, perfect and better, than perhaps they really were or would be these days. Certainly, many are glad to see the back of the overly massive glass CRT tubed, TVs and monitors. Which could be in massive packages, and be extremely difficult to lift. I can't remember exactly. But I think some of the older (past TV generations), wide screen, big screened TVs. Weighed something crazy, like 80 kgs, and could need at least two people to lift or move them (safely). They weren't even that good really (opinions can vary). The wide-screen ones, I mean, not the CRT concepts. Maybe because in that era, only some of the content was for wide-screen TVs, the rest was for the almost 'square' (not really, but compared to the wide-screen ones, they partly are) TVs. |
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