There is no free Google product. You pay for all of them with your data, your privacy, and your attention.
Your data is worth far more to them than a $13/month subscription fee. In fact, if you do pay it, the data becomes even more valuable, because you're now guaranteed to always be logged in. You're also likely to use it more to get more "value" out of your purchase, generating even more value (for them). Finally, you've also identified yourself as the kind of person that pays for things that should be actually free.
Worse than all of this, when you use Google (or any of these malware/spyware companies), thanks to network effects, you don't just pay for it with your freedom, you pay for it with some of everyone else's too.
Setting aside whether the payment with my data is worth it - I don't understand why youtube would be in the category of "things that should be actually free". They have server costs, and employee costs, and they pay out to creators - somebody has to pay those bills.
It would be better if there was a better value proposition, instead of “pay to get what we removed”.
It’s not as though free users listening with the app in the background is somehow an additional marginal expense as opposed to them listening with the app in the foreground.
It actually is a marginal expense. There are two main reasons.
For music videos there are different licensing terms for listening vs music videos. So if they don't appease the licenser than their contract will be less favourable.
And of course ads will pay less for people who aren't looking (although his is technically lost revenue, not an expense).
bm3719|11 days ago
Your data is worth far more to them than a $13/month subscription fee. In fact, if you do pay it, the data becomes even more valuable, because you're now guaranteed to always be logged in. You're also likely to use it more to get more "value" out of your purchase, generating even more value (for them). Finally, you've also identified yourself as the kind of person that pays for things that should be actually free.
Worse than all of this, when you use Google (or any of these malware/spyware companies), thanks to network effects, you don't just pay for it with your freedom, you pay for it with some of everyone else's too.
jagraff|8 days ago
qsera|11 days ago
You can take great advantage of them if you can resist the "payment".
It is a bit of freeloading. The product exists because there are multitude of humans that cannot help but "pay".
kevinfiol|11 days ago
blibble|11 days ago
nkrisc|11 days ago
It’s not as though free users listening with the app in the background is somehow an additional marginal expense as opposed to them listening with the app in the foreground.
kevincox|11 days ago
For music videos there are different licensing terms for listening vs music videos. So if they don't appease the licenser than their contract will be less favourable.
And of course ads will pay less for people who aren't looking (although his is technically lost revenue, not an expense).
rmah|11 days ago