I Can Live With Ads...

Oh perfect! Youtube Red is not here yet. Go read this blog and it may (not) enlighten you.

 So umm.... ad-free Youtube for $9.99 a month. That's pretty cool but, I think I can handle waiting for 15-30 seconds instead of paying so much just to take those away. I mean, I know ads are terribly annoying sometimes and it drives me nuts to see the same "Hey! Buy this thing!" or "Hey! 50% off of whatever!" I get it.... Businesses are trying their best to sell stuff to us audiences, but I'm trying to watch some videos here so let me just click that skip button and... bingo, get out of my sight ad. Now, my evil self aside, this offer that Youtube is putting out is, in my opinion, not that worth at all. Look at it this way, $9.99 for add-free stuff, including some music and video exclusive privileges that were included (Yes... I researched...). I don't think that is really efficient. Imagine yourself, the only one who bought the subscription amongst your friends, talking to your group at the park. You wanted to talk about one of the exclusive videos that you watched last night and decided to bring it up. I think the conversation would look like this:

You: Hey guys, I just saw a really cool exclusive video! It's soooooo funny.

Friend: Oh cool, where can I watch it?

You: Well you kind of need to pay $9.99 a month at youtube to access it so umm.....

Friend: Yeah.... I ain't paying.

*silence*

See? That is exactly what would happen (I think. I don't know what you guys talk about these days). Anyway, my point is that Youtube Red, the title of the subscription, is a waste of money. Compare it to Netflix, for example, in which a subscription would give you access to movies that cost like $14 per viewing to only about $8 a month, while a subscription to Youtube will give you access to more free videos that originally cost a whopping $0.00 for a small price of $9.99. Pretty good deal? I don't think so.


What about the companies that rely on videos to advertise their product? Because of people buying this subscription, I feel like the society and economy is losing more money. They won't attract as many customers anymore and they would have limited ways to advertise which isn't really a good thing for companies. So by paying $9.99, companies lose thousands of dollars because they lose their power to bring in customers. With this in mind, I ask again. Would you pay? Because I definitely wouldn't.

R.I.P. Television... You will be missed....

   Soooooo... Television has been a part of my life ever since I was a child. I loooooooveeee watching cartoons, shows, and sometimes the news (Yes, news can be interesting too). TV was such a strong source of entertainment as it was something that people can spend time to when they're free. Notice how I used the word "was" and not "is"? Well actually, ever since internet started expanding and expanding as the years pass, television was just kind of going downhill and I'm pretty sure that it's not just me who felt it, but everyone else.

    With the rise of Youtube, Shomi, Netflix, and the recent Crave TV, it has made television drown beneath the dust because of the "on demand" power that these applications have. With normal television, you have to deal with commercials, advertisements and working your way around the show schedule. Take for example, Doctor Who, which airs at around the evening every Saturday. Why would anyone want to wait that long to watch an episode and deal with all those commercials when they can just go to Netflix or their website and stream it there, ad-free!

    Even the old "everyone-sit-together-and-enjoy-family-bonding-time-movie-day" is slowly changing as movie streaming vices, particularly Netflix, started gaining popularity and I've been noticing that around me. I remember one time when I was talking to my friends and I asked one of them if they watch a particular show that I like, in which they replied," What are you talking about? I don't have cable. Just Netflix." Wow... just wow.. I can't believe how much of an impact internet sources have created to the society, even though they were just introduced recently while television has been around for decades!

   With this in mind, I'm not really surprised that families are cutting on cable packages and are spending for more storage in their internet plans instead. Well, now that I think about it, internet streaming sources are incredibly cheap or even free while television cables cost quite a bunch per month so if families move away from TV, then they would be able to save money, while still maintaining that same level of entertainment as TV. What does it mean for cable businesses? I'm not sure yet, because not everyone agrees that TV is dying and some people still love to sit down, grab a cup coffee and just switch channels, looking for a show that might spark their interests while waiting for their favourite show to arrive. Final thoughts? I think that with the rise of popularity with these internet services, television is slowly getting forgotten and if it continues for about 10 years or so, then cable companies and the good old visual-audio box might as well pack up for vacation.... a long one.