ADVERTISEMENTS!! I hate them with a passion. I get super annoyed with popup ads, especially the YouTube 30 second ones where you can't skip after 3 seconds #relateable. Knowing this new "YouTube Red" is offering a service to remove ads is great! I would totally get it... if it were free. I feel like $9.99/month for no YouTube ads and a few exclusive videos is way too expensive, I actually wouldn't spend any money at all on it, especially YouTube is always known to be free.
According to the article, YouTube red will be posting exclusive videos from popular YouTubers such as Pewdiepie, and IIsuperwomanII, which will not be on the free version of YouTube. Its okay to me because I'll survive life without watching a few exclusive videos, since it's not like they will not post on their original channel at all. I watch plenty YouTube videos, and I use Ad blocker on Google Chrome to prevent them, but even with out it not all videos have ads. Most of the popular channels are monetized which means they put ads on their videos and the channel owners earn money for every view they get. But there are a lot more smaller channels with great content that are not partnered.
If you pay the $9.99/month fee for one year, you would be spending $119.88. You know how many pizzas you can spend with that money?! I'd rather spend watching 30 minutes of ads in a year then spend $119.88 on what is usually free videos. Ignoring the pizza joke, if you do have that money to spend, I would spend it on Netflix which is more worth it I would say. Netflix is only $7.99/month and its for unlimited amount of movies and shows on demand that aren't originally free. I'm not trying to say stop watching YouTube videos and get Netflix, I mean don't spend all that money on ad free videos that are free on YouTube. Just be patient and wait 3-30 seconds for the ad to be over. What I would be doing with that money is saving for University or College, not on free videos.
My question is where will the money go? YouTube helped many companies and YouTubers by having ads placed on videos. Companies pay YouTube to put ads on monetized videos which help companies get out there and get known, while the owners of the videos get part of the money per view. With the new YouTube red, will that mean YouTube and youtubers get the money? How will youtubers get money without placing ads? Do the youtubers that do get money will only be for the exclusive videos? If so, then that would mean YouTube will be getting a lot of the cash since there aren't that many youtube starts will be posting the exclusive videos when most of the channels on YouTube are small. What I predict is that the YouTube starts will mostly take care of their main channel which is on the free version vs the paid version. And I predict not many people will buy YouTube Red, I just see it as not worth it.
UPDATE 11/2/2015
YouTube Red is not available in Canada or any other country other than the United States. When leaving the states you are not able to save videos, or play videos in the background. The videos you did save will only be available offline for 30 days when out of the states.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6307365?hl=en&rd=1
According to Donna Halper, a Media Historian, television has been around since 1925. Being a teenager in the 21st century, I have access to shows that can be viewed online instantly without having to wait for a specific time to view the show, or annoying 3 minute commercial breaks in between. Websites such as YouTube and Netflix allow you to chose any show, or video you want to watch instantly, all you need is internet. I personally do not watch shows on TV anymore, but I know someone who does. My grandmother who is 63 years old watches Filipino telenovelas on TV!
Our neighbourhood board offered free Rogers cable for all the houses in the area, but not until September 30th 2015 they stopped it, and after that everyone has to pay for the cable themselves. My grandma was left without television for 3 days and became very upset since she was missing out and was behind on the shows. She kept nagging my parents to get the cable back and we finally did. And I know what you are thinking, "Why can't you just watch it online?" We did for a bit but my grandma does not know how to operate a computer. But she knows is how to turn on the TV, plug in the channel number, turn up and down the volume and turn off the TV again, and we can't help her all the time since we have units to do.
Not only TV shows are viewed on TV but also news and the weather channel. I find my dad watching the news with my grandma sometimes, but he mostly watches or reads articles on the computer. And the weather channel can be easily accessed by going on their website, or replaced by an app on your smart phone which is what I use.
My prediction on how long television will survive for another 30 years, which is when older adults and elderly are gone (not to be mean or anything!) and us teenagers will be the new older adults. You can easily say that when you were little, all you did was watch TV, but little kids these days are given ipads and iphones for their own use (funny because I got my first phone when I was in grade 8) But who knows? Maybe Netflix and YouTube will die off and some new thing is invented, or TV becomes useful again without ads or something new gets added on to it that is better than the internet.
UPDATE! 10/27/15
I found an article that proves older adults and seniors are watching more TV than young adults, teenagers and children.
http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/are-young-people-watching-less-tv-24817/attachment/nielsen-traditional-tv-viewing-by-age-q12011-q22015-sept2015/
According to this website, proves that the weekly time spent in hours ages 50 to 65+ years old have increased since 2011 until today. When people ages 25-12 have decreased from 2011 to 2015, but people ages 35 - 48's viewing time's patterns has stayed the same throughout. And I think that people ages 34 - 12 years old's viewing time will keep decreasing and then people ages 50 to 65+ will keep increasing until those people die off (again not to be mean) but until then I think there will be barely anyone who watches TV and then soon with have to shut it down.
I also found an article that proves a lot less people in total are watching TV 2014 then in 2011.
http://time.com/3615387/tv-viewership-declining-nielsen/
