HACKER Q&A
📣 mattigames

Would you pay for a clickbait-less YouTube?


Would you be willing to pay $2 a month for a clickbait-less YouTube? What I mean is a mobile app that is an alternative frontend for YT but where thumbnails are taken from the actual video (the most viewed part of the videos to be precise) and the title would be generated using AI (with some exceptions, eg music videos).

I already know a chrome and extension trying to do this but it's not that good mostly because the thumbnails are random not aiming for the most exemplary, and also Im more interested in apps rather than a chrome extension.

  👤 bruce511 Accepted Answer ✓
So, I confess, I'm not sure what your goal is here.

You're not filtering out the click-bait content? You're just changing the thumbnail and title? But you still want to watch the video?

Um. Ok. Now you're wondering if this is valuable enough that others would pay for it?

For me personally, no. I tend to follow specific creators on YouTube, and their title & thumbnail don't matter to me.

I also watch a bunch of random content but a clickbaity yitle and thumbnail are useful signals in selecting what (not) to watch.

But good luck - there must be others out there who feel as you do. If you can find a few thousand of them, and they care enough to throw money at this problem, then you might have a nice little business.

👤 philomath_mn
Best way to use YouTube is to turn off watch history which (mercifully) nukes the feed on the main page. All that is left is search and subscriptions which is ideal.
👤 carlosjobim
You know who might pay? People who already pay for YouTube Premium. So your tool needs to work for logged in users. I see all these YouTube tools that don't work while logged in, which is a shame.

Also, do not go charge less than $5 per month for any service. You don't want to deal with users that are cheaper than that, they are not worth the trouble.

👤 hindsightbias
I’d pay more than premium if I could have anonymity too. I don’t want to have to use Adguard/vpn, I’d pay.

Charge $20 month, give them $14.

Would also pay for a less touch/context sensitive experience on ipad. I can’t scroll vids or touch anywhere in safari w/o selection being activated. Maddening UX.

👤 smoldesu
No, the current free alternatives to the YouTube frontend are too compelling to me.
👤 runjake
No, there's already free options[1] and since you'd be charging I figure Google wouldn't like that and would shut you down anyway.

1. Yet I pay for Premium for family, because it's less hassle.

👤 wruza
Do you think it’s possible for a company to do it on a large enough scale to become useful? I think that this idea is only feasible via crowdsourcing like sponsorblock and dearrow.
👤 red-iron-pine
isn't that the point of paying for it in the first place? to get an algo that doesn't suck and no interruptions?

plus content creators losing the ability to choose their own thumbnail feels unfair. it's like telling magazines they can't design their own cover, and will pull a random page (which could just as easily be an ad) to be the cover. I'm not sure how that would make it any better.

👤 EspressoGPT
No. All these content creators, regardless if it is an online magazine or YouTubers, should forgo the clickbait by default...
👤 rapfaria
Fight the eco-system for $2, with AI generated images, and filtering is more or less still done by myself?

No.

👤 paulcole
No I wouldn’t. YouTube is fine for me as it is and I mostly use it in the iPadOS or Apple TV apps.
👤 rrr_oh_man
Can you kill the clickbait content, too? Especially anything with reaction faces.
👤 KomoD
No, I would not.

Revanced already does this for the android app, various browser extensions do it for web.

👤 joshxyz
lol that sounds dehumanized and dystopian to me, but i dont have better ideas!!
👤 v1l
I’m sorry to say but you’re trying to solve an imaginary problem.