I calculated this with some degree of rigor as a VERY conservative estimate of their ad revenue from me. THAT came out to more like $3 and I just adjusted for inflation this time around.
I don't really recall the details of that calculation unfortunately. But it would have been based on cost per ad view (no clicks) times the number I expect to be shown in a month.
The model I'm suggesting would be more like I load YouTube up with $10 and slowly burn through it as I view videos instead of being shown ads. The cost per view could actually be just as or even more transparent. Perhaps videos are tagged with the cost to view, which could open up a whole new world of economy among creators to gatekeep with higher fees themselves if they want to value their videos at more than the default. Being transparent on pricing this way is literally using the exact same infrastructure they already use to price ads, just letting me pay the cost instead of the advertisers.
I don't really recall the details of that calculation unfortunately. But it would have been based on cost per ad view (no clicks) times the number I expect to be shown in a month.
The model I'm suggesting would be more like I load YouTube up with $10 and slowly burn through it as I view videos instead of being shown ads. The cost per view could actually be just as or even more transparent. Perhaps videos are tagged with the cost to view, which could open up a whole new world of economy among creators to gatekeep with higher fees themselves if they want to value their videos at more than the default. Being transparent on pricing this way is literally using the exact same infrastructure they already use to price ads, just letting me pay the cost instead of the advertisers.