One interesting thing is that this is a service that Google is letting you pay for instead of viewing ads. Have they done that before? I guess gmail/google apps, but that's a little different, as you have to get a new account, you can't add a subscription to your existing account. I wish they would do this for all of youtube, not just music.
The phrasing (and its effect on how people react to the story) is very interesting. If it had gone instead with "Google forcing labels to allow ad-free youtube subscription service" or something, you'd probably see far more positive reactions. I hate services like hulu plus (subscription and ads!) with a fiery passion, so it sounds good to me.
On the other hand, youtube is so ubiquitous, "block" might not be that poor of a choice of words, as not being able to monetize on youtube is surely a hit. Of course, if they're getting revenue from ads they already have some kind of deal, this is just a different one, and it wasn't so long ago that some labels were holding out ("blocking" youtube from playing their music) in a reverse of the situation.
Really, though, without knowing the details of how google is trying to strongarm them into this agreement (or even the terms of the agreement), it's hard to make much of a judgement here. Definitely played up in the news for drama, though.
The phrasing (and its effect on how people react to the story) is very interesting. If it had gone instead with "Google forcing labels to allow ad-free youtube subscription service" or something, you'd probably see far more positive reactions. I hate services like hulu plus (subscription and ads!) with a fiery passion, so it sounds good to me.
On the other hand, youtube is so ubiquitous, "block" might not be that poor of a choice of words, as not being able to monetize on youtube is surely a hit. Of course, if they're getting revenue from ads they already have some kind of deal, this is just a different one, and it wasn't so long ago that some labels were holding out ("blocking" youtube from playing their music) in a reverse of the situation.
Really, though, without knowing the details of how google is trying to strongarm them into this agreement (or even the terms of the agreement), it's hard to make much of a judgement here. Definitely played up in the news for drama, though.