[HN Gopher] Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android
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Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android
Author : montenegrohugo
Score : 212 points
Date : 2022-02-23 18:41 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (vancedapp.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (vancedapp.com)
| smoldesu wrote:
| What's up with the Brave advertisement? As a happy NewPipe user,
| that doesn't really inspire me to give Vanced a try...
| Nathanael_M wrote:
| I've seen Vanced/Brave all over today. It has not improved my
| feelings towards either product.
| jsnell wrote:
| It seems clear that the Brave and AdGuard links are ads, except
| not marked as such (the links have tracking codes).
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > ads, except not marked as such
|
| I'm not sure which way you meant it, but to be unambiguous:
| That's way worse.
| xwx wrote:
| Vanced is pretty good. It seems like it's just the official
| YouTube app but with premium for free.
|
| Newpipe is another ad-free YouTube app. https://newpipe.net/
|
| It's FOSS and doesn't use your Google account, or any of the
| YouTube APIs. You can still manage subscriptions but you have to
| import them manually.
| BipolarCapybara wrote:
| In my expierience New Pipe is lacking. The fact you have to
| reimport the subscriptions manually is very tedious, besides
| I've found New Pipe breaks often and it won't let me load
| videos. It's pretty cool for listening to music while the
| screen is off, but I wouldn't recommend it as a daily Youtube
| driver.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| As opposed to giving your Google password to Vanced?
| mkdirp wrote:
| You're not giving it to Vanced. It works through Micro G
| which uses Google's oauth flow to authenticate you.
|
| Anyway, personally I've moved my YouTube account to a dummy
| account.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I've never seen it actually "break".
|
| The only times it's not working is because YouTube changed
| something and you need to download a new version which works
| pretty good with the appropriate repo in F-Droid.
| BipolarCapybara wrote:
| Did they fix that you have to update it only through
| GitHub?
| pmontra wrote:
| It tells me that there is a new version. It downloads it
| from somewhere and installs it. It could be GitHub but I
| don't know.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I don't know when this was the case but it hasn't been
| since I've been using it.
|
| I just added the repo to F-Droid:
| https://newpipe.net/FAQ/tutorials/install-add-fdroid-
| repo/
| operator-name wrote:
| There's also this fork that includes sponsorblock:
| https://github.com/polymorphicshade/NewPipe
| autoexec wrote:
| Newpipe is what I use and I love it. I've seen it break on a
| few occupations and it could use a bit more polish, but it
| meets my needs. I might give Vanced a try at some point, but it
| looks like it wants access to your youtube account and lacks
| features I use. I'm pretty happy with Newpipe.
| meibo wrote:
| It explicitly doesn't provide Premium for free, all premium
| features but the picture in picture support are still locked
| behind purchase.
|
| The standout features are ad- and sponsorblock.
| xwx wrote:
| Huh, interesting. Maybe it's changed, maybe I'm
| misremembering.
|
| In either case NewPipe has picture-in-picture playback and
| audio only playback. Not sure what else I'm missing from
| Premium.
| dirtyid wrote:
| https://github.com/Elijas/auto-youtube-subscription-playlist...
|
| I use google spread sheet script to manage a bunch
| subscriptions into different private playlists accessible via
| sharelinks in Newpipe. Allows me to keep things in sync with
| youtube account on other devices.
| kyriakos wrote:
| Unfortunately it's very buggy and still not ready for full time
| use. Crashes all the time, importing subscriptions is hard. But
| it's FOSS and I still use it regardless cause vanced concerns
| me because it needs access to my account
| yellowapple wrote:
| It's a lot less crashy nowadays (at least from what I can
| tell from using it daily).
| BlameKaneda wrote:
| I used to use Newpipe, but I realized that I couldn't port my
| YT playlists (how I keep track of music) to it. Vanced lets me
| log into my YT account so all of my playlists were available
| right off the bat.
| causi wrote:
| Oh hell. I love Vanced but I hate when it gets picked up on
| outlet like HN. The higher profile it is the more likely Google
| will crack down on it. "Keep it secret, keep it safe"
| politelemon wrote:
| If it wasn't obvious to anyone (it wasn't to me for many years),
| the pun is in the byline.
|
| Advanced but without the ads = ~~ad~~vanced
| [deleted]
| sergiomattei wrote:
| Oh wow I never even noticed
| unixhero wrote:
| Vanced is amazing.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| Why doesn't this qualify as warez?
| [deleted]
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| My "killer use case" for Vanced or NewPipe isn't even the ad
| removal, it's being able to continue playing the audio while the
| app is minimised or the phone is locked.
|
| That is such a basic restriction that free YouTube places upon
| itself that ruins my main use case - listening to a couple of
| videos on my commute to and from work.
| datagram wrote:
| You can easily get all of these features in the official
| YouTube app by subscribing to YouTube Premium, which also
| provides revenue to content creators.
| okl wrote:
| Not open source?
| agilob wrote:
| https://github.com/orgs/YTVanced/repositories?type=all
| okl wrote:
| No app code there :-/
| kangalioo wrote:
| If I recall correctly, they're not open-sourcing because
| YouTube Vanced is a collection of patches on reverse-engineered
| YouTube source code, which would be illegal to publish
| danuker wrote:
| Nope. I use NewPipe.
|
| https://newpipe.net/
| babyshake wrote:
| I'm a bit concerned about malware with APKs. Is it safe to use
| this app?
| [deleted]
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe
| notatoad wrote:
| i'd love to know the crossover between vanced users and people
| who get outraged when their youtuber complains about getting
| demonetized.
| arsome wrote:
| With the integration of SponsorBlock and ReturnYoutubeDislike
| Vanced is truly better than ever.
| tmh88j wrote:
| I'm surprised this is posted here. I don't even have an Android
| but I thought it was so well known that this feels just like a
| blatant ad. You can't go to a single post on reddit about
| youtube, adblockers or pihole and not find Vanced mentioned
| dozens of times.
| distances wrote:
| For what it's worth, I hadn't heard of this before. And I
| develop Android apps, use F-Droid and NewPipe, and have been
| avoiding ads since forever.
|
| Edit: after having a look I prefer NewPipe still.
| stevomacdaddy wrote:
| Hot tip: use an Argentinian VPN and get YouTube Premium for ~$2 a
| month.
| holidayacct wrote:
| Don't use ad blockers unless you're using a proxy of some sort.
| There are a group of people who look specifically for anyone who
| isn't viewing ads in the advertising data. They target them with
| ads in-person with GPS information. They literally bring people
| to you to abuse associative learning.
| causi wrote:
| What in the world are you talking about?
| drewg123 wrote:
| " _ads in-person with GPS information. They literally bring
| people to you_ "
|
| Can you elaborate? I read this like you're saying somebody is
| going to be somebody showing up on my door forcing physical
| paper ads in my face. That can't be right..
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| When the Mormons came knocking on your door, I don't think a
| dark web advertising guru sent them to harass you.
| meibo wrote:
| I had to do a double take on this one, do you actually believe
| that? uBlock Origin has 10.000.000+ users on chrome web store.
| [deleted]
| johndevitooo wrote:
| TheNewAndy wrote:
| I use firefox + uBlock Origin + <some extension I can't remember
| the name of that lets videos play if it goes into the
| background>. Is there something I am missing out on?
| oschvr wrote:
| I've been using Vanced for over a year now and all my friends
| with iPhones are extremely jealous
| jdubb wrote:
| Using YouTube only via Firefox with the uBlock Origin plugin
| works pretty well too. The simple solution without requiring any
| additional apps. Firefox has its own quirks which are discussed
| on Hacker News at length, but it's good enough.
|
| Actually, I've considered installing an older version of Firefox
| and disabling updates. But I feel that might pose security risks,
| and if at some point there's a novel virus requiring updating,
| I'm afraid the shock might be too big, as compared to a little
| shock every few months. Still considering what's wise here...
| criley2 wrote:
| There's a major browser zero-day being used in the wild
| requiring immediate browser update basically every week it
| seems like.
|
| Stay up to date or use the browser in a very safe environment
| in a way which does not have access to or use any of your
| personal information including accounts/passwords/etc.
| mminer237 wrote:
| What is it about the new Firefox you don't like? I find Mozilla
| makes a lot of stupid anti-user changes, but at least most can
| be changed someone.
| jdubb wrote:
| Since a few months, firefox by default doesn't switch from
| incognito back to normal mode when I close the only remaining
| incognito tab. Can probably be attributed to increased
| privacy, I suppose, encouraging the use of incognito mode.
| But there's no setting to change that back. Over time, more
| of these minor annoyances appear which I'd need to dig in my
| memory for. Luckily, it's a relatively small price to pay,
| overall I'm just happy to have adblocking in the browser.
| kache_ wrote:
| Definitely don't run an unpatched browser
| wanderingmind wrote:
| If people want to just see youtube videos without needing to see
| any comments or recommendations while removing adsd, there is
| SkyTube [1]. Its FOSS, minimal and very easy to use.
|
| [1] https://github.com/SkyTubeTeam/SkyTube
| TeeMassive wrote:
| On Android I use Firefox with uBlock Origin and the extension
| that blocks the current focus API so I can listen to podcast
| while my phone is in my pocket.
| [deleted]
| wbobeirne wrote:
| Asking this question in good faith and in the interest of a
| productive discussion: Can someone give me their reasoning for
| why to use this over just paying for YouTube premium? They're
| providing a service that you value and spend enough time on to
| warrant looking for a way to not have to view ads, and if
| everyone were to start using Vanced overnight, YouTube wouldn't
| be able to justify staying up indefinitely. It feels heavy on
| negative externalities.
| lordleft wrote:
| Totally agree with this. If you're going to block yt ads, at
| least acknowledge that you're expecting content for free. Maybe
| you can find a way to ethically justify that for yourself (you
| buy merch from the company, etc), but own your choice. Don't
| flee into elaborate rationalizations that deny the facts of the
| matter.
|
| Linus from LTT recently raised this point.
| lelandbatey wrote:
| Yes, users are expecting content for free because they're
| being given content for free. They're also being given a pile
| of garbage data in the form of ads, and there's nothing wrong
| with dumping that garbage, in the same way you are free to
| throw away the ad pages of a free newspaper, or toss the ad
| flyer that comes with your pizza.
|
| Content creators are facilitating the business model of
| Google and most big business on the internet, which is that
| they give things away for free (yes free, I don't have to do
| anything or sign any contracts to watch a YouTube video) and
| they _hope_ that advertisers will pay for the chance at their
| ad to be seen by people watching. Nowhere in there does the
| audience get a say, nor is the audience asked for their
| consent, nor is the audience forced into any kind of actual
| contract that the audience clearly understands.
|
| Content creators, having lived in this world created by Ad-
| tech for so long, have grown entitled to the eyeballs, the
| attention, and the time of their audience. The train of
| thought goes like this:
|
| _" I'm entitled to be paid for my work. I get paid when my
| audience watches ads. Hence I am entitled to have my audience
| watch ads."_
|
| But that isn't true at all! They're entitled to be paid _by
| the advertiser_ according to whatever _terms that creator has
| with that advertiser_. The creator though has _no agreement_
| and no terms with the audience so NO, the audience has no
| obligation to do anything for the content creator.
|
| If content creators aren't comfy with this situation, they
| can try to actually build an agreement with their audience,
| where the costs and the payments are clearly laid out. That's
| hard to do so few do it, but that's the actual, ethical thing
| to do instead of complain that users aren't watching ads; if
| watching ads was actually ethically required then lowering
| the volume or looking away when an ad plays would be decried
| as piracy, and while I'm sure that'll happen once eye-
| tracking starts being built into the mobile app, it'll be as
| stupid to complain about then as it is now.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| I believe it's a result of selfish and/or short-term thinking.
| kevincox wrote:
| I used to pay for Premium. Then they kept making the service
| worse and worse. Eventually I decided that they don't deserve
| my money.
|
| - YouTube Music is trash. I was an inside early adopter and all
| of my feedback was ignored. I originally subscribed for Google
| Play Music (which was pretty good) but I switched back to my
| own collecting.
|
| - They removed email subscription notices.
|
| - YouTube Originals were awful. They took some of my favourite
| creators to make slightly better content that I can no longer
| share with my friends. Not to mention that you were never
| notified of these videos because they were completely different
| from normal videos in all of the YouTube UIs. (Thankfully went
| back on this, but I had left by that point).
|
| - Videos always play at 360p on my 4k monitor. I need to
| manually up the quality at least 90% of the time. My internet
| is fantastic and I never see a stutter after raising the
| quality.
|
| - The recommendations are always awful. I don't use them often
| but when I do it is all things that I have already watched.
|
| - They keep trying to turn auto-play back on. (Although to be
| fair this isn't new).
|
| - It still has ads! They just promote the Premium content (that
| I don't want) instead of other ads. Sure, less obtrusive but
| still annoying. Just let me use the damn service I have been
| paying for for years.
|
| I understand the argument that I shouldn't be using the service
| if I'm not paying for it. In fact I don't use an adblocker on
| most sites because of this belief (I just back out of obnoxious
| sites). However 1. I've paid enough that I consider it fair for
| years of future viewing and 2. costing YouTube money is
| actually beneficial to me, because if it were to fold the
| content would move somewhere better.
|
| To me YouTube is a great example of the cost of forever
| quadratic growth. They had a good product, it was profitable
| with ads or profitable if people payed for Premium. But they
| need to keep sucking more value from users otherwise their
| shareholders get angry. But I've been sucked dry and I'm
| quitting.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Yeah, the constant ad creep is my justification for ad
| blockers as well: since the service provider doesn't respect
| me or my privacy, they'll never be content to serve a few
| simple ads on the side of a video based on the content of
| that video to pay the server bills. Instead, they'll build a
| giant Rube Goldberg machine to target ads, hoover up user
| data, and shove more and more ads in my face. Even when I
| pay, I still get "original content" shown in my face because
| it's cheaper for them to serve than content sourced from
| other providers.
|
| At the end of the day, you just have to put in the legwork to
| make things optimal for your use case, because they'll never
| care about you anyway.
| vopi wrote:
| I simply don't care. I don't tolerate viewing ads. I currently
| use sponsorblock as well. I have paid for YouTube premium at
| some point but I see no reason anymore. There's enough people
| who don't know how to block ads and frankly if it ever got to
| that point I expect the big G to crack down hard (technical and
| legal means). It's the same thing with ad blocking. I'm sorry
| but when you have 11 percent of my average network requests
| being ads I will simply block those requests. Is it selfish? Of
| course. I'm not claiming to "stick it too the man", I just
| don't wanna see your shilling. Simple as.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| Does Youtube offer to not track you in any way when using
| Youtube Premium? (This is a serious question. I don't know what
| features Youtube Premium has.)
| wbobeirne wrote:
| No, and that use-case for Vanced totally makes sense to me.
| But you could pay for Premium and then use Vanced in addition
| to it to take advantage of the reduced tracking, rather than
| as a replacement for Premium.
| doliveira wrote:
| I paid for Youtube Premium just once. Then I opened Incognito
| mode in the app and it started showing me ads anyway.
| wand3r wrote:
| I dont use vanced but I am looking into it. Allegedly vanced
| has an iOS alternative. My reasoning is that Google is
| disgusting and has created a defacto monopoly. There is no way
| to outcompete a free product at scale so there basically can't
| be an alternative. So I obviously use video and that means I
| use youtube. I dont want to support google, never want to see
| an ad and I honestly don't care about the creator. If i did
| find someone who I regularly watched I would probably support
| them directly. I would never want to use youtube premium and
| infact constantly being bombarded by ads for youtube premium is
| a major reason i use an adblocker...
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| I use Musi with YouTube. With it, I can play videos in the
| background, and there are no ads in the video. There are in
| the app itself, but pihole takes care of that.
|
| I also use Hyperweb, so all YouTube links in safari open in
| Musi automatically.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > I honestly don't care about the creator.
|
| At least you're honest
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| Why would you?
| Teever wrote:
| A very important life rule is to never, ever care about
| someone more than they care about you.
| bduerst wrote:
| This rule creates a negative feedback loop to a world
| where every single person cares about no one else.
| Teever wrote:
| As opposed to some Woodstock hippy utopia where everyone
| cares so much for everyone else that love conquers all?
| bduerst wrote:
| How is that the only alternative?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I don't if they're saying other people shouldn't have a
| different take on life. I prefer to actually have a
| certain level of respect and care for my fellow humans.
| It's is dwarfed by my concern for myself and my family,
| but yeah I'm gonna bend down and give someone a hand if
| they drop something or need a push off the road or
| battery jump.
| tomComb wrote:
| So much for everyone less fortunate than you. The vast
| majority of the people in the world are much less
| fortunate than the average HN reader. And yes, they are
| probably not worrying about us, but a little
| consideration for them in how we vote or how we donate
| could make a big difference.
| lucasmullens wrote:
| That's like, the opposite of the golden rule. Do unto
| others only if they'd do unto you.
| Teever wrote:
| Not exactly.
|
| I would like others to reciprocate by not caring about me
| more than I care about them.
| pjerem wrote:
| I don't see creators as "someone" because creators are
| mostly little business and the person you see on the
| video is just acting and reading a script.
|
| So I can treat them as things. And I do care for the
| things I enjoy in life when I want them to stay or
| improve. Not because of the person behind (because, you
| are right, they don't know me and I don't know them) but
| because I care about what their work bring to my life.
|
| The fact that someone is being able to make a decent
| revenue for this work is a nice externality that I like.
| But having great knowledge / content freely accessible is
| what I care.
|
| However I'm not paying for YouTube Premium because I care
| about the content and not the platform. It wouldn't make
| a difference for me if I had to use another platform.
|
| Platforms should be subcontractors of the content
| producers. I don't want to pay for the hosting platform
| but give my money to the content I love. And that a part
| of that money is used to provide hosting shouldn't be my
| business.
| freediver wrote:
| Orion browser (still in beta) on iOS blocks YouTube ads, has
| background tab playback, Picture in Picture too for cross-app
| and screen-off playback. Pretty much everything from Vanced,
| built in by default in a mobile browser.
| ryanlitalien wrote:
| The benefits of YouTube Premium far exceed the monthly cost. I
| only realize this value prop when I try to access YouTube in
| incognito. Eye opening.
| delecti wrote:
| In addition to incognito, also Chromecast. A Chromecast will
| insert ads before videos added to the queue by non-premium
| accounts. As a result I got a family account so I wouldn't
| have to watch ads before videos my wife enqueued.
| abcc8 wrote:
| Same. I was recently chastised (lightly) by a friend for
| sending a YouTube video link. They asked why I sat through so
| many ads. I've been using YouTube premium for years and had
| no idea how bad the ad situation is for non-premium users.
| dhc02 wrote:
| 1. No ads 2. Free YouTube Music subscription (cancel your
| Spotify subscription) 3. Download videos and playlists to
| your device before a flight or other no-service scenario 4.
| Every time you watch a video, a proportional percentage of
| your subscription fee goes to that creator, no matter whether
| they are in a lucrative (i.e., ad-friendly) niche or not. 5.
| One less browser extension (or mobile app) I need to give
| permission to track my activity and worry it will be hacked
| or sold without me realizing it.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| 1. Vanced does it, and so does uBlock.
|
| 2. So I can have access to a worse player ? Which is
| already impressive given how bad Spotify is.
|
| 3. youtube-dl.
|
| 4. Giving 0.000005$ to a creator for me watching 20 minutes
| of video is still Google rent-seeking
|
| 5. Fair enough. But then I'm trading one browser extensions
| that might track me (but that doesn't) for the certainty
| that Google will absolutely track me to vomit out more
| shitty AI recommended playlists. Not sure it's worth the
| tradeoff.
| dhc02 wrote:
| I'm a youtube-dl[p] user, but pretending that is
| equivalent to the few taps it take to sync in the
| background in the official app is silly.
| cartesius13 wrote:
| For someone savvy enough it may as well be
| nathias wrote:
| I don't want to support the platforms in any way and hope they
| stop existing. Sadly, its very hard for competitors to take
| back market share from these global monopolies.
| mtizim wrote:
| Personally, I would go out of my way to steal from the relevant
| company, and just I don't care much for YouTube's survival.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| 1/ I want free shit.
|
| 2/ I hate ads.
|
| 3/ Google not making money from ads makes me feel all warm and
| fuzzy inside.
|
| 4/ I also run and contribute to Sponsorblock because fuck your
| VPN ad.
|
| Nobody "values the service" of YouTube, that's bullshit HN
| founder talk seeping on every other subject. The reality is,
| there's no other source of videos (everyone is on youtube
| because everyone is on youtube), ads are a scourge, and there's
| very little _actually worth the time_ on YouTube.
| wbobeirne wrote:
| I'm with you on 2 & 3, but I don't align with 1 at all.
| Perhaps that's because I'm fortunate enough to have the
| expendable income to afford it, so it's easier for me to
| justify the cost.
|
| But it's fair to say that "value the service" is kinda
| bullshit, I'm mostly talking about valuing the content, and
| paying for the service that makes it possible. I'd follow the
| content though, if it moved to a service with more agreeable
| terms.
| jorvi wrote:
| At some point, YouTube realized they are more-or-less the only
| game in town and started to go from 1 ad every 0.5 video to 2
| pre-roll ads, a mid roll ad and sometimes at near the end
| another ad. They also made some 30s-1m ads unskippable.
| autoexec wrote:
| > and if everyone were to start using Vanced overnight, YouTube
| wouldn't be able to justify staying up indefinitely.
|
| I doubt this. Youtube provides google with a lot more than a
| means a push ads. It gives them massive amounts of data about
| the viewers and the content creators to mine for their own use.
| They collect that data if you view ads on the platform or not.
| Karsteski wrote:
| Tbh I would just pay for YouTube if it were just a video
| platform that was consumer-friendly, for example LTT's
| Floatplane service, which I have paid for in the past.
| Unfortunately, that's not what we're dealing with.
| Google/Youtube are massive data collection platforms, and I
| refuse to participate in that any more than I have to.
| evilthrow wrote:
| If I can not pay, I will not pay.
| operator-name wrote:
| Vanced isn't equivalent to paying for premium. It includes
| features like ReturnYoutubeDislikes and SponsorBlock which
| would normally be available via extensions (as would the
| premium's lack of ads via adblock), as well as further
| customisability.
|
| It replaces some enhancements that are normally done via
| browser extentions and I personally find it extremely handy to
| be able to copy with a timestamp, set a video on infinite
| repeat, restrict video bandwidth on a finer scale (the native
| app removing this baffles me), set a default playback speed and
| reenabling tap to seek (another baffling change).
|
| I happily support creators and alternative platforms (Nebula,
| Floatplane) via direct channels, and personally I don't find
| the service or youtube as a platform worthy of support.
| wbobeirne wrote:
| That's a very good point, and I agree that Vanced brings a
| lot to the table over just ad removal. I may even consider
| using it even though I pay for Premium already. But I imagine
| that that's a demographic that a very small percentage of
| Vanced users fall into.
| Qub3d wrote:
| I use vanced, and I have YouTube premium. Sponsor segments
| and missing dislike counts are killer to my experience. I
| also like that I can turn off elements of the YouTube
| design that are clearly rushed and/or TikTok also-rans
| demanded by management.
| manholio wrote:
| Youtube and Google make money by being monopolists. They had
| (or in the case of Youtube, bought) a first mover advantage,
| grown their platforms aggressively and now they are milking the
| network effects.
|
| There is almost no way someone could break the monopoly by
| making a better video sharing platform, not even Google could
| do it, that's why they bought a rapidly growing market leader
| instead of making their own failed copycat (Google Plus,
| anyone?).
|
| So there is absolutely no connection between this reality and
| the "fair world" fantasy you describe, that could maybe apply
| to copyright, torrenting etc., but not adblocking on
| monopolistic platforms. The amount of money and ads views you
| generate for Google is a monopoly rent, it bears no relation to
| the value of the platform or its operating costs in a
| competitive market, or any other justifiable and "fair" income.
| Beaver117 wrote:
| Wowie, it's free!
| giordano-bruno wrote:
| The same reason we all use(d) The Pirate Bay. Information
| deserves to be free, remember? We _can_ distribute videos for
| free, you remember that, right? We can also pay content
| creators, who get ripped off by YouTube anyway. Ask them about
| that.
|
| Are you suggesting that HackerNews readers should also remove
| their adblockers? That we are bound by a Kantian moral
| obligation to be subjected to enticement and manipulation for
| Google's balance sheet? Will we get kicked out of Capitalism if
| we don't acquiesce and watch the ads?
|
| I guess I'm an amoral Bad Boy. Antinomian. A rebel, with
| strange views on religion, morality, information, and economics
| - heretical, unspeakable views, that I shall not utter here.
|
| PS: I'm concerned about exposing my _mind_ to advertisements.
| The risk to the computer, which is but a tool of the mind, is
| entirely secondary.
| mda wrote:
| "I am an amoral antinomian rebel bad boy". People on HN never
| ceases to amaze.
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| > (Personally, I don't watch videos, and prefer to simply
| read books from the library, which somehow exists without the
| "support" of advertisers...)
|
| Depending on what kind of library you're referencing: those
| books were purchased, and sometimes/often at more than
| consumer retail.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| > We can distribute videos for free, you remember that,
| right?
|
| Outside of a purely P2P system like Peertube, how would you
| distribute videos for free? Are there not server costs?
| rryan wrote:
| Straw man argument. OP was suggesting you pay for YT premium,
| which does away with the ads completely. Removing your web
| adblocker is a non sequitur, and exposes your computer to
| malware / spyware in addition to ads.
| JSavageOne wrote:
| The same reason people use adblockers, get around news article
| paywalls, and/or pirate. Because they can, and don't see
| ethical issues with it.
|
| > if everyone were to start using Vanced overnight, YouTube
| wouldn't be able to justify staying up indefinitely.
|
| How likely is this though? For example despite adblockers
| already being widely available, it seems that a significant
| portion of internet users if not most don't actually use them.
| wbobeirne wrote:
| Having worked on a largely ad-supported website in the early
| '10s, I can definitely say the rise of ad blockers had a
| meaningful impact on ad revenue. I didn't mind this at all, I
| much preferred the product investing more effort in making
| the subscription that removed ads have attractive features,
| but if users had a way to also get all of the subscription
| features without paying, I don't think the business would
| have been able to sustain itself.
| thetinguy wrote:
| Also creators don't get revenue from blocked ads but they do
| from premium.
| Levitz wrote:
| >if everyone were to start using Vanced overnight, YouTube
| wouldn't be able to justify staying up indefinitely.
|
| Good. I find the idea of Google having an effective monopoly on
| video streaming disgraceful.
| bcrescimanno wrote:
| My primary issue with paying for Google services is that, when
| it comes to Google, I am the product being sold. I honestly
| haven't looked into YouTube Premium despite consuming a fair
| amount of YouTube content because I don't strongly feel it will
| change the dynamic with Google: they will still take my viewing
| data on YouTube and package that to sell me to advertisers in
| other avenues.
|
| So now, yes, I get a better YouTube experience by removing ads
| on my mobile device; but, I'm now paying Google money so they
| can make money off my viewing habits.
| Bayart wrote:
| I'll consider giving money of my own free will to Google when
| they stop farming my data and dodging taxes. I sponsor a number
| a creators through Patreon.
| beprogrammed wrote:
| For me personally, and I know others as well, I can't stand
| ads, if it comes down to the end of the world or accepting ads,
| goodbye world. So naturally I go quite a bit out of my way to
| remove ads and build tools that remove ads, everywhere I can.
| With YouTube's current trend of doing the worst job possible
| (see removing dislikes) there is no way in hell I'm going to be
| paying them anything. I'm still waiting for good ways to pay
| content producers directly, how does one tip a tenth of a cent?
| foepys wrote:
| The official YouTube app is unable to play 2160p 60Hz video on
| my Android TV because it stutters and falls back to 1440p 60Hz.
| Doesn't matter whether I use the native app or the built-in
| Chromecast. NewPipe doesn't have any problems.
|
| The official YouTube app also sometimes just decides that 480p
| is enough for everybody and refuses to play any higher
| resolution until I force-close the app from the Android
| settings multiple times. Since using NewPipe I have never
| experienced a video playing in another resolution than the
| highest available.
|
| Plus, since Google/Alphabet is doing everything they can to
| funnel as much money away from the EU via various tax avoidance
| systems, I don't feel any shame. I try to donate to the
| creators via various channels, if one is available.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| Sponsor Block
| kazinator wrote:
| - Because Youtube is run by a company that has money pouring
| out of every orifice; they don't need any more of yours.
|
| - Because Youtube is built on copyright infringment; giving it
| money is exactly like paying for an account on any piracy site
| to help keep it running.
|
| - Because even where there isn't infringment, Youtube has a
| broken compensation model you should consider not paying into.
|
| - If Youtube died, it would probably only be a good thing
| anyway for the whole video ecosystem.
|
| - If you really want to donate money or help, pick some worthy
| cause, like kids with cancer or something; the Googles of this
| world don't need your charity.
| theropost wrote:
| If Youtube were a Government - They would be running huge
| surpluses, while still raising taxes - They would be a police
| state - They lower the minimum wage at all costs - They
| repress their population
| wbobeirne wrote:
| > Youtube[...] has money pouring out of every orifice; they
| don't need any more of yours.
|
| I'm mostly concerned with money going to the content
| creators. If you're not watching ads and not paying for
| Premium, they get nothing.
|
| > Youtube is built on copyright infringment
|
| I think this is a [citation needed] kind of thing, I'd assume
| that original content and fair use content is the vast
| majority of their revenue. But I don't know that for sure
| either.
|
| > If Youtube died, it would probably only be a good thing
| anyway for the whole video ecosystem.
|
| Long term, I could see this being the case. Short term, I
| think a lot of creators would be displaced as they tried to
| figure out how to make it work in a YouTube-less world.
| People with large audiences would probably survive fine, but
| I'm not sure if some of my favorite < 50k subscriber channels
| would stick around. But these are all guesses.
|
| > If you really want to donate money or help, pick some
| worthy cause, like kids with cancer or something
|
| I don't look at this as charity, I look at it as providing an
| economic incentive to continue getting content from creators
| I like. But this is a "but there are starving kids in
| Africa!" kind of argument anyway, which doesn't really hold
| up if you try to scrutinize everything that way.
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| >I'm mostly concerned with money going to the content
| creators.
|
| This doesn't really hold up when you gloss over his
| discussion of the broken YouTube compensation model. Even
| though it's not salient to your biases or original
| conjecture to bring up that YouTube's compensation system
| is harmful for most creators, it seems unproductive to put
| your head in the sand about the issue and keep claiming
| that you want to see money go to content creators you
| support.
| wbobeirne wrote:
| You're right that I didn't approach that issue, and part
| of that is because I have a bit more research I want to
| do before I take strong public stances on it. I agree
| that the ad-supported revenue model is pretty busted, and
| YouTube is the primary beneficiary of that. But as far as
| I'm aware, the Premium subscription model is pretty
| beneficial to everyone. I don't know exact percentages,
| but I'm under the impression that the average Premium
| view nets more money to the creator than the average ad-
| supported view. I haven't personally seen any content
| creators explicitly dissuade people from paying for
| Premium.
|
| But like I said, I don't know specifics to strongly hold
| that view and publicly argue it. _That_ would be putting
| my head in the sand. I need to read up a bit more and see
| what content creators are saying about Premium. I was
| hoping that prompting this discussion would lead me to
| some more good info on that.
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| >I didn't approach that issue
|
| To be clear, you went as far to omit it from your mostly
| dismissive response despite your contradictory view
| underlying your original assumptions, you didn't simply
| take a stance of uncertainty.
|
| > I have a bit more research I want to do before I take
| strong public stances on it
|
| >I don't know specifics to strongly hold that view and
| publicly argue it.
|
| You took a strong public stance on its negative
| externalities already and that the Premium model is
| actually a solution before knowing specifics about even
| how views are broken down into ad revenue, this doesn't
| hold up.
|
| You're putting your head in the sand about arguments that
| don't seem salient to your original conjecture. You seem
| to only want only additional info to disprove your biases
| - not prove them, and YouTube has an incentive to keep
| that information private.
|
| >I was hoping that prompting this discussion would lead
| me to some more good info on that.
|
| This doesn't hold up given the above points about
| misrepresenting your original strong public stances and
| providing no information as to why your biases are
| correct.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _Premium view nets more money to the creator than the
| average ad-supported view._
|
| How does that compare to just donating directly?
|
| > _I haven 't personally seen any content creators
| explicitly dissuade people from paying for Premium._
|
| If they were to do that anywhere _in_ YouTube, you 'd
| think that would be some kind of TOS violation.
| no_time wrote:
| I'm doing everything in my power to not give any money to
| GOOG/MS/AAPL. I would not shed a tear for YT in it's current
| state if it were to shut down because of revenue problems.
| fma wrote:
| A more effective way would be to just boycott YouTube. Rather
| than block ads, block their domain on all your devices.
|
| Increasing a video view count entices the video producer to
| create more. More content = more views from users who see
| ads.
| no_time wrote:
| I could go full Stallman on every aspect of my life. I do
| admire his strict adherence to his own moral code. But at
| some point you have to realize if you are a gifted person
| like Stallman, with a large capacity to bring change to
| this world through uncompromising attitude OR you are just
| average joe with no real chance of making any meaningful
| change.
|
| To be frank with you I sleep really well knowing I'm not
| directly contributing money towards tech giants getting
| even more powerful while at the same time not completely
| alienating myself from popular culture.
| newbie789 wrote:
| ohmanjjj wrote:
| If someone can't afford $15 for Premium, they likely shouldn't
| be wasting their time watching videos to begin with, and
| instead focus their time and effort on making a living.
| Bootvis wrote:
| Yes, you can never learn something from a YouTube video /s
| ohmanjjj wrote:
| If one can't afford $15 for unlimited access to
| uninterrupted education, they have their priorities
| elsewhere.
| keb_ wrote:
| Everytime* we have a thread about third-party YouTube clients,
| there are comments like yours by folks who fundamentally
| misunderstand the purpose of these third-party tools. The same
| happened year(s) ago with a thread about NewPipe.
|
| The purpose of these apps (including Vanced) is not solely to
| get past ad-block; Vanced (and NewPipe, and Piped, and
| Invidious) do far more than just give an ad-free viewing
| experience -- they provide a breadth of quality of life
| features on top of usually being more privacy-friendly.
|
| The frustrating thing about this is that we can avoid these
| questions if commenters would just _click the link_ and read.
| jsnell wrote:
| The HN title is "Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android". The
| app being an adblocker is the one thing the submitter thought
| was worth highlighting. It is also the first feature the
| app's webpage mentions. The webpage even has paid ads for
| other adblockers before going into any of the advanced
| features.
|
| Given the above, it seems pretty darn obvious why the GP
| thinks that the real selling point of the app is to block
| ads. If this had been submitted as "Vanced: YouTube app with
| an AMOLED black theme", do you think it would be at the top
| of the frontpage?
| wbobeirne wrote:
| You're totally right and I wish I had clarified that more in
| my original comment. I will probably try out Vanced even
| though I pay for Premium. I was really looking to hear from
| the people who primarily use it to circumvent ads, which I
| assume is the primary draw. But there are a lot of other good
| features worth discussing.
| keb_ wrote:
| I think it is definitely a primary draw; I no longer use
| Vanced (used it years ago) but I remember the killer
| feature back then was being able to listen to audio from
| videos while having your phone screen off (a feature that
| YouTube eventually added to the official app).
|
| I primarily use NewPipe. I enjoy the benefit of not having
| ads, but more than that, I enjoy the simplicity and the
| drastically lower system resource usage.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| I mainly use iOS devices and avoid YouTube on my phone, so I
| don't use this app. I don't pay for Premium though, and I won't
| because Google is a monopolist and their entire business is
| built around the pernicious use of data and advertising. I use
| uBlock which takes care of the ads on desktop, and don't see it
| as immoral to freeride in this situation. I do pay for plenty
| of similarly situated services where the agreement is a much
| more clear "money for goods and services" type arrangement.
| [deleted]
| ainiriand wrote:
| I was in South America for some months and I decided to buy
| Youtube premium because in my house in Germany would be heavily
| used as well.
|
| My account was blocked until I was able to produce proof that
| my address was effectively in South America, so I had to spend
| all the time there with a blocked account.
|
| When I came back to Germany I tried contacting customer support
| again to unlock the account and I had to deal with a couple
| phone calls and emails, costing me time.
|
| I never want to have such an ordeal to remove some ads.
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| On hn I find people often talk about how as individuals we
| shouldn't ignore the negative externalities we might create for
| massively profitable monopolies, but never in the same breath
| do we talk about the negative externalities those monopolies
| thrust on us as individuals or on our governments.
|
| I'm sure most are aware just how well Google will be regardless
| of whether they bypass ads or not.
| wbobeirne wrote:
| My main consideration is for content creators, especially
| since the ad revenue is passed through to them. Any concern I
| have about YouTube not being able to sustain itself does not
| come from a place of caring about Google's livelihood.
|
| I also have a whole laundry list of complaints and gripes
| about YouTube and Google as a whole. But I'm probably not
| going to get much productive engagement from them airing
| those here, so I targeted my question to the HN audience.
| nomel wrote:
| > especially since the ad revenue is passed through to them
|
| Youtube could communicated the number of blocked ads, and
| lost revenue, to the content creators. Content creators
| could either push the Patreon route (this seems required
| for any remotely controversial topic), or encourage
| watchers to disable ad blocking for their videos.
| Mezzie wrote:
| I would argue that the ethical thing to do in this case is
| used Vanced/blockers and then support the content creators
| directly. (I happen to pay for YT Premium now, but I
| understand and sympathize with objections to it and used
| Vanced before I switched to an iOS device).
|
| In fact, in that case, the creators see more of the money,
| and they get data indicating what stuff people will and
| won't pay for. That $15/mo. YT Premium budget could easily
| go to supporting content creators.
|
| Content creators are screwed, long term, if they continue
| to rely on ad revenue, because both the ad companies and
| the platforms have incentives to keep the content creators'
| cuts as low as possible. Creators need revenue sources not
| under external control.
| wbobeirne wrote:
| I agree and throw ~$25 a month to various folks on
| Patreon / Substack. Content creators will always have to
| pay the piper to some degree though if they want a
| platform for distributing their content, and
| discoverability. Patreon gets by right now by relying on
| external hosts for videos (See
| https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/360017431292-S...) and by largely having
| creators direct their audience from existing platforms.
| Without YouTube or Twitch or Twitter, Patreon doesn't
| have much of a leg to stand on. I definitely look forward
| to YouTube getting stiff competition from a direct
| monetization focused video platform though.
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| This doesn't touch on how easy it is for the YouTube
| monopoly to never pass ad revenue to users and how it's
| in their favor to keep revenue information as opaque as
| possible. If it were a competitive market, perhaps
| blocking ads would be the bigger problem at play for
| creators trying to recover revenue through it, but that's
| just not the case even though OP is content dismissing
| the much more interesting discussion as "bad faith" or
| "unproductive".
| viraptor wrote:
| It's worth considering the scale of the contributing. If
| you give the creator 1$ directly, that's likely more than
| they'd get from you watching the ads on 1 year or their
| videos (if they're releasing more than weekly).
| keb_ wrote:
| > My main consideration is for content creators, especially
| since the ad revenue is passed through to them. Any concern
| I have about YouTube not being able to sustain itself does
| not come from a place of caring about Google's livelihood.
|
| The best solution I've found to this is to support content
| creators directly. Subscribe to their Patreon, Liberapay,
| GoFundMes, etc. Most YouTubers who sincerely try to make a
| living from their content already do this. Or just disable
| adblock for a video or two.
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| When the discussion is based on "negative externalities" of
| individuals towards tenants who are already at the mercy of
| a non-negotiable relationship receiving an opaque and
| steadily decreasing cut of revenue, and when most tenants
| attempting to create have to rely on more than just ad
| revenue to keep creating, it seems to me that the more
| harmful actor in this scenario to tenants is the monopoly
| and not those who avoid ad revenue.
|
| It's not productive or in good faith discussion to flip the
| focus of an examination of negative externalities on those
| individuals avoiding ads once that is brought up, but
| again, the largest contributing problem actors are not what
| you care to talk about.
| willcipriano wrote:
| A significant percentage of what I watch on YouTube was
| uploaded by people who don't have rights to that content. For
| me, turnabout is fair play. YouTube can profit off of pirated
| content, and I can pirate YouTube.
|
| I use newpipe though.
| smukherjee19 wrote:
| Here's another angle: a LOT of common people out there don't
| even bother blocking ads, let alone even thinking about the
| possibility that it's possible to block ads without using
| Youtube Premium. They either:
|
| a) Live with ads, thinking that's the norm or not giving it
| much thought, or, b) Subscribe to Youtube Premium without
| considering the possibility of ways around it.
|
| So, realistically speaking, the probability of everyone
| starting to use Vance overnight is almost zero.
|
| I also used to feel the same: why can't people just use
| adblockers!? Then I realized that me and the type of people I
| normally interact with != the general public, atleast in terms
| of tech-savviness and/or curiousity.
| wbobeirne wrote:
| I agree it's unlikely, but it's a negative externality all
| the same. In general I try to minimize those. It's also
| highly dependent on the creator's viewer demographic, since
| the creator only gets paid for ads watched. A tech focused
| creator probably sees significantly less ad revenue than one
| with a more general audience.
| hutrdvnj wrote:
| I find it okay when you can click the ads away like it used to
| be for a long time, but now YouTube often forces you to watch
| the whole clip, sometimes even two.
| davyonhn wrote:
| For me, it's because I have multiple accounts and don't want to
| pay for Premium on all of them. For example: I pay for Premium
| on an account that I watch YouTube on every night. However, I
| don't want that account linked to my phone.
| 15characterslon wrote:
| Maybe you could use family sharing.
| https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7507744?hl=en
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| YT Premium is actually nice and lets me share with others who I
| consider "family". It strikes a nice balance at it's current
| price and policies. If those don't seem like a good deal
| anymore vanced (et. al.) here I come.
| polski-g wrote:
| I dislike Google's censorship. So I don't want them to make
| more money to engage in more censorship.
| mda wrote:
| Why don't you completely avoid its services then?
| kevingadd wrote:
| Personally, I pay for Premium but I also think everyone should
| run an ad-blocker on Google properties. I certainly do. It's at
| least nice if my premium sub gives 3 cents to the creators of
| the videos I watch since they wouldn't be getting ad money...
| wbobeirne wrote:
| That's personally where I fall as well, I pay for most sites
| I get a lot of value out of, but continue to run ad blockers.
| It's quite frustrating how many sites continue to show you
| ads even if you're a paid subscriber.
| disiplus wrote:
| i pay for youtube premium (i use spotify for music) just to not
| have ads, but now there are baked ads in videos, so im thinking
| about canceling my premium and just installing vanced because
| it has sponsorblock installed. im not even watching that much
| youtube, but i cannot stand ads.
| bdlowery wrote:
| Some people can't afford $12 a month, especially with that
| measly 150k tech salary. Really gotta start budgeting these
| days.
| Taway_vncd wrote:
| The internet was better before monetization. The profit motive
| has killed what made it great and promising. I wish everyone
| used ad blockers and everyone who's in it for the money would
| either charge upfront or stop producing. The good niche content
| that's made for love would still be there.
| wbobeirne wrote:
| I have mixed feelings about the monetization. I also like
| creations just for creations sake, but it'd be hard for me to
| argue that I haven't benefited from a lot of great content
| that wouldn't exist if people couldn't dedicate themselves
| full time to making it. A lot of people may say (and feel!)
| they'd do it just for the love of it, but reality can get in
| the way of that when you've got to make a living.
|
| That's not to say that there aren't better ways to make that
| living than ad revenue. I much prefer direct monetization.
| sullivanmatt wrote:
| Personally, I already pay for Google One, run my phone lines on
| Google Fi, and only use YouTube for an average of 15-20 minutes
| of content per day. Google Fi aside, surely somebody,
| somewhere, at Google can just bundle these things up and I can
| just pay a single monthly rate to be "in" the Google universe?
| I'm not paying $12/mo for something I barely use, to a company
| that I already give money to for a "premium" membership tier. I
| also don't have the time to check what crazy bundles Google is
| attempting to offer this month that will simply not exist next
| month. I am happy to pay for Google's services, but why do they
| feel the need to make that an actively hostile process?
| Teever wrote:
| Google profits through monetizing my personal information
| whether I want them to or not.
|
| There's no need to add insult to injury and pay them.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Personally, I rarely use YouTube so there's no way to justify
| paying for premium.
| ProAm wrote:
| For me its the gross level of targeted tracking. Google is
| essentially spyware at its roots. If paying for it stopped that
| it would be one thing, but its not.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > if everyone were to start using Vanced overnight, YouTube
| wouldn't be able to justify staying up indefinitely.
|
| I personally find categorical imperative arguments to be
| ridiculous. almost anything could be bad if everyone did them
| all the time.
|
| the reality is that adblocking, torrenting, and similar
| workarounds are used by a small subset of technically savvy
| users. most people just don't care enough to configure any of
| these tools (or even switch to a browser where they are on by
| default!). Google is not going to run out of ad revenue any
| time soon.
|
| I don't feel any obligation to allow Google to use my own
| device and internet connection to serve me ad content that I
| don't wish to see. Google doesn't seem to care very much
| either; the most they do is reorganize APIs every so often to
| break these kinds of workarounds. I'm not sure that's even
| intentional tbh. content creators have reacted by embedding ads
| in the content itself. this is usually more tolerable than the
| preroll ads, so I don't really mind.
|
| I do agree there is a cost to adblocking and torrenting, but
| it's not the one you identified. when I pay for content or view
| associated ads, I am voting for more of that type of content to
| exist in the future. when I don't pay or block ads, I am
| throwing away my vote. for most throwaway content, I don't
| really care. but I find a way to pay for stuff I _do_ care
| about, or at least disable adblock while I 'm consuming it.
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| >I personally find categorical imperative arguments to be
| ridiculous. almost anything could be bad if everyone did them
| all the time.
|
| Btw..... This is in good faith but...... If everyone started
| using electric cars at once, the traffic jam would be
| unimaginable!!!! To me, individuals aren't thinking of the
| negative externalities :(( (especially to private oil
| monopolies)
| BbzzbB wrote:
| Traffic jam? What kind of autonomy do you think modern EVs
| have? If you're gonna make a good faith argument about why
| we couldn't switch to 100% EV over night, talking about
| grids' capacities would be more genuine.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| I believe your parent poster was just poking fun at the
| "if everybody started to do X" construct. If all humans
| started to use EVs (or any other type of vehicles) at the
| same time, the traffic jams would indeed be horrific. At
| any given time perhaps <5% of people are on the roads, so
| how would you even fit 100% of people onto roads at the
| same time?
| BbzzbB wrote:
| Oh, didn't cross my mind. I think you are right and I
| probably misinterpreted the comment. My brain went
| straight to it being about running out of power and
| causing jams, probably because it was such a common fear
| with regards to EVs (and still is to an extent, CC Bill
| Gates and Porsche/Tesla in 2020).
|
| I'm sorry, GGP.
| arnaudsm wrote:
| This used to be true, but now that 30-40% of the web audience
| uses adblockers, a wake-up call is imminent.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| The wake-up call should be directed towards ad creators,
| not viewers. Ads slow down pages, clutter content,
| potentially inject malware, negatively emotionally
| manipulate the viewer, etc. I pay for two sites that I use
| daily so I don't see ads. Every single ad-serving site
| should have this option. My only fear is that Facebook,
| Twitter, et. al. cannot survive on a subscription amount
| alone. Our data and ad viewing is just too lucrative for
| them to stop.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| The absolute worst is malvertising.
|
| That was actually my #1 reason for using an ad blocker:
| to prevent ads from trying to exploit security
| vulnerabilities and hijacking my web browser. It's
| exceptionally rare, for sure, but I've had ads on
| legitimate web pages forward me to an advertising site
| with no input from me.
|
| These days, though, the web is god damn near unusable
| without an ad blocker, especially on mobile. So much
| bandwidth (That I'm PAYING for! Data isn't free!) is
| wasted on content I don't want. I've seen a page have TWO
| ad videos playing at once, taking up well over 40% of my
| screen.
|
| Advertisers can cry me a god damn river. If they didn't
| make ads so damn intrusive, I wouldn't need a blocker. I
| don't even care about trackers, at least they make my ads
| relevant so I'm not seeing ads for Tampax.
|
| Now if only there was an easy way to block the god damn
| "WE USE COOKIES!" alerts.
| AnyTimeTraveler wrote:
| YouTube Vanced also has experimental support for the
| SponsorBlock, which skips those sections of videos.
|
| You have to enable it manually and it works amazingly well.
| gtirloni wrote:
| If Youtube enabled an ad-free experience on a _per creator
| /channel basis_, would that be a good compromise for you?
| realusername wrote:
| I can answer since I'm also using Vanced.
|
| The core issue for me is that what YouTube provides isn't
| valuable enough by itself for a monthly payment.
|
| They don't produce their own content like Netflix, they are
| _at best_ a video distribution platform, I can pay to
| creators I watch via Patreon but to YouTube itself, that 's
| complicated, they would have to get a very low share of the
| creator revenue to start to feel convincing.
| bduerst wrote:
| What would that user experience look like? $0.50/mo per
| channel? $5/mo for all minecraft channels?
|
| Given the overhwelming negative response to how cable
| priced and bundled channels, and the simplicity that
| competitors like Netflix have, I'm not sure users would
| prefer that.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I don't feel any obligation to allow Google to use my own
| device and internet connection to serve me ad content that I
| don't wish to see.
|
| That's disingenuous because you're omitting the other half of
| the transaction: You are choosing, voluntarily, to consume
| the content that they are offering on their website. The
| implied arrangement is that you watch the ads (at least the
| first five seconds until the skip button appears) in exchange
| for them doing all the work of collecting, hosting, and
| delivering that content to you.
|
| Now obviously the financial value involved is de minimis in
| the case of a YouTube video, but nevertheless you're taking
| service and declining the payment.
|
| The actual offense is so vanishingly small that they
| basically don't care enough to do anything about it, but
| let's be honest about what's really happening here. They're
| not just sending ads to you for no reason without your
| consent.
| Moru wrote:
| There is a third party involved here. As an advertiser I do
| not want my ads shown for someone that don't want to see
| them, that is wasted money. Isn't that fraud, telling your
| fans to click/watch the ads because you make money for each
| click/watch? Adblockers save me money and lets me reach
| more people that matter.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| > The implied arrangement is that you watch the ads (at
| least the first five seconds until the skip button appears)
| in exchange for them doing all the work of collecting,
| hosting, and delivering that content to you.
|
| What if the delivered content is subpar?
|
| I have watched ads (ie paid with my attention).
|
| How do I get my money back?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "but nevertheless you're taking service and declining the
| payment"
|
| Those strong words would need a real, clear contract
| between google and the user.
|
| "We serve you a video and we track everything you do,
| allmost wherever you go online"
|
| I haven't seen it spelled out by google like this and
| surely this is genral knowledge around _here_ , but most
| people still don't have a clue about the general concept.
|
| In either case, even if the ads are blocked, you still pay
| with your data, by being tracked what you watch and when
| you watch it - and in combination with always online
| smartphone controlled by google - with whom you watch.
|
| In other words, if it would be only about ads or no ads and
| just the service, I would agree. But this is not the case,
| so I also have zero question about moral with this one. It
| is more about self defense of your attention.
|
| So yes, we need other payment models than advertisement.
| But I doubt this can come from google, no matter how much I
| would pay them, for a single service.
| okdood64 wrote:
| > So yes, we need other payment models than
| advertisement. But I doubt this can come from google, no
| matter how much I would pay them, for a single service.
|
| YouTube Premium
| hysan wrote:
| Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you still
| being tracked by Google even when using YouTube Premium?
| So while you not get ads, you are still paying an
| additional cost that is your data which is used for ads
| elsewhere.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Those who pay for Premium are highly valuable ad targets
| by definition.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| We have a lot of solutions for distribution of content.
| Because of youtube's stranglehold, content creators go
| there even if they're not monetizing for the exposure. I
| don't care about blocking youtube ads because they're an
| innovation stifling monopolist, and the amount the give
| back to creators is pretty garbage, while raking in stupid
| profits.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Google is so powerful they can basically mold their
| audience and is one of the most profitable companies in the
| world. I do not care if consumers want more control over
| their lives and do not wish to be propagandized by ads. Nor
| do I mind if they don't want to transfer more wealth to the
| fabulously wealthy.
|
| The transactional relationship morality being posited is
| more appropriate for relatively equal parties, or for the
| stronger party to give the the weaker party. For the weaker
| parties to owe stringent obligations to the cosmically
| stronger party creates a positive feedback loop of
| oppression. You might reply, but that's how the economy
| works. You have now advanced one step in your
| understanding.
| delgaudm wrote:
| And for whatever it's worth, it hurts the person who
| uploads the video. YouTube represents a portion of my
| income, and it making less makes it harder to justify
| uploading videos.
|
| I don't like the ads either, so I pay for YT Premium. I
| want to support the creators that I watch, and I don't want
| to suffer ads.
|
| That I get YT music included and save on not having to
| subscribe to Spotify is a little bonus.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| Is it truly voluntary when everything you want to watch is
| only available on youtube? there's no way for an individual
| to pay or do anything for an alternative option.
| mertd wrote:
| There is a way to pay as the parent mentions: YouTube
| premium.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > You are choosing, voluntarily, to consume the content
| that they are offering on their website.
|
| And they are choosing, voluntarily, to serve you videos
| unbundled from advertisements.
| nomel wrote:
| My assumption is that it's less of a monetary loss for
| them to serve the ads unbundled compared to putting the
| engineering resources behind bundling them. They,
| obviously, have the _exact_ numbers readily available,
| and I assume the "money lost" lines will cross
| eventually.
|
| Regardless, there is a loss, and they'll respond to it
| when it becomes significant enough.
|
| edit: uBlock Origin has over 10,000,000 users, according
| to the chrome web store. I can only imagine something
| will change soon, or there's some serious technical debt
| holding things back.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > My assumption is that it's less of a monetary loss for
| them to serve the ads unbundled compared to putting the
| engineering resources behind bundling them.
|
| Yes, just like it's less of a monetary loss for you to
| install an ad blocker than subscribe to YouTube Premium!
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| As long as Google put something on the web that can be
| accessed using standard HTTP calls, there's no obligation
| on anyone's side to use the way of consuming that is most
| convenient for Google. If Google want to control it, they
| can sell CDs, embed ads inside a video or similar. Or just
| get of the web. But using HTTP on the internet the way it's
| intended to be used is totally ok.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I don't know what to tell you other than I simply don't
| agree. at a high level, the YouTube website is a wrapper
| for endpoints that serve ads and endpoints that serve
| content. nowhere in the flow of clicking a video from the
| homepage and watching it does there appear any language
| saying that I need to hit both sets of endpoints to use the
| service at all. they merely make it inconvenient not to do
| so.
|
| this is essentially a rehash of the "what constitutes
| unauthorized access to unsecured resources?" debate. my
| personal opinion is that access cannot be unauthorized when
| the authN/authZ mechanism does not exist at all. others may
| disagree.
| gtirloni wrote:
| _> this is essentially a rehash of the "what constitutes
| unauthorized access to unsecured resources?" debate_
|
| Youtube's Terms of Service[0] specifically say:
|
| ```
|
| The following restrictions apply to your use of the
| Service. You are not allowed to:
|
| ...
|
| 2. circumvent, disable, fraudulently engage with, or
| otherwise interfere with any part of the Service (or
| attempt to do any of these things), including security-
| related features or features that (a) prevent or restrict
| the copying or other use of Content or (b) limit the use
| of the Service or Content;
|
| ```
|
| It's not a matter of "disagreeing" on what is allowed or
| not. If you don't agree with the ToS, you're free to not
| use the service. Let's not fool ourselves here.
|
| 0 - https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms
| getcrunk wrote:
| Irrespective of the larger argument; I mean many TOS are
| unethical and/or shouldn't carry moral weight. If it was
| one company sure, don't use it. But the majority of
| companies (web or otherwise) have excessive and dense TOS
| to which the average person cannot give informed consent
| to anyways.
|
| Let's not fool ourselves here
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| Since at no point in time am I forced to read nor agree
| to those terms, I don't think they can be used as an
| argument.
| TedLePoireau wrote:
| I too use an ad blocker, download torrents etc. but I
| really dislike when we ("tech savvy people") suddenly
| feign to ignore the rules of society and start to use the
| same arguments as line cutters, shoplifters, or any non-
| disabled who park on a disabled spot. This is just
| misbehaving guys, stop trying to find a silly defense.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > That's disingenuous because you're omitting the other
| half of the transaction: You are choosing, voluntarily, to
| consume the content that they are offering on their
| website. The implied arrangement is that you watch the ads
| (at least the first five seconds until the skip button
| appears) in exchange for them doing all the work of
| collecting, hosting, and delivering that content to you.
|
| Yet Google, like Microsoft back in the day when piracy of
| Windows was rampant, would rather adblock users still use
| their site. They have the means to make it close-to
| impossible to watch YouTube with an adblocker, but they
| chose not to.
|
| Clearly they believe that adblock users still provide net-
| positive value to them.
| matt74827289 wrote:
| Physical stores have the means to make it close-to
| impossible to shoplift goods from their store by
| investing in security, but they chose not to.
|
| Clearly they believe that shoplifters still provide net-
| positive value to them.
|
| Which is obviously bs, just because they don't stop you
| from doing it doesn't make it a net positive from them.
| It could just as likely mean that the time and effort to
| stop it is more expensive than the losses they would
| incur.
|
| They are offering you a service with two options to pay
| for the service. Either by watching ads or paying a
| subscription. You are choosing to consume the content
| without paying.
| ineptech wrote:
| This might be the right model if web media were an ideal
| marketplace, with a variety of competing options to choose
| from.
|
| That's clearly not the case. A better model is that Google
| has tried to limit your options to "either do business with
| us or don't watch popular media", with only partial success
| because a lot of people don't like either option. I think
| the truth of this model is betrayed by the fact that Google
| has not (yet) embedded the ad in to the same video stream
| as the content. They have not really tried to out-block
| ublock because they'd rather you steal youtube videos than
| support a different platform.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| Isn't the reason simply that reencoding would cost more
| than the loss of revenue from blocking?
| vdsk wrote:
| I am already paying google enough with my personal information.
| They will not extract more value from me without putting at
| least a fight. I completely understand why people would pay,
| especially if there is no other option to not get ads, but I
| don't want to pay Google any cents for a service they would be
| happy to provide for free for influence. It has negative
| externalities (Google "lose" money and free video is... un-
| impacted in the long run) but I value those infinitely less
| than my attention span.
| mminer237 wrote:
| If you don't view any ads, Google doesn't make any money off
| your personal information. Essentially all data collecting
| only exists to tailor specific ads to people they think will
| find them relevant so they can justify charging more for
| them.
| vdsk wrote:
| Sure, but they are still collecting anyway despite them
| having been unable to put an ad in front of my eyes for
| several years now. I understand they are probably just
| doing it "in case of", but the more paranoid part of myself
| is wondering if that's all there is.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| "YouTube premium is not available in your country."
| EarlKing wrote:
| Because Google regards us as a resource to be exploited and
| we're just returning the favor? Class warfare really sucks when
| you're on the wrong end of it, huh?
| TheNewAndy wrote:
| I used to have no adblockers on anything, and I was fine with
| it. Then I had kids, and I wasn't really comfortable with
| bringing them up in an environment where when you tell a
| computer to do one thing ("Play this video") it does a
| different thing ("I will do that, but not before I do what I
| want to do"). There are a few websites that have ad supported
| videos that I am ok with my kids watching, and putting uBlock
| Origin on the computers means that when I tell my computer to
| play videos from those sites, I know that it is going to do
| just that, and I won't have my kids being manipulated by stuff
| they don't understand.
|
| Ads in software are just a case of a computer not doing what
| you have asked it to do. It has always been ok to ignore ads -
| putting them on computers does not make them special in any
| way.
|
| This is just my parenting, and I can imagine that other people
| want their children to value other things - and I might change
| things as they get older so they can understand how the ads
| work. Right now, they are not ready for that.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Yeah, Alexa in South Park: Post COVID is quite a dystopian
| demonstration of that.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| I feel content on the internet was free for so long, people
| just feel entitled to it. Now everyone is anti-ad, with most
| not being able to support an argument as to why targeted ads
| are bad (like any human at Google cares how user 1839028934
| watches vtubers for 8 hours a day), but they still feel
| entitled to consume content for free.
| k12sosse wrote:
| It's weird that people just think because it's available over
| the Internet it should be free because "this isn't how it
| worked in 1993".
|
| Would love to see what would happen if YouTube went behind a
| paywall - even a low figure like $1.99 a month to view
| anything at all.
|
| How would this change consumption habits, how would this
| change producing habits.
| autoexec wrote:
| > It's weird that people just think because it's available
| over the Internet it should be free because "this isn't how
| it worked in 1993".
|
| The idea is older than the 1993.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free
|
| when it comes to the vast majority of the content on
| youtube, it was created by someone other than google with
| the expectation that it would be free.
|
| There is now an expectation that people should be able to
| find and listen to any song they want on youtube (to a
| lesser extent movies and TV shows too), but that has less
| to do with how people feel about the internet and more
| about our broken copyright system and that most of that
| content used to be broadcast to the public.
|
| If youtube were behind a paywall most people wouldn't spend
| as much time (if any) watching youtube videos and far fewer
| people would bother creating content for it. That'd be a
| losing situation for Google since they need the public's
| eyes on ads and a steady stream of data to mine from both
| content creators and viewers.
| SlavikCA wrote:
| That would be great: that would open the door to
| possibility (viability) of YouTube competitor
| mkdirp wrote:
| On average only 3 pieces of information are needed to
| identify a person. Sure you're person 1234567890, but all the
| information linked to that user can find out exactly who that
| person is.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| So? If your issue is government surveillance, take it up
| with them, get a law created so they can't look at it. If
| it's the company, they truly don't care who you are, you
| truly are 1234567890 to them. If that, it's unlikely a
| human being will ever actually look at your data.
| Krasnol wrote:
| Why would a "human" need to care? The algorithms which do
| things with your data you don't know are far worse.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >The algorithms which do things with your data you don't
| know are far worse.
|
| I'd love an example.
| Krasnol wrote:
| Credit scores, racial profiling and other data based
| discriminations
| lelandbatey wrote:
| > "They're still entitled to consume content for free."
|
| YouTube et al. _are_ free. That 's the whole point! The only
| reason anyone uses them is because they are free, as in free
| beer. If I crack open an incognito tab and go to YouTube,
| they serve me a page of videos, I click on one, and it starts
| playing. I didn't agree to anything, I never said "oh, but I
| agree I'll watch the ads/let the ads play/download the ads"
| in order to be allowed to watch the YouTube video. (armchair
| lawyers will make murmurs about "Terms of Service" and "End
| User License Agreements", which may in some cases technically
| be true in a legalese sense, but are clear cases of trying to
| weasel out of what's right in front of our faces, which is
| that these platforms are _free_ ).
|
| YouTubes business model _is to give things away for free_ and
| HOPE that they can advertise to you enough that it will be
| worth it. This is, in general, the business model of "the
| internet". The thing is, we've been at it for so long, that
| _the businesses folks are starting to become entitled._ It 's
| been 25+ years and so many people have gotten in on this game
| (low level content creators are quite numerous) that now the
| opinion of the tastemakers is shifting to one of "yeah I am
| entitled to get paid for my work, and since I get paid when
| people look at the ads I facilitate, I am thusly entitled to
| have my audience look at my ads so I can get paid." It's a
| train of thought that seems to make sense, but all the
| creators are forgetting that that's not how their business
| model _actually_ works, and that 's not the deal any of us in
| any conscious way have agreed to.
|
| I have a story I wrote a while ago that I feel captures what
| we're seeing with business people becoming entitled to owning
| our eyeballs, devices, and attention:
|
| ----------
|
| By 2027 we live in a world were in every town there's a pizza
| place with a huge sign atop reading "FREE PIZZA". You park
| your car and queue in line for the order window; when your
| time comes you ask for a pepperoni pizza and you're handed a
| pepperoni pizza, no cash required. However, you're also
| handed a 3 inch thick stack of flyers advertising for random
| business and schemes. Well, you didn't ask for a phone books
| worth of paper, so you move to throw them into the garbage.
| Before you can you're stopped by an employee who gasps "what
| are you doing?!"
|
| As though in answer to a question like 'why are you
| breathing', you reply "I'm throwing away these extra papers;
| they're very heavy."
|
| "But don't you know that if people throw away the
| advertisements, we can't afford to give away the pizza?"
| moans the employee.
|
| Feeling irritated, you respond "Well, it's my pizza now so
| I'm going to throw these away." You do, and with that you
| walk to your car and drive home.
|
| The frustrated employee would, by 2030, move to management,
| where the business would seek to have customers sign papers
| saying that they can be hand-fed pizza by restaurant staff as
| long as that customer agrees, under penalty of death and
| enforced by on-site police, to sit with their eyes held open
| and stare into monitors showing advertisements on loop. Later
| in 2035, this nameless employee would receive a promotion to
| VP after coordinating a team of lawyers who successfully
| lobbied the US congress to legislate allowing the term "FREE
| PIZZA" to describe the process of "contractually and
| punitively enforced assisted hand-feeding in panoptic
| advertising environments".
|
| Meanwhile in 2028, Europe would rule in favor of selling
| Pizza for $2 a slice.
| Pooge wrote:
| Worth pointing out that there would be no place _selling_
| pizza anymore. Why buy one when you can eat (and read) for
| free?! It wouldn 't be a bright world, but the web nowadays
| isn't bright. Man it makes me sad.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Sounds like a typical timeshare pitch.
| bmicraft wrote:
| You have put very well how I've felt about all this for a
| long time now
| Pooge wrote:
| > Now everyone is anti-ad
|
| I became anti-ad. I absolutely cannot browse the web normally
| without having uBlock Origin installed. Websites that place
| intrusive ads are responsible for this.
|
| > they still feel entitled to consume content for free
|
| Yes, and I agree with you. But even if YouTube became a paid
| service, Google would still find a way to track you and
| continue its shady privacy practices. There's some
| entitlement, but there's definitely some principles at work,
| too. YouTube is the last Google service that I use (beside
| Android...), and the earlier it implodes the better.
|
| My mother told me about ads on Snapchat and I asked her:
| "Would you be willing to pay $2/months to not get any ads?".
| The answer is obviously "No".
|
| We can all agree the web would be a more sustainable place if
| services were paid, but as you said: now we feel entitled to
| it.
| bmicraft wrote:
| The real problem with ads is that you have to pay vastly
| more to remove them through a subscription (where it is
| even possible) than the revenue they would have brought.
| Pooge wrote:
| If every Snapchat user paid $2/month, wouldn't Snapchat
| have decent revenue? For some service the infrastructure
| might cost a lot, but I don't think it applies to
| Snapchat (it's a very "ephemeral" photo-sharing platform,
| after all).
|
| Another way would be to charge for every photo you
| upload. Those that share more pay more, which would make
| sense.
| bduerst wrote:
| That's because the demand for subscription content is
| magnitudes less than ad-subsidized free content.
|
| Even if you made a hybrid model, the content isn't that
| interchangeable. The type of customer who pays for a
| subscription is going to consume vastly different content
| than the freemium customer.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > the demand for subscription content is magnitudes less
| than ad-subsidized free content.
|
| A lot of ad-subsidized content only "works" because by
| the time the user realizes that the content is subpar
| it's already too late and they've "paid" and can't take
| their money back.
|
| This wouldn't work in a scenario where an explicit action
| needs to be taken (to agree to pay a fee) before
| consuming the content, and/or where due to
| laws/regulation the customer has the possibility to
| demand their money back if they've been misled.
|
| The truth is that a lot of content on the internet isn't
| worth paying for.
| jlpom wrote:
| Few are against targeted ads but rather data collection.
| jraph wrote:
| > most not being able to support an argument as to why
| targeted ads are bad (like any human at Google cares how user
| 1839028934 watches vtubers for 8 hours a day)
|
| That's just small pieces of data about you, adding up, that
| can be requested by potential future governments which turned
| into totalitarianism.
|
| The less data about us stored somewhere, the safer.
|
| This is what is fundamentally wrong with the "targeted" part
| in "targeted ads".
| generalizations wrote:
| This feels like a really condescending take on the people you
| disagree with. Why do you assume it's entitlement? Netflix
| thrives because they're worth paying for.
|
| People have the right to not be watched, no matter how
| "anonymous" it is. Why do you have a problem with that?
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| You can, today, pay for youtube premium and receive an ad
| free viewing experience.
|
| >Why do you have a problem with that?
|
| Why do you have the problem with simply paying? Or simply
| not using any websites that have ads? Speak with you
| 'wallet' (in this case, view impression) if you will.
| kelnos wrote:
| I believe all advertising is emotional and mental
| manipulation, and I feel it is unethical to subject people to
| that.
|
| Targeted ads are a) that same manipulation but on steroids,
| and b) the result of privacy-damaging, pervasive,
| surveillance capitalism. I am against these things as a
| matter of principle.
|
| For the record, I do pay for YouTube Premium, as well as the
| ad-free Hulu plan (rather than the ad-supported plan), etc.
| If I am given the option to pay to remove ads, for a price I
| consider reasonable based on the value I get, I will pay it.
| Most websites, however, either do not present this option at
| all, or require something ridiculous like a $20/mo
| subscription when the perceived value I get from it is an
| order of magnitude lower.
|
| I recently clicked a link to an article at The Guardian, and,
| in their bid for donations, told me that this was the 18th
| article I've read in the past year. I wish more sites would
| do this, but I believe that my consumption of any particular
| news source is similar to that. I am certainly not going to
| pay for a double-digit monthly subscription for any site
| where I read just 2 (or even 5 or 10) articles per month;
| that does not feel like a fair exchange to me. I would be
| fine paying for articles a la carte (say, 5 or 10 cents
| each), but of course micropayments seems to be a dead concept
| these days (for reasons I understand and sympathize with).
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Sponsorblock integration is a huge one.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Funny how people want content but don't want to support content
| creators via ads or paying for YouTube Premium.
|
| The internet in a nutshell. Ironically if people weren't so
| avoidant of paying for digital content, ads, and the subsequent
| tracking, would've never emerged.
| Taway_vncd wrote:
| There was a time before ads on the internet, and there was
| content there. Great content even. I would love to see what
| people create when they do it just because they want to, on
| their own terms and their own time, rather than chasing what
| will be self-sustainable or profitable.
|
| This still exists in some places. Archive of Our Own is a great
| example. SCP is another. Wikipedia and StackOverflow too, for
| this website's audience... Or this website, indeed
| efdee wrote:
| Is that so, though? I've often read (but sadly cannot reproduce
| links at this point) that ad revenue is a multiple of
| subscription revenue - meaning a paying subscriber is worth a
| lot less than a non-paying-but-ad-watching subscriber.
|
| Maybe if ads were somehow banned and services would only exist
| on a subscription driven basis, we'd have have more content
| worth buying and less clickbaity stuff.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > Maybe if ads were somehow banned and services would only
| exist on a subscription driven basis, we'd have have more
| content worth buying and less clickbaity stuff.
|
| Why ban ads though? Fundamentally after you encounter a site
| that has ads once you can simply choose not to go back if the
| content isn't good enough to justify seeing the ads, right?
|
| Generally people like the content but don't want the ads and
| aren't willing to pay for subscription. News sites are the
| best examples of this.
| BipolarCapybara wrote:
| Didn't the ads model emerge in part because in the early days
| it was really hard to pay for online services?
| sdoering wrote:
| That might have been a reason. But ads were a known way of
| monetization. Long before the internet. And in the early
| days, before it grew to become its own thing old models were
| just done in the new medium.
|
| Like newspapers. They had ads. So also had their digital
| versions. And hey. It was a fad. It would pass. A lot of
| execs did not take it seriously.
|
| Why invest in a payment system for these few strange people
| online.
| bduerst wrote:
| Maybe. If you look at the mobile app industry, which emerged
| when it _was_ easier to pay for services, you still have a
| glut of demand for free or $0.99 apps.
| Shared404 wrote:
| I do pay creators - through Patreon or buying music or merch.
|
| I won't be forced to watch ads or use a UI I dislike though.
| russdpale wrote:
| What I find more funny is that everyone expects to be paid for
| their content. 95% of the content out there is not worth paying
| for.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| I pay for YouTube Premium, it is the single best streaming
| subscription could I pay for (in general, dollar for dollar,
| etc) and it's not even a close call. As someone who watches a
| lot of recurring creator content & a few dozen household /
| automotive DIY videos per week on mobile + desktop + set top
| box I cannot see myself reentering an ad-supported YouTube or
| playing the ad blocker game.
|
| However, YouTube content goes through waves, at the moment
| burnt-in ads are pretty significant in longer form content and
| fairly annoying to skip through. This might get way worse and
| it's not the fault of pirates, YouTube policy or as simple as
| content creator greed (unless they are shilling a scam I
| suppose). I predict in the coming years we'll start to see some
| creators making noise about Premium's payouts changing or being
| unfair, not unlike the ongoing conversation about Spotify and
| other music services.
| JSavageOne wrote:
| The best way to support creators actually is to support them
| directly. Youtube takes half the ad revenue, and ad revenue
| generally doesn't pay much anyways.
| Drew_ wrote:
| Creators presumably receive more from YouTube Premium viewers
| though I haven't seen any specific details on the revenue
| split. Either way, lets not pretend that any ad block user
| tips every single YouTuber they view.
| endisneigh wrote:
| If this were actually true creators would have paywalls.
|
| Fact of the matter is that YouTube and the visibility
| benefits the average creator tremendously. Only once you're
| super popular like joe Rogan are you in a position to do
| better by yourself.
| notum wrote:
| This is true and creators use the system because it's the
| best exposure to profit ratio offered at the moment.
|
| One fact does not nullify the other. I'm still allowed to
| hate ads while I support content creators.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Many creators do a two-tier system where they release some
| free stuff and offer a paid Patreon or whatever.
|
| It's not any different than game demos.
| bdlowery wrote:
| This is why if you develop software, you should develop it for
| Mac. People who own a Mac will actually pay for your software
| willingly. Example: https://cleanshot.com/
|
| If he made this exclusively for Windows no one would have paid
| for it. But since he's made it for Mac, he's racked in hundreds
| of thousands of dollars.
| wvenable wrote:
| Almost all the content I watch has embedded sponsor ads anyway.
| ncann wrote:
| Vanced is awesome, except for the fact that they broke casting to
| my TV a while ago so I had to downgrade to an older version and
| hasn't updated for a while. Not sure if they fixed it now.
|
| Also I tried to find something similar to put on my iPad and my
| god it's annoying. iOS allows you to sideload app if you have a
| dev cert (not too sure on the details) but you have to renew the
| cert every 7 days or so, so you need to keep a server app running
| in the network to automatically renew the cert for you.
| luke2m wrote:
| https://github.com/akemin-dayo/AppSync
| [deleted]
| branon wrote:
| This is nonfree, I've used it and found it a little ostentatious
| for my taste.
|
| NewPipe is open-source and the interface makes more sense to me.
|
| I think Vanced preserves Chromecast compatibility (correct me if
| I'm wrong) which NewPipe can't do.
| russdpale wrote:
| Nah, no more casting in vance, which kind of killed its main
| use for me. It's not their fault, its the microG package
| maintainers that don't want to do it. I guess the new casting
| protocols aren't worth it.
| lenova wrote:
| I love Vanced! The only downside is that it's not able to avoid
| ads when casting to Chromecast.
|
| SkyTube is a minimalistic Youtube Android client that can avoid
| ads when casting: https://github.com/SkyTubeTeam/SkyTube
|
| For those of you using Android TV, I highly recommend
| SmartTubeNext, a Youtube client with no ads, and includes
| SponsorBlock[1]: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext
|
| [1] https://sponsor.ajay.app
| koshergweilo wrote:
| Thanks for the link! I was about to ask.
| abracadaniel wrote:
| I was just looking at this project, and I'm surprised by the
| lack of homebrew streaming boxes. I find it pretty amazing that
| the only way to block ads on a streaming box is to use a google
| product. There doesn't seem to be any attempts to root a Roku
| or create an open ecosystem for streaming apps.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Ive thought about this too but I think its just because it's
| so trivial with raspberry Pi's. When I think about it, I
| can't imagine what a homebrew box could offer to someone
| whose already decided they don't want a Chromecast or Roku.
| Maybe a remote?
|
| I know there are some minimally sketchy kodi like distro
| images out there, I forgot their names at the moment..
| luke2m wrote:
| > allows you to play videos in the background This feature is why
| I use Vanced
| bdlowery wrote:
| Me too. That's why I pay $12 for YouTube premium. That's like,
| what, 30 cents a day per month?
|
| Paying for things is not hard.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I have a problem with paying for something that has been a
| basic capability of every computer made in the last 20 years.
|
| Not to mention, the obvious issue that paying for YT Premium
| requires you to provide valid personal details to Google (for
| payment processing) and remain logged in. That's way more
| tracking potential compared to Vanced/NewPipe/Invidious/etc.
| oschvr wrote:
| > paying for things is not hard
|
| Except when you don't have a money allocation for a premium
| service
| bdlowery wrote:
| The vast majority of people browsing hacker news are in the
| tech industry, not high school kids with no money.
| okl wrote:
| NewPipe can do that as well.
| suketk wrote:
| Feature request: add an option to hide the feed.
|
| I can do this on desktop with browser extensions, but there's no
| equivalent solution on mobile.
| ajot wrote:
| NewPipe let's you customize the UI, so you can have playlists,
| feed, channels, history or some other options when you open the
| app.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I prefer Newpipe since it's FOSS.
|
| https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/releases
|
| Vanced appears to be a cracked/modified version of the official
| YouTube app.
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