[HN Gopher] YouTube is now blocking Ad Blockers - So I just make...
___________________________________________________________________
YouTube is now blocking Ad Blockers - So I just make ads run 16x
faster
Author : znpy
Score : 208 points
Date : 2023-11-23 21:33 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| colesantiago wrote:
| Does YouTube work without JS? This might be one way to avoid ads
| as well as a network wide Pi Hole.
|
| I hate it when YouTube / Google needs to exploit everyone's data
| and privacy in order to make money.
| rollcat wrote:
| Does anything at all run without JS these days? I swear all I
| wanted was to read a blog post, and it loaded more megabytes of
| JS than the text and pictures combined.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| One example that comes to mind is Kagi.
|
| They makes it a design point that Kagi should work even
| without javascript enabled.
| lagrange77 wrote:
| > Pi Hole
|
| They serve the ads from the same domain, as the site itself.
| colesantiago wrote:
| Surely it's possible to block the paths to the ad on the site
| itself.
| mirashii wrote:
| Not with DNS blocking, which is what the pihole is
| kuroguro wrote:
| Pi Hole just blocks on DNS level, I believe.
| Salgat wrote:
| The problem is that it will refuse to play content if it
| can't play the ad.
| tiagod wrote:
| Pihole is only intercepting DNS resolve requests. Those
| only resolve the domain itself. If they don't use a
| different domain to serve ads, then it can't be blocked
| that way.
| potatopatch wrote:
| Good thing the whole site is a bug, though I rarely end up on
| YT by accident since videos are marked in web etiquette.
|
| For twitter.com a filter option here on HN would be nice but
| a domain blocker might do.
| recursive wrote:
| Not even close.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38327017 same idea, but open
| sourced.
| rKarpinski wrote:
| Thanks for the shoutout :)
|
| Got a pr about increasing the speed to 16x wonder if it's same
| person. I only set the ad speed for 10x, since it can access
| the skip button and do button.click() if there are longer adds.
|
| https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ad-accelerator/gpbo...
|
| I was also surprised most of the downloads are from Japan
| dudul wrote:
| I got to say this arm race is interesting to watch.
|
| I wonder if we'll reach a point where YT asks viewers to pass a
| captcha at the end of an ad to prove that they watched it before
| getting back to their video.
| hervature wrote:
| Q: When Bob greeted Alice at the door, what purse did Alice
| have?
|
| A: Louis Vuitton
| LoganDark wrote:
| > I wonder if we'll reach a point where YT asks viewers to pass
| a captcha at the end of an ad to prove that they watched it
| before getting back to their video.
|
| GPT-4 has entered the chat
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| It still gets them wrong a lot of the time
| LoganDark wrote:
| So do people.
| xattt wrote:
| _"Please proceed to purchase the item being advertised in order
| to continue watching."_
| jfim wrote:
| They already do a poll thing where they ask "which of the
| following brands have you seen ads for recently?"
| tiagod wrote:
| I had no idea, ublock is still doing a decent job... But I
| get those prompts on Waze when stopped at red lights and it's
| super annoying!
| kenhwang wrote:
| I built the industry first version of that product :)
|
| Fun way to screw with Google is to pick the worst answer
| (haven't seen any of the products, worse impression of the
| brand, etc).
|
| Advertisers are starting to try to measure advertising
| effectiveness (did the user actually see our ad and like our
| product) instead of easily game-able metrics (impressions,
| time on screen, click through).
|
| However, we found that poor ad experiences would result in
| poor metrics. Advertisers really don't like it when they
| spend millions of dollars in advertising to get a report that
| says "your target demographic is less likely to consider your
| product now after seeing your ads".
| professoretc wrote:
| Please drink verification can.
| socceroos wrote:
| A classic. It was such a joke back in the SA/Slashdot days. I
| feel like we've come a long way...into the pit...since then.
| Prickle wrote:
| A decent amount of that meme has come true. At least, in
| the sense of printer ink.
| maxglute wrote:
| I'm waiting for the end game where AI processes a native
| instance of the desktop and outputs a modified desktop
| according to criteria. Ads can be displayed and playing in the
| background but they get swapped by random gifs to fill time,
| dark ui patterns get identified and highlighted. Everything
| gets post processed sanitized on the final disaply layer with
| no interaction to the outside.
| AeroNotix wrote:
| I'd rather just let the AI watch the video at that point and
| go play with my kids.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| Hopefully the AIs learn to pass captchas soon. I've tested gpt4
| and it still gets them wrong a lot of the time.
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| Yep, I have been doing this for a very long time as well. Works
| like a charm.
| Twid3 wrote:
| Youtube still works as normal (no ads, no problems) for me with
| the latest Firefox and uBlock Origin.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Same here (I also use EFF Privacy Badger though). Also not
| getting ads with Chromium and uBlock Origin.
|
| Could this be a country-specific thing?
| 13415 wrote:
| I suspect that, too. I got two weeks of anti-ad blockers that
| required refreshing uBlock Origin. Then all anti-adblock
| messages stopped. Maybe Portugal has low priority. As far as
| I can see, practically no one will pay for Youtube Premium
| here.
| kuroguro wrote:
| I sometimes get blocked but refreshing the ads and quickfixes
| lists on ublock solves it every time
| underseacables wrote:
| Since Firefox is apparently going to follow google with
| blocking ad blocks, do you have any thoughts of what browser
| you might move to next?
|
| _Firefox said it will adopt Manifest V3 in the interest of
| cross-browser compatibility._
|
| https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/11/chrome-pushes...
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| They adopt manifest v3 in addition to their current APIs. I.e
| adblockers on Firefox are going nowhere.
| acover wrote:
| Having v3 is good, but only having v3 is bad. Is Firefox
| removing v2 support?
| bc_programming wrote:
| Firefox's implementation of Manifest V3 will work with
| software like ad blockers as it does not have the same
| limitations imposed on the browser side.
| FpUser wrote:
| Does not "block blockers" for me. Hopefully stays this way or I
| am out of it
| charcircuit wrote:
| Or you could get youtube premium and not have to bother with a
| bookmarklet
| willsmith72 wrote:
| The only times I've put up with ads so far is when casting to my
| TV.
|
| I don't mind the ad recommendations on home and after a video,
| but having to watch an extended ad or 2 before a video, and
| continuosly throughout the video, is enough for me to get off
| YouTube as an entertainment platform.
|
| Still useful for tutorials, but that much advertising makes the
| experience completely unenjoyable. Doubly so if the ad has to be
| "skipped" or else will run for 3 minutes, and I'm in the middle
| of something with hands occupied (cooking, working out...)
| thallium205 wrote:
| You can pay to turn off ads. There I saved YouTube as an
| entertainment platform for you.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| im good. for entertainment SoundCloud and netflix are good
| enough, youtube just makes good recommendations. not worth
| >$100/year
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| It's like $16/month which is insane
| namtab00 wrote:
| Am in the same place... I consume YouTube on my SmartTv (native
| app on LG WebOS).
|
| Am contemplating buying a Chromecast with Google TV, and
| installing SmartTubeNext on it, just so I can escape the ad
| barrage: - 2 ads on video start, unskippable - multiple (at
| least 2) 2 ad breaks during even a 10 minute video, almost
| always unskippable.
|
| And the worst thing? It's the same 5-10 ads that you get!...
| they rotate in and out on a weekly basis, but the sensation is
| you see the same frickin ones over and over again! I don't work
| in marketing, but if I ever get to speak to someone who does,
| I'll definitely tell them that repeatedly seeing your ad will
| definitely put me off your client's product, even if it is the
| best choice on the market.
|
| I already own a Chromecast Ultra, but it sits unused for more
| than a year now.
|
| I'll never get YouTube Premium. I (maybe) can afford it, but
| it's too much for what I get in return.
| hbn wrote:
| I don't get why people have no problem paying for Netflix, Hulu,
| Disney+, etc but are so stubborn about YouTube in particular,
| when myself and I know many others watch more YouTube than any
| streaming service.
|
| Even when ad blocking extensions work, it's only for browsers. If
| you're on Android you can install hacky modified apks, but
| YouTube breaks them every once in a while and then you're waiting
| for an update and having to go through some patching process
| again (I have to do this with YouTube Vanced to watch YouTube on
| the cheap Kindle Fire I use exclusively for YouTube in bed). If
| you're watching on a smart TV YouTube app or Apple TV or
| something... I assume there's options, but you're again gonna be
| wasting so much time on maintenance and keeping things up to date
| in the ad-blocking arms race, I'd rather just pay. And I don't
| know why anyone should expect YouTube to be infinitely ad-free
| and payment-free forever. All that storage and data transfer
| ain't free.
|
| Far from it that I'll defend Google, but I don't know what's so
| special about YouTube where it's the one service people use more
| than anything else they pay for, but they won't pay for it.
| xnx wrote:
| Even with YouTube Premium, many YouTube videos contain
| sponsorship messages within the video. I know they're there for
| reasons, but having two types of advertising does make YouTube
| different than Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ etc.
| hbn wrote:
| YouTube isn't paying for server costs with the $0 they make
| on ad reads that go from the sponsor directly to the creator.
|
| You can just tap right on your keyboard a few times to get
| past those anyway.
| recursive wrote:
| Netflix definitely has some "placed" products in some movies.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| One of the episodes of Stranger Things took like a one-
| minute break to do a soda ad. Probably the most jarring and
| disruptive "produce placement" (but really, it was more of
| an embedded ad) that I've seen.
| tiew9Vii wrote:
| I'm with you. I get a lot of value out of YouTube, mostly
| consume though the TV app. I pay for YouTube premium.
|
| What is really annoying is the mobile app. The mobile app is
| constantly pushing shorts on me, I have no interest, that's not
| why I use YouTube and if I only used the mobile app I don't
| think I'd pay and instead use YouTube less. The mobile app Home
| Screen is junk content for me now where as the TV app brings
| relevant longer content...although they are sneaking in one or
| two shorts.
| weebull wrote:
| Netflix invests in content creation, as do other streaming
| platforms. YouTube piggybacks it's business on amateurs,
| largely paying them with "exposure" and some fractions of a
| cent per view.
| cesarb wrote:
| > I don't get why people have no problem paying for Netflix,
| Hulu, Disney+, etc but are so stubborn about YouTube in
| particular, when myself and I know many others watch more
| YouTube than any streaming service.
|
| I never used any of these platforms, but I can guess the
| reason: these platforms were always paid, which sets the
| expectation that one has to pay to get access to them. YouTube,
| on the other hand, has for a very long time been available as
| non-paid (and even logging in is optional, with rare
| exceptions). Furthermore, YouTube has for a very long time
| worked even when the user has an ad blocker installed and
| enabled (few people customize their ad blocker; if they
| installed it because they were annoyed with DoubleClick
| animated ads, or with DoubleClick tracking their every move
| across the whole web, they won't care what else the default
| lists of their ad blocker blocks). People are used to viewing
| YouTube without having to pay, and if they use ad blockers,
| without ads (and people who are not used to viewing ads are
| going to be _more_ annoyed at excessive ads then people who are
| already used to watching some ads). It 's natural to feel some
| anger at the other party altering the deal, and having to pray
| they don't alter it any further.
|
| And beyond that, it has always been socially acceptable to
| ignore and/or reject ads; I might be showing my age with these
| examples, but things like going to the bathroom during the ads,
| muting the audio, pausing the recording during an ad break (or
| fast-forwarding through them during playback), and so on, were
| always acceptable, and nobody would scream that you _MUST_
| watch the ads or you 're stealing from the TV station. Why
| should YouTube be any different (and it even has "Tube" in its
| name to make the analogy stronger)?
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| I don't understand why this is any different than adblock. If
| this is an effective, client-side means of defeating ads, and
| Youtube has an effective way of defeating client-side prevention
| methods, then isn't this just going to be patched in the same way
| as adblock?
|
| Said differently, this is clearly an arms race. I have more trust
| in uBlock winning an arms race than any other extension. If it
| fails then I don't believe any other will succeed.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| One endgame is ad-blockers just blank the video and mute the
| sound in an undetectable way. Given the negative spiral that
| modern Internet usage often is, a moment of quiet to breathe
| and maybe break the cycle I would welcome.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| I can see it now - YouTube puts a quick yes/no question after
| the ad to confirm comprehension. :)
|
| Relevant green text: https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png
| AeroNotix wrote:
| It's the company's fault for making you want it so much.
| yulker wrote:
| Please drink a verification can.
| chongli wrote:
| Speaking of enshittification, whatever happened to imgur?
| That image does not load directly despite being a deep
| link. Plus it's so low resolution the text is unreadable! I
| guess they are one step away from just taking down the http
| server altogether and just forcing everyone into their app
| which will connect via some proprietary protocol.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| That's interesting. It loads directly for me and the
| quality seems fine. I have experienced the issue you're
| describing when attempting to direct link to Reddit
| images lately, though. I wonder why we're experiencing
| differences?
| tedunangst wrote:
| Imgur tracks which pages you've loaded and won't show you
| the image until you see the html. Literally what you're
| complaining about.
| hanniabu wrote:
| That actually would be pretty nice. It would also help break
| the mindless loop of going from video to video.
| conradfr wrote:
| They'll force you to have your webcam and mic available to
| watch YouTube.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Mandatory eye-tracking.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Someone needs to make TiVo, but for YouTube
| cnees wrote:
| UBlock can't fly under the radar, but maybe this can for a
| while.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I mean, isn't this is basically a reason not to do any sort of
| prevention for most things?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's a reason to pile all the effort into the same tool.
|
| But the it ignores the fact that it may be able to work just
| because it's small.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| I think I'm just biased because I built an extension a decade
| ago that made YouTube a better music player. It flew under
| the radar for a couple of years, then got popular, then I got
| C&D'ed and lawyered into the dirt [1][2].
|
| It makes me sad watching people get excited about releasing
| their totally new, innovative YouTube extensions as if this
| is a welcoming space.
|
| These extensions don't exist because they get destroyed not
| because it's a space ripe for innovation.
|
| [1]https://thenextweb.com/news/how-youtube-killed-an-
| extension-... [2]https://imgur.com/15gaOf6
| augustulus wrote:
| probably more effective than trusting ublock is to find an
| obscure method. ublock is too much of an easy target for
| google. on the flipside, something obscure is possibly harder
| to trust
| Aurornis wrote:
| The ad blocker arms race is still a victory for the companies.
| The average user is going to get tired of fighting the
| constantly changing strategies and debugging why their latest
| combination of extensions isn't working today despite working
| yesterday. Even if they can figure it out half the time, that
| still means they're watching 50% of the ads instead of 0%.
|
| I also see many people capitulating, especially among my peers
| who realize that spending potentially hours every month keeping
| up with the latest adblocker tricks is not a good use of their
| time relative to the trivial amount of money they're saving on
| YT premium.
|
| The die hards will always fight this battle and don't seem to
| care how much effort it takes. Some people derive a sense of
| satisfaction from gaming the system or "winning" against
| corporations. They all have their justifications, but it
| doesn't matter much.
|
| As long as it's sufficiently annoying to deal with, the number
| of people fighting it and succeeding will be negligible small.
| The problem was when as blockers were so easy that they jumped
| from a small number of techie users and started catching on
| among the general public. Once an ad-supported company starts
| seeing a significant number of users evading the ads _and also_
| refusing to pay, they have to do something.
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| This is true from the corporations point of view, but as a
| user, why should I take that perspective? If me and my family
| don't have to see ads, and it is a minor effort, it's still a
| victory for me.
| xnx wrote:
| > Said differently, this is clearly an arms race.
|
| Definitely. The next phase is an AI agent "watching" (through
| the "analog hole") if necessary and applying computer vision
| systems to detect and remove ads.
| devmor wrote:
| This is essentially the level that high end competitive video
| game cheating is reaching now too.
|
| Plugging directly into the computer as a separate device that
| emulates monitor, mouse and keyboard.
| paulcole wrote:
| YouTube Premium is a top 5, maybe top 3 subscription service that
| I pay for. Others in that tier would be Amazon Prime, Apple One+,
| NYT Crosswords, and 1Password.
|
| Watching on every device without praying that this week's
| ridiculous workaround continues to function for only like
| $15/month feels like a bargain.
| EGreg wrote:
| and that's how they get you :-)
|
| Remember folks... when running away from a bear you don't have
| to outrun everyone, just the slowest person
|
| And similarly, to get people or organizations to pay, you just
| have to make it much more expensive for them at every moment to
| hack or fork your service than just pay you. It gets harder the
| bigger the organization is, but works like a charm on the long
| tail!
|
| If you've got an open source platform, it's a major
| consideration because a competitor can just fork your service
| and start offering it. So you have to have enough of a network
| effect and lock-in (e.g. ethereum nodes only taking ethereum
| gas as payment) that the fork is not as accepted for years,
| despite being faster and better (e.g. polygon). You can
| centralize trust (Amazon), Liquidity (exchanges) and ease-of-
| use through vertical integration (Apple).
| yurishimo wrote:
| Same. I figure that since I watch this much YouTube, it's
| probably worth paying for. At the moment, the rev share seems
| to be _okay_ compared to other creator platforms, so I take
| that bit of solace as well.
| conradfr wrote:
| That's fine but all the streaming platforms get more expensive
| every x months nowadays.
| paulcole wrote:
| Is it too expensive today? If not, sign up and then cancel
| when it gets too expensive. Plus at work, I get a raise every
| x months nowadays, too. Gotta spend it on something.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| I wouldn't be able to enjoy my usage of it. I have a strong
| moral objection to ads, so to me paying to get rid of ads is
| akin to paying off the bully so they will stop beating you up.
| Next week they might decide you haven't paid enough, or that it
| doesn't even matter that you paid up -- they're bored and want
| to beat someone up.
|
| I'd rather give the bully a whack in balls instead.
| sanswork wrote:
| Asking people to provide compensation for a service isn't
| bullying. They even give you a choice on how you pay. You
| hate ads, they give you an option to avoid them and now you
| hate paying to avoid them. You're trying to makes yourself
| sound self righteous and you just sound like you believe you
| are entitled to others resources.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| I'm not trying to be righteous, my moral compass is mine.
|
| I'd be fine with YouTube being a purely paid service.
| Either pay, or the server returns a 500. I might even be
| willing to pay for it then, knowing that the only ads i
| might encounter are sponsor segments in the video
| themselves (that i can also skip right on by.)
| paulcole wrote:
| You've been regularly commenting on a website that's an
| advertising/marketing channel for a VC firm since 2018.
|
| Seems like it's more accurate to say that you have a moral
| objection to either ads you don't like or things you have to
| pay for?
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| HN doesn't force me to watch or read the ads. I can always
| ignore the posts that are mainly advertising.
|
| So perhaps my moral objections are to obnoxious, in your
| face, unavoidable advertisements.
| oldkinglog wrote:
| I've been reading HN since around that time, and it's
| hasn't made me sympathetic toward VC. If anything it's
| hardened my views against consumption, greed and
| advertising.
| djur wrote:
| I agree. If you watch a lot of YouTube it's a great deal. Way
| cheaper than cable.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| I'm happy to pay for it, but I don't always want to be logged
| in and gave an echo chamber created for me. When I'm not logged
| in, I don't want to watch ads
| krona wrote:
| Watching one ad and then clearing cookies seems to work for me. (
| _shrug_ )
| AeroNotix wrote:
| Well trained, citizen.
| bcrl wrote:
| I just wish I could convince Google that I will _never_ buy
| certain products that they force feed me ads on continuously. No,
| I will never buy a Chromebook, so please stop putting that ad
| everywhere. No, I am not going to switch to an Android phone
| either.
| codetrotter wrote:
| In fact, everyone should instead band together to finance
| development of more maximally open hardware for laptops and
| phones and tablets.
| genman wrote:
| I bought my current car only because I was able to block the
| car maker being stupid and force me to watch their ads on
| Youtube. I didn't use ad-blocker before but interruptive video
| ads were the last straw for me.
| throwaway346434 wrote:
| We need to kick this up a notch, with automated recognition of
| the advertiser and either complaint letters generated to their
| sales team email addresses, a media regulator, or for those
| with physical stores, geofenced notifications on your device to
| remind you how intrusive the brand has been/directions to the
| nearest competitor's store at the tap of a button.
|
| You can absolutely advertise on an intrusive platform, but as
| consumers, we can aggressively boycott/make your marketing work
| against you.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| How can you prove you are trustworthy?
| brookst wrote:
| Everyone feels that way, but in a large population some
| percentage will be swayed. Display ads are a statistics game,
| not a transactional one.
| bcrl wrote:
| But there are oodles of other things that I would consider
| buying! They'd do better with random ideas for Christmas
| gifts for family members, which would be nice given that it
| is the season...
| gnicholas wrote:
| Yes, but they can get you to talk about Chromebooks and Android
| phones by advertising them incessantly. See, you just did it
| again!
| agumonkey wrote:
| And I take great pleasure to manually shift to invidious
| instances just out of spite.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Why don't people just not use YouTube if they don't like the ads?
| Simple.
|
| Peertube is there for those folks. People keep whining about the
| monopoly but won't go to another service to help grow it.
|
| People also whine about sponsor ads, as if you have to watch
| those videos or those channels. Don't consume their content if
| you don't like it.
|
| At the end of the day, if you don't want to be tracked, hate ads
| and hate Google the solution is simple: stop using YouTube.
|
| The anti Facebook people understand this, which is why we don't
| see incessant posts about facebooks anti-Adblock on HN. The kind
| of people on HN who hate Facebook probably just don't visit the
| site at all. Same with Reddit vs mastodon. Twitter vs threads.
| Quora vs ChatGPT.
|
| Anti YouTubers seem unique in their constant whining yet
| reluctance to stop using what they hate.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Because it's the only platform you can find on a Google search.
| calamari4065 wrote:
| >Why don't people just not use YouTube if they don't like the
| ads?
|
| Simple: the videos they want to watch don't exist elsewhere.
| PeerTube doesn't help you if nobody you watch publishes to it.
|
| I use PeerTube, I run my own instance. PeerTube really sucks
| compared to YouTube. Even with all of the enshittification and
| google crippling the service, the quantity, quality, and
| discoverability of videos on YouTube has no comparison at all
| anywhere.
|
| People use YouTube for the reason they use anything: there
| simply is no viable alterative.
|
| Whining at people to use PeerTube doesn't help. You have to
| convince people to publish there before anyone _can_ use it.
| TheMode wrote:
| Because these websites create expectation. If everyone is using
| YouTube, won't you be missing something by not going? If you
| started using the service when you felt it was great and it
| deteriorated since, would it really be unfair to feel a sort of
| betrayal?
|
| You should go tell drug addict to just stop, not that hard.
| Maybe also to everybody complaining about house pricing, after
| all our ancestors build theirs with log and dirt why would you
| need something else.
| kimixa wrote:
| And surely it's self evident that if everyone blocked ads, the
| service would stop functioning?
|
| So all this is about being the "Special Few" who can get away
| with it, despite often positioning themselves as the Moral
| Choice because the adverts are bad.
| creativenolo wrote:
| I'm oddly OK for now with the pop up. Still would rather it to an
| ad. Makes me reflect on if I really want to have surfed to where
| I am. And I find myself moving on or seeking elsewhere.
|
| This may all change. But the friction\value trade offs are a bit
| 'shrug' for me. Maybe instant video is still novelty and waiting
| a few seconds to see it, isn't so different.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I think it's odd that YouTube hasn't simply proxied the ads into
| the same stream to make them indistinguishable from the video.
| Technically the browser is pulling chunks of video from their
| servers, and the ad content is pulled from different servers
| which ad blockers restrict. If the ad chunks weren't
| identifiable, there would be no practical way of blocking them.
| It'd be like removing commercials - or those in-video sponsorship
| segments - from a live broadcast.
|
| It seems YouTube is creating an arms race with ad blockers and
| alienating users by threatening bans than simply changing the way
| the ads are served. Yes, there's a whole industry around bidding
| for, dynamically serving and tracking ads using VAST and all
| that, but I'm positive Google has the market power to change
| that.
| tentacleuno wrote:
| > I think it's odd that YouTube hasn't simply proxied the ads
| into the same stream to make them indistinguishable from the
| video.
|
| Yeah, same -- cable TV has been doing that since god knows how
| long. There must be some internal engineering reason(s) behind
| it.
| markdown wrote:
| The cost of doing so would be magnitudes more than what they
| could make from ad money.
| tedunangst wrote:
| I could build such a system for a mere billion.
| eigenvalue wrote:
| YouTube premium is one of the best value purchases I've made. If
| you subscribe to Netflix you're probably better off canceling
| that and replacing it with YouTube premium. Also, you can get the
| family plan for not much more and share with your parents and
| siblings (or in-laws!)-- they will be very appreciative if they
| watch YouTube and don't already have premium. It's not just for
| skipping ads, it also lets you download videos locally on your
| phone and the audio continues in the background when you switch
| to another phone app.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| YT premium is one of the few subscriptions I find reasonable
| tbh. Youtube music, no ads on youtube, my conscience is clean,
| and I support creators.
| vetinari wrote:
| > no ads on youtube
|
| Really? No ads baked-in into videos by the creators? I.e.
| those skipped by another add-on, sponsorblock?
|
| > and I support creators.
|
| Are you sure about that? Why do they need to put their own
| ads into videos then?
|
| By paying Netflix, Amazon Prime, or other streaming service,
| you surely would: Netflix and Amazon have to pay for the
| content. But Youtube? They get it for free.
|
| > my conscience is clean,
|
| But your privacy-awareness should be on alert. For YouTube
| premium, you have to be logged in. You can bet, that Google
| profiles you based on what you watch. They just don't show
| you the ads right on the YouTube, but surely they do
| elsewhere on their network.
|
| Think of it like browser equivalent of the smart tv connected
| to net.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| > Really? No ads baked-in into videos by the creators? I.e.
| those skipped by another add-on, sponsorblock?
|
| Sponsorblock, yes.
|
| > Are you sure about that? Why do they need to put their
| own ads into videos then?
|
| For the people who use ad-blockers. Not me specifically and
| youtube doesn't provide a functionality to skip certain
| parts on paid views.
|
| > But your privacy-awareness should be on alert. For
| YouTube premium, you have to be logged in. You can bet,
| that Google profiles you based on what you watch. They just
| don't show you the ads right on the YouTube, but surely
| they do elsewhere on their network.
|
| I use kagi (paid), and ad-blockers for everything else.
|
| I can live with google having access to my [poor] music
| taste and view history.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Same here. No hassle whatsoever. I cannot remember seeing an ad
| for years now, honestly, I do not get the discussion about
| blockers when you have everything via Premium. I use YT a lot,
| more often than Apple Music for example.
| cvhashim04 wrote:
| Hard to pay for something that was always *free*
| djur wrote:
| YouTube has had ads forever. It's never been free.
| prolapso wrote:
| >skip ads
|
| >download videos locally on your phone
|
| >the audio continues in the background when you switch to
| another phone app
|
| Y... you mean like NewPipe already does?
| kzrdude wrote:
| There's also a firefox addon (firefox for android) that can
| help you play youtube video audio in the background.
| thallium205 wrote:
| YT Premium is the only media subscription needed.
| mattrighetti wrote:
| I use YouTube A LOT.
|
| I follow a bunch of developers and engineering channels on it
| and I learn a lot of stuff on YouTube in general.
|
| A couple of years ago, after running AdguardHome on my network,
| I've noticed that YouTube ads became more and more aggressive
| and that was hard to unnotice since I mostly consume YouTube on
| mobile devices that don't have adblockers. I just gave up and
| convinced myself that YouTube, of all the services, is the one
| that probably deserves my money, so here I am, paying for the
| student plan which is 6.99EUR a month. Now, after almost a year
| of premium, it's probably the only plan I could not give up
| along with Spotify's. I'm not used to ads anymore, I listen to
| a lot of stuff in background mode and I love it more than
| before.
|
| Only thing that got on my nerves is that they now decided that
| if you don't activate watch history you're not going to get a
| Home feed, which is crazy if you ask me.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| How will you feel when YouTube introduces quick ads for premium
| users and longer ads for free users?
|
| There's absolutely nothing stopping the arms race from
| continuing past the point which you are currently satisified.
|
| Just look at Hulu, for example.
|
| Also, it's ridiculous that YouTube was able to convince people
| it's acceptable to have audio pause when in the background. If
| YouTube on Desktop paused audio when the tab was not the active
| tab it would be fundamentally unusable.
| afavour wrote:
| Not to mention you get YouTube Music too. The app is inferior
| to Spotify but it's good enough and let me get rid of another
| subscription.
| thesagan wrote:
| [delayed]
| net23 wrote:
| Blipvert
| coffeecloud wrote:
| Just pay the $15 for the ad free version? The entitlement people
| feel for a free service that takes hundreds of millions of
| dollars in compute and human hours to run boggles me.
|
| Don't like ads? Don't like subscription fees? Don't like large
| tech companies? Great! Go to the library and check out a book.
| hobs wrote:
| They are entitled, but just like any commercial service this
| will just bloat to "ad lite" and then "full ads but you can
| still pay for it" - cable did the exact same thing.
| drivers99 wrote:
| When's that? It's been 8 years so far, so good.
| blindhippo wrote:
| It's already there, except the ads are baked into most
| content as "sponsored videos". They make it easy to skip over
| the ads (seriously, just fast forward 20-60 seconds depending
| on the video).
|
| For better or worse, the vast majority of my media
| consumption is youtube these days and of all the subs I pay
| for, it's the one I get the most value out of. I don't get
| the cynicism.
| saos wrote:
| Erm No.
| jmprspret wrote:
| Oh boo hoo.
| AndroTux wrote:
| For me personally it's the way they're bullying me to pay it.
| For years I wanted YouTube and Twitter to introduce a paid plan
| with less ads. And then they did, and immediately started
| harassing everyone who didn't purchase it right away with ads
| every few seconds. It's just rude and I don't like being
| bullied into doing something.
| blindhippo wrote:
| What's the alternative here? Just offer the service with
| minimal ads and just hope people decide to sign up for the
| ad-free version - a value proposition that makes little sense
| since the ads are minimal?
|
| They aren't bullying anyone. They are trying to make a
| business model work as efficiently as possible. Anything that
| relies on ad revenue is going to be predatory like this.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Your point is they're not bullies, just mere predators ?
| dade_ wrote:
| I'm fine with paying for this type of service,but the last
| thing I want to do is give money to YouTube so it can become an
| even bigger defacto monopoly.
| analognoise wrote:
| The deal was they siphon off all our private data, ruin society
| and get filthy rich, we get an infinite place to store cat
| videos.
|
| They're breaking the implied contract, not us.
| arsome wrote:
| I mean the entire point and value of that whole data siphon
| thing is literally the ads.
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| Spoken like a true hacker.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| no. sponsor block, downloading, kodi playback is free whereas
| you're paying for a worst experience while being tracked
| arsome wrote:
| I pirate everything anyways, why in the hell would I pay for
| YouTube?
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| 55% net goes directly to the creators making the videos. The
| very video you are watching.
|
| Encourage what you want to see in the world.
| namlem wrote:
| No. They're making my pay for the bundle of YouTube Music plus
| ad free YouTube. I'm happy with Spotify, I refuse to pay extra
| for a service I won't use.
| NavinF wrote:
| If it was $10+$5 for YouTube+music, this thread would be full
| of people complaining that Google is nickel and diming them
| because there's already music on YouTube.com
| xienze wrote:
| I 100% guarantee you that eventually the $15 tier will have
| "limited" ads and then the upcoming $25 tier is ad free, rinse
| and repeat. It's happened with cable, it's happened with
| streaming, it'll happen with YouTube.
| NavinF wrote:
| Doubt it. Most streaming sites are still ad free and their
| prices only increased with inflation. Both YouTube and
| creators already get way more revenue from premium
| subscribers than ad watchers so I doubt that'll change this
| decade
| yumraj wrote:
| > Just pay the $15 for the ad free version?
|
| Why not pay people to watch the ads by a similar logic?
|
| BTW, curious has anyone ever anywhere in the world, any media,
| tried creating a channel/stream which just shows ads and pays
| people if they watch? Wondering if that'll work.
|
| Also, I rarely watch YT, so for me personally $15 or whatever
| the price is, is too high.
|
| Another thing, ad blockers also help in privacy. $15 may result
| in no ads being shown in YT, but does that also mean that
| Google is not collecting data? I'll consider paying to Google
| for a no-data-collected mode.
| devmor wrote:
| I'll pay for the ad free version when youtube stewards a
| responsible and accountable platform - both in moderating
| content and in proving transparent appeals instead of giving an
| open path for copyright trolls to harass and cause monetary
| harm to creators.
|
| Until then, they get no money and I watch no ads.
| tshaddox wrote:
| How are you using the word "entitlement" here? A very small
| number of people are looking for technological solutions to
| block ads, presumably motivated more by the enjoyment of the
| intellectual pursuit than by the disdain of ads.
|
| I don't see any statements or actions even remotely hinting at
| feeling _entitled_ to an ad-free viewing experience. They're
| simply trying to figure out how to achieve an ad-free
| experience.
|
| If someone locally modifies a website's visuals to implement
| dark mode, would you lambast them for feeling _entitled_ to
| dark mode?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Yeah the rage here is wild to me. People _constantly_ say
| "just give me an option to pay" but Youtube Premium has existed
| forever and remains an option.
| zerr wrote:
| Can ad publishers filter out ad blocking users as not being their
| target audience? Forcing someone to watch your ad most likely
| triggers negative connotations about your brand.
| SnorkelTan wrote:
| I think advertising still works even on people who don't like
| it and prefer that if not.
| riku_iki wrote:
| Some ML likely doing this: they track your interests, for
| example you searched adblockers in the past, it goes as a
| feature to ML model, and model predicts that it is unlikely you
| will click and make purchase, and they will bid on you much
| lower, as result you will see lots of cheap junk Ads..
| zogrodea wrote:
| While reading your comment, I thought abouts ads for ad
| blockers like "hey, we noticed you searched for ad blockers
| so here are the top 10 best!". That's not a good idea though.
| JD557 wrote:
| > That's not a good idea though.
|
| I wonder why you say that. At least an ad for a specific ad
| blocker sounds like a great idea.
|
| - Ideally, you don't send ads to users of your product -
| Users of inferior products will see your ad, and it might
| be super effective (if you used MY adblocker, you wouldn't
| be seeing this ad) - Everything else is a user that doesn't
| have an ad blocker, and it's probably an easy sell to say
| "would you like to never see ads like this?"
| hnick wrote:
| This is one argument I've used in my head for ad blockers -
| you're removing hostile viewers so it might be a net win. It's
| like dropping flyers in a "no junk mail" box. I wonder if
| anyone studied it.
| keithnz wrote:
| using edge with ublock origin I haven't seen any ads. If I use
| chrome I get problems.
| fallat wrote:
| YouTube, Google - just pull the trigger guys. Make YouTube a
| completely paid for platform.
| bad_alloc wrote:
| This instantly loses the main selling point: Massive audience.
| If they manage to get 20% of people to pay (which would be
| huge) they'd lose hundreds of millions of viewers still.
| jacobwilliamroy wrote:
| There are so many people currently employed at Google whose
| livelihood (think mortgage payments, food, gasoline) depend on
| having a problem that they can work on but never solve.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| If only regulatory bodies were as motivated in combating
| advertising's huge data privacy issues inherent in RTB as Google
| are in beating down people trying to not have their data sent to
| hundreds of third parties without consent.
| DevKoala wrote:
| What is the stance of the people who work against the revenue
| generation of the services they consume?
|
| Should YouTube be a free service or what?
|
| It's only a semi-ironic question. Perhaps someone has a vision
| for how it all works out.
|
| Full disclosure: I work on programmatic advertising technologies.
| tehbeard wrote:
| You're never going to capture the "will never watch ads" group.
|
| What is being destroyed by YouTube's current policy that led to
| this anti adblock attempt, is pushing too far with the ads.
|
| Crap quality and overstuffed.
|
| A 5 second ad on a 4 minute video? Fine.
|
| 1:30 ad, one of TWO... on same video?
|
| Fuck. That. Noise.
|
| It's the same segmentation issue as piracy, y'all get
| hyperfocused on the group that will NEVER play ball, and ruin
| the experience so much for those that would, that they "swap
| teams".
| joenathanone wrote:
| If the USPS was never a public service America would literally
| look differently. Maybe social media(including YouTube) is the
| modern day USPS, the primary way Americans interact/communicate
| with each other.
| adityamwagh wrote:
| I'm ready to pay about a $2 per month for YT as a paid service.
| Personally, paying more than $2 for a software makes me want to
| avoid using it completely.
| bigyikes wrote:
| Ad-supported services account for the fact that some users
| block ads.
|
| If users blocking ads is enough to make the service
| unprofitable, the service should switch to a paid model or shut
| down.
|
| It's an adversarial relationship. The service is within their
| rights to shove ads down your throat, and you're within your
| rights to fight back.
|
| (I pay for YouTube Premium)
| mathgradthrow wrote:
| The right to block advertisements is the right to close your eyes
| and plug your ears. Google is trying to argue that its a
| violation of their terms of service to close your eyes and plug
| your ears. It's a violation of my person to try and detect
| whether I'm not paying attention to your ad.
| kristopolous wrote:
| I find this interesting. Do you consider YouTube to just be a
| consumer product or does it occupy a different space in your
| mind?
| l33tman wrote:
| There is an old Black Mirror episode where people have to sit
| in cubicles with 4 screens around them looking at ads to gain
| credits or something, and it tracks if you close your eyes it
| simply pauses the ads...
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I believe Google still has the right to waste 3 seconds of your
| time, so if they only verify that you wait for the duration of
| the ad, that would be a fair equivalent to you closing your
| eyes.
|
| And I guess that's the next line of defense: GPU shaders to
| just replace ads with something more pretty to look at.
| zare_st wrote:
| I (Firefox+uBlock Origin on FreeBSD, Windows 10, Rocky, CentOS),
| logged in, have not encountered this yet.
|
| I also run a small channel mostly with ROIO bootlegs. The channel
| has never been penalized, it has a small but growing user base,
| and all the videos have been monetized by someone else. I also
| sometimes watch a video from my cellphone where the ads run.
|
| These might be the factors why I still didn't get the Youtube
| stick.
|
| P.S they've been monetized by companies that have no rights to
| monetize them whatsoever. However I have no rights over the
| material and if legal holders wish to battle the record companies
| that hogged my videos, that's great. If I have a recording of TV
| broadcast of singer-songwriter playing his material in a public
| festival, the record label that paid and released studio version
| of those songs has no stake in that. There can be a complex
| contract between broadcaster, festival and the performer, but I'm
| sure record company is not part of it unless it has explicitly
| funded the festival or the broadcast, which is a rarity, not
| applicable to my videos. The algorithm IDs these tracks as studio
| versions or as official live version which then trigger
| "ownership" by those record companies.
|
| So let's not pretend Youtube is some fair entity that needs to be
| paid fairly. They don't play fair themselves.
| corn-dog wrote:
| Hey the creator here, was not expecting this to blow up at all. I
| made this I guess because of the Streisand effect, I probably
| never would have bothered if it weren't for all the news about ad
| blockers not working.
|
| I intend this as a second line of defence against ads, where the
| first line would be a conventional ad blocker.
|
| After work I'm going to investigate the same technique for
| speeding up paid sponsor portions of the video.
|
| My background is a web dev, but I make extensions in my spare
| time :) I recommend making some yourself they are a fun little
| project
|
| If you want to see a way more awesome extension I've created
| check this out - https://mobileview.io/
| nottorp wrote:
| Hmm. You'd still have to disable uBlock Origin on youtube and
| thus let google track you?
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