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Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?

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Re: Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?

#91

Post by LarryMade2 »

tkiolp4 wrote: post #89
yrgulation wrote: post #4

I would vouch they need money to pay for hosting and everything else, and as a free service perhaps ads are the only way. Not sure how one can expect youtube to host that amount of content for free perpetually. I dislike ads, particularly dark patterns, and shocking I pay for youtube premium. An unpopular opinion but can someone please explain how can all this be hosted for free? Or why do some believe they should?

I understand YouTube (they need money, they run ads)... what I don’t understand is the companies that pay YouTube to post their ads. I mean, who on earth likes ads? Being interrupted by Company X while watching a video will make me with high probability hate company X (instead of making me buy their products). This is something i don’t really get because no one likes ads, but here you have that’s the number one strat…

I think a good part of the problem is Youtube has a lot of advertisers, and even with their popularity still a limited number of videos potential customers watch; so, they load up the ads on videos to get enough exposure for the advertisers to believe they get their money's worth.

Re: Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?

#93

Post by [deleted] »

yrgulation wrote: post #4

I would vouch they need money to pay for hosting and everything else, and as a free service perhaps ads are the only way. Not sure how one can expect youtube to host that amount of content for free perpetually. I dislike ads, particularly dark patterns, and shocking I pay for youtube premium. An unpopular opinion but can someone please explain how can all this be hosted for free? Or why do some believe they should?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?

#94

Post by spiderpug »

Bancakes wrote: post #65

Ublock Origin for HTML/CSS/JS ads. SponsorBlock to auto-skip in-video ads. PiHole for network-wide blocking. Or just add Energized hosts to your router's hosts file, I like Ultimate. Or set adguard DNS in your router/smartphone/PC. They really do work.

I have AdGuard as DNS in my home network and my FireTV's YouTube still shows ads. My phones too. Any pointers?

Re: Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?

#95

Post by thijsvandien »

singularity2001 wrote: post #67
yrgulation wrote: post #4

I would vouch they need money to pay for hosting and everything else, and as a free service perhaps ads are the only way. Not sure how one can expect youtube to host that amount of content for free perpetually. I dislike ads, particularly dark patterns, and shocking I pay for youtube premium. An unpopular opinion but can someone please explain how can all this be hosted for free? Or why do some believe they should?

I'd honestly pay for their premium 13$ per month if it wasn't Google: Doing so would allow them to cross reference all their tracking to my personal details, or at least to a fixed id.

Exactly. The main reason I don't pay for YouTube, is that I don't want to be logged in to browse it—already getting tracked enough without that.

Re: Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?

#96

Post by cercatrova »

rambojazz wrote: post #87
doctorwhat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I don't understand people not having an ad blocker... Otherwise pi-hole is a good option for your local network.

As far as I know you cannot install adblockers on the Android app for YouTube for example, and probably on other platforms too. I've looked for one but found none.

YouTube Vanced, NewPipe block ads by default. Both also use SponsorBlock, at least Vanced does, and NewPipe has a fork that adds it.

Re: Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?

#97

Post by clircle »

obarthelemy wrote: post #59
mrbonner wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t work against in video ads.

something works, because I don't get ads on my desktop browser at home (firefox + uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger + PiHole) but I do see them when I'm away from home on the app on my tablet. OK, because ppl are gonna ask, I checked: I'm not seeing ads in the app on my tablet at home, so its the PiHole cutting ads. Ooops, I'm not seeing ads on my desktop when using my smartphone as a hotspot either (no PiHole), so Fire…

uBO still seems to block all Youtube ads for me with little to no additional config. I don't watch much youtube on my computers though, so I could very well be mistaken.

Re: Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?

#98

Post by Gustomaximus »

newobj wrote: post #39

Spend the 40¢ a day to pay for it, jesus.

The problem with this is there are increasing a large number of services that require a subscription.

We may end up facing the choice to page huge sums to have wide/diverse information access or only have access to a small silo'ed news/entertainment we choose to pay for.

So while we love to hate on ad driven internet, this helps keep a wide access available.

No idea what the right answer is holistically, but "Spend the 40¢ a day to pay for it, Jesus." fails to consider the wider enviroment of where the internet is going.

Re: Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?

#100

Post by Bancakes »

spiderpug wrote: post #94
Bancakes wrote: post #65

Ublock Origin for HTML/CSS/JS ads. SponsorBlock to auto-skip in-video ads. PiHole for network-wide blocking. Or just add Energized hosts to your router's hosts file, I like Ultimate. Or set adguard DNS in your router/smartphone/PC. They really do work.

I have AdGuard as DNS in my home network and my FireTV's YouTube still shows ads. My phones too. Any pointers?

It's a partial solution, sadly... Try youtube vanced or similar front-end changing apps.
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