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Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

imlefthanded.com

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Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#81
post #27

I've had YouTube Premium since its inception. Whenever I'm around someone else who puts on a free-tier version of YouTube its rather shocking how frequent and intrusive the commercial ads are.

How far does YouTube Premium go as far as privacy? I never took a look at it carefully. My fear is I would pay the fee for no ads, but Google would still collect data on what I view and monetize that by selling me ads somewhere else.

I suspect that since you're a paying user, a more valuable customer, they'd want to mine your data more thoroughly to derive more profits in other ways.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel zero guilt about ad blocking. There was some period of discussion on the subject back in like 2003 but the ad companies went to war against human civilization and there's been no going back. It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash and an entire generation has now reached adulthood knowing nothing but that hustle touching every bit of media they ever interact with. W…

Quoted post unavailable.

He's not owed free content, he's given it.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel zero guilt about ad blocking. There was some period of discussion on the subject back in like 2003 but the ad companies went to war against human civilization and there's been no going back. It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash and an entire generation has now reached adulthood knowing nothing but that hustle touching every bit of media they ever interact with. W…

> It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash This cannot be overstated. Everything today is a battle for eye-balls and ad money. The corruption is insane. You can't even buy appliances designed perform their function well. Instead you can buy cheap junk for less than cogs because they make money selling your data to ad companies instead of making money by making products that…

>The concept of "value" for consumers has been completely twisted and I am not looking forward to seeing where this race to the bottom will end up.

For a lot of consumer tech companies, it's less about providing value to consumers and more about extracting value from them. Between vendor lock-in, privacy violations, and arbitrary one-sided changes in service, it's straight out of an abusive partner's playbook.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel zero guilt about ad blocking. There was some period of discussion on the subject back in like 2003 but the ad companies went to war against human civilization and there's been no going back. It corrupts and twists everything it touches into a constant hustle for eyeball-cash and an entire generation has now reached adulthood knowing nothing but that hustle touching every bit of media they ever interact with. W…

Quoted post unavailable.

It's not a question of being owed free content, it's a question of being able to access the content without being inundated with ads blocking the content from every direction. I give money to the content creators that matter to me (e.g., the very local newspaper, NPR, a few podcasts), but I remember the shock of seeing what life was like with a vanilla IE install on Windows with a work computer. After going to the website of the auto dealership to make a service appointment, I got continual ads for Chrysler automobiles (which means that for all the tracking the advertisers got negative value because I wasn't looking to buy).

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#86
post #63

I've had YouTube Premium since its inception. Whenever I'm around someone else who puts on a free-tier version of YouTube its rather shocking how frequent and intrusive the commercial ads are.

In all fairness, if the rest of us didn't run adblockers, they probably wouldn't need to be so aggressive with the ads for those that currently don't.

I'm gonna guess that isn't the case, and that the percentage of people using ad blockers is still fairly low.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#87
post #63

I've had YouTube Premium since its inception. Whenever I'm around someone else who puts on a free-tier version of YouTube its rather shocking how frequent and intrusive the commercial ads are.

In all fairness, if the rest of us didn't run adblockers, they probably wouldn't need to be so aggressive with the ads for those that currently don't.

This strikes me as wishful thinking, adblockers are such a small minority. They are just following the incentives they would always follow, adblockers or no.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#88
post #10

I've had YouTube Premium since its inception. Whenever I'm around someone else who puts on a free-tier version of YouTube its rather shocking how frequent and intrusive the commercial ads are.

I bet! I run an adblocker and it's a cat and mouse game with YouTube ads slipping through. Last breakage, before I reinstalled it, I was getting ad interruptions for the same two stupid adds literally every 45 seconds.

Which ad blocker? I use ublock origin and I never see YT ads.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#89
post #63

I've had YouTube Premium since its inception. Whenever I'm around someone else who puts on a free-tier version of YouTube its rather shocking how frequent and intrusive the commercial ads are.

In all fairness, if the rest of us didn't run adblockers, they probably wouldn't need to be so aggressive with the ads for those that currently don't.

This is exactly the case. Every time someone starts ad-blocking, someone else has to assume that ad watch for them.

Of course this isn't 1:1 parity in reality, but the ultimate manifestation of ad blocking is that.

Google had a good system a few years ago that I was probably the only sucker who paid them for it (and probably why they stopped it). You could pay a chosen amount monthly, and they would not show you ads as a result. It wasn't perfected, but the concept was good for those who understand the problem and want to work towards a solution.

Re: Adblocking people and non-adblocking people experience a different web

#90
post #27

I've had YouTube Premium since its inception. Whenever I'm around someone else who puts on a free-tier version of YouTube its rather shocking how frequent and intrusive the commercial ads are.

How far does YouTube Premium go as far as privacy? I never took a look at it carefully. My fear is I would pay the fee for no ads, but Google would still collect data on what I view and monetize that by selling me ads somewhere else.

YouTube ads are based on your watch history, not some tracking pixel, so even a regular ad blocker on YouTube.com only blocks ads and doesn't help with privacy.
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