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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

#411

Post by dylan-m »

mrweasel wrote: post #342
marcodiego wrote: post #278

I wanted to show a video on YouTube to a friend. He passed me his cellphone. I searched and found the video and then something very strange happened: a completely unrelated something started playing. I said "Sorry I don't know what is this. This has nothing to do with what I wanted to show you." He then explained me that was just an advertisement and the video would play soon. People are used to abuse. My internet is…

One of the services I happily pay for is Youtube Premium, though I could do without also having to pay for Youtube Music at the same time. I have same experience as you, when I somehow not logged in to Youtube. It’s a surreal mess and it’s the same 5 - 10 ads, if it’s that many, on repeat. It’s unusable. Technically I don’t use and ad block, I just run DuckDuckGo’s privacy plugin. You can show me ads, but not track m…

YouTube's ads are a colossal mistake waiting to happen. Back in the day, Google was successful because they realized advertising on the web was a problem: ads were trying too hard to grab attention, resorting to hostile tactics that basically forced people to run ad blockers. Google said "okay, what if ads were simple blocks of text that - while not as loud and screamy - got more impressions because they aren't terrible?". And over time everyone agreed with them and they made billions of dollars.

Somehow, (probably because there is no competition - yet), Google has not applied this reasoning to YouTube ads. YouTube ads are often louder than regular videos (which they could fix on their end if they cared), they are sometimes insanely long (I recently got an "ad" which was a 40 minute "free music" thing), and depending on the video they can pop pop up at terrible moments. They still haven't figured out that YouTube is loaded with exercise videos - a content category which has exploded since 2020 and where YouTube enjoys a tremendous lead on the competition. Rudely interrupting one of those is bad and brews resentment. Instead of doing that, they could plaster the entire video with unobtrusive ads and people would both look at the ads and be happy with the service.

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

#412

Post by BuckRogers »

patrickk wrote: post #126
skummetmaelk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> You can't even buy appliances designed perform their function well You can't research good appliances either online, because the SERPs are stuffed with SEO-ed blogs and sometimes industry magazines, monetized with Amazon affiliates or other networks, with titles like "5 best dishwashers in 2022". Unless you know someone in the industry or offline with knowledge you don't know what to buy. This is noticeable in many…

The answer to deceptive online reviews is Consumer Reports. While the web initially made CR not worthwhile, as time progressed it's once again very valuable. I would never buy any appliances without paying for a subscription first.

I'm doing this myself before I buy a treadmill. I want the most reliable one, not the most tech features, and while my hunch is Sole is the one for me based on their warranty, I'm going to confirm with CR before dropping $1,600 on one.

The problem is that people plug their ears and put blinders on to avoid spending $30 for teardown advice from an outfit like Consumer Reports. Too cheap for their own good.

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

#413

Post by strken »

blakesterz wrote: post #2

In FireFox I have my ad blockers disabled in Private Mode so nothing is getting in the way if I'm testing or some site is being weird. Sometimes it's SHOCKINGLY different how a page looks with the blockers in place. I really can't believe anyone would user a browser without an ad blocker if they knew how things would look while using one. The web is a much better place with a blocker in place. (Yes, I know, we get a…

Without ads, we'd have different free content obeying different incentives, but it's hard to say whether that would be better or worse. I've been reading a lot of free online fiction lately, where authors make money by selling early access to chapters on Patreon, and both quality and pay are often competitive with traditional book sales.

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

#414

Post by alkonaut »

raz32dust wrote: post #352

Curious - why does Youtube not figure out how to outsmart ad blockers? Is it technically not possible to embed ads into the video such that the ad blocker cannot detect it?

Some script has to pay attention to whether you watch it so presumably there will always be a browser state that knows whether an ad is being watched.

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

#415

Post by fartcannon »

rchaud wrote: post #386
mrweasel wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the services I happily pay for is Youtube Premium, though I could do without also having to pay for Youtube Music at the same time. I have same experience as you, when I somehow not logged in to Youtube. It’s a surreal mess and it’s the same 5 - 10 ads, if it’s that many, on repeat. It’s unusable. Technically I don’t use and ad block, I just run DuckDuckGo’s privacy plugin. You can show me ads, but not track m…

I feel that there is a generational gap between Youtube users that correlates with whether they will pay for premium or not. People in their late 20s and 30s who remember Youtube as a catch-all location for lo-fi homemmade videos with few ads may not feel that YT premium is worth it, particularly if they already use adblockers, and don't use it much on mobile (where adblocking isn't possible without modded APKs). Thi…

Huh? Firefox on mobile supports ublock origin. Or do you mean the app? Don't use the app.

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

#416

Post by Tenoke »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #199
Tenoke wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true. Youtube ads specifically were way way milder and rarer years ago when way less people used Adblock.

And global warming was much milder when we had more pirates in the world [1]. Correlation is not causation. In the same period, YouTube's management style and public-facing attitude have changed dramatically, Google's general attempt at being the "good guys" has pretty much vanished, and beancounting has taken over as the guiding principle in many respects. I have zero reason to believe that had Adblocking not been a…

Correlation is not causation but negative correlation is even more surely not causation and what I was replying to was

>Ad-blockers took off once they started throwing animated banners at us

which is still not true. When they took off the ads were still minimal.

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

#417

Post by exhilaration »

cma wrote: post #290
AlwaysRock wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just upgraded after refusing. Mostly for mobile. On desktop my ad block works but on mobile it wouldnt. You can also shut off your screen on mobile and it continues to run with Premium. It kind of sucks that Youtube requires you to pay for this but I use Youtube enough to be okay with it.

Ad block on firefox works on YouTube on mobile (Android) and there is another mobile firefox extension to allow background play.

The name of the Firefox Android extension that allows background play is "Video Background Play Fix": https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-backgro...

Just install that and uBlock Origin and you're set: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/ublock-origin...

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

#418

Post by gifnamething »

Tenoke wrote: post #131
tasha0663 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've put the cart ahead of the horse. Ad-blockers took off once they started throwing animated banners at us. Punch the monkey, win an ipod.

That's not really true. Youtube ads specifically were way way milder and rarer years ago when way less people used Adblock.

That was when it was still a growing business. Uber was cheaper when investors paid for it, too.

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

#419

Post by fartcannon »

junaru wrote: post #373
cercatrova wrote: post #186

I have a list of adblockers I use, hope it helps other people here: Desktop: - Pi-Hole (network wide adblocking) - AdGuard (device wide adblocking) Web browsers: - uBlock Origin - uMatrix (not developed anymore but still works, can also use NoScript) - SponsorBlock (blocks in-video sponsor segments, intros, outros, filler tangents, etc in YouTube) Mobile: - Firefox for Android / Kiwi Browser (both have web extension…

> YouTube Vanced I get why they want to stay anonymous but that website is no different from any other malware site - no source, no authors just some affiliate links. Putting your google credentials in an app like that is not something people should be comfortable with.

NewPipe let's you 'subscribe' to channels without giving it any credentials. You know, like how it used to be with RSS. The good way. The user empowered way.
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