Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

vancedapp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 360 posts

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#221

Post by mertd »

agentdrtran wrote: post #210
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

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.

There is a way to pay as the parent mentions: YouTube premium.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#222

Post by jsnell »

toastercat wrote: post #181
wbobeirne wrote: post #18

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 fee…

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 --…

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?

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#223

Post by TedLePoireau »

leetcrew wrote: post #182
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

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 essentia…

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.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#224

Post by faeyanpiraat »

ineptech wrote: post #190
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

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 h…

Isn't the reason simply that reencoding would cost more than the loss of revenue from blocking?

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#225

Post by wbobeirne »

Mezzie wrote: post #208
wbobeirne wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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 Pr…

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.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#227

Post by delgaudm »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #126
leetcrew wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 a…

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.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#229

Post by wbobeirne »

DetroitThrow wrote: post #220
wbobeirne wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>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 m…

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.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#230

Post by realusername »

gtirloni wrote: post #119
leetcrew wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If Youtube enabled an ad-free experience on a per creator/channel basis , would that be a good compromise for you?

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.

Post reply on HN