Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android • Hacker News Board

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#261

Post by chmod775 » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 10:38 PM UTC

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…

> 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 appears) in exchange for them doing all the work of collecting, hosting, and delivering that content to you.

Yet Google, like Microsoft back in the day when piracy of Windows was rampant, would rather adblock users still use their site. They have the means to make it close-to impossible to watch YouTube with an adblocker, but they chose not to.

Clearly they believe that adblock users still provide net-positive value to them.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#262

Post by stjohnswarts » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 10:39 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #202

Teever wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to some Woodstock hippy utopia where everyone cares so much for everyone else that love conquers all?

How is that the only alternative?

I don't if they're saying other people shouldn't have a different take on life. I prefer to actually have a certain level of respect and care for my fellow humans. It's is dwarfed by my concern for myself and my family, but yeah I'm gonna bend down and give someone a hand if they drop something or need a push off the road or battery jump.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#263

Post by BbzzbB » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 10:46 PM UTC

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #252

BbzzbB wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic jam? What kind of autonomy do you think modern EVs have? If you're gonna make a good faith argument about why we couldn't switch to 100% EV over night, talking about grids' capacities would be more genuine.

I believe your parent poster was just poking fun at the "if everybody started to do X" construct. If all humans started to use EVs (or any other type of vehicles) at the same time, the traffic jams would indeed be horrific. At any given time perhaps <5% of people are on the roads, so how would you even fit 100% of people onto roads at the same time?

Oh, didn't cross my mind. I think you are right and I probably misinterpreted the comment. My brain went straight to it being about running out of power and causing jams, probably because it was such a common fear with regards to EVs (and still is to an extent, CC Bill Gates and Porsche/Tesla in 2020).

I'm sorry, GGP.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#264

Post by getcrunk » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 10:48 PM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #233

leetcrew wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> this is essentially a rehash of the "what constitutes unauthorized access to unsecured resources?" debate Youtube's Terms of Service[0] specifically say: ``` The following restrictions apply to your use of the Service. You are not allowed to: ... 2. circumvent, disable, fraudulently engage with, or otherwise interfere with any part of the Service (or attempt to do any of these things), including security-related fe…

Irrespective of the larger argument; I mean many TOS are unethical and/or shouldn't carry moral weight. If it was one company sure, don't use it. But the majority of companies (web or otherwise) have excessive and dense TOS to which the average person cannot give informed consent to anyways.

Let's not fool ourselves here

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#265

Post by xwx » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

meibo wrote: post #71

xwx wrote: post #8

Vanced is pretty good. It seems like it's just the official YouTube app but with premium for free. Newpipe is another ad-free YouTube app. https://newpipe.net/ It's FOSS and doesn't use your Google account, or any of the YouTube APIs. You can still manage subscriptions but you have to import them manually.

It explicitly doesn't provide Premium for free, all premium features but the picture in picture support are still locked behind purchase. The standout features are ad- and sponsorblock.

Huh, interesting. Maybe it's changed, maybe I'm misremembering.

In either case NewPipe has picture-in-picture playback and audio only playback. Not sure what else I'm missing from Premium.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#266

Post by kazinator » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

wbobeirne wrote: post #229

DetroitThrow wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> Premium view nets more money to the creator than the average ad-supported view.

How does that compare to just donating directly?

> I haven't personally seen any content creators explicitly dissuade people from paying for Premium.

If they were to do that anywhere in YouTube, you'd think that would be some kind of TOS violation.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#267

Post by datagram » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #165

My "killer use case" for Vanced or NewPipe isn't even the ad removal, it's being able to continue playing the audio while the app is minimised or the phone is locked. That is such a basic restriction that free YouTube places upon itself that ruins my main use case - listening to a couple of videos on my commute to and from work.

You can easily get all of these features in the official YouTube app by subscribing to YouTube Premium, which also provides revenue to content creators.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#268

Post by matt74827289 » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 10:58 PM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #261

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…

> 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 appears) in exchange for them doing all the work of collecting, hosting, and delivering that content to you. Yet Google, like Microsoft bac…

Physical stores have the means to make it close-to impossible to shoplift goods from their store by investing in security, but they chose not to.

Clearly they believe that shoplifters still provide net-positive value to them.

Which is obviously bs, just because they don't stop you from doing it doesn't make it a net positive from them. It could just as likely mean that the time and effort to stop it is more expensive than the losses they would incur.

They are offering you a service with two options to pay for the service. Either by watching ads or paying a subscription. You are choosing to consume the content without paying.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#269

Post by viraptor » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 10:59 PM UTC

wbobeirne wrote: post #158

DetroitThrow wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On hn I find people often talk about how as individuals we shouldn't ignore the negative externalities we might create for massively profitable monopolies, but never in the same breath do we talk about the negative externalities those monopolies thrust on us as individuals or on our governments. I'm sure most are aware just how well Google will be regardless of whether they bypass ads or not.

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,…

It's worth considering the scale of the contributing. If you give the creator 1$ directly, that's likely more than they'd get from you watching the ads on 1 year or their videos (if they're releasing more than weekly). Contributing a minimal amount in literally any other way will more than offset the loss from ads.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#270

Post by bdlowery » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 10:59 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #19

Funny how people want content but don’t want to support content creators via ads or paying for YouTube Premium. The internet in a nutshell. Ironically if people weren’t so avoidant of paying for digital content, ads, and the subsequent tracking, would’ve never emerged.

This is why if you develop software, you should develop it for Mac. People who own a Mac will actually pay for your software willingly. Example: https://cleanshot.com/

If he made this exclusively for Windows no one would have paid for it. But since he's made it for Mac, he's racked in hundreds of thousands of dollars.