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YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts

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Re: YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts

#251

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Edited to add this: > either way you're depriving the creator of revenue. That may be the case -- but doesn't mean you're stealing. It may mean the creator might want to find a better way of monetizing, though. > probably something about the fact that since it can be copied for free then it's not worth anything? Not at all. The ease of duplication has no relevance to the value of a thing. My argument is simple. It's…

so I assume you believe software cannot be stolen, per your definition? piracy is OK, etc?

Copyiright infringement is not and has never been theft. Blocking ads is also not copyright infringement. And copyright infringement is also not piracy. Actual piracy is of course not ok since it generally involves depriving others of something, often their lives.

Re: YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts

#252
post #152
post #45

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> I don't want my history tracked and suggestions personalized. I am genuinely curious, how do you find videos worth your time without recommendations? 99.9% of what’s on YouTube I have zero interest in, the recommendation engine is how I cull the noise and actually find things to watch.

I'm not the person you replied to but: 1. I search for a topic and pick out a video that seems interesting. 2. I remember the names of the few YouTubers I like, and I look them up once in a while. I do actually have a YT account and I'm subscribed to some people, but I rarely bother to sign in. For me, YouTube is a platform for seeking content rather than a platform for being fed content (like HN or Twitter).

In fact I have subscribed to some people also and that's because I've found them genuinely amazing. Nevertheless I only re-visit the channels once in some years - when happen to feel really bored. Even if I sign in I don't care about the feed, I only get to the videos to actually watch through ad-hoc searching and recommendations relevant to the specific video I watch.

Re: YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts

#254

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Yattee [1] and AdGuard [2] are two solutions I’ve found that can help. [1] https://github.com/yattee/yattee [2] https://adguard.com/en/blog/how-to-add-a-shortcut-to-block-y...

Holy cow how have I not heard of testflight installation method with which yattee is being distributed! Reading up more on it, seems you need to be an ios developer to use it. Beh. Thanks for mentioning yatee, as adguard is severely lacking in that ads are rarely blocked.

I don’t think I’ve seen a single ad since I bought AdGuard premium and configured it properly. It feels less capable than uBlock Origin but I find it honestly good enough on iPhone

Re: YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts

#255
post #92

I haven’t seen an ad on YouTube in ages with ublock origin.

...and SponsorBlock.

I often forget how great uBlock is until I have the displeasure of using a computer with no uBlock installed, but every video I am reminded of usefulness of Sponsor Block

Re: YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind sponsors tbh, especially if they're nicely integrated into the video's content.

This. ever seen Internet historian? The ad segment is some of the best content of yt.

But from my experience thats basically the only channel that does that. All the other sponsors are just ad-text read by same voice as the rest of the video.

Re: YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts

#258
post #248

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If you still use plain chrome/chromium then yes. But most people who use ublock origin use firefox as it is the most effective browser for ublock.

Guess who pays Mozilla foundation salaries.

Google funds Mozilla for plausible deniability when regulators come knocking to talk about competition. They lose that if they start dictating functionality to forks and vassals.

Re: YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts

#259

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have you considered to just pay for youtube? you can add up to 6 people in your family who can also use it and your money goes to the content creators you watch, minus youtube's cut probably. that's what I do.

Interesting... I did not know that you could share your YouTube paid status with other family members. I despise the Ads that YouTube shows me and would do almost anything to remove them from my phone, iPad, and TV. I already use a blocker for Firefox, so at least I have some respite on my computer.

You have to create a google family to do it, but yeah that's the way to go.

Re: YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you can't. How about another analogy. Many bars pay licensing fees to television providers to show sports and other content to their patrons. When you watch a game in the bar, you usually spend money for drinks, which pays for the bar and pays for the bar owner to pay the television providers. If I walk into that bar, and watch the game, but don't buy anything, I am not stealing anything. Sure, the owner can kick…

Again your analogy is flawed. YouTube displays ads and you circumvent them in some way and take the product, in this case a video. Similarly you go to Walmart, the equivalent of YouTube.com, find a product, analogous to finding a video, and take it without paying? Analogous to watching the advertisement. Your analogy makes more sense for Google search in that you can search and see results and simply choose to not cl…

Your analogy fails because digital goods are non-rivalrous. Were I to shoplift a video from Walmart, they would no longer possess the video; my gain would be their loss. Obviously this is not true in the digital domain, so moral reasoning about physical stores is unhelpful.

What I receive, when I visit YouTube, is a list of links: invitations to stream certain videos. Google hopes that I will choose to accept all of its offers, since some of the videos are paid advertisements: but it's my computer, and my network connection, and I can do what I wish. Google cannot obligate me to receive any of its videos, any more than I can force Google to supply anything its servers don't want to share; the streaming operation must be mutually agreed.

As it happens, I do not care to spend my time or my bandwidth streaming the ads Google offers me, and I have therefore configured my browser, which runs on my computer, which I own, to act in accordance with my preferences. If Google does not like this arrangement, they are free to change it; nobody is forcing them to supply me with video content.

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