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YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

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Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#201

YouTube premium perfectly showcases why ads dominate the internet, because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay (And I am not talking about too broke to pay cases). Serving an infinite video catalog is very expensive in terms of all resources (And yes Netflix is not comparable, unlike YouTube, Netflix can highly leverage cache boxes at ISPs). Vime…

What I don't understand (speaking of Vimeo) is why doesn't YouTube offer a plan where individual content creators can choose to pay a monthly fee to keep ads off of their own videos for all viewers. Speaking for myself I would happily pay for that.

You can read the Vimeo thread for why it can not work. If people pay a monthly fee, and their views skyrocket, you either have to force them to pay much more, or to restrict their views somehow, both of which are just so so bad compared to the current scenario (this is exactly what Vimeo did).

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#202
post #4

On a related note as someone who uses YouTube constantly YouTube Premium is absolutely worth it.

Is it possible to get YouTube Premium without a credit-card? That is what stopped me from subscribing before.

I subscribe with a Debit Card. Works perfectly fine.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#203

I would pay for a way to block YouTube entirely. Every smart tv, tablet, game system seems to have a non-removable YouTube app preloaded. I ended up setting up having to set up a piehole and blocked it there, but the kids will eventually figure out a work around.

Buy Apple devices. Don't install the YouTube app and if you want add YouTube.com to the parental controls.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#204

YouTube premium perfectly showcases why ads dominate the internet, because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay (And I am not talking about too broke to pay cases). Serving an infinite video catalog is very expensive in terms of all resources (And yes Netflix is not comparable, unlike YouTube, Netflix can highly leverage cache boxes at ISPs). Vime…

> YouTube premium perfectly showcases why ads dominate the internet, because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay There's also a factor of quality and trust. I don't trust YouTube Premium enough to even try it. This is mostly colored by their constant, invasive disruption of my YouTube experience (particularly apparent on mobile) with YT Premium a…

When I heard how much more a YouTube Red view was worth to a creator than an ad impression, I was convinced that it's a reasonable compromise.

I don't necessarily trust Google, but creators are vetting that Google is holding up their end of the bargain. So why shouldn't I?

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#206
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YouTube premium perfectly showcases why ads dominate the internet, because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay There's also a factor of quality and trust. I don't trust YouTube Premium enough to even try it. This is mostly colored by their constant, invasive disruption of my YouTube experience (particularly apparent on mobile) with YT Premium a…

> I have no problem paying for services, even for premium tiers when free tier is available. > I don't trust YouTube Premium enough to even try it. These two statements seem to be mutually incompatible unless you're trying to argue that a premium tier doesn't really exist unless you can write the terms of service and audit the company providing it. It's also somewhat hard to follow the logic here: if you don't trust…

I like premium stake and would pay for it. I'm not eating premium stake at Cockroach Joe. His sandwiches are alright.

How are they incompatible?

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#207

Writing's on the wall. As soon as they make ads mandatory, a competitor with no ads and better support will look a lot more attractive, and they could eventually face an exodus.

That competitor will also bleed ridiculous amounts of money for years paying for infrastructure, legal costs, and rising engineering needs. That is, until they also start doing the same thing. Everyone here complains about what Google is doing to YouTube, but financially speaking this is the only thing they can do for now, YouTube has always been ridiculously expensive to run and hard to monetize, and with last year ad revenue not meeting expectations + the current economic scenario I don't see what else they should do.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#208
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YouTube premium perfectly showcases why ads dominate the internet, because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay There's also a factor of quality and trust. I don't trust YouTube Premium enough to even try it. This is mostly colored by their constant, invasive disruption of my YouTube experience (particularly apparent on mobile) with YT Premium a…

[flagged]

Not OP, but:

I have no desire to steal from /content creators/, which is why I support them via other means. (Patreon etc)

YouTube on the other hand, is an untrustworthy middleman who's going to to their level best to profit off of me and not pass the money on to the content creators. It's YouTube that's stealing from the content creators. If YouTube was a utility that would deliver me the bits that I wanted from the content creators I wanted I'd be happy to pay some sort of volume pricing for the resources they use to do it, however I have no problem "stealing" from them by using an adblocker considering all the user-hostile crap they do to both viewers and creators.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you weren’t a paying customer, refuse to become a paying customer, and refuse to watch the ads, they don’t gain anything by having you as a user. It only costs them to retain you. If doing something as simple as asking you to hold up your end of the deal of using their website (letting ads load for the ad-supported content) is too much to ask but paying for the website is also too much to ask, you have to be hones…

I don’t do the ads on desktop but tolerate them on mobile. If they push me off the habit altogether, they’ll lose that second half of ads. I used to be fine with the ads. But two breaks for a five minute video is unacceptable. I hope they fail if this is what they think is okay. They also advertise fraudulent stuff all the time now. They don’t care. They’re just desperate for money. It would be silly to assign some s…

I wouldn't argue that the ads are terrible but it's what you agreed to by using an ad supported service. If you don't like their ad selection, the only ethical choice is either to pay for Premium or stop using YouTube. Watching someone's work without paying them isn't fair to the creators and it's a great way to ensure the market moves to worse content which is cheaper to produce.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#210
post #183

Other than driving a mass exodus to Firefox, I don’t see this having any real impact. Unless you own the whole software stack adblock is a game of cat and mouse. Let’s say worst case scenario google embeds ads into the video itself, and refuses to stream the actual video packets until the length of the ad has elapsed. The repetitive nature of advertising makes if trivial to detect when the served video is an ad and w…

They don't mind the cat and mouse games, as long as they capture some people. Whether this is through showing ads or getting them to subscribe.

I believe this has been successful for Twitch, growing revenue despite decrease in concurrent viewers. So the real impact seems obvious to me, even if I would personally avoid it.

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