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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

#271

Post by chiefalchemist »

crop_rotation wrote: post #126

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…

Some site off X free articles per month. Can't YT do the same? Along the same lines, if there are heavy TY users, can't they be ad'ed more than average?

The point being, it's hard to want to pay for the no-ads experience when you rarely if ever get to experience it and/or your YT usage is not that often.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#272

Post by est31 »

nextaccountic wrote: post #248
crop_rotation wrote: post #126

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…

> And yes Netflix is not comparable, unlike YouTube, Netflix can highly leverage cache boxes at ISPs Why can't Google do this? They already have presence at ISPs

I guess the reasoning is that Youtube has a way larger catalog while Netflix's catalog is comparatively small. I don't really think this really a legitimate reason though, given that most social media has huge power laws, that is it's likely that 99% of each day's views are for a very tiny number of videos comparable to the size of Netflix's catalog.

Yes, for the remaining 1% youtube has to provide some central service, but that's just a small fraction of their traffic, and if they run into cost problems there they just increase the size of the caches at the ISPs, or introduce layered caching (one for each continent, then one for each ISP, etc). They probably do all of that already.

Storing those huge amount of videos that get maybe 1 view per decade each, that's a different challenge, but I wouldn't say the traffic is. But I don't know youtube's data maybe there is no power law in effect for them, idk.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#273

Post by ThaDood »

climb_stealth wrote: post #221

It's incredible how many people go "I was almost ready to give them money" whilst using Youtube all the time with an ad blocker. I know it, I was one of them for years. Just buy the subscription. You get the free trial for a month. Nothing changes, the money is not missed, but you actually pay for something you use a lot. The biggest benefit is not being subjected to ads anymore just by being next to family members w…

IIRC YouTube Premium also comes with YouTube Music, which coming from a former Google Music user, the plan was a no-brainer.

If YT Music great? Well, no but it's fine. It has my music, podcasts and decent recommendation algorithm. Paired that with commerical free YT and it's a stellar offer.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#274

Post by Gigachad »

bigthymer wrote: post #256
crop_rotation wrote: post #126

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…

I think you make a good point but I think part of the problem is that it is difficult to get people to pay for something that they have gotten used to getting for free.

It makes no sense to pay for YouTube premium when you can use ad blockers. Which is why google is removing that option.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#275

Post by ChatGTP »

thisgoodlife wrote: post #100
ChatGTP wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m happy because I won’t pay them and now they’re forcing me off the platform, win for me.

That’s a win win. You shouldn’t be forced to use the platform. And the platform shouldn’t be forced to provide you services for free

If Google didn’t have such a abysmal business model to start with, this wouldn’t be an issue.

They offered services for free without providing the disclaimer.

The attention economy is a toxic poison, I think more people than you realise are now aware of this and are less likely to pay for something Google offers because of it.

I don’t hate Google, but they’ve eroded a lot of trust.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#276

Post by Thorentis »

climb_stealth wrote: post #221

It's incredible how many people go "I was almost ready to give them money" whilst using Youtube all the time with an ad blocker. I know it, I was one of them for years. Just buy the subscription. You get the free trial for a month. Nothing changes, the money is not missed, but you actually pay for something you use a lot. The biggest benefit is not being subjected to ads anymore just by being next to family members w…

Why? Does Google need to be making a higher profit than it already does? Does YouTube deserve the extra money? For what reason should we pay?

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#278

Post by Gigachad »

karaterobot wrote: post #67

Is it weird that this makes me want to subscribe to YouTube premium less than before? Feels like I've been poised to give them money for a while, since so many people seem to like the service. Now I feel like they're challenging me to a duel.

I don’t pay for it because it’s pointless when you can use an ad blocker. This change would flip the situation.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#279

Post by miah_ »

My big problem with paying for Youtube is I have a workspace account for my personal domain. None of their services inter-operate with workspace services. For example, our Google Home. My wife cannot register her voice with the system because she has a 'google account' not an account on my workspace. Because of this, our Home will regularly deny her the ability to listen to "age restricted" podcasts about cooking (they sometimes swear omg). Similarly, if I pay for Youtube, I cannot "share with my family" unless they are also on my workspace.

Clearly, the solution is for me to create another google account to use for these services and only use my workspace account for one thing. But then why am I paying Google to host my workspace account? Should I pay them _MORE_ for my wife and children to also be on my workspace, as well as paying for Youtube? (don't worry, I'm working on migrating off workspaces too).

(and fwiw, I paid for youtube premium for years, and watch hours of youtube content a day)

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#280

Post by alexiaa »

wanderingmind wrote: post #32
SirMaster wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why even download? You can use third party media players like MPC-BE or MPC-HC that leverage yt-dlp to stream the video into a media player without any ads of course. Yes, sometimes it makes sense to download if you want to keep the video, but to just watch just stream it via yt-dlp to a media player.

How about non windows users? Like does VLC has similar integration with yt-dlp?

mpv is cross-platform.
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