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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

#311

Post by latexr »

Question for anyone who bought YouTube Premium and tried to cancel later: how did it go?

Years ago I bought a Chromecast for a family member but ended up sending it back because it was subpar. The return process was so frustrating (not to mention the difficulty in deleting the mandatory Google Wallet account) that I vowed to never trust Google with any money again. I feel I’d rather stop watching YouTube entirely.

I’m interested in experiences, good and bad, of cancelling as YouTube Premium.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#312

Post by alwayslikethis »

Nextgrid wrote: post #82

Invidious is a third-party frontend (you can self-host) that solves this problem: https://github.com/iv-org/invidious As a bonus, it is super fast because it doesn't have to justify the salaries of dozens (hundreds?) of frontend developers and can get away with server-side-rendered HTML and minimal amounts of Javascript.

Another alternative is Piped. https://piped.kavin.rocks. Comes with sponsorblock in addition to not showing ads. For Android users, use Youtube ReVanced if you want algorithm recommendations, NewPipe if not.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#313

Post by Dalewyn »

nextaccountic wrote: post #254
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #156

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…

> they don’t gain anything by having you as a user. Every minute someone watches them is a minute that they aren't watching a potential competitor In this sense, having a free tier at all is effective to suffocate competition, even if most users enable adblock

This has always been the case over in the world of freemium games.

The vast majority of the playerbase (70~80%?) are Free2Players (F2Pers), while the rest are whales (paying players) and an even smaller subset of them are space whales who spend enough in a month to buy a luxury car or two.

The games go to great lengths to retain those F2Pers because they are the ones the whales and space whales play together with and/or against. No F2Pers, no whales, no game, no business.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#314

Post by vehemenz »

AuthError wrote: post #106
everdrive wrote: post #89

I'm pretty torn here. I don't believe I deserve access to free content, and there's _nothing_ wrong with any site blocking access if you don't want to see ads. I've done a lot of digital curtailing in my life, but Youtube has been hard to avoid. It's both good and bad, as they have some of the most amazing content in the whole world, but also some of the most addictive trash that I can't stop watching. Because the se…

consuming content for free where creators expect to get paid is polite way of stealing if you really think about it

I thought about it more and realized it wasn't stealing.

What do we do now?

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#316

Post by SerChudTheThird »

Gigachad wrote: post #307
Thorentis wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why does it need to be justified? It’s their product and they are entitled to block ad blockers. Either watch ads, buy the subscription, or stop using YouTube.

[dead]

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#318

Post by mozman »

stephen_g wrote: post #263
TeMPOraL wrote: post #173

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…

That’s a shame that they’re apparently a bit pushy (I have Premium so don’t see any of that), because it’s been 100% worth it in my experience. I feel I get more than enough value from YouTube Premium to have it for myself, whereas Netflix I would cancel if I didn’t share it with my parents and two siblings. If they crack down on password sharing, it will go and YT will stay…

I pay exactly $0 and see no YT ads, and I am a pretty heavy YT viewer. I just don't think it's right to have to pay.

Advertisers use their dollars to influence and make statements, also forcing stupid age restrictions just because someone swears.

It's 1984 in 2023.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#319

Post by anon-3988 »

concordDance wrote: post #296
pb7 wrote: post #205

[flagged]

The Internet sucks because it got commercialised. Not because of ads.

Sure, but there is literally ZERO incentive to be a "good" player here. If Youtube doesn't have ads and relied solely on premium they will probably not survive without going into an insane amount of debt.

If consumers do pay for premium, then consumers at least have a moral leverage they can use against Youtube. As it stands, consumers are in the "wrong" here.

Either:

1. We agree that ads is justified.

2. Or Youtube as a service and many like it (free service) does not make sense and should not be made illegal if it can't make profit. It will literally bleed money for the rest of eternity and can only survive by going into debt.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#320

Post by fendy3002 »

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 don't like that paid subscription services usually changes to be worse the day they get high enough market share. And content providers are severely fragmented that it become expensive to enjoy them all. Sure we can switch subscriptions for some months to enjoy different content provider for same expense, but it's such a hassle to do it imo.
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