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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

#371
post #148

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 have YT premium and it is easily the best money I spend most months. I'll just play devil's advocate. Maybe people are imagining a pay per view type of experience?

Yes, me too. YouTube leads in my unregretted minutes, and I don’t want to watch ads when deciding what to watch.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you list some of the amazing content you like?

Not OP, but off the top of my head: - Vlad Vexler - Reporting from Ukraine - Real Engineering - Mustard - Half as Interesting - Coffeezilla I mean the reality is that YT has high quality content for almost any subject matter you can think of. That’s the beauty of the platform, you can find your niche. Hell, it’s even good for most things that pop into your head, podcast clips, old commercials, instruction manuals, DI…

Several of these are on Nebula [1], for what it's worth.

[1] https://nebula.tv

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#373

What's next, "YouTube tests pausing videos when you look away from ads"? This is a slippery slope that I definitely do not want to be going down. At that rate, "drink verification can" is not far off. When I used to watch the actual TV I changed the channel, muted, or left the room during ads. My eyes, my ears, my brain. I will not be forced to consume.

I work in adtech, we're getting into eye tracking for verifying ad viewership on smart TVs. So.. yeah.

Thank you for this information. I just find it amusing that instead of calling it "Big Brother telescreen" just calling it "Smart TV" made everyone comfortable with the technology : we are all smart, right?

As they say: just because you are paranoid, it does not mean that they are not after you.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#374

I am kind of on the fence about the content on YouTube being worth paying for but the website makes it so difficult to find the content that I am actually interested in seeing that it makes the whole experience absolutely not worth it to me to pay for. Faced with blocked videos I would either figure out a way around or do something else with my time. No way I'm disabling my ad blocker.

This.

I feel exactly the same way. Majority of the content I actually want to watch is very difficult to find and the remaining content I get sucked into consuming would be better spent reading a book instead.

They might be doing me a favour by blocking ad blockers lol

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#375

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…

It’s a recurring pattern on the Internet: people unashamedly claiming they’re getting X for free, and will gladly pay if Y condition is met. Then Y condition is met, and people (possibly the same, possibly different) unashamedly come up with new excuses of why they’re still getting it for free and won’t pay.

Never believe “I’ll pay if …” if you’re running a business.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#376
post #219

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…

Isn't it Youtube's problem to make their business profitable? It's not a binary - they could offer a different deal with Premium, market it differently. Customers aren't rational - just like humans. They are a massive multinational - if anyone can figure it out, it's them. Maybe the ad model doesn't work, and people are not clear on what they are actually paying for, since it's effortless to get the same service for…

YouTube is very profitable

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#377
post #219

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…

Isn't it Youtube's problem to make their business profitable? It's not a binary - they could offer a different deal with Premium, market it differently. Customers aren't rational - just like humans. They are a massive multinational - if anyone can figure it out, it's them. Maybe the ad model doesn't work, and people are not clear on what they are actually paying for, since it's effortless to get the same service for…

>Edit: And I'm suprised few people are mentionning how much information youtube gets about you from using the site, and using youtube premium makes being anonymous impossible.

This is an important point. How much money is Google making by being able to track and spy on YouTube viewers?

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#378

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…

YouTube premium was probably the best decision I did. Amount of time saved on ads alone makes it worth it. Other bonus feature - downloading videos. If you make enough money it is a no brainer together with things like extra cloud storage from google, Apple and now ChatGPT

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#379
YouTube's quality deteriorated. The amount of ads is obnoxious. Lack of dislike button to check, if a video of worth it probably inflated the view rate. They try to squeeze as much money as possible (hey Preference Max - we know it's only to allocate some of the money in the platform), until TikTok takes over.

I don't need YT, the content they host is not worth paying and I wouldn't have a problem to live without it.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#380

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…

Peer to peer and microtransactions might work. So some people with computers can keep one tab open and earn some crypto cents. I'm not sure if it's possible to build P2P network with zero trust that could work like that. One issue could be that participating person might technically be involved with distribution of forbidden content like child porn or disney cartoon. So even if they didn't know that and everything wa…

What many people specifically don’t like about subscriptions are the transactions, IMO. Transaction costs aren’t zero, and microtransactions just introduce more of them.
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