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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

#491

Post by celestialcheese »

kerkeslager wrote: post #435
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've said it before and I've said it again: ad-based content and pay content are incompatible business models. YouTube Premium fails because the content isn't worth paying for. The content is not worth paying for because it's been designed from the ground up to sell ads . When a website designed to sell ads fails to sell content, that's not evidence that selling content doesn't work, it's evidence that selling conten…

I couldn't disagree more.

The majority of my usage, and the usage of _many_ others based on the view count for DIY stuff, is watching people fix or build stuff. Usually because I'm in the middle of a project trying to figure out how to do something, or because I'm thinking about a project and wanting to get an idea of how difficult it'll be. Youtube University basically.

I pay for premium because it saves so much time, and I hate ads when I'm under a car trying to remember what bolt goes where.

Also, from an economic model, Stratechery has a great article last week discussing this - worth a read. https://stratechery.com/2023/the-unified-content-business-mo...

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#492

Post by CydeWeys »

Prickle wrote: post #482
acdha wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Even if I paid for YT premium, the money wouldn't go to the YT creator people I support. It's really that simple. I can no longer trust PayPal, and Patreon doesn't accept my local credit card so that goes down the drain too. They already harvest my data. I refuse to pay them money to exploit me further.

YT premium money does partially go to creators though??

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#493

Post by judge2020 »

Prickle wrote: post #482
acdha wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Even if I paid for YT premium, the money wouldn't go to the YT creator people I support. It's really that simple. I can no longer trust PayPal, and Patreon doesn't accept my local credit card so that goes down the drain too. They already harvest my data. I refuse to pay them money to exploit me further.

See the replies to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35896620

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#494

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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

> Every minute someone watches them is a minute that they aren't watching a potential competitor

Actually, they would prefer if all of the ad-blocking, refuse-to-pay customers would spend a lot of time on their competitor's websites.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#495

Post by danShumway »

Supermancho wrote: post #403
makeitdouble wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay People don't want to pay for half-baked products: - Workspace accounts don't work - Even with standard accounts, it won't work on many devices (eg. TV apps), so you still get ads even as you paid - As Google regularly kills people's account, it also means most of us have multiple Youtube accounts that…

> People don't want to pay for half-baked products: This is disingenuous, to be blunt. People do not block youtube ads because workspace accounts don't work or because Google kills off niche products or that people lose youtube accounts when switching devices. Switching profiles is already considered an inconvenience, due to the way the algorithms tailor so well, regardless of how often you may engage in it.

> due to the way the algorithms tailor so well

People on HN seem to have very different experiences on Youtube than I do. Do people here actually like Youtube's video recommendations? Youtube is my go-to example I give when I need to explain to people why algorithmic recommendations generally don't work well.

> People do not block youtube ads because [...]

I'll take a hardline position on this -- if Youtube Premium was free, it would not be worth using it to watch Youtube videos. The cost is not actually the main issue. The product itself is inferior to using 3rd-party tools.

I spent a decently long time paying for Youtube Premium because I wanted to pay for content, and deliberately not using it anyway because I also wanted to have a decent viewing experience. I can't speak for other people, but for me at least when I talk about the quality of the service, it's not an excuse. I deliberately paid for a product and I still didn't use it; that's how much I disliked it.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#496

Post by VancouverMan »

throw101010 wrote: post #223
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…

If I didn't have to tie my identity to my browsing/watching history (through credit card) then I would pay... but I guess that would imply them supporting alternative payment methods and also them not being able to sell this data (i.e. the subscription would be more expensive). Unlikely to happen, so I will keep ad-blocking or eventually stop watching if they make ad-blocking too difficult (happened with Twitch for m…

I feel the same way. It's not just about the privacy aspects, too. It's also about the convenience. I don't want to have to create and use an account just to pay for video content. I want something more along the lines of dropping coins/bills into the instrument case of a street musician.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#497

Post by hrisng »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #156
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.

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…

Public goodwill is a thing. Also, their offer was lackluster. But with Youtube Music being a part of Premium and getting better and better overtime, more and more people are actually on the lookout for signing up. There's also a psychological aspect of it. Remember how it feels when you're just about to do something and someone told you that you have to do it? Taking the agency and initiative away tend to annoy people and have an adverse effect on the task. You might not be personally affected by it but it's a common thing.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#498

Post by shultays »

I have youtube premium but I still prefer ad blockers or other clients if available. The funny part is even with premium, youtube is not giving you the best experiencen others do

For PC i have sponsor block which allows me to skip ads in videos

For TV i am using smarttube, an unofficial client which imo better and more customisable than the official one. Plus it also supports sponsor block

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#499

Post by lisasays »

kerkeslager wrote: post #435
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've said it before and I've said it again: ad-based content and pay content are incompatible business models. YouTube Premium fails because the content isn't worth paying for. The content is not worth paying for because it's been designed from the ground up to sell ads . When a website designed to sell ads fails to sell content, that's not evidence that selling content doesn't work, it's evidence that selling conten…

The content is not worth paying for because it's been designed from the ground up to sell ads.

Some of it is, but the vast bulk of it clearly was not. You knew that of course.

I'd strongly consider paying for YT if it were an independent company. But as a part of Google - fuck no.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#500

Post by jmholla »

bagacrap wrote: post #410
userbinator wrote: post #155

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.

Isn't slippery slope a logical fallacy? Let's wait until Google does something actually insane before claiming that what they're doing is insane.

It's only a fallacy if you don't have past behaviour to justify your predictions.
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