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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

#801

Post by lrvick »

If you use FreeTube it will buffer a second stream of the video started just before ad spots then stream-and-discard the ads. When you get to an ad spot it cuts to the buffer from the second stream while the ad in your primary stream buffers.

It can also optionally stream through mirror services like invidious that also strip all ads.

In short, you can -always- access content provided to the anonymous internet without ads without the provider being able to tell.

The creators even get paid for ads you never watched.

If everyone does this advertisers will stop paying, and we can move on from this failed experiment and build better microtransaction systems.

Never ever watch or listen to ads or give data to adtech companies. This is always doing more harm to society than alternatives like piracy or violating terms of service.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#802

Post by jsnell »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #722
freehorse wrote: post #615

It is not just about youtube. The whole internet is bloated with ads right now, and the vast majority of them quite the opposite of discrete. I just cannot browse the internet without adblocker, it is too slow, but more importantly too distracting. I could count the times that I have found an internet ad interesting in my lifetime using half the fingers of one hand. Personalised or not, the vast majority is useless,…

On mobile YouTube right now I see two unskippable ads before every video. How long before some genius needs to juice his numbers this quarter and come up with the bright idea of three unskippable ads? Google made over $250 billion in 2021, $30 billion of that is thought to come from YouTube, can someone explain to me what is wrong with this status quo? If blocking a subset of users is such a good idea, why isn't Goog…

> If blocking a subset of users is such a good idea, why isn't Google rolling it out to everyone today?

There's a bunch of reasons to do an experiment with a small percentage of users first, and to do a gradual rollout.

First, they don't actually know for sure that this works, since users are unpredictable. You need an experiment to see how they react now and in the longer term. Do all the impacted users just immediately switch to a different ad blocker that isn't getting detected? No point in rolling this out further until that is fixed. Do all of those users churn out entirely, rather than some of them disabling the adblocker or subscribing to Premium? Then there's a business decision to be made, and they didn't have data for it earlier.

Second, there might be technical issues that make the implementation harmful. For example maybe the JS code causes crashes for legit users on a browser you didn't test, or something. You'd like to contain the damage to just members of the experimental group, not all users of that browser.

Third, even if they know this will be a beneficial change, they don't know how beneficial. The people who proposed and implemented the project want to show the impact (an increase of X million in ads revenue, extra Y thousand Premium subscribers, Z reduction in serving costs, whatever their KPI is). The people who funded the team want to know whether they actually got a return on the investment, and whether they should continue staffing further work to improve coverage, etc.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#803

Post by Nextgrid »

robertoandred wrote: post #396
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.

Seems pretty slow actually. Also the search is poor, the player is buggy, and some videos wouldn’t play at all because of format issues.

You really have to self-host those services if you want adequate performance. All the public instances are overloaded.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#804

Post by knorker »

lofaszvanitt wrote: post #672
knorker wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for YT there's a solution: YT Premium. Sure, as other comments have said, it doesn't scale to all websites, but youtube isn't just any website.

I'm not paying for anything until they remove the "this is the bubble we have prepared for you" recommendation algorithm. Plus I gladly watch ads, but not the same ads (do the companies pay triple if I watch the same ad from them I wonder) ever again.

You can go directly to the subscriptions tab.

Or hell, Youtube has an API; You can write your own frontend.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#805

Post by knorker »

secondcoming wrote: post #665
knorker wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for YT there's a solution: YT Premium. Sure, as other comments have said, it doesn't scale to all websites, but youtube isn't just any website.

Does YT Premium block the sponsored ad slots? Because if not, that's a pointless product.

That's fair. Because also probably the people the advertisers want to reach MOST are exactly the people who have the spare money (and willingness to spend it) to shell out for YT Premium.

But yeah I'd pay to get rid of all the "this video is sponsored by brilliant/nordVPN/whatever".

Sigh.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#806

Post by Thorentis »

m681 wrote: post #420
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?

Need? No, not particularly. Deserve? Yes, they are providing a service.

They already make a profit from the service. I'm asking why I should provide them more than what they're already making. I believe their profit already gives them as much as they deserve for the service they render to society.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#807

Post by Thorentis »

mda wrote: post #758
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?

Content creators get paid as well, but I don't think you care about that either. You just want to have the cake and eat it I guess, which is fine as well.

I do care about that! But YouTube, the one profiting from those creators, should be the one paying creators more, from their already very high profits. Not me.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#808

Post by danaris »

MandieD wrote: post #690
rixrax wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Ads crank up the volume to 11. We were watching Eurovision singing contest the other day from YT and my gawd was that annoying. Adds in the middle of every song, volume being cranked up for the adds, and as a icing on the cake, probably due to bug somewhere, the playback went to pause after each ad (iPhone airplaying to AppleTV).

That’s what TV (first, broadcast, and then, cable) was like in the 80s and 90s, and was a small part of why we jumped at internet video. For TV, there were devices that promised to automatically lower the volume when commercials came on - I don’t remember how they were supposed to work.

TV ads (almost) never interrupted the flow of the show you were watching, because the show was specifically designed around the ad breaks. Radio ads always came between songs.

YouTube is now just sticking ads in any old where in videos. The middle of a song. The middle of a sentence. It's revolting, and in many cases it ruins the content you're actually trying to watch.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#809

Post by likeclockwork »

thiht wrote: post #650
Natsu wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also there's the fact that once enough people get on board with the ad free subscription services, they usually just start adding ads anyway.

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, that’s true. I paid my Android TV $2000 and guess what? They added ads on the Home! Google sucks and there’s no way I’ll directly give them money, ever again.

I think a smart TV home screen showing you things you might consider watching on services you probably already subscribe to is in bounds. A bit like calling menu items at a restaurant advertising.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#810

Post by npteljes »

Veserv wrote: post #514
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…

No, it perfectly showcases that people do not want to pay 1000% more money for the privilege of paying a monthly subscription. Youtube Premium costs $12/month [1]. Ads average something like $2 per 1000 views to the creators (in some of the most common categories) [2]. Youtube takes a ~45% cut, so Youtube makes ~$4 per 1000 views from ads. So, to reach $12/month, you would need to average 3000 views per month. At a a…

$12/mo is a ridiculously low amount compared to what value YouTube brings.
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