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YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

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Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#681

Post by HWR_14 »

dylan604 wrote: post #295
kitsunesoba wrote: post #226

This doesn't really affect me since I subscribe to premium, but something that a lot of ad-based services don't seem to grasp is why people block ads. It's because they've become increasingly obnoxious. Nobody blocked ads when they were a simple column of links in the gutter or maybe an animated GIF banner with 3 frames. No, adblockers became popular because ads kept getting more loud (both visually and audibly), in…

>No, adblockers became popular because ads kept getting more loud (both visually and audibly), Too bad the FCC's CALM act can't be applied to the internet as well: "The CALM Act applies only to commercials aired on television—it does not apply to radio commercials or commercials aired on the internet or via streaming services." https://www.fcc.gov/enforcement/areas/sound-volume-commercia...

The FCC cannot regulate internet communications, by law. That's not the proper agency. Maybe the FTC or maybe a new federal law.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#682

Post by spacemadness »

mcpackieh wrote: post #309

I block ads because they're psychological warfare that corporations wage against me. I don't care how unobtrusive the ads are. I don't care if the ads don't track me. I grew up changing the channel on TV when ads came on, and ripping adverts out of magazines before sitting down to read them. I vote for billboard bans whenever I can. I have zero tolerance for ads of any sort. Advertisers have no morals, they're comple…

This reminds me of a softer version of the famous Bill Hicks standup routine on advertising that hilariously really pisses off people in advertising in Youtube comments. Advertising does a lot of good for the world according to people that majored in marketing. Alas, I have to agree with Bill on this one.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#683

Post by Regnore »

ChatGTP wrote: post #254
honeybadger1 wrote: post #219

I already have backed off of youtube so much because of how awful they have made the experience, this will be it for me entirely if they implement this.

Honestly, my feed is so full of rubbish, clickbait thumbnails and misinformation that I really can't even believe it's a Google product. It's just so polluted. It's really come to the stage where I actually "hope" the search helps me find what I'm looking for, the sea of bullshit on YT is vast and difficult to navigate now. For a time, I would say I was quite addicted to YouTube, but now I'm so turned off by it and I…

> Honestly, my feed is so full of rubbish, clickbait thumbnails and misinformation that I really can't even believe it's a Google product. It's just so polluted.

This is not all that different than my experience with even Google Search these days. Half the time I search for something on Google the top 10 are all ads/SEO spam sites.

There are certain things that I search that still give the best results out of all search engines (usually very specific queries), but more and more I want to be able to pay Google to leave out the shit.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#684

Post by mihaaly »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #226

This doesn't really affect me since I subscribe to premium, but something that a lot of ad-based services don't seem to grasp is why people block ads. It's because they've become increasingly obnoxious. Nobody blocked ads when they were a simple column of links in the gutter or maybe an animated GIF banner with 3 frames. No, adblockers became popular because ads kept getting more loud (both visually and audibly), in…

Exactly.

But they do not take my second inch, let alone a mile. I simply avoid places with agressive ads, like youtube (and the products advertised), and TV in general long long ago. I stopped to care about the content, not least because the content thinned up with plethora of ad hungry nothing, uninteresting, deceiving, ad optimised nothing. Content pushed on me based on ad strategy and not my interest, navigating to something truely similar or favoured is obscured (just like in movie streaming services wich pushes trends and obfuscates navigation). Not to mention the shameless tracking. No point going to such places, there is plenty of life elsewhere.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#685

Post by belthesar »

makestuff wrote: post #514
kitsunesoba wrote: post #226

This doesn't really affect me since I subscribe to premium, but something that a lot of ad-based services don't seem to grasp is why people block ads. It's because they've become increasingly obnoxious. Nobody blocked ads when they were a simple column of links in the gutter or maybe an animated GIF banner with 3 frames. No, adblockers became popular because ads kept getting more loud (both visually and audibly), in…

I pay for YT premium because the ads were getting ridiculous (I think this is partly their goal to push people to premium subscriptions) and I want to support the creators. However, now every video has a damn host read ad embedded in it. I find it incredibly frustrating that my $15/mo isn't enough. I watch on my TV mainly so I can't use one of those plugins that skips host read ads. I just manually skip them. Maybe t…

In general, I don't mind sponsor reads in a video for a couple reasons:

1. They're produced much more mindfully in context of the video your watching. At their most basic, they're a small ad read at the beginning of a video, at their best, they're a much more likely to be relevant to me (the consumer) ad that doesn't cause me to lose focus on the video's original context. When a YouTube ad plays on my iPad while I'm listening to something during my daily shower, I don't really fear that a sponsor read is going to cause me to lose focus on the topic, largely because the automated ad inserter isn't going to accidentally cut out a second or two before a natural break, or even worse, in the middle of a sentence.

2. I know the proceeds of the ad are going directly to the creator, instead of to a machine that does ads in a way that myself, and a slough of psychologists, believe is damaging to a human.

I would much rather pay for YT Premium, or other services for ad free content viewing, however a lack of job security has lead me to sock away that and other funds that would go to paying for content like this to my rainy day fund. If it were a binary choice of pay for YT or not right now, I wouldn't, and I'd miss out on some fun, informative, and entertaining content, but in a way, I wish that was the case. It'd come with some awful consequences for an entire ecosystem of content creators, but ultimately that's the consequences of pedaling tech drugs, and that's a whole different conversation.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#686

Post by Halan »

mcpackieh wrote: post #309

I block ads because they're psychological warfare that corporations wage against me. I don't care how unobtrusive the ads are. I don't care if the ads don't track me. I grew up changing the channel on TV when ads came on, and ripping adverts out of magazines before sitting down to read them. I vote for billboard bans whenever I can. I have zero tolerance for ads of any sort. Advertisers have no morals, they're comple…

Why not paying YT premium if you care that much about morality.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#687

Post by recursive »

Larrikin wrote: post #257
Verdex wrote: post #222

I don't really understand either side of the equation here. So, on the one hand you have people who use ad blockers. The first retort that comes to mind here is: Well, we'll take our business elsewhere. Which is odd because without ads they aren't paying and them leaving is the goal. Of course on the other hand ... when I read the title my thoughts weren't that I would be okay because I don't ad block youtube. My tho…

Why would you not use an ad blocker?

Perhaps because you believe that using an ad blocker escalates an arms race that leads to bad outcomes for all internet users.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#688

Post by [deleted] »

cruano wrote: post #365
Khaine wrote: post #353

Youtube ads are bad in several ways: 1) they have these ads that pop-over and hide the content 2) there ad breaks are cut into content at in-opportune moments. At least on TV, the content is designed around the ad breaks 3) I have recently seen ads for gambling powered by cryptocurrencies, how can Google allow these ads baffles me Collectively, these things make the ads on YouTube infuriating. It's then made worse by…

> or come up with a different method Let me introduce you to Paying for the services you use™

[deleted]

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#689

Post by JackGreyhat »

RajT88 wrote: post #662
miki123211 wrote: post #324

If you're on iOS, I highly recommend Yattee[1], a free Youtube app with no ads, background playback and sponsor block built-in. The way they get around App Store restrictions is by claiming that they aren't a Youtube app. They're technically a video-watching app which is supposed to be used with your own personal server. The server API they require, however, is supported by Invidious[2], an open-source, privacy-prese…

There's also NewPipe on Android: https://newpipe.net/

and LibreTube:

https://github.com/libre-tube/LibreTube

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#690

Post by eYrKEC2 »

guy98238710 wrote: post #666

Bloody fools. They don't know what beast they are waking up. Certain portion of ad blocker users are zealots. These people are insane and quite a few of them are quite resourceful. Just a few problems that are going to hit YT: - torrents and other piracy - rapidly evolving ad-blockers - undetectable ad-blockers sitting in a new page layer invisible to page scripts - visual ML ad-blockers detecting ads no matter how t…

Friction is enough. At Intel they had a product where they wanted to prevent certain use cases ( I forget which), but they were satisfied keeping out everyone who didn't have $50 of equipment and a little knowledge to defeat their mechanism. They weren't afraid of electrical engineers defeating them -- they expected that. They just put in enough friction to prevent _most_ people -- pareto-optimization.
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