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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

#691
post #297

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…

What you have to understand about the contemporary media industry is that their primary business objective is to sell advertisements. Your attention is the product now; the more of it they can sell to advertisers, the more profitable the business becomes. It's much easier to present positive quarterly earnings reports by selling eyeballs and clicks than it is selling pretty much anything else. In the before times, wh…

Well, content providers provide less consumable content now (while the raw amount explodes), that is for sure, we see it, we experience it. The result? We do not try consuming content since we see there is much less, but with much more garbage and adverse consequences.

We - wife, me, and some I know - cancels providers as they are not serving the consumer, and we feel that. Let them sell their service to ad companies then, when less and less consumers go to their site, good luck with that in the long run. They lost one customer for sure, and looking at the mood here there may be more, or will be more if they carry on like this.

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

#692
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…

Good point. I don't know what were their expectations for audience reaction. It surely wasn't "oh I need to turn off my adblocker then" or "oh, YouTube Premium, that's neat, lemme get my credit card". For me, it was, in order: - "Three strikes" and... what? Red alert! Let me drop everything and read the damn article right now, because it could be "three strikes and you lose your Google account", which is kinda big fu…

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

#693
The next step in the adblocker-blocker wars will be something like the Firefox ublock origin plugin that instead of blocking the ad, accepts it and plays it (looking to the httpd on the other end like the data transfer has occurred and it's being displayed in the browser), but at the end user GUI end, sends the ad to the graphical equivalent of /dev/null so the adblocker-plugin-user never sees it.

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

#695
As much as I hate ads, I think this is fair.

If you dislike the ads, pay for YouTube Premium. Otherwise, you pay with your time.

This might be a privileged take, but I wish the entire Internet was like this.

I really hate having to use an ad-blocker for everything, but I also hate that the only way some (many?) companies make money is by shoving as many bandwidth- and resource-stealing ads and tracking scripts into my face as possible.

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

#696

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 listen to some podcasts to sleep and it is infuriating to get even 12-45 (!) min long ads! I wouldn't be that upset with 5-10s ads every 10 minutes (as long as the volume level doesn't kill me) but half a freaking hour? What the hell is this? If there was a company with clear community intentions and sound morals, yeah I would consider paying for it and support the creators. But YT that treats me like trash with th…

Some of the kids youtubers have 3min long ads, multiple times, in a 20 min video.

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

#697

From the article: >“YouTube’s ad-supported model supports a diverse ecosystem of creators, and provides billions of people globally access to content for free with ads,” the company’s statement says. Let's at least be 100% honest with everyone and stop with the disingenuous garbage: 1. Ad-blocker usage is roughly 25-30% of US users. 2. The average YouTube content creator makes less than 0.02 per ad view and thus why…

Considering that even the FBI recommends [0] using one fir security, no surprise. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/fbi-recommends-installing-an-ad-b...

Which is so strange, to have a government agency recommend violating terms of service. I suppose they can't advocate for better legislation or regulation of ads themselves.

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

#698

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…

It was a joy to read this. Very well said!

Your comment gave me one of those funny moments where you realise something that should have been obvious but you never saw it being done, or heard about it being done, and simply never thought of it...

You can just rip the adverts out of magazines. I shall be indulging in this on the rare occasions that I end up reading something of that sort when I'm out and about. Cheers.

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

#699

Anyone know, if there is an adblocker with a "hide" mode instead of a "block" mode? I mean, instead of blocking the connection fetch the ad, but hide it visually? I would be fine with a YouTube ad blocker, that allows ads to play, but just mutes and `display:none`'s the video player element.

That's really a clever idea. And when companies will realize they are paying lots of cash to YT but very few users are actually watching the ads, maybe they'll stop paying YT.

This will lead to the post-ad captcha. "To continue watching the video, select which product was being advertised"

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

#700
post #313

This is just so funny to me. Google has to have the absolute worst PR for any company I've ever seen to make this happen. Somehow, they've duped the general public (at least on HN) into believing they insert the ads into videos. All they need to do is run a marketing campaign about how as a content creator you get to decide when ads play, whether they're unskippable, and how many ads to place in your video. Blast tha…

Then you'd protect youtube by pitting creators vs viewers and giving creators incentive to decrease youtube's income.. the total effect of this might not be so great.
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