I opened youtube this morning and did not see a popup because I already pay for Youtube Premium. They even have cheaper pricing in developing markets.
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Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”
51–60 of 168 posts
Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”
#52Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”
#53This is where I get conflicted with ad blockers, on the one hand most website ads are trash, on the other hand there is great content on YT and I want those creators to make enough to carry on to get to the level where they proper sponsors. But, YT is so egregious with its ad insertions at times that it drives me mad and I don’t trust the creators will get fairly compensated if I go to premium.
Calculate what a creator earns per view. Donate or buy merch with that money.
This is a nice idea, but it's like all those open source projects out there that you use that could use donations, but few remember to actually donate (or buy merch). Long-term subscriptions of one form or another (e.g. Patreon) are really the only way to ensure sustainability.
Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”
#54Until YouTube starts injecting ads into the video stream (like Twitch), it's not going to be effective at all. There's no way to do a client-side anti-adblock and not have it bypassed. And TBH: since YouTube is not doing that, I think they might've decided the cost of that solution outweighs the projected revenue so they've chosen a cheaper solution. In Twitch's case, more of the audience might be techy, so ad inject…
This is, in my opinion, shortsighted. It's straightforward to create ads that you can't block on the client so long as you are the server of the ads yourself, as Google is. I'm not going to detail how since I don't want anyone on HN to get any ideas and build a business of it, but I'm sure it will happen eventually. For the time being I suspect it's cheaper to keep the current tech running since it brings in enough r…
I used to work in ads, and I agree this is an arms race that the advertisers could win, at least in cases like YouTube where they control the whole stack. I don't think it would be trivial, but YouTube could do it if they decided to.
Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”
#55What I do is click the 'Report' button in the corner of that notification and then file a report saying that I received this pop-up, but that I do not have an adblocker.
I like to think that if enough of us file reports, Youtube will think their system is falsely detecting adblockers.
Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”
#56I do not understand why people refuse to pay for other people's work, even indirectly.
YouTube Premium gives creators a pretty decent cut as well, coming from someone with monetized youtube vids...
Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”
#57[flagged]
Yeah but I don't see how I personally am contributing by watching an ad without buying the product being advertised. Either the advertiser loses out or YouTube loses out, and I'd rather pick the option that doesn't waste my time.
Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”
#58Youtube premium doesn't stop the adverts, you need sponsorblock for that.
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Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”
#59This is where I get conflicted with ad blockers, on the one hand most website ads are trash, on the other hand there is great content on YT and I want those creators to make enough to carry on to get to the level where they proper sponsors. But, YT is so egregious with its ad insertions at times that it drives me mad and I don’t trust the creators will get fairly compensated if I go to premium.
I don’t feel like there’s any conflict.
The ad blockers want a free ride.
We all know what would happen to YouTube if 100% of its users were able to block ads. It would become paid-only or go out of business. The only reason it’s tolerated by so many websites is because only a small sliver of users know how to install ad-blocking software.
These are real people spending real time and money making content. On the YouTube corporate side of things, the people who make YouTube what it is are real people with real families to feed with their salaries. They work full time and then some to keep the site running and lots of resources (computers, energy, etc) are used to serve the content.
It’s funny to me how the software engineering community seems to be the most enthusiastic about stealing the fruits of their own labor. I see people on HN all the time advocating for forever licenses of software, pushing back against the service business model. It’s like you all want a lower salary.
You’d rarely find other types of professionals and artists trying to advocate for their own customers finding ways around paying for their work.
YouTube Premium is a great product and one of the few streaming services I’m enthusiastic about.
I will admit, I do use an ad blocker, but I’ve got as much right to do that as a website has the right to cripple my experience if they detect that I’m using it. In those cases, I just turn it off and add the site to my exceptions, or I don’t return to the website. It’s not a big deal.
Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”
#60Until YouTube starts injecting ads into the video stream (like Twitch), it's not going to be effective at all. There's no way to do a client-side anti-adblock and not have it bypassed. And TBH: since YouTube is not doing that, I think they might've decided the cost of that solution outweighs the projected revenue so they've chosen a cheaper solution. In Twitch's case, more of the audience might be techy, so ad inject…
Sponsorblock already exists as infrastructure to slice out ads embedded into the video streams themselves. Of course, the sponsor segments weren't put there by youtube, but the same (or similar) solutions would apply if they were. It's much easier for anything non-live.
Sponsorblock would be easy to work around if ad-breaks were randomly selected. Whenever you upload a video YT could process the video and "search" for good ad-break locations, at display time client bits get pushed ads randomly, making time-code blocking useless.
They could even upsell to content creators by giving them the means to dynamically replace sponsors in old videos using the same tech, maybe with some knobs and switches for content creators to select where sponsor breaks occur.