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Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

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Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

#81

Post by pests »

hot_gril wrote: post #57
avalys wrote: post #36

[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.

> I don't see how I personally am contributing by watching an ad without buying the product being advertised

The company pays YouTube for every person they claim they showed the ad to. You do not need to buy a product for YouTube & the Content Creator to get paid.

How is the advertiser losing out? Not every ad has the purpose of causing a purchase. Brand awareness. Easing buyers remorse. Propaganda.

Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

#82

Post by Hizonner »

avalys wrote: post #36

[flagged]

I'm happy to pay for content, as soon as sites provide me with a remotely reasonable way of doing that.

Advertising is not a reasonable way. A separate subscription, with a credit card interaction, for every site I happen to hit once a year, is not a reasonable way. Demanding a bunch of personal information is not a reasonable way. Trying to lock me into an "ecosystem of partners" is not a reasonable way.

Globally accessible, ungated, anonymous micropayments, with one or two universally used protocols but no central gatekeepers? Sign me up. Extra points if I get to see how much of my payment is going to the actual content creator and how much is being eaten by the "platform".

The core technolgies exist. All the pieces have been available for many years. What appears to be missing is will.

Meanwhile, I'll use an ad blocker. If you prevent me from accessing your site using my ad blocker, I will go elsewhere.

Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

#83

Post by rich_sasha »

I don't quite get the holy outrage at commercial websites including ads. I mean, I like annoying irrelevant intrusive ads as much as the next person, but that's part of the damn product. Don't like it, don't use it. Or pay YouTube premium.

I don't take much issue with ad blockers either, but think it's totally fair enough if YouTube wants to dump their shitstream of ads on consenting users.

Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

#84

Post by matsz »

hot_gril wrote: post #67
Retr0id wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 only works because YT allows you to skip anywhere in a video.

This. It's why in-stream ads were so straightforward to implement for Twitch too. Can't fast forward a live stream.

Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

#85

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

wombat-man wrote: post #52
dotnet00 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where was that logic when they were crushing all the competition by subsidizing Youtube with the rest of Google's money?

you're mad they didn't start charging and pushing ads earlier?

Actually, yeah, that's a reasonable thing to be upset about. They used the lack of forced ads to ensure that competitors also could not force ads. Now that they've captured the market, they force ads.

Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

#86

Post by avalys »

Hizonner wrote: post #82
avalys wrote: post #36

[flagged]

I'm happy to pay for content, as soon as sites provide me with a remotely reasonable way of doing that. Advertising is not a reasonable way. A separate subscription, with a credit card interaction, for every site I happen to hit once a year, is not a reasonable way. Demanding a bunch of personal information is not a reasonable way. Trying to lock me into an "ecosystem of partners" is not a reasonable way. Globally ac…

As I said, “narcissistic self-entitlement”.

You use YouTube once a year? Please.

Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

#87

Post by dotnet00 »

wombat-man wrote: post #52
dotnet00 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where was that logic when they were crushing all the competition by subsidizing Youtube with the rest of Google's money?

you're mad they didn't start charging and pushing ads earlier?

I'm annoyed that people act like it's narcissistic or entitled for users to be mad that now that YouTube has killed most of their competition by subsidizing the business with Google money, they want to start doing the exact thing everyone else had tried to do, except now there isn't any other comparable option.

Normally when a business takes massive losses to drive competition out in an industry that's hard to break into, then once they're sufficiently dominant, starts to raise prices, it's an antitrust issue.

Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

#88

Post by hot_gril »

pests wrote: post #81
hot_gril wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I don't see how I personally am contributing by watching an ad without buying the product being advertised The company pays YouTube for every person they claim they showed the ad to. You do not need to buy a product for YouTube & the Content Creator to get paid. How is the advertiser losing out? Not every ad has the purpose of causing a purchase. Brand awareness. Easing buyers remorse. Propaganda.

They lose out because I don't pay attention and absorb brand awareness from ads. Maybe everyone thinks this and tends to be wrong, cause obviously it's still profitable overall, but that doesn't stop me from thinking it too.

If everyone ignored or blocked ads like me, advertising wouldn't work, and YT would have to charge subscription instead. That'd also be fine by me.

Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

#89

Post by factorymoo »

Potential solution: download all videos locally [1] As an added benefit, you'll skip all sponsored content.

Just put this in your terminal once you install yt-dlp:

yt-dlp --sponsorblock-remove all URL "put a youtube URL here without quotes"

[1] https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

Re: Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

#90

Post by nine_k »

Etheryte wrote: post #34
matsz wrote: post #16

Until 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…

As someone who doesn't like ads, I just pay for a premium YouTube subscription for my family.

It's not the case with Google search, though, they don't offer me a way to pay. I will rather pay Kagi instead.

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