Adblock Plus and (a little) more • Hacker News Board

Re: Adblock Plus and (a little) more

#81

Post by guraf » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:15 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #71

kouteiheika wrote: post #9

> We know how important it is for our users to browse YouTube without ads for free. And we hope to come up with a solution soon! No need to wait. Just switch to uBlock Origin where this is already fixed. Here's a guide if they still show up and you're using UBO: https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/178yasm/youtu... (Basically you need to make sure you're up to date, and you disable any overzealous filter li…

Or this as a good time / excuse to ditch YouTube, even if uBlockOrigin resolves it. Additionally, I'm honestly half-scared that they'll block my account if they notice me breaking their "Terms of Service" by blocking ads. So this is also serving as a good time for me to Degoogle my online presence. Screw them, I eagerly await their demise, as they've singlehandedly ruined the web and so much more.

YouTube ruined the web by... Providing a free platform to host videos open to everybody? By allowing video creators to be paid?

Re: Adblock Plus and (a little) more

#82

Post by rubatuga » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:17 PM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #73

Honestly, the only product that can really compete with uBlockOrigin at this point is a version of AdNauseum for Youtube -- something that registers a click on every single ad that YouTube shows until it stops showing you more ads. There is currently no negative feedback for YouTube ads. They are free to show you ads every single minute if some manager there thinks that this will increase monetization by 1%. And no,…

Interesting idea, is this the only recourse consumers have?

Re: Adblock Plus and (a little) more

#83

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

breakall wrote: post #39

martin_a wrote: post #3

Never forget that Adblock Plus is a commercial product developed by a company which you can pay to get your ads listed as "acceptable ads" which makes them pass the filtering. uBlock Origin is still probably the best tool for blocking ads: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/

i love ublock origin and have used it for years. i recently migrated to macos and was disappointed to find that ublock origin doesn’t work with safari. what’s the best ad-blocking option for safari on macos?

[deleted]

Re: Adblock Plus and (a little) more

#84

Post by guraf » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

botanical wrote: post #59

It looks like YouTube's dark-pattern marketing strategy (highlighting the "Allow YouTube Ads" button), is they'd rather have you enable ads than pay for premium. They're getting too greedy with demonetising videos and still making money off of them, to the amount of ads they play; same goes for other streaming platforms. So far on Firefox with uBlock Origin I haven't come across it.

What are you talking about? The vast majority of people would rather disable their adblocker on YouTube then subscribe and pay $15 a month... How is it a dark pattern for YouTube to suggest the most likely option?

Re: Adblock Plus and (a little) more

#85

Post by pixxel » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #35

echelon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is too big. All of the giant tech companies are. This behavior is a symptom of reaching across industries in search of growth. Is there any reason a grocery store should be a movie studio? This sucks the air out of the room for smaller companies to innovate. Search would be much better if it wasn't being shoved down our throat by a single company that controls (or buys access to) all of the panes of glass Amer…

Ok, so if Google is too big and YouTube is split away from Google... who exactly will pay for bandwidth, server and transcoder costs for all the adblocking freeloaders? If you ever tried to host videos yourself, you'll quickly see that it costs a stupid amount of money to manage. Why would a standalone YouTube LLC. allow anyone to access it with an adblocker and without subscription? (People seem to lose their mind o…

P2P. They could have implemented it years ago but instead prefer to control humanity’s video library and take on the full financial burden.

Some people don’t want to pay Google to continue to harvest their data, and they despise the parasitical corporation.

Re: Adblock Plus and (a little) more

#86

Post by guraf » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote: post #26

bad_user wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm paying $8.30 / month for the Family option. That's like 2 or 3 coffees. In other countries this is more expensive, but it's adjusted for local buying power. Both you and the parent simply come up with reasons to avoid paying, getting the service for free. No matter how you look at it, what you're doing is immoral, because if everyone did it, YouTube would be permanently paywalled and placed under DRM. You're a pr…

> That's like 2 or 3 coffees Expensive coffee at Starbucks which I would never buy. With $10 I can buy coffee for 3 months. It’s way too expensive for me. I also consider every form of advertising to be brainwashing. Last but not least, I watch 1 YouTube video per month, so you would have to adapt your scenario for me to be interested in a subscription.

[flagged]

Re: Adblock Plus and (a little) more

#87

Post by martin_a » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:25 PM UTC

gcanyon wrote: post #65

martin_a wrote: post #3

Never forget that Adblock Plus is a commercial product developed by a company which you can pay to get your ads listed as "acceptable ads" which makes them pass the filtering. uBlock Origin is still probably the best tool for blocking ads: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/

I have uBlock Origin installed in Arc, and ended up getting burned by the YouTube adblocking blocking purge because each time the warning came up, I checked to see if there was a way to whitelist YT and didn't find it. Now I'm watching YT in Safari on my iPad, where the block doesn't apply. So: anyone know how to whitelist YT in uBlock Origin in Arc?

I had that warning some days ago, too. It's gone now, not sure what changed in the filter lists.

Re: Adblock Plus and (a little) more

#88

Post by guraf » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:25 PM UTC

wahnfrieden wrote: post #68

izacus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mental contortions freeloaders do to feel better about themselves are always fascinating to watch on HackerNews. Somehow it seems really hard for people here to be honest with themselves and admit that they really just want YT for free and someone else (Google) to shoulder the cost. And they also whant to rant at Google while they pay for their services. :)

When Google receives tax breaks from the US, it is another form of welfare “freeloading”. A tax break is indistinguishable from a handout except by name.

When wahnfrieden receives ad-free video from YouTube, it is another form of welfare "freeloading". An adblocker is indifferent from a handout except by name.

Re: Adblock Plus and (a little) more

#89

Post by etedor » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

IanCal wrote: post #2

This may be controversial but YouTube ads are surely ones that meet all the reasonable criteria. They're not a surprise, you know it's an ad supported business. They're served from YouTube so it's not random companies tracking you while you use a different service. And you can get rid of them by paying for the service. What's the proposed alternative where you contribute for the service? Just paywall the whole thing?

They are a surprise. They’re variable length and appear at random moments. Their volume can greatly differ from the content you are watching. No thanks.

The proposed alternative is Google can continue to bankroll it. They are not hurting for money.

Re: Adblock Plus and (a little) more

#90

Post by heliodor » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:44 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #76

mschuster91 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbh, that scares me, simply because of the potential that one day, someone will offer enough money that it can't reasonably be expected from anyone to decline that offer.

It reassures me. Because if gorhill cared about money, he would have a 100% ethical, simple way to immediately open the floodgates and make a five- to six-digit amount per year. This suggests to me that he doesn't need nor care about having more money, and will be very hard to corrupt by offering money. How do you bribe a person that has free money with no strings attached offered to them and says "no thanks"?

Blackmail

Threaten physical harm