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YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

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Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#141

Post by wredue »

pohuing wrote: post #72
hotnfresh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I sent you data so you have to use all of it exactly the way I want" is the entitled perspective.

Nonsense. I provide a service in exchange for payment, then not paying is entitlement.

The problem is that for YouTube to get that payment, I have to give them, and other ad networks a major view in to my whole life.

Ad networks are currently scum of the earth, easily giving lawyers a good name.

If ad networks were riddled with crime, invasion of privacy, and other bullshit, people would be much more willing to entertain them.

Today though, they’re obnoxious AND invade your privacy AND may actually just a virus AND are of questionable legality or outright illegal.

It’s not just about funding the platform. You’re not “getting a service in exchange for payment”. Or at least, that is massively understating the behaviour of the scum of the earth ad networks.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#142

Post by andirk »

Let's consider other options. What about:

- Select "Watch ads later" a few times, until required, so time sensitive situations aren't bothered

- Choose "Watch 1 long ad, then no more today" and pay the piper all at once with a couple minutes of ads.

- Only relevant ads! When I worked at [video game news co], video game content got video game ads. The now defunct Grooveshark's ads were bands showcasing their music and upcoming shows.

And doesn't this Youtube ads issue seem like Google is getting desperate for ad revenue? Like they have a lever and they're pulling it to 100% now.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#143

Post by paulcole »

MostlyStable wrote: post #23
ketzo wrote: post #8

Why, from first principles, should YouTube allow this? Why shouldn’t they go thermonuclear? I understand ads are annoying - I block as many as I can! - but I’ve never seen someone put together a coherent defense of the practice.

Neither side is wrong. Youtube has every right to try as hard as it can to get users to view ads. And users have every right to try as hard as they can to block those ads. I don't have a right to ad-free youtube, but I do have every right to try and control what things get sent to and viewed on my computer. If I (and people like me) are abundant enough and succesful enough, then youtube and other services will be for…

> I do have every right to try and control what things get sent to and viewed on my computer

I love this sort of mental gymnastics (the passive voice is a nice addition, too).

You know you can win this game quickly by not visiting YouTube again or by paying YouTube $15/month?

But no, it’s much better to exert your “rights” to try and control what gets sent to your computer. Also known as what you requested (since you know that ads are part of YouTube).

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#144

Post by w4yai »

cj wrote: post #76

At a technical level, what prevents Google from deploying unblockable ads on YouTube? I’m honestly surprised adblockers are able to block YouTube at all. The easiest way to prevent an adblocker from blocking is to make ads and real content indistinguishable in frontend code and network requests. Tie ads and real content together in a way that if you block ads, the video also doesn’t load. Or in the case of video ads,…

Sure, then I'll code some extension that prevent from playing the N first seconds of your video based on my database of known ads.

There is no such thing as "unblockable" ads. Advent of AI makes it even harder, as AI get better and better at discerning Ads from actual content.

Ads providers just need to accept that being forced to watch ads will become a thing of the past soon.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#145

Post by snickerbockers »

ketzo wrote: post #8

Why, from first principles, should YouTube allow this? Why shouldn’t they go thermonuclear? I understand ads are annoying - I block as many as I can! - but I’ve never seen someone put together a coherent defense of the practice.

It's because you have to use YouTube. You don't get a choice. Content creators who upload to other sites don't get an audience, and audiences who go to other sites don't get any content.

This is effectively a monopoly. It probably doesn't fit any legal definition of a monopoly but it has all the hallmarks of an abusive relationship between a service and a customer base. And therefore you shouldn't feel any guilt of depriving Google of their ad-revenue or their mining of your personal data.

Google's not some poor little startup that bit off more than it could chew and accidentally ended up serving videos to the entire world, they have strategically maneuvered themselves into this position for the money and influence they stand to gain by putting themselves in a position where they have information and control over how information is exchanged between people online.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#146

Post by jeroenhd »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #35
ketzo wrote: post #8

Why, from first principles, should YouTube allow this? Why shouldn’t they go thermonuclear? I understand ads are annoying - I block as many as I can! - but I’ve never seen someone put together a coherent defense of the practice.

If I were an advertiser on YouTube I would be very wary of YouTube's efforts on this. I wouldn't want to be paying YouTube for ad views of people who find advertising so annoying that they make such an effort to block it. Best case scenario, frustrated ex-adblock-users will ignore my ads by muting them or looking away, so I'm paying the same price for less value, sometimes as low as zero. Worst case scenario, these u…

I don't think most people use adblockers, people who don't know what browser extensions are just suffer the ads.

If users would want to make Youtube change its policy, there's a better way: get together and start acting like a click farm. If you click every ad on every page and immediately open the tabs you opened, advertisers will start paying Google for nothing. Something like a subreddit coming together would definitely have a noticeable impact on larger advertisers.

The AdNauseam approach to ad blocking isn't great for the security side of ad blocking, but it'll hit advertisers where it hurts the most: their wallets, and being forced to expand filtering (potentially flagging more users as false positives).

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#147

Post by hotnfresh »

tech234a wrote: post #96
ls612 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was still something stupid low like 10% of people using adblockers?

More than 10% of telemetry-enabled Firefox users worldwide use adblockers. In Poland it's 15%. In the United States, Germany, and Russia it is closer to 20%, and in France it is closer to 30% [1]. [1]: https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior (see near the bottom of the page)

But Firefox is under 5% of browser market share (generous estimates still seem to put it under 5%—the low-side estimate is closer to 2.5%) and its users are almost-certainly far more likely than most to use ad blockers.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#148

Post by taftster »

cmbernard333 wrote: post #3

Mega thread issue on GitHub tracking this https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/19976 Reddit is not and should not be considered a tech support site.

There's not many other good choices, these days. All of the useful tech support sites have been overrun with trolls. stackoverflow, for example.

Github issues is probably the best place, but when its abused, there's just no more appropriate place to go.

Do you have better suggestions if not Reddit?

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#149

Post by trimethylpurine »

crop_rotation wrote: post #109
darthrupert wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's that? Its algorithm is not exactly making the world a better place. It's filled with propaganda from all corners of the political spectrum with about zero responsibility. But there is also TikTok, which is even worse. So yeah, in that way you could be right. If only we could pay for the things we use, and only that.

YouTube has been such a big boon to the world in helping people learn. The amount of people who have learnt several skills from YouTube enabling them to make a living is very very large. I know several people who had non STEM education and taught them CS via YouTube and went on to have good SWE careers. Whole of MIT OCS is hosted on Youtube. All of Khan Academy videos are also hosted on Youtube.

They could be hosted elsewhere. Why should free education material that is already funded by donations be locked behind ad based hosting? Hosting is not that expensive if you're using only those services. Especially in the countries where it's mostly being used.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#150

Post by anonymouskimmer »

kiernanmcgowan wrote: post #27

This ad block debate makes me think about patio11’s post “The optimal amount of fraud is non zero”. Essentially in trying to make a system as fraud-free as possible you make it too difficult to work with / the cost of fighting fraud is higher than the cost of the fraud. Ads vs Ad Blockers seem to be in that space, but on the cost of customer good will. Can YouTube squeeze more money from ads by doing this? Sure. Is i…

> patio11’s post “The optimal amount of fraud is non zero”.

Thanks, I just skimmed this post. It seems to me that "optimal" is substituting for "cost effective". The optimal amount of fraud is always zero, it's just not cost effective given the existence of people willing to go to lengths to commit fraud.

> Can YouTube squeeze more money from ads by doing this?

The third option is that this would incentivize a portion of the viewership to purchase Youtube Premium. Netflix seems to be benefiting with the same strategy.

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