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YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

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Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#181

Post by zeraholladay »

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.

Think we agree that blocking ad blockers is in YouTube's immediate, short-term interest. However, I'm not sure it's in their long-term interest because it goes against the principle of reciprocation.

Regarding reciprocation, a lot of platforms offer a free tier and then offer additional features for paid subscribers. There's the principle of reciprocation at play: they give me something for free and that then makes me more likely to pay for additional features. But I'm only willing to pay for features, not to have an annoyance, like ads, removed. The conditions I'd have to agree to feel coerced ... like making an agreement with Darth Vader: "pray YouTube doesn't alter the deal further by now only blocking 50% of ads for a paid subscriber." What do I, as an end user, get out of this other than feeling hostile towards YouTube?

It's my computational device and my internet connection. I think there's a very complex argument to be made but this isn't the forum for it.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#182

Post by elisaado »

alin23 wrote: post #62

As the dev of a macOS app that breaks all the time because of external hardware, the tone of the article hits close to home. (I’m talking about https://lunar.fyi/ whose brightness control commands can be blocked by USB-C hubs, “smart” monitors, too long cables etc.) I had to disable public GitHub issues on the app repo [1] because people seemed to fuel each other with spiteful comments and “why can’t you just!!” sent…

I discovered Lunar from this post and I love it, have been looking for an app like this for a while!

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#183

Post by Tao3300 »

gchamonlive wrote: post #54
crop_rotation wrote: post #9

Apart from the Youtube stuff, the post also highlights something else, entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin. > It’s one thing to play cat and mouse with YouTube. It’s quite another to deal with a wave of angry users. > And then one of the moderators actually deleted their Reddit account. “The ID in the post wasn’t updated because my mother was hospitalized,” they said. It’s sad to see them leave becau…

We could apply LLMs to act as an interface with the angry crowd, rephrasing angry comments into constructive criticism and summarizing needs. In turn LLMs could be applied to synthesise development progress and answer the angry crowd. Everyone would be happy.

No. Because then angry people are rewarded for being angry, and that's not happy.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#184

Post by notacoward »

microtonal wrote: post #100
tapoxi wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can pay for YouTube Premium, they already have an alternative to an ad supported business model.

I have YouTube Premium. But I worry that once a substantial portion of the user base goes Premium, they'll also start to slip in ads. I think the ad business has made everyone who cares paranoid.

There's plenty of precedent for this. Amazon has said they'll be introducing ads on Prime Video, where everyone has already paid for the service. I've seen ads on other already-paid-for services too. The simple fact is that business people will always want more ads everywhere, no matter how much it degrades the customer experience, because extra revenue is easier to measure than customer disgust. In their personal lives they probably hate ads as much as we do, but a fatter paycheck can buy a lot of hypocrisy.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#185

Post by MostlyStable »

paulcole wrote: post #143
MostlyStable wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Firstly: I pay for youtube premium. Secondly, I honestly do not understand what gymnastics you think I am going through. I can view and control whatever content is sent to my computer. I do not have an obligation to allow any company to send arbitrary data or to force me to view it. Do you think it's similarly bad to skip around a video, when clearly the content creator meant for it to be a whole complete video? How about if I skip ahead when the content creator has a sponsor ad section?

You are right, I could choose to just not go to youtube (or any other ad-supported website). Or, I could choose to view whatever portions of a website are made publicly available, in whatever way seems best to me. Just like I don't have to go to youtube, they don't have to make it publicly available. It goes both ways.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#186

Post by lolinder »

taftster wrote: post #139
bo1024 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are good points. There is also a separate point to make, which is that YouTube doesn't (in large part) create videos, they "just" host other people's videos. YouTube wants to capture a bigger and bigger slice of the value created by interactions of other people with each other. There is a question of how much monetization YouTube "deserves" versus how much they are able to actually extract from people by being…

Right, that's an interesting point. On the one hand, Youtube itself doesn't add value. The creator uploads are the value. But if Youtube didn't monetize, presumably with the rise of the Youtube star, content creators wouldn't make enough money and would not publish there. So if you think of it from this angle, Youtube needs to go to war with ad blockers simply because their content creator, the users adding value, re…

> I also wonder if the rise of the "this video is sponsored by xyz" segments in people's videos have cause more harm. That ad money that is circumventing Youtube entirely, paid directly to the content producer. So Youtube might be "jealous" of this revenue and wants to encourage its content producers to let them run ads only?

I think this is exactly right, but what's missing from the story is that YouTube created this problem. I'm mostly on educational YouTube, and in that sector creators turned to sponsorships because the alternative was to constantly wonder whether your next video would be demonetized and lose out on all the revenue (while still showing ads on the videos!) Sponsorships are a much more predictable revenue stream.

If YouTube wanted to support creators better, they wouldn't do it by adding more and more ads (to the point where my wife is finally approaching me to ask about ad block), they would do it by actually addressing creator concerns about reliability of their revenue streams.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#188

Post by NelsonMinar »

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.

I wager most of the YouTube engineers use an ad blocker. As do many of the other people who work on YouTube. They don't want ads either. They know they are intrusive and obnoxious.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#189

Post by taftster »

Maybe a minority opinion, but I believe uBlock just needs to stop trying.

Let Youtube "win" and further sink into garbage heap and become more irrelevant. The more ads Youtube shows, the less useful and relevant it becomes.

Sure, I mean, maybe Youtube always exists and always makes money, but its origins are practically lost at this point.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#190

Post by plasticeagle »

crop_rotation wrote: post #9

Apart from the Youtube stuff, the post also highlights something else, entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin. > It’s one thing to play cat and mouse with YouTube. It’s quite another to deal with a wave of angry users. > And then one of the moderators actually deleted their Reddit account. “The ID in the post wasn’t updated because my mother was hospitalized,” they said. It’s sad to see them leave becau…

Ironically, "entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin" is exactly the kind of sentiment that leads to the use of ad-blockers in the first place.

So it can scarcely be surprising that the sorts of people blocking youtube abs because they want the content for free, are the same sorts of people that feel entitled to uBlock Origin's services for free.

If you want youtube's content without ads, then pay for it. If you despise ads, but refuse to pay, then don't watch youtube.

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