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YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

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Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#221

Post by dawidpotocki »

w4yai wrote: post #173
lalaland1125 wrote: post #31

YouTube's anti adblock efforts are a good thing. For too long have a huge number of users been freeloading off free content

This is desillusional... How can it be a good thing ? Blaming users not willing to be forced to watch brain-washing videos is the right thing ? Really ? I'm pretty sure there's a middle ground agreement. Such as serving 480/720p videos for free users, 1080p+ for ad watchers and 4k+ for subscribers. YouTube already makes a good amount of money only from monetizing watching habits and selling that data. We're giving aw…

YouTube has already implemented Premium-only quality in a form of 1080p Premium, i.e. higher bitrate 1080p. Though they don't seem to be worried that yt-dlp can download it without a subscription. Maybe they will make 2160p option Premium in the future, the backend is ready.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#222

Post by e2le »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #26
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…

If they didn't have such entitlement they wouldn't be blocking the ads in the first place.

As a user, I have a right to control what is executed and rendered on my devices. It's not the user's fault that internet advertisements have become a security threat, a significant visual nuisance, and now an environmental issue [1].

Additionally, for those with neurological issues, I imagine using a browser without content blocking must be unnecessarily difficult. It would be a tragedy if these users lost control over the content rendered in their browser.

Additionally, for those with family members who struggle with discerning scams and other forms of manipulative advertising, content blocking is a legitimate tool for mitigating this risk.

[1]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340321563_Energy_Co...

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#223

Post by xboxnolifes »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #14
Analemma_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're neither paying YouTube any money nor watching their ads, meaning you're a pure money sink, why should they care about your goodwill?

If I'm referring thousands of people to YouTube, and I stop doing that while simultaneously joining the chorus of anti-YT sentiment on the internet, their bottom line should care.

At this point I don't think anyone over the age of 3 doesn't know what YouTube is. I don't think much referring is happening by you.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#224

Post by throwaway346434 »

yukkuri wrote: post #78

A lot of absurd moralizing here about "you're stealing by not watching ads". I keep adblock on for most sites because ads are so intrusive and often malware vectors. If advertisers want my eyes they need to not be obnoxious. I started blocking YouTube ads in particular because it kept serving me ads that were brazenly homophobic ("how gross and smelly is gay sex? Find out!") I feel no moral problem with this, if you…

Agree. Many are ignoring the fact that these ads aren't all traditional advertising.

Particularly appauling in my view is the propaganda: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/clive-palmer-spends-...

We saw similar things with The Voice referendum recently.

When someone has paid to manipulate society en masse, and there are no more targeted controls to stop the content being forced on you available, why is anyone surprised people choose to filter that?

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#225

Post by ndriscoll »

ysavir wrote: post #95
ozarker wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he’s referring to the Adblock as the free service here.

I think deadmutex is pointing at a bit of irony and hypocrisy at how we're saying it's bad for people to feel entitled to free adblock support (and ask for more) but champion people feeling entitled to free videos by blocking the ads or refusing to pay for no ads.

One is free high quality security software, and the author doesn't even accept donations. The other is "free" videos that come with malware.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#226

Post by matheusmoreira »

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.

Attention and personal information are not a valid payment methods. Either charge money up front or accept the risk we're going to delete your ads and block your tracking.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#227

Post by globular-toast »

ketzo wrote: post #52
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 think this is a great take, with one exception: I think the loss of (free) ad-supported YouTube would be a devastating loss for the world at large.

Nah, rubbish. We've been able to do high quality video with P2P protocols for decades at this point. We have the bandwidth and the storage just sitting there. The only reason we haven't developed a system like YouTube is because we have YouTube. But take YouTube out of the picture and we're very ready for something like Wikipedia for videos.

Let's not forget that just 20 years ago we didn't even have a free encyclopaedia. I'm assuming, of course, when you talk of a "devastating loss" you mean the educational videos not the brain rotting shite like "Mr Beast" or hours upon hours of gameplay footage.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#228

Post by Tao3300 »

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…

> users will actively despise my brand

The most pervasive ads that I get whenever I accidentally go to YouTube without adblock are for Liberty Mutual home insurance, who already refused me as a customer years ago. So yeah, it just serves as a reminder to tell people they suck.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#229

Post by ketzo »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #149
crop_rotation wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> not that expensive

yeah, but it’s hard to overstate how much less expensive “free” is than anything else.

I don’t know how you do free video hosting for the entire world without YouTube’s model.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#230

Post by Mordisquitos »

StableAlkyne wrote: post #126
Mordisquitos wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The trouble is that ads frequently don't try to make you love a brand. What they do is build up familiarity - for example, a rule of thumb they all use, that you will notice everywhere, is to repeat the product name at least 3 times. Then when you're at the store or buying a service, you are more likely to choose a product you are familiar with. Even if you don't consciously acknowledge that familiarity. Nobody is im…

> Nobody is immune to advertising - the people who fool themselves into thinking they're immune are less likely to notice its effects.

I'm not talking about people who think they are immune to advertising, I'm talking about people who take active measures to reduce its effect on them—be it technological (adblock), sensory (muting) or psychological (disdain). I would argue that people who think they are immune to advertising are not motivated to do any of these things.

In any case though, I have never seen any data or research that supports that common truism that "nobody is immune to advertising". If anything, it may be true that nobody is immune to some kind of advertising—not to generic advertising per se.

It is well accepted that advertising should be targeted by age, income, culture, educational level demographics. An ad designed for American teenagers probably won't work well on a middle-aged Indian lawyer, and an ad targeted at Indian educated professionals is not well suited for a 20-something Italian mechanic. So how can we assume that an ad that works on a person who makes no conscious effort to block or avoid ads will work just as well on a person who is constantly taking active steps to avoid them?

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