YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#251

Post by gwd » Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 8:57 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #231

gwd wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Wait... does that mean, Google could offer "DoubleClick Premuim", where I pay to not see any DoubleClick ads whatsoever, anywhere on the web, but the websites I visited would still get their funding? I think I'd pay $10/mo for that.

Don't fall for that scam. If you pay for such a service, it only increases the value of your attention even further. You're clearly demonstrating you have enough disposable income to pay their extortion fees. It only makes them want sell to you even more. You're paying to segment the market for them. There is no context where a rational businessman would choose not to advertise to you. Someone will at some point real…

> There is no context where a rational businessman would choose not to advertise to you.

...except, the businessman wanting to show me an advert doesn't have a choice. The website chose DoubleClick; I'm paying DoubleClick not to show me any ads. Websites that don't choose DoubleClick either get adblocked, or I avoid, thus making less money from me.

There is some expected value that DoubleClick will get from me in the course of a month; that's not infinite, and if it's a reasonable fee (like, $12/mo) then they'll get a lot more from me than if I use an ad-blocker.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#252

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 8:58 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#253

Post by anonymouskimmer » Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

xboxnolifes wrote: post #239

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the corporations are optimizing for cost effectiveness (return on sales or return on investment). Corporations don't care what the user experience is for its own sake. They care about keeping and retaining paying users. After a point they don't bother making the user experience better, because it isn't cost effective to do so.

But cost effectiveness makes it sound like you can fix it by throwing money at it. The point is that you cannot fix it, even with infinite money, because you will reach zero users before you reach 0 fraud.

The way to fix it with infinite money is to have individual human curators (concierge services) for every customer. This eliminates fraud and makes a very, very easy-to-use "user interface" when the human concierges are well trained.

Regardless, even if I'm wrong with "cost effective", the word still isn't "optimal".

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#254

Post by matheusmoreira » Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

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’ve never seen someone put together a coherent defense of the practice

Let me give it a try then.

As part of part of our cognitive functions, our attention is inalienable. It is ours. It's not theirs to sell off to the highest bidder. It's not currency to pay for services with. They do not get to insert brands and taglines into our minds without our consent. Advertising is mind rape and ad blocking is justified self-defense. I literally don't care how many billions they lose, I will block ads, I will help others block ads and I won't lose even one second of sleep over it. They are not entitled to our attention. Their choices are to charge money up front or to deal with it. If they send us ads, we'll delete them.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#255

Post by marapuru » Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 9:01 PM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #219

userbinator wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or in the case of video ads, you could stream the ad as part of the video itself instead of a separate pre roll. Back when people watched an actual "tube", ads were indeed like that. Yet VCRs could easily detect and skip over them when recording. Remember that this was before AI too, so the technology exists to counter it already. I suspect YouTube keeps the ads separate from the content because the sort of "splicing…

> Yet VCRs could easily detect and skip over them when recording How did they do that? Is there any more information on this topic?

In the Netherlands I remember typing in a code to record something. That code corresponded to a specific start and end timestamp. So in that case it ‘skipped’ the commercials.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#256

Post by 3seashells » Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 9:02 PM UTC

konschubert wrote: post #10

3seashells wrote: post #2

With great need for revenue comes great foolishness. Like the idea you could squeeze the 1% of the population who could, if hostile, easily undo all your drm defenses in a bang and help the rest of the population to do that too. Another unity moment, created by well incentivized management.

This 1% has been free-riding the YouTube experience. I am part of it. But I know I'm a free-rider, I am not feeling righteous about it.

All those companies are free riding open source specific and humanity in general. Nothing of value is lost.

Google will dissappear. People will install some p2p thing on old laptop stacks, and peer tube will take over. Life finds a way.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#257

Post by matheusmoreira » Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

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…

> frustrated ex-adblock-users will ignore my ads by muting them or looking away

That's exactly what I do when something manages to slip past my blocker. I also mute my TV and pick up my phone when ads start playing.

I don't generally hate the brands though. I understand there are some perverse incentives at work in the market which means they have to spend money on advertising or be outcompeted by others who do. I blame the advertising industry itself. There's one exception though: where I live, some businesses are so obnoxious they pay people to drive around playing loud advertisements all over the city and in my neighborhood. Those certainly get my utmost hate. I'd blacklist them forever but I can't even understand what the ads are saying anyway.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#258

Post by carlosjobim » Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 9:04 PM UTC

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.

What do you mean funded by donations? People making educational YouTube videos have their income from YouTube advertising and Premium subscribers. People having utility from their videos should pay for them.

I find it incredible that people accept and support enormous amounts of tax money from workers go to pay for worthless schools, while at the same time they are grinding their teeth at the suggestion that they pay a few dollars for incredibly well made educational videos.

Why does the screeching teacher or professor deserve a high monthly salary, good job security and a good pension, while the person making educational videos that improve people's lives all over the world deserve to have her videos pirated by hackers?

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#259

Post by sofixa » Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

goalieca wrote: post #195

plasticeagle wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 Entitlement towards tracking me across the internet and delivering malware is why I use an adblocker.

Precisely why I use an adblocker but still pay for services thay provide that option (like YouTube Premium, Nebula, various Patreons).

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#260

Post by forrestthewoods » Sun, Oct 29, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

w4yai wrote: post #180

forrestthewoods wrote: post #90

> entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin. To be fair uBlock origin users feel entitled to use YouTube, an extremely expensive operation to run, without giving anything in return. I say this as someone who uses Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin. Websites are nigh unusable without ad block. But as far as ads go YouTube is far and away one of the least offensive imho. If you don’t like ads you could choose…

Because you can monetize from free videos. How do you think TikTok makes so much money?.

Uhhh what?

TikTok makes money via ads and in-app purchases. How do you think TikTok makes so much money? How do you think YouTube should make money storing and serving petabytes of high quality video?