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

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#371

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 2:21 AM UTC

daeros wrote: post #356

While it has ultimately come up in this discussion my honest input is most of the comments I see here evaded the elephant in the room of all of it which is that Google doesn't do a good enough job of vetting the people who advertise with it, its search engines have repeatedly allowed malware to slip through the cracks leading to people being exploited and nothing stops those same malware developers from serving up ad…

Even if the advertising were perfect in every way I'd run ad-block.

you don't get free access to my time, there will never be a point where I'm willing to spend time watching an advertisement or sifting through advertisements looking for real content.

I haven't watched television regularly since the mid-90's specifically due to the commercials, I'll be damned if I'm going to do it online.

And I don't give a shit if you think I'm entitled or not, it's my time not yours.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#372

Post by BLKNSLVR » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 2:21 AM UTC

daeros wrote: post #356

While it has ultimately come up in this discussion my honest input is most of the comments I see here evaded the elephant in the room of all of it which is that Google doesn't do a good enough job of vetting the people who advertise with it, its search engines have repeatedly allowed malware to slip through the cracks leading to people being exploited and nothing stops those same malware developers from serving up ad…

Absolutely the case for me too.

Google ad for a scam site made to look like a legitimate Australian Bank: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-21/scammers-using-text-m...

Youtube's home page seems to always have, at the top, some kind of get-rich-quick video advertisement when I (rarely these days) visit it. Far from trying to improve on this, it feels as if Google/YT are actively trying to normalise scam advertising. I just cannot support that, at all, ever.

If Google has no mechanism to prevent their platform from being used by scammers, I feel it's my responsibility that their platform doesn't reach my screen, lest I, or my family members fall for a scam - which can be psychologically damaging beyond the potential financial damage.

I've mentioned before that this isn't a problem Google are inspired to solve, since their current advertising scheme successfully scales to the size of the Web. However, appropriately policing advertising to ensure scams don't get through would seriously affect the ability to scale. And it's the scaling that makes the billions.

Regulate Internet advertising the same way television advertising is regulated.

Colour me unsympathetic at my most forgiving.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#373

Post by CSMastermind » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 2:22 AM UTC

daeros wrote: post #356

While it has ultimately come up in this discussion my honest input is most of the comments I see here evaded the elephant in the room of all of it which is that Google doesn't do a good enough job of vetting the people who advertise with it, its search engines have repeatedly allowed malware to slip through the cracks leading to people being exploited and nothing stops those same malware developers from serving up ad…

> YouTube is the one that feels "Entitled" to show me advertisements

They show you advertisements in exchange for the free content they provide.

You can just as easily not visit the website if you don't feel like the service they provide is worth the risk of being shown the ads they serve.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#374

Post by RugnirViking » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 2:25 AM UTC

shiroiuma wrote: post #361

dessant wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think empathy is a much more relevant superpower, and the lack of it can be disgusting.

Unfortunately, after all my observations of humans over the course of decades, I feel like real empathy is actually pretty rare in humans. It might be common in fictitious characters, but not in real people.

Strange that we should come to opposite conclusions; I feel like pretty much everyone I've ever known has real empathy.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#375

Post by matheusmoreira » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 2:30 AM UTC

caconym_ wrote: post #344

matheusmoreira wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not hypocritical at all. There is no "entitlement" to videos. They are free. YouTube sends them to us for free. They do so hoping we're gonna look at the ads. We're under exactly zero obligation to actually do that though. It is not at all our responsibility to make their business model work. Abusing open source developers is the true entitlement.

Another true entitlement is adblock users complaining that YouTube is greedy , etcetera, now that they're actually kicking said users off their site. You (in the general sense) are certainly not responsible for making YouTube's business work, but by a similar token they are certainly not under any obligation to continue serving data to users who don't generate any revenue.

> by a similar token they are certainly not under any obligation to continue serving data to users who don't generate any revenue

Sure. Let's see them return HTTP 402 Payment Required instead of a free video stream then. I'm actually okay with that.

Somehow I doubt they'll ever do that. They want that mass market appeal, don't they? I know it. You know it. Everyone knows it. Just like the "free" apps who do anything in the world to get themselves installed so they can start monetizing.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#376

Post by armada651 » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 2:30 AM UTC

lofaszvanitt wrote: post #367

shiroiuma wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds good, but a lot of people just aren't mentally equipped for that: some people are fighters, some just aren't. So instead of confronting the assholes and putting up the "wall of shame" like you suggest, they'll just give up and go find another hobby that doesn't result in receiving such vile messages.

Yeah. People need to go in the line of fire a lot more. Once you are hardened, you just waltz through these bullshits like a 70 ton tank.

The people we're talking about are providing a service for free, with no direct benefit to them. Why would they go into the line of fire for something like that?

It is our collective duty to make sure individuals providing a service to society are treated with respect. If we can't do that then we simply don't deserve their time and effort.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#377

Post by BLKNSLVR » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 2:30 AM UTC

oaththrowaway wrote: post #32

I use NewPipe on my phone, SmartTubeNext on my Android TV, and uBlock+FF inside of a container without being logged in on my laptop. I was at a friend's house yesterday and they showed me a video on YouTube. I couldn't believe how many ads there were. It was unwatchable. Not sure how people don't pay for premium or block ads. What a miserable experience.

We press ever-closer to Futurama's vision:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlGklt4BSQ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlCrcMeVZHs

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#378

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 2:33 AM UTC

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #365

inopinatus wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However well trained they may be, humans are notoriously easy to manipulate and engineer around. Humans in a customer service role especially, since they are by definition expected to be helpful by default.

If they're paid enough you can select for humans with superior talents and, at least as important, training. Heck, with infinite money you could have them train for 5 or 10 years before ever having a real-case person to interact with.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#379

Post by matheusmoreira » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 2:33 AM UTC

fennecbutt wrote: post #347

matheusmoreira wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not hypocritical at all. There is no "entitlement" to videos. They are free. YouTube sends them to us for free. They do so hoping we're gonna look at the ads. We're under exactly zero obligation to actually do that though. It is not at all our responsibility to make their business model work. Abusing open source developers is the true entitlement.

Psssh, you and I both know the model only works because people _do_ sometimes look at ads. If people don't, then YouTube will stop delivering videos for free. Your argument is pretty disingenuous.

So what? Let them stop. Let their "model" stop working.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#380

Post by saltminer » Mon, Oct 30, 2023, 2:34 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #339

giantrobot wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the GP but I spend very little time on YouTube. Even me binging YouTube is watching maybe one or two videos in a row. I hate YouTube ads because they're usually worse than the most obnoxious TV ads with blaring audio or just obnoxious content. I don't watch YouTube enough that Premium is anywhere close to worth the money. So I happily block ads and will drop YouTube in a second if they block me for using an ad bl…

> I hate YouTube ads because they're usually worse than the most obnoxious TV ads with blaring audio or just obnoxious content. It's the absolute bottom of the barrel, too. AI voices pitching scam colon cleanses and scam detox shakes, and yes everything is LOOOOUD and interruptive. At least on network TV, the content has natural pauses for ads, but on YouTube they just shove em in whenever. Nothing quite like listeni…

You can manage where mid-rolls are placed, but that requires the uploader to actually care enough to carve out natural pause points and then specify them as manual ad breaks in YouTube studio.

Most just rely on the auto-ad placement, which claims to intelligently place them in natural breakpoints, but in practice is absolutely terrible at it.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6175006

Whenever uBlock crashes and gets auto-disabled by Chrome, I'm always impressed by the sheer dearth of quality ads. Gone are the days of soda ads and movie trailers, now YouTube just serves up some TTS portrait video with the camera barely in focus talking about the most mind-numbing scam products imaginable, an Evangelical church talking about how Trump is the second coming of Christ (which feels like a pretty blatant violation of the first commandment, and probably also the second, but hey, I'm an apostate, so what would I know...), or just straight up MLM pitches.