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YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

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Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#391

Post by anonymouskimmer »

CSMastermind wrote: post #381
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 portio…

Cost effective in a way. A more precise thing to say might be that the Nash equilibrium of the system contains a non zero amount of fraud. Or that fraud is an evolutionarily stable strategy within the environment.

> Or that fraud is an evolutionarily stable strategy within the environment.

I like this take on it.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#392

Post by hombre_fatal »

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.

Wow, someone actually playing the "you won't get a dime from me because you'll get something more valuable: exposure!" card against Youtube.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#393

Post by Jensson »

userinanother wrote: post #368
wdb wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YT Premium costs more than Netflix or Disney+. Quite pricey to get ad free Youtube videos and not as much content than normal streaming sites.

Especially considering that YouTube gets the content for almost free

> YouTube gets the content for almost free

Google pays out about 50% of ad revenue to content creators, that isn't "almost free" that is many billions of dollars.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#394

Post by leventonportera »

CSMastermind wrote: post #373
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.

This is false logic. Youtube is free to not show anyone anything - once they send me data and it leaves their system, they have no claim to it.

When I shout on a public street "sing me the Francoise Hardy version of I'll Be Seeing You," no one has to reply. If they do reply, but they decide to sing a 2 minute ad for a pyramid scheme first, I am free to cover my ears till the song comes on.

Google's servers have a public internet IP. I can "shout" a request to them. The data they send back to me, is mine to do with as I please. I am free on My computer, from the memory buffer on a RAM stick I own, to ignore some of the bytes, in My RAM change some of the bytes, or save some of the bytes to a file on my HDD. They are free to ignore any request I shout at them, but they have zero say in what I do on equipment they do not own.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#395

Post by blooalien »

taftster wrote: post #205
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe someone with excellent writing skills and having demonstrated reading all the documentation and FAQs is still asking for help in a respectful and intelligent way, and so maybe you engage. You mean it gets tiring to find the entertaining messages instead of the random trash? Because it doesn't matter how much effort the sender has put, or how intelligent his request/question/contribution/comment is. If I'm not…

Maybe you can ignore it? And that's great, if so. But I know I can't. I'm perfectly fine ignoring the buffoons. But I feel much anxiety over ignoring an insightful request or comment that would benefit both myself and the user if I were to engage. If I'm passionate about a project (in whatever form of contribution), I definitely want to help people who are genuinely looking for help. The problem is the signal to nois…

> "For me it's a mental tax to wade through and find the good requests sorting them out from the bad ones."

This might be one of those very valid use-cases for an "A.I." / LLM to classify "hostile" messages into some sort of "junk bin" and maybe flag ones it's not entirely certain about for human review. Could fairly dramatically cut down on the garbage hopefully, leaving only the stuff worth reading.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#396

Post by matheusmoreira »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #370
caconym_ wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Convenient lack of mention of the content creators in these threads where people just complain about Youtube corporation.

Content creators have other revenue streams these days. The ones I enjoy have quite the following on Patreon and other such platforms. Unlike ads, those are perfectly ethical ways to make money and I wish them all the success in the world. They don't even require copyright to work since they don't depend on artificial scarcity.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#397

Post by caconym_ »

least wrote: post #355
caconym_ wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doing so elsewhere would deservedly be criticized. I suggest that these people express their criticism by not using the software in question. I doubt the typical purveyor of free-as-in-* software who's stuck between a rock and a hard place re: monetization particularly cares what somebody who doesn't understand the personal specifics of their dilemma thinks about their chosen solution to it.

> I suggest that these people express their criticism by not using the software in question. Do you also suggest that when an application is ad-ridden or potentially malware-ridden to also just not use the app? Naturally that's an option, but the review is to warn other users of their experience. I don't think death threats or calling people slurs is appropriate, but the review being complained about it is pretty mun…

> Do you also suggest that when an application is ad-ridden or potentially malware-ridden to also just not use the app? Naturally that's an option, but the review is to warn other users of their experience.

Is a restaurant owner pissed off about a one star review by somebody who didn't like the decor in the bathroom implicitly suggesting that people who receive food poisoning at a restaurant have no right to communicate that experience to other potential customers? Is a homeowner who puts out ant traps in her kitchen tacitly endorsing genocide?

I think there is such a vast gulf between displaying a mildly annoying message asking for donations and tricking someone into installing malware on their computer that anybody with a moderately intact sense of proportionality should have no trouble seeing it. So, no, I don't suggest that.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#398

Post by saltminer »

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…

That's a really good point about Twitch ads. I leave Twitch ads enabled for channels I regularly watch and I cannot recall seeing any malware or scam ads. Some can be annoying (especially if it queues the same ad 3 times in a row), but they're all from legitimate companies offering legitimate products and services.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#399

Post by blooalien »

amenhotep wrote: post #328
bri3k wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why are you working on a project? If it isn't for the money then you are doing it to 'give back to the community'. But if they are turning hostile to you then why continue?

Who is "they"? In the UBO threads I've seen there are about a hundred supportive comments for every entitled dickhead - if that's enough to make you characterise the community as "turning hostile" then you are unlikely to ever be satisfied. Bad and inconsiderate people exist. The sensible thing to do is just ignore them.

> "The sensible thing to do is just ignore them."

I tend to go one step further than "ignore mode" (when I'm not bein' so utterly stupid as to get sucked in and actually respond) and actively block them any and every way that I can so that I never see that person's crap again.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#400

Post by radicalriddler »

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…

Yup, this is exactly why I installed ublock origin on my grandparents computers. Malware and scams are too prevalent across the web, and unfortunately, google SERP and Youtube aren't immune.
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