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YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

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Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#471

Post by hotnfresh »

bruce511 wrote: post #468
hotnfresh wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YouTube will win because they are financially incentivised to so so. UBO and other free blockers will fail because there is so much downside, and no upside. This has been the situation for the ad-blocking war since it started. If the pro-ads side is destined to win, they're sure taking their sweet time about it.

You call it a war, I'm not sure YouTube thinks of it that way. YouTube revenue was 29.2 billion dollars in 2022. On the other side you have a couple guys complaining about Reddit users. Sure, a few tech-savy folk install ad-blockers, and Google keeps the space dynamic enough to avoid it getting serious traction. But it's less a "war" and more of a minor irritation. Winning isn't making ad-blocking go away, winning is…

I didn’t pick the term “war” for this discussion. I was following suit.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#472

Post by lazycouchpotato »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #19
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.

What about ads displayed on a busstop? Should I feel guilty for looking the other way? It subsidizes public transportation afterall..

At the very least, everyone sees the same ads. Bus stop ads (for now) don't have access to your private information, don't make models out of you and don't abuse that information in order to serve you highly targeted ads.

It's creepy.

https://mastodon.social/@lazycouchpotato/111251984595065259

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#474

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #415
CSMastermind wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

At a certain scale, you can no longer say "it's just business". YouTube is where people go to post and upload videos. YouTube has a dominant place in the market and in people's minds. Does it cost money to run? Yes. Does Google deserve to have those costs covered? Yes. Should Google be entitled to abuse their dominant position? Certainly not. I do feel bad for who high-quality creators are not able to make ends meet,…

> Does it cost money to run? Yes. Does Google deserve to have those costs covered? Yes

Those are not the terms of the implicit (and somewhat explicit) deal Google/YT originally offered.

Any and every net pundit and idiot pointed out at the start that any video hosting system that became as successful as YT said it wanted to be (and has become) would cost a fortune to provide.

YT could have said from the start "once this scales beyond we'll need to charge because the only alternative to that are ads". But they never said that, they just gave us ads even if we didn't want them.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#475

Post by axelthegerman »

eqvinox wrote: post #461
zarzavat wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My perspective: Google is not an agent directed by morality when they interact with me, therefore I don’t allocate any morality when interacting with them. It’s a power relationship not a moral relationship. I do feel bad for the creators, but I would rather donate to their Patreons than buy YT premium.

> I do feel bad for the creators, but I would rather donate to their Patreons than buy YT premium. I ended up subscribing to both Nebula and Dropout.tv, especially after noticing that a good portion of my favourite YT channels are in fact on Nebula. Sadly, this is primarly larger ones, and I do feel bad about smaller creators being kinda stuck on YT… especially when it's the odd one-time well-made video that really d…

Totally agree this is the real problem.

Where do creators go if not YouTube!? Ideally they could self host videos which could be expensive AND not bring any revenue, neither do they are they discoverable - this is where the internet is broken these days.

And maybe this is where micro transactions would have a proper use case, i.e. if you had a browser extension where you add $5 and then you can dish out 1ct or 10ct for some content...

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#476

Post by philistine »

eqvinox wrote: post #427

This is of course bringing up the discussion on the "morality" of Adblocking. I'd like to point out something that I don't think is getting enough attention. There was a point in the past where video platforms were competing, and by no means was it clear that YouTube would end up dominating this area to the point of being close to a monopoly. When YouTube won that race, they won it with a given set of parameters, inc…

> And no, I won't pay for YouTube Premium — because that wasn't part of the deal either.

There's also the ridiculous fact it is literally impossible to pay to remove the ads without also getting the horrible Youtube Music service.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#477

Post by lxgr »

philistine wrote: post #476
eqvinox wrote: post #427

This is of course bringing up the discussion on the "morality" of Adblocking. I'd like to point out something that I don't think is getting enough attention. There was a point in the past where video platforms were competing, and by no means was it clear that YouTube would end up dominating this area to the point of being close to a monopoly. When YouTube won that race, they won it with a given set of parameters, inc…

> And no, I won't pay for YouTube Premium — because that wasn't part of the deal either. There's also the ridiculous fact it is literally impossible to pay to remove the ads without also getting the horrible Youtube Music service.

What makes me really sad is that Google doesn't just not offer a "Music-less Youtube Premium" (due to a lack of attention or whatever) – no: They used to offer that product in some markets and have actively discontinued it.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#478

Post by shiroiuma »

tech234a wrote: post #96
ls612 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was still something stupid low like 10% of people using adblockers?

More than 10% of telemetry-enabled Firefox users worldwide use adblockers. In Poland it's 15%. In the United States, Germany, and Russia it is closer to 20%, and in France it is closer to 30% [1]. [1]: https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior (see near the bottom of the page)

Most users have never even heard of Firefox. I just installed it on someone's phone yesterday, along with uBO; they had never heard of it before, but were very excited about being able to watch YouTube without ads. My social circle isn't very large, so me helping occasional non-technical users install FF+uBO on their phones isn't going to affect the numbers very much.

Even in the tech company I work in (not an adtech company), most people use Chrome, not Firefox.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#480

Post by lxgr »

alin23 wrote: post #103
microtonal wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

:( So sorry to hear this. I don't use Lunar, but know many people who love it. They all appreciate the work that you are doing!

To be honest I sometimes (rarely) do get heartfelt messages like these, and it’s what still keeps me working on apps. Sure, it feels ok to sell a bunch of licenses and get a few thousand dollars at the end of the month, but it feels so much better to see your hard work appreciated and people improving their lives with it. So really, thank you!

Wait, DDI brightness control is possible on macOS!? Thank you!
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