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YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

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Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#491

Post by kerkeslager »

dessant wrote: post #117
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…

It also feels awful to be called a beggar and a panhandler just because you're trying to find a balance and build a sustainable project by having a donation popup (that can be disabled) in your software. This disgusting review was sitting at the top of the review page for Search by Image on the Chrome Web Store: https://i.imgur.com/P1QU176.png This person has edited their review a couple of times in the past year whi…

> This disgusting review was sitting at the top of the review page for Search by Image on the Chrome Web Store: https://i.imgur.com/P1QU176.png

> This person has edited their review a couple of times in the past year which pushed it to the top, and also emailed me with a similar demeaning message. I've reported it to Google staff, and they thought that the review did not break their content policy, so they did not remove it.

So? What's the point you're making? Users aren't allowed to have preferences about software they get for free? User experience doesn't matter for free software? Who did you release this software for if not for users?

It's a 4 star review, ffs. Do you think every review that isn't glowing is disgusting? Why on earth would you expect Google staff to remove a review which merely expresses a preference?

It really feels like a significant portion of Hacker News just doesn't really grok the whole "doing nice things for other people" thing. If you only did this for money or glowing praise for how generous you are, you'd have been better off choosing one of those and pursuing it singlemindedly instead of trying for both money and being perceived as generous, and then being surprised when people notice you aren't doing either perfectly. And sure, you're not obligated to just do it out of the kindness of your heart, and you have every right to choose how nice you want to be. But if you aren't doing it for purely prosocial reasons, then maybe don't expect people to fawn over how purely prosocial you are.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#492

Post by raincole »

leventonportera wrote: post #394
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.

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 pub…

> they are free to ignore any request I shout at them

Exactly. That's why they're blocking ad-blocker users now. You're describing the exact thing they are doing and going to do more. Guess you're actually supporting Youtuber's policy.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#493

Post by kerkeslager »

dessant wrote: post #212
least wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also feels awful to be called a beggar and a panhandler just because you're trying to find a balance and build a sustainable project by having a donation popup (that can be disabled) in your software. Interrupting someone's browsing experience to ask for donations is both providing a poor user experience and is in poor taste. I think it's fine to solicit donations in the browserAction popup, the settings page or…

A donation popup is shown once a year, and only when you use the extension, it does not randomly interrupt your browsing experience. Te popup can even be disabled from the extension's options. It is similar to a donation prompt being shown when an app is opened, once a year. That's what this person was complaining about, that they've seen a donation prompt once when they've initiated an image search with the extensio…

> There is no winning with some of these people, they want your time and the results of your work, they want it for free, and they want it to be neatly packaged and presented exactly the way that is most convenient for them. If you deviate even a little bit from their unreasonable expectations, you'll be promptly attacked.

You're making a pretty big leap from "users prefer these things" to "users expect these things".

Are you going to pretend you don't want things to be free, neatly packaged, and convenient? Who wouldn't want this?

And the idea that a four star review which starts with "A good extension." is an "attack" is absurd. Given it appears you expect your users not to express any preferences that aren't exactly what you've implemented, perhaps it's you who has unreasonable expectations?

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#494

Post by JimDabell »

Gud wrote: post #483
pasttense01 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube got to its current position not by lowering prices but instead by Google making sure that Youtube videos are returned at the top of Google search results. Competing video websites don't have this advantage.

YouTube had already beat its competitors before it was sold to Google.

Including Google Video. Google did try the tactic of using their search engine to promote their own video platform, but it was against YouTube and Google only bought them because it didn’t work.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#496

Post by raincole »

Zuiii wrote: post #442

Youtube is entitled to the technical shenanigans it uses to force people to watch ads and I am entitled to the technical shenanigans I use to avoid them on my own device. If youtube blocks off access completely, people will stop considering it a reliable video host and another "default" website will take its place.

Good luck for that "default" website to survive financially :)

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#497

Post by jterrys »

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…

Even prior to this change, as far back as a decade ago when Youtube (according to Google) was burning money, they still knew there was some perversely wealthy incentive to keep the platform around. Google has shut down far more useful products for far less. That leads me to believe that the value in Youtube goes far beyond ads. Right now it's merely trying to optimize and squeeze as much blood from stone as possible, up until they can measure the tipping point of maximum pain before users spend time on other platforms.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#498

Post by trimethylpurine »

crop_rotation wrote: post #161
trimethylpurine wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hosting is very expensive, e.g https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-cr... That is why almost nobody bothers to do it themselves outside of big tech.

I've personally run servers for several businesses in the streaming education space. And one business that serves over 40,000 concurrent connections. The entire business fits into 1.5 racks at a local DC. The monthly cost is under $5,000 for the service, space, and cooling. There is an initial cost to purchase some servers, switches, etc. I'd be surprised if Khan academy had much more than that many active connections. It's really just not that expensive, no matter how much AWS wants to sell you on that falsehood.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#499

Post by leke »

Some interesting information in that article about youtube blocking people with privacy plugins. So it seems you need to wave your state given privacy rights to to use youtube.

Even after disabling my only adblocker, Youtube seems to partally load, then break for long periods. I don't even have any extra privacy plugins installed, but I do use Brave browser, that does have some privacy settings built in. If I try to open in private mode, the video loads fine.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#500

Post by shiroiuma »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #257
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…

> 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 bl…

>I also mute my TV and pick up my phone when ads start playing.

This is fraud and immoral, according to some people here...

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