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YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

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Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#671

Post by snapplebobapple »

jampekka wrote: post #621
greatNespresso wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Bruce Schneier allocated a chapter in his last book, .A hacker's mind': "Venture capital itself is not a hack. The hack is when unprofitable companies use VC funding to ignore the dynamics of the market economy. We don’t want some central planner to decide which businesses should remain operational and which should close down. But this is exactly what happens when venture capital firms become involved. The in…

That's more or less the opposite of communism.

It's not really. Communism is just the super monopoly on everything by one firm (plus a bunch of kooky religious like beliefs). This subset of VC funding uses is basically abusing external funding to gain market dominance so that one can abuse your customers with product changes that make the product more profitable for you. It's very equivalent to how an oligopolist/monopolist enters new markets using money from the rest of the business to undercut everyone in the new market and push them out. It's bad for society, just like communism.

This doesn't mean there's no place for VC funding, there's lots of legitimate uses for it (i.e. handling mismatched cost/revenue flows from expansion where there are a lot of upfront costs and cash flows come over the following years). Just that it's usually more profitable to be a monopolist/oligopolist and so that has been where the money has been flowing, at great detriment to society.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#672

Post by ryandrake »

giantrobot wrote: post #525
ryandrake wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Nothing quite like listening to quiet ambient or classical piano music and then all of a sudden some giant, roided-out asshole is screaming at me: "LET ME HELP YOU GET RRRRRRRIPPED AT THE GYMMM!!!" To expand on this I find ads are even on random videos. So you might get one video with no ads followed by a video that has mid-roll ads. There's no rhyme or reason to it. There's no clear expectation set that a video is…

> It seems everything YouTube does is try to drive me away by being frustrating.

Interesting choice of words, as one of their execs specifically pointed out[1] that a goal was to "frustrate" users with ads:

> "You're not going to be happy after you are jamming Stairway To Heaven and you get an ad right after that," Mr Cohen said in an interview.

1: https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-43496603

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#673

Post by matheusmoreira »

thirdsun wrote: post #646
matheusmoreira wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Still free, they just managed to circumvent my browser extension. They're not even supposed to know I have it installed. They need to either start charging everyone for access or stop complaining. I pay for access to a lot of things but I'm not paying money to avoid ads. I sure as hell am not gonna pay money to watch videos with hard coded ads.

> They need to either start charging everyone for access or stop complaining. I pay for access to a lot of things but I'm not paying money to avoid ads. Then don't. It's fine. However please don't complain about not being able to get access to the content on Youtube without paying or watching ads. > I sure as hell am not gonna pay money to watch videos with hard coded ads. That's up to the content creators, not Youtu…

> please don't complain

I don't complain. If I see an ad I just close the tab. uBlock Origin and yt-dlp is the only reason I watch stuff on YouTube at all.

> That's up to the content creators, not Youtube.

Their business relationships are not my concern. I'm not paying to watch ads. Maybe YouTube should implement their own Sponsor Block system for the benefit of their paying customers.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#674

Post by matheusmoreira »

pb7 wrote: post #582
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.

Ad blockers are free. They’re made available to be downloaded for free. It is not at all our responsibility to make their business model work. Open source developers are entitled.

What business model?

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#675

Post by matheusmoreira »

blooalien wrote: post #625
chii wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for making the world a better place!

Not I, thank you. The folks who create and release open source software (which I myself have not done in many years now). I'm just reacting appropriately to their generosity which is actively contributing to the world being just that little bit better because of their actions / decision. :~)

Yes! Their generosity is an inspiration to me. Open source technology is empowering and world changing. I really admire these people.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#676

Post by matheusmoreira »

shiroiuma wrote: post #500
matheusmoreira wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Yeah. I used to rip out the ad pages from magazines and throw them in the trash too. Apparently I've been unknowingly "stealing" from them all this time!

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#677

Post by account42 »

pohuing wrote: post #353
happytoexplain wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're implying that my not watching your short video that you sent to me is equivalent to my not paying for a service you just rendered. The fact that this extremist opinion is anything but ultra-fringe is evidence of the deeply greedy, entitled, irrational, antagonistic, dangerous, bully-ish relationship some businesses have with citizens. The internet is not a platform for exchanging services for the promise that…

Most Internet traffic happens with the agreement that you watch ads alongside the content you actually want to see. This is not a fringe position, it's the absolute majority of all traffic. If you don't want to see the ads, you can just not use my service, what's so hard to understand there.

There is no such agreement, only a one-sided demand. Don't be so surprised if more and more of those on the other side respond with "LOL. LMAO, even."

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#678

Post by singron »

It's interesting how few users can ruin a FOSS project. I doubt Google would stoop this low, but sabatage seems surprisingly practical by pumping a lot of low effort comments through open communication systems.

The uBO had similar issues with Facebook's anti-adblock. IMO the anti-adblock worked. The maintainers probably all muted the thread, and now 99% of the time, ads show up in the feed.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#679

Post by temporallobe »

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…

What still gets me is that even with YT Premium, there are still ads if the content creators decide to embed them as part of the content. Yes, they are skippable, but there are still ads…that I paying, to NOT see. This is also a moral issue. What does the exact definition of “no ads” actually mean to YT and is their definition misleading or purposefully vague?

Unless they qualify their definition with something like “you may still see in-video sponsored content”, ad-free should 100% ad-free, and it is irritating that that (perhaps) through some nuanced definition of “ads” that they allow this. IMO this needs to be investigated by the FCC.

If you look at the advertising literature for Premium, it simply says “Enjoy ad-free videos…” with no asterisk or fine print that has any exclusions. Perhaps there is something deeply buried in one of the “terms and conditions” documents that allows for this, but I haven’t taken the time to look. My point is, YT and the content creators benefit from these ads on a supposed no-ad plan. Imagine if other streaming services like Netflix started doing this.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#680

Post by account42 »

jasonboyd wrote: post #84
philipwhiuk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they didn't have such entitlement they wouldn't be blocking the ads in the first place.

I allowed ads for a long time, believing a site should be able to earn revenue for the content they provide. I started blocking ads when ad networks failed to properly vet their ads and allowed malicious ads to be distributed.

> when ad networks failed to properly vet their ads and allowed malicious ads to be distributed

All ads are inherently malicious.

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