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YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

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Re: YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

#61

Post by vouaobrasil »

jefftk wrote: post #55
vouaobrasil wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do agree with you. It is not just Google's greed but also our own. In fact, if I had the time and resources, I would love to create a different video sharing site. It would be a site that is like YouTube but only allows 1080P video (to save on hosting). It would take a few minutes, maybe 5 to load a video, to save on bandwidth. It would have a limit on video length as well maybe, It would also not have any ana…

I don't see how taking 5min to start playing a video saves you much on bandwidth? I see how you save by accepting somewhat longer start times, and more variance, but even with the delay you're still paying to transfer the same number of bytes.

Well, it would load the video more slowly, thereby causing people to watch fewer videos. Their selections would be more thoughtful and more focused rather than frenetic and shallow.

Re: YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

#62

Post by vouaobrasil »

ddorian43 wrote: post #52
vouaobrasil wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do agree with you. It is not just Google's greed but also our own. In fact, if I had the time and resources, I would love to create a different video sharing site. It would be a site that is like YouTube but only allows 1080P video (to save on hosting). It would take a few minutes, maybe 5 to load a video, to save on bandwidth. It would have a limit on video length as well maybe, It would also not have any ana…

> would be quite nice, sort of like Medium The worst example possible.

Medium has its problems but at least it is trying to find another business model besides the ad-only kind, and that in itself is laudable.

Re: YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

#63

Post by jefftk »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #61
jefftk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how taking 5min to start playing a video saves you much on bandwidth? I see how you save by accepting somewhat longer start times, and more variance, but even with the delay you're still paying to transfer the same number of bytes.

Well, it would load the video more slowly, thereby causing people to watch fewer videos. Their selections would be more thoughtful and more focused rather than frenetic and shallow.

Or people would set lots of videos to load in background tabs but only get around to watching some of them.

Re: YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

#64

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

This doesn't really pass the sniff test, unless users of ad blockers are particularly uninformed.

If you want to avoid the YT messages, you can turn off the blocker for YT. If you're uninstalling then you're likely upgrading to a blocker that actually works. The article might be more convincing if they included stats from reliable YT blockers like uBlock Origin.

Re: YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

#65

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #10

They will win. They will setup DRM, or render the full site in canvas, or with wasm, or something, or requires a TPM trusted signatured in an approved web browser or some shit. The new generation will accept a limited client, because they know mostly locked down phones. So only a few will not accept it, and they will not have to care about it a single bit.

You forgot the golden rule of anti-piracy measures: they never defeat pirates but do alienate your customers.

Re: YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

#66

Post by fluoridation »

dspillett wrote: post #33
fluoridation wrote: post #15

There's an argument to be made that a site that permits ad blockers should command a higher price from advertisers than one that forbids them, since a user who would use an ad blocker is the least likely user to ever click on an ad. If you're showing ads to a userbase that consists of a mix of users who would and wouldn't use an ad blocker if able to do it, then you're increasing your impressions by policy without in…

Depending on the way the site and its ads are presented, and which ad-blocked is in use, that argument often falls flat because the blocked adverts still get counted as delivered as they leave the relevant server and are blocked from rendering client-side. Obviously this is not universally true (for example DNS based blocking stops the request for the ad content going through at all so if the counting is done at that…

>that argument often falls flat because the blocked adverts still get counted as delivered as they leave the relevant server and are blocked from rendering client-side

And this counter-argument falls flat because YouTube must be able to detect which users are blocking ads in order to show them a message to disable ad blocking. If YouTube is detecting that situation and still counting blocked ads as delivered then they're cheating their customers. There are only three possibilities:

1. YouTube can't tell if user A is blocking ads, so the customer gets billed for an impression that didn't happen, but the user also can't be stopped from blocking the ad.

2. YouTube can tell when user A blocks ads, and must shoulder the cost of delivering a video without a corresponding ad impression. The argument I brought up addresses this.

3. YouTube can tell when user A blocks ads, and changes the customer anyway. In this case YT would have no incentive to stop people from blocking ads.

Re: YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

#67

Post by mrweasel »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #40

Those of you defending youtube on this, have you actually tried watching anything on the site without ad blockers? It's not just that they serve you occasional, only moderately annoying ads as a subsidy for not paying, they do it in such an intrusively pervasive manner that it seems intentionally designed to make it nearly unusable. The sheer quantity of garbage interrupting your music or anything else you care to wa…

Because the tech and finance industry is kinda stupid like that, we pretty much only know how much revenue YouTube have, not the profit. I think it's fairly safe to assume that YouTube is generating a substantial profit for Alphabet, has they have no qualms about shutting down a service if the profit isn't large enough (Google Domains comes to mind).

So there's a level of greed at YouTube as there certainly could be fewer ads, and lower margins. I also don't think it's unreasonable to question if there is a "quality" ad market large enough to support YouTube at it's current profit level. They show a lot of ads, and they are pretty terrible, they also can't be worth much.

For $23 you get YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, for six people. The largest chunk of that money is actually for YouTube Music (I believe it's $11 for Music and $4 for Premium, for a single person). I'd be surprised if YouTube isn't making money on both the single and family plan. YouTube channels like Linus Tech Tips have pointed out publicly that YouTube Premium contributes a fair chunk of money in their revenue, so not all of the cost of the subscription goes to YouTube. That means that either the ads are subsidizing Premium or the ads bring in just a few dollars per month per user.

While I have no insights and I'm just speculating, it's currently my belief that online video ads are close to worthless, meaning that they are also cheap enough that the shittiest companies can afford to buy them. So you need to show more and more, and accept increasingly intrusive ads to generate the same profit as earlier.

Re: YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

#68

Post by LinuxBender »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #10

They will win. They will setup DRM, or render the full site in canvas, or with wasm, or something, or requires a TPM trusted signatured in an approved web browser or some shit. The new generation will accept a limited client, because they know mostly locked down phones. So only a few will not accept it, and they will not have to care about it a single bit.

They will setup DRM, or render the full site in canvas, or with wasm, or something, or requires a TPM trusted signatured in an approved web browser or some shit.

That was going to be WEI [1] but they shelved it for now. I expect they will be more subtle with the next project release after it gets renamed.

[1] - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/your-computer-should-s...

Re: YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

#69

Post by LinuxBender »

LandR wrote: post #16
djoldman wrote: post #5

uBlock has been working fine. If you get blocked from youtube, you can go to uBlock options, click purge all caches, then "Update Now." Do a full reload in youtube and you're good to go. Tactics are changing continually.

This isn't working for me on Firefox / uBlock and Ubuntu :( I don't get the popup, but the video is just black and the play button does nothing.

It's mostly affecting people that log into Youtube and don't block javascript from google. That's why there are so many people with conflicting anecdotes.

Re: YouTube's ban leads to a record number of users uninstalling their ad-blockers

#70

Post by repelsteeltje »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #11
repelsteeltje wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you mean about Google's greed. But to be perfectly honoust there is some greed on our behalf as well. The "contract" with YouTube being: don't pay us in $$$, give us your privacy — by attempting to use without revealing our privacy gold we're somewhat free loading, being greedy. It would be better to reject the "contract" and find different ways to access the content without relying on Google's "free" dist…

Yes, I do agree with you. It is not just Google's greed but also our own. In fact, if I had the time and resources, I would love to create a different video sharing site. It would be a site that is like YouTube but only allows 1080P video (to save on hosting). It would take a few minutes, maybe 5 to load a video, to save on bandwidth. It would have a limit on video length as well maybe, It would also not have any ana…

I think the point of Google's media distribution infrastructure isn't just bandwidth or providing ingest and playback that "just works". (That, indeed is what I personally would be interested in.)

The "infrastructure" to the bigger audience is about

* being available ubiquitously and recognized as a brand

* discoverability, search, recommendations, filling you free time with cat videos, memes

* being a platform for wannabee influencers with real advertisers money in the form of pennies offered to creatives

Especially the latter two need to continuously monitor every little move happening in the "attention market".

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