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YouTube may face criminal complaints in EU for using ad-block detection scripts

tomshardware.com

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Re: YouTube may face criminal complaints in EU for using ad-block detection scripts

#31

Post by jart »

pravus wrote: post #29
westurner wrote: post #17

Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide. No, you don't have a right to free service either. Do you pay your other bills while you demand free rendered services from these companies? Having a disability or similar does not entitle you to an unsubsidized Times Square with no ads. (NASA is running their own…

> Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? Because they offered it for free. YouTube can close the doors any time. If they want my money, they can make a service offering that meets my needs. They could charge content providers for bandwidth and storage and meter it with assisted ad-support networks. They could charge a price I'm willing to pay. But they don't and I w…

You're not going to shut them down, it sounds like they shut you down. Just pony up the $100/year. It's the cheapest television has ever been. This is hacker news, not hobo news. If you've been using the Internet this long, then you should remember the outrageous amounts of money people were paying for cable television back in the 90's. And that still had ads.

Re: YouTube may face criminal complaints in EU for using ad-block detection scripts

#32

Post by mvdtnz »

rightbyte wrote: post #27
westurner wrote: post #17

Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide. No, you don't have a right to free service either. Do you pay your other bills while you demand free rendered services from these companies? Having a disability or similar does not entitle you to an unsubsidized Times Square with no ads. (NASA is running their own…

> I don't tell myself that I have a right to free stuff. Then it isn't free? Google have no right to make us watch ads either. IP laws protecting their profit is preventing youtube-dl like alternative hosting, since Google got the IP rights for the video. And the network effect is keeping creators trapped in their playground.

youtube-dl isn't hosting. It's like the opposite of hosting.

Re: YouTube may face criminal complaints in EU for using ad-block detection scripts

#33

Post by vasdae »

MiddleEndian wrote: post #6
jruohonen wrote: post #2

A move to criminal law is certainly interesting development in this domain.

Yeah, not really a fan. Youtube can attempt to ads. I can attempt to block those ads (and have succeeded without interruption so far lol). No need to get the govt involved.

It's the EU, of course they have to get involved. How else are they going to justify the salaries of those unelected officials?

Re: YouTube may face criminal complaints in EU for using ad-block detection scripts

#34

Post by ljf »

westurner wrote: post #17

Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide. No, you don't have a right to free service either. Do you pay your other bills while you demand free rendered services from these companies? Having a disability or similar does not entitle you to an unsubsidized Times Square with no ads. (NASA is running their own…

If you also run ad blockers, aren't you also claiming to be entitled to content online for free? Or do you go about supporting content producers in other ways? Do you turn off ad blocking for all the content you consume?

Or do you just 'not tell yourself you deserve it?' and take the content none the less?

Re: YouTube may face criminal complaints in EU for using ad-block detection scripts

#35

Post by AlecSchueler »

mchicken wrote: post #26
westurner wrote: post #17

Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide. No, you don't have a right to free service either. Do you pay your other bills while you demand free rendered services from these companies? Having a disability or similar does not entitle you to an unsubsidized Times Square with no ads. (NASA is running their own…

I won't mind to watch some ADs from time to time. However, these guys have gotten too greedy with their advertisements and "buy premium" shit popping up every now and then. Heck, my experience without a blocker was that I had 2 freaking 15-second inserts every 5 minutes of video.

It also changes the nature of the content. I was watching some sports videos this week and all the advertisements were for gambling websites. Meant I was no longer comfortable watching the content around children.

Re: YouTube may face criminal complaints in EU for using ad-block detection scripts

#36

Post by izacus »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #18
greybox wrote: post #11

Whatever I think about Google, I have a softspot for youtube. Youtube is an amazing resource for society, the amount of knowledge that humanity has stored on their servers is mind boggling. You can learn anything there from DIY Flooring installation to programming to Japanese. I've started entire years long side projects based on being inspired by something I've seen on youtube. I'm alright watching adds to see that…

Seek ways to support the creators, not the platform. Videos that take a shitton of time and resources to make and are actually useful information-dense content don’t usually get enough viewers to pay for themselves with ads — their audience is way too small by definition — but some stupid low-effort viral shit that gets viewed by billions does.

> Seek ways to support the creators, not the platform.

And where exactly will these creators publish their content if not on a platform? YouTube solves their techology problem, delivery problem, storage problem, costs problem for all the previous things and gets them access to advertisers that pay for their content and handles payments across the world for them. (Patreon is a platform too, which also works on handling a subset of those problems).

I don't see those creators rushing to cover 6-7 figure AWS bandwidth, transcoding and software development costs themselves for their self hosted videos. They seem to be happy double dipping into YT ad paid service costs and adding sponsorships and patreons on top of that. I haven't seen a single one move to their own AWS hosted machines and paying 5-7 figures in badwidth and CPU costs to get their content delivered to people who want everything for free.

Re: YouTube may face criminal complaints in EU for using ad-block detection scripts

#38

Post by bitvoid »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #24

Related anecdote: Just a couple days ago I was watching YouTube and the videos kept defaulting to 480p quality and not automatically increasing to a higher one. This was on my home network that is definitely able to handle a higher quality stream. I was able to manually set it to 720p (good enough for watching on my laptop) and it didn't flip back. This happened a few times in a row that I found it odd. I then though…

There's an extension called Enhancer for YouTube (and probably others) that allows you to automatically set the quality without needing to do it manually. If your default quality setting is higher than a video offers, it'll choose the highest available.

There's also other features like automatically expanding the video, converting Shorts to normal videos, automatically expanding the description, automatically hiding chat for live streams, etc.

Re: YouTube may face criminal complaints in EU for using ad-block detection scripts

#39

Post by ds »

westurner wrote: post #17

Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide. No, you don't have a right to free service either. Do you pay your other bills while you demand free rendered services from these companies? Having a disability or similar does not entitle you to an unsubsidized Times Square with no ads. (NASA is running their own…

This is a 1 dimensional view of things.

Maybe I can simplify it for you with this question:

Does Google have the ability to legally compel you to only use chrome?

Im guessing you would say no- Antitrust and whatnot. So the next followup is, Does Google have the ability to tell blind people they cannot use screen readers? Or that people on linux cant browse the site in lynx?

Again, I am guessing the answer is no- Theres anti competitive, antitrust and 230c reasons why. Legally, ad blocking is fine to do. Heres a great article going over it : https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...

HOWEVER- I disagree with the premise that Youtube cant try to stop adblockers- They just need to do so in a way that doesnt target specifically target a user. Twitch did a system where they would not send the video stream to you until the advertisement was done playing (which was embedded in the feed itself)- So if you blocked the ad somehow, you would just look at a black screen for 15-30 seconds. This, in my opinion would be completely compliant.

Re: YouTube may face criminal complaints in EU for using ad-block detection scripts

#40

Post by cseleborg »

westurner wrote: post #17

Why do you pretend that you are entitled to free video storage and bandwidth from YouTube? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide. No, you don't have a right to free service either. Do you pay your other bills while you demand free rendered services from these companies? Having a disability or similar does not entitle you to an unsubsidized Times Square with no ads. (NASA is running their own…

That's not the issue here. The issue is that YT is (arguably) using illegal measures to enforce their own rights. Just because someone infringes on your rights doesn't make it legal for you to infringe back on theirs.
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