Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

tomshardware.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 80 posts

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

#41

Post by westurner »

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.

I think a lot of that is the (musical) artists/businesspeople demanding a higher - most reasonable - cut, so we all get more ads.

Just think how expensive YouTube would be if artists started demanding royalties for works that match their video fingerprints (in addition to the payouts according to audio fingerprints that YouTube pioneered).

Encoding, moderation, storage, and bandwidth cost money. I'm sure the YouTube financials and margin are posted.

A video streaming service can afford to operate without ads only if: _____.

You understand this if you've ever tried to host (multiply-reencoded) video on a shared hosting service with a bandwidth quota for $10-$20 a month.

https://WebMonetization.org/ is one proposed solution to advertising-supported media.

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

#42

Post by ShinzonRemus »

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…

Nobody claim to be entitled to free video, just a reasonable amount of advertising. Which is not what I (for example) get when I go on YouTube.

Google already has a definitive solution: close down the free access under a registration+payment (reasonable one). Why they are still serving free content? Why they don't get the moneys from the viewers directly?

I think that the reason is that they are inflating the number of viewers to everyone (content creator, stakeholders, etc.). You can fake viewers, you can't fake revenue. So, Google wants us to get more advertising so that they can claim that the number of views in ads increased, to earn more.

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

#43

Post by CommanderData »

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? You haven't been sleighted. That service costs money to provide.

Because Google has been monopolistic in their strategy to become the no.1 video platform and crushed alternatives.

This behaviour comes at a cost, pushing alternatives and now forcing adverts on everyone?

I can't do much to stop their monopolistic behavior but I can block adverts.

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

#44

Post by glenstein »

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 can get a Youtube Premium family plan for $15/mo that works for 6 people.

I'm as against ads as anybody, in the sense that (1) in general I think ads are unhealthy (2) I want infrastructure that makes access to content without ads possible (3) being able to disable ad blockers is one reason it's bad to let one company control how your browser works.

I can't say I disagree with Youtube's right to monetize, it's more of an "I'd really rather if you didn't" thing, but I think they do in fact offer the affordable plan you are asking for.

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

#45

Post by CivBase »

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…

> Having a disability or similar does not entitle you to an unsubsidized Times Square with no ads.

Isn't Times Square public property? NYC could absolutely make that a thing if they wanted.

> How the heck can you require only Netflix to host 30% local EU content and also demand free video streaming service with no ads?

Nobody's asking to make Netflix free. YouTube could absolutely charge for access if they wanted. Ads aren't the only way to monetize a service.

With that said, I'm generally in agreement that Google has a right to run ads on their platform and to try to block users who are blocking ads. The "spyware" argument seems pretty weak to me.

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

#46

Post by McDyver »

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…

Youtube may very well charge for whatever they want. But pretending to offer the service for free and looking at your information (in the form of browser capabilities and other PII), is like you entering a store and the owner going through your wallet just because you want to browse around

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

#47

Post by pasabagi »

jart wrote: post #31
pravus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Most content creators are either doing it for free, or getting a percentile of a cent on the dollar. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it communication infrastructure, not service provision. Youtube is providing the infrastructure, the creators are providing the service.

As I think that infrastructure should be publically owned, I'm happy to do my bit for nationalization, and use adblock.

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

#48

Post by rollcat »

zazazache wrote: post #4

While ads suck and I think this is a shitty move by YouTube, I I find it hard to argue against a company that runs on ads not having a legitimate interest in making sure that they are being able to display them on their own website. I think you could even make a good argument that YouTube MUST take appropriate measures to ensure that they display ads that have been paid for. To count impressions so they are able to b…

I have the exact opposite view. We need a law that guarantees end users the right to study and adapt software to fit their personal needs, especially in situations where vendors disregard accessibility (see the June 2023 Reddit API shitstorm and r/blind[1]).

Ads are often loud and obnoxious. An ad blocker that turns the volume down (rather than blocking an ad entirely) could be seen as a means of improving accessibility.

[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/13zr8h2/reddits_rece...

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

#49

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

McDyver wrote: post #46
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…

Youtube may very well charge for whatever they want. But pretending to offer the service for free and looking at your information (in the form of browser capabilities and other PII), is like you entering a store and the owner going through your wallet just because you want to browse around

I really want to understand the psychology of the people who show up and comment like the OP did.

Does he work for Google? For Youtube? More than a few people here on HN must, right? But there are so many like him, it can't be the explanation all the time. Does he worship big tech companies to the point that if he shills for them, he believes that career success will rain down on him, like some sort of occupational cargo culting thing? Is he some amateur Deviant Art person, who shills for obscene copyright maximalism for similar reasons? Is it just that he does the one sort of 4chan-level shitposting that people can get away with on HackerNews, for the same reason the 4chan people do their thing there (whatever that is)?

It's weird. It's both the one topic you can see that stuff here on, where it isn't wished away to the cornfield. And the people doing it seem confident they can get away with it.

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

#50

Post by jart »

pasabagi wrote: post #47
jart wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most content creators are either doing it for free, or getting a percentile of a cent on the dollar. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it communication infrastructure, not service provision. Youtube is providing the infrastructure, the creators are providing the service. As I think that infrastructure should be publically owned, I'm happy to do my bit for nationalization, and use adblock.

Then watch PBS lool.
Post reply on HN