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

Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

standard.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 92 posts

Re: Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

#31

Post by hnlmorg »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #14
Jensson wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they care about losing you when they aren't making any money on you? "McDonalds cracks down on people taking ketchup without ordering anything" "Then I'll stop taking ketchup from McDonalds, that will show em!" It is only paying/ad viewers that matters, until they start to lose those they wont care.

I pay for the ad-free versions of Hulu, HBO ("Max"), Disney Plus, and Paramount Plus. YouTube managed to sufficiently tick me off that I refuse to give them one penny.

Same here. I’ve subscribed to so many different streaming platforms and refuse to pay for Google Premium

Re: Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

#32

Post by randunel »

jorams wrote: post #23

I used to watch YouTube quite a lot on my TV without ad blocking, but over the past few years the quantity and duration of ads became so incredibly ridiculous that I stopped doing that. It's probably not what they intended, but the primary effect is that I drastically cut down on the amount of time I spend watching YT. Whenever I do watch videos it's now on desktop or mobile with an ad blocker, and it's not enough to…

A friend of mine has recently subscribed to his first ever subscription, youtube premium, because of the increased amount of ads on his tv, so I'd say it's an overall win for google.

Re: Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

#33

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

justrealist wrote: post #24
avazhi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry bud, Google makes its money spying on my email and my searches. Those are tradeoffs I’m willing to make. I absolutely refuse to ever watch ads, though. You say we can’t go back torrents, and maybe you can’t, but I’ll go full Luddite mode before I start watching ads on anything. I haven’t had a television for 20+ years for this very reason. Torrents and a seed box are about as easy as it gets.

You could, of course, just pay YouTube $14/mo for the ad-free version instead of complaining.

Why should we pay for the experience we used to have for free? It would be an easy sell if google offered some benefit to paying, but making the experience worse and then offering to put it back as a premium option rubs me the wrong way.

Re: Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

#34

Post by tomrod »

Jensson wrote: post #5
baz00 wrote: post #3

baz00 admits cracking down on using Google. Only way to do something about this crap.

Why would they care about losing you when they aren't making any money on you? "McDonalds cracks down on people taking ketchup without ordering anything" "Then I'll stop taking ketchup from McDonalds, that will show em!" It is only paying/ad viewers that matters, until they start to lose those they wont care.

Because they mine my data and could get goodwill marketing from me if they showed they gave a damn.

Instead, they've grown too big, they've grown too frail, they've grown too meaningless. So, time to move on.

Re: Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

#35

Post by tyfon »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #30
Workaccount2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how you got ads with premium. I have not seen any.

YouTube kids show ads even with a premium account. Not a surprise since Google is on its way down anyways.

I have never seen this with my kids subaccounts on yt kids or regular yt. I've had premium for a couple years now.

Re: Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

#36

Post by tomrod »

justrealist wrote: post #29

[flagged]

> STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT ADS

No.

I believe you missed/ignored a few facts in your screed:

1. Ads are a malware surface

2. Ads are used to pass misinformation and other harmful content

Google is failing to perform its due diligence as an ad platform for both sides of the ad two-sided market.

Ergo, my browser connection will continue to use its condoms.

--

Further, Google paid for little to any content creation that is loaded to YouTube. $14 subscription for hosting the median watcher's content is extreme. Charge the content creators for hosting as they are the beneficiaries with in-video subscription advertisements.

Re: Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

#37

Post by justrealist »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #33
justrealist wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could, of course, just pay YouTube $14/mo for the ad-free version instead of complaining.

Why should we pay for the experience we used to have for free? It would be an easy sell if google offered some benefit to paying, but making the experience worse and then offering to put it back as a premium option rubs me the wrong way.

Because you aren't entitled to anything. It's someone else's service they ran at a loss.

Remind me to never invite you over for dinner. "Why should I have to split the check now? You paid for my dinner yesterday!"

Jesus christ. Grow up. Be an adult.

Re: Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

#38

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

INTPenis wrote: post #8

The free ride is over. I feel like the only reason this is upsetting to people is because it seemed to be free for so long. If you give someone a free meal every day for 15 years, and then suddenly take it away, they'll be pretty upset. But nobody ever asked why the food was free? It costs to make and it costs to deliver. Google have datacenters all over the world and we still expect the food to be free. They literal…

That's actually the really annoying part to me - I don't mind paying for content or for useful services, but if you operate one way for over a decade and use that time to consolidate the entire market and get in a position where you have no real competition, and only once you own the market do you drive up prices and make the free experience awful, than that does actually seem quite unreasonable (and in an ideal world, illegally anticompetitive).

Re: Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

#39

Post by _cenw »

beerandt wrote: post #16

I paid for the YouTube premium that came with the old Google Music subscription, and the problem was it regularly showed ads anyway, especially in the kids stuff. So then we still needed ad-blocking, which broke Google in a way that it tried to show even more ads (ad blocking probably disrupting the ability to track a 'premium' user/client). So we're back to relying completely on ad-blockers, and have completely cut…

did you use brand subaccounts? those aren't included in premium.

Re: Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

#40

Post by DEF14A »

jorams wrote: post #23

I used to watch YouTube quite a lot on my TV without ad blocking, but over the past few years the quantity and duration of ads became so incredibly ridiculous that I stopped doing that. It's probably not what they intended, but the primary effect is that I drastically cut down on the amount of time I spend watching YT. Whenever I do watch videos it's now on desktop or mobile with an ad blocker, and it's not enough to…

I can't imagine the data scientists at Google haven't already regressed minutes viewed on frequency of ads and found a negative association, though. I wonder if they have a minimum threshold of y at which point they begin reducing the frequency of ads shown.
Post reply on HN