Live data from Hacker News

YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

piunikaweb.com

111–120 of 212 posts

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point I hadn't considered it. So YouTube loss-lead with free for all videos -- then became a monopoly and people are reaction badly not because of any inbuilt fairness wiring trigger, but because, actually the price is merely too high? Hmmm, possible. How to test? Hard, given their monopoly status. Tho does Rumble offer paid subscriptions? A small but perhaps weak counter to your thesis is that if peopl…

For me personally, the ads are too high a cost for me to pay. When my ad-free way of watching breaks and I get an ad, I simply close the tab. I find ads really annoying these days, and I pay to avoid them where I find the price fair, otherwise I don't use the thing.

This is what I appreciate about paywalls, subscription modals, etc: there's a clear definition of the "deal", and I can just nope out. "Please enable ads or don't view our content" is also perfect.

I don't wanna trick anyone into showing me ad-free content, I just want a chance to choose.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#112

Background playback is a feature of the browser and operating system, not YouTube. Consumer laws should prevent Google doing this. We need an anti-DMCA to make circumvention, bypassing, or disabling of user’s device or OS features illegal.

No, we need the laws already on the books to be enforced and Google to be broken up. And Meta. And Microsoft. And Amazon.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#113
post #53
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They corned the market, drove everyone out of it, and are now rent-seeking. Can't say you have much of a choice between youtube and any other video provider that has the same content on it.

>They corned the market, drove everyone out of it, and are now rent-seeking. It's almost dumping [1]: they gave a service away for free (even if they were losing a lot of money) just to make it unfeasible for any other company to start a competing service. Vimeo could have been a competitor, but then they pivoted to a professional market and now that Bending Spoons bought them [2], I'm not sure they will even have a…

It is dumping. The whole YCombinator VC Silicon Valley model is entirely based on dumping. They call it "burning VC cash", which is an overly wordy synonym for it to muddy the waters, and it would be positive for the world if everyone installed a browser script that did a `s/burning vc cash/dumping` on all text elements.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#114
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug dealers invented this business model, they would give heroin to young children for free and then once hooked hike the prices or force them to turn tricks to pay for their habit. It’s effective but not very admirable to say the least.

I've also seen this done for cheese, do you find that equally reprehensible? Or is the argument just rhetorical sleight of hand, where "drug dealers do X, so therefore X must be bad"? Drug dealers also consume food, and you know who else consumes food? You.

Cheesemongers have a bit less impact on society than drug dealers or Google. If Google were raking in hundreds of billions giving kids free cheese then charging them full price for parmigiana some might complain and I would not find fault in that. Scale matters.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#115
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also seen this done for cheese, do you find that equally reprehensible? Or is the argument just rhetorical sleight of hand, where "drug dealers do X, so therefore X must be bad"? Drug dealers also consume food, and you know who else consumes food? You.

Cheesemongers have a bit less impact on society than drug dealers or Google. If Google were raking in hundreds of billions giving kids free cheese then charging them full price for parmigiana some might complain and I would not find fault in that. Scale matters.

It's not that we got hooked on YouTube (that would maybe be ok in a free market), it's that YouTube used "free" to make itself a monopoly. That's what the issue is, that you have no other options now.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point I hadn't considered it. So YouTube loss-lead with free for all videos -- then became a monopoly and people are reaction badly not because of any inbuilt fairness wiring trigger, but because, actually the price is merely too high? Hmmm, possible. How to test? Hard, given their monopoly status. Tho does Rumble offer paid subscriptions? A small but perhaps weak counter to your thesis is that if peopl…

> Unless I'm mistaking Disney+, Netflix, HBO, are all more expensive Disney, Netflix, and HBO all fund the creation of and own the content they provide to users. Youtube does not. Youtube inserts itself as a middle-man taxing regular people sharing videos with other regular people. There is obviously a non-zero cost to infrastructure but their attempts to extract revenue go far, far beyond that, hence people feeling…

OK, again a good point. There is YouTube Originals (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqVDpXKLmKeBU_yyt_QkItQ) not sure the model vs the others (also want to ad I enjoy the classic films that YT provides for free [tho I think I need to be on a US VPN to get that if traveling], plus of which you need to buy/rent), but I'm also not sure any of us has the inside track on YT's costs/revenue, so I guess we're all speculating.

When you say "their attempts to extract revenue go far beyond that"(A) I feel I can't accept that on good faith, I'd need to see numbers. Also I doubt this kind of data is the thing most people reacting with "prices are unfair" or "payment is bad", are drawing on, instinctively or not. So it's hard for me to accept this thesis as the source of ills. Tho, maybe it is. Maybe people's innate sense of fairness really does cover this, somehow.

I'm not aware of those numbers, so it doesn't seem that way to me, but maybe I'm just not across it. Can you give examples of your claim (A)?

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#118
It seems youtube wants to become a "video game".

Then they better have a 'correct' client for all platforms out there because they are filthy dominant at worldwide scale.

In my personal space: I don't think they are competent enough to provide a 'correct' set of ELF64 binaries for elf/linux, you know 'wayland->x11' fallback, 'vulkan->CPU' fallback, OLD glibc ABI, etc (BTW, wayland+vulkan = android).

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#119
post #51
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you don't like free services, stop using them Problem is, there's no real alternative for YouTube. It's a monopoly.

That’s not remotely true.

I was going to try to make the monopoly argument but then realized I only think youtube is a monopoly because I don't use tiktok.

It is just an oligopoly like most other sectors.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point I hadn't considered it. So YouTube loss-lead with free for all videos -- then became a monopoly and people are reaction badly not because of any inbuilt fairness wiring trigger, but because, actually the price is merely too high? Hmmm, possible. How to test? Hard, given their monopoly status. Tho does Rumble offer paid subscriptions? A small but perhaps weak counter to your thesis is that if peopl…

For me personally, the ads are too high a cost for me to pay. When my ad-free way of watching breaks and I get an ad, I simply close the tab. I find ads really annoying these days, and I pay to avoid them where I find the price fair, otherwise I don't use the thing.

I don't like the ads, which is why I switched to Premium. I like it. I also listen to white noise variants at night, so I can't tolerate ads there obviously. I know a little of your situation I think from reading your previous posts here, so I'm sure you are able to "afford" the premium fee. What makes you not pay it?

Small strange nuance for me is when I switch to my corp account, and see an ad, sometimes I really enjoy the ad, because it's novel and creative. Sounds funny to say, and I probably wouldn't fele like that if I saw ads all the time. But some of the YT ads do seem pretty high quality.

Post reply on HN