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YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

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Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#21

Post by falcolas »

heavyset_go wrote: post #17
falcolas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's on the creator, and no ad blocker will stop sponsored content.

Google could certainly detect when sponsored ads start in YouTube content and skip them to honor their "no ads" agreement with YouTube Premium customers. That, or they could pay content creators fairly so that they don't have to shill for NordVPN in every video they release.

I'm not confident any automated system could properly detect a sponsored segment. Some creators are quite sly with how they're worked in.

> pay content creators fairly so that they don't have to shill for NordVPN in every video they release.

I'm with you on that.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#22

Post by phantom784 »

patrickyeon wrote: post #15
heavyset_go wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For YouTube, the _right_ thing to do is to pay for the premium option which removes ads. Even if you pay for premium, you'll still get sponsored ads in the content.

No ad blocking is going to get rid of that though, until you run something analyzing the actual video/audio content and not just the source of streams or how they're loaded.

There's an extension called SponsorBlock that does exactly that. It uses user-submitted timestamps.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#23

Post by heavyset_go »

namdnay wrote: post #16
heavyset_go wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For YouTube, the _right_ thing to do is to pay for the premium option which removes ads. Even if you pay for premium, you'll still get sponsored ads in the content.

Yeah and when you pay for a cinema ticket you still have to see the actors drinking conveniently angled cans of coke

There's a difference between product placement and intrusive ads that interrupt content for minutes at a time. YouTube Premium customers paid to get rid of the latter.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#24

Post by tambeb »

It's because of things like this—not to mention the added overhead/middleman—that I think ad blocking at the DNS level is the best way to go. With both Android and iOS supporting encrypted DNS system-wide, blocking at the DNS level is more convenient than ever (mobile & wifi are covered, no need to set DNS for each wifi network, etc.).

I realize of course, though, that DNS level blocking is mostly a non-starter with regards to YouTube since the ads are served up from the same domains as the videos (mostly? generally? not certain here).

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#25

Post by throwaway3699 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #9
twobitshifter wrote: post #2

The battle between ad platforms and users is going to be never ending. For YouTube, the _right_ thing to do is to pay for the premium option which removes ads. Otherwise as difficult as it is to say, you are getting something for nothing and people do make a living from YouTube videos. Ok, maybe you can contribute to a patreon outside of YouTube, but you’re not going to do that for everyone and those videos are not s…

> For YouTube, the _right_ thing to do is to pay for the premium option which removes ads. Even if you pay for premium, you'll still get sponsored ads in the content.

All of that started because people were ad blocking in the first place. More competition and less eyeballs meant CPMs have been crashing for decades now.

Sure, you can do it (piracy is okay too) but let the creators support themselves somehow.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#26

Post by heavyset_go »

falcolas wrote: post #21
heavyset_go wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google could certainly detect when sponsored ads start in YouTube content and skip them to honor their "no ads" agreement with YouTube Premium customers. That, or they could pay content creators fairly so that they don't have to shill for NordVPN in every video they release.

I'm not confident any automated system could properly detect a sponsored segment. Some creators are quite sly with how they're worked in. > pay content creators fairly so that they don't have to shill for NordVPN in every video they release. I'm with you on that.

> I'm not confident any automated system could properly detect a sponsored segment. Some creators are quite sly with how they're worked in.

SponsorBlock does it, and Google could make it part of their policy for content creators to mark sponsored ad segments in their videos so that they can be skipped.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#27

Post by tyingq »

tambeb wrote: post #24

It's because of things like this—not to mention the added overhead/middleman—that I think ad blocking at the DNS level is the best way to go. With both Android and iOS supporting encrypted DNS system-wide, blocking at the DNS level is more convenient than ever (mobile & wifi are covered, no need to set DNS for each wifi network, etc.). I realize of course, though, that DNS level blocking is mostly a non-starter with…

If, at some point, all we have is hostnames and url lists to block with, the ad folks will figure out how to unblock themselves.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#28

Post by js2 »

Flow wrote: post #20
yliu wrote: post #6

Despite the title being about YouTube, this is fundamentally about Safari's declarative Content Blocker API being totally inadequate in the face of modern ad delivery technologies. Yes, it's fast and relatively more secure compared to old ad blocking techniques (which requires granting full access to effectively arbitrary JS), but ad tech has evolved since 2015 and Safari's Content Blocking API has not evolved with i…

I use Wipr as a content blocker on both macOS and iOS. I never see ads on YouTube. But I've always felt that it might not be enough some day. Perhaps that day is nearly here.

This is a recent change by YouTube. Wipr uses the same content blocking API as Adguard and has the same limitations:

https://giorgiocalderolla.com/wipr-faq.html#youtube

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#29

Post by ameshkov »

Flow wrote: post #20
yliu wrote: post #6

Despite the title being about YouTube, this is fundamentally about Safari's declarative Content Blocker API being totally inadequate in the face of modern ad delivery technologies. Yes, it's fast and relatively more secure compared to old ad blocking techniques (which requires granting full access to effectively arbitrary JS), but ad tech has evolved since 2015 and Safari's Content Blocking API has not evolved with i…

I use Wipr as a content blocker on both macOS and iOS. I never see ads on YouTube. But I've always felt that it might not be enough some day. Perhaps that day is nearly here.

Note that YT changes aren’t yet rolled out everywhere. Also, if you’re not authorized there’ll be no issues, but it won’t stay like that forever.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#30

Post by wayneftw »

twobitshifter wrote: post #2

The battle between ad platforms and users is going to be never ending. For YouTube, the _right_ thing to do is to pay for the premium option which removes ads. Otherwise as difficult as it is to say, you are getting something for nothing and people do make a living from YouTube videos. Ok, maybe you can contribute to a patreon outside of YouTube, but you’re not going to do that for everyone and those videos are not s…

I would pay to get rid of ads. The only problem is that I would need to log into YouTube to take advantage of that.

If I log into YouTube, that requires me to be logged into Google everywhere and I do not want that at all. The only solution is to use Firefox containerization or use separate browsers or separate browser profiles for things and I'm not going to do any of those because all of those options are annoying to me.

If my ad blocker stops working on YouTube and/or if they require me to login, I'll simply stop visiting YouTube. There's plenty of other things to do!

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