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

YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

404media.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 316 posts

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#21

Post by shadowgovt »

PedroBatista wrote: post #14

It's amazing to me how Google is allowed to control every side of the market with no real repercussions. I don't want to be the cynic who says Google has been paying lots of money to "the right people" in order to keep the status quo, but.. Google has been paying lots of money.. That might be a moderate huge win for Firefox.. until someone at Google makes a phone call to Mozilla's offices. Worst case scenario it help…

Regarding YouTube specifically: bandwidth is still an issue. It's nontrivial to stand up a service that can provide storage and reliable streaming of video, and the costs impact directly upon the provider. So it's an ecosystem where competition is risky (and if someone succeeds too well, Alphabet can just buy and squash them).

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#22

Post by behnamoh »

illegalmemory wrote: post #3

One good thing that has come out of this is that I have reduced my time on YouTube to nearly zero in the past two weeks.

Maybe that's exactly what YT wants—get rid of users who won't pay to save costs. I know some banks also do this.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#23

Post by iforgotpassword »

MBCook wrote: post #11
tekla wrote: post #8

I'm happy to pay for services and a Ad free YT experience.

Same. I keep seeing the discourse recently and it’s all framed as if only two options exist: People can use ad blockers, or Google can block them and annoy people. There is a very good third option for people: pay for the (expensive due to bandwidth) service you’re using and you see no ads. And Google won’t block it because it’s encouraged as the solution to this exact issue. The level of “I should get everything for…

I wouldn't mind the ads if the amount were reasonable, which was the case maybe even as recently as a year ago. But having a 30 second ad before a 5 second meme video is beyond ridiculous.

While I don't think the price of premium is too high, I'll never ever actively give Google even a single cent. One forever blocked Google account and too many killed services have burned that bridge for me.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#24

Post by yifanl »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #15

It strikes me as so odd that people readily pay for netflix, hulu, HBO etc, but when the idea of paying for youtube comes along, who directly profit shares with small creators you adore, people fall over backwards in disgust. I guess it has to do with initial value proposition. If you hand out lemonade for free, people are going to be pissed when you start charging a dollar, regardless of how good of a deal it is. Ev…

Well, you can't pay for Youtube. You can pay for a bundle of some mostly unrelated products that's named Youtube Premium, or you can live with an insanely degraded product experience on Youtube, but you can't pay for Youtube.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#25

Post by hugocbp »

illegalmemory wrote: post #3

One good thing that has come out of this is that I have reduced my time on YouTube to nearly zero in the past two weeks.

Same. I personally end up enjoying those user-hostile changes when they happen because they almost always result in my own time spent on those platforms decreasing.

I've basically left Twitter after recent changes. Reddit is down to a fraction of what used to be a couple years ago (too aggressive on mobile, I just give up reading it).

YouTube was one thing that I used a lot, not always for productive or educational videos. I'll probably just watch a YouTube video from now on when it is really something interesting. Which is good.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#26

Post by ljm »

JohnMakin wrote: post #5

Honestly this wouldn't be an issue if youtube's ads weren't such a completely offensive and miserable experience. When they first started pushing ad-free subscriptions to youtube I first noticed the ads got EXTREMELY aggressive and over time seem to not really have got better, only worse. Skip around the video too much? Ad. Skip too many in a row? Congrats, now you have a long-form unskippable ad. I haven't been both…

I think the worst part is how poorly curated they are. It's not an advert when your playlist is interrupted by 'ads' that go from several minutes to several hours long, meaning you always have to be aware of when to skip them.

I like to leave YT stuff on in the background and it's amazingly disruptive when it's interrupted by 30 minutes of some shitty mumble rap music video/ad, or some obscure London mayoral candidate delivering an 8 minute long speech.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#27

Post by JAlexoid »

PedroBatista wrote: post #14

It's amazing to me how Google is allowed to control every side of the market with no real repercussions. I don't want to be the cynic who says Google has been paying lots of money to "the right people" in order to keep the status quo, but.. Google has been paying lots of money.. That might be a moderate huge win for Firefox.. until someone at Google makes a phone call to Mozilla's offices. Worst case scenario it help…

Why are you consuming any YT videos, then?

Why are so many people feel entitled to YT videos without ads?

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#29

Post by rpgbr »

MBCook wrote: post #11
tekla wrote: post #8

I'm happy to pay for services and a Ad free YT experience.

Same. I keep seeing the discourse recently and it’s all framed as if only two options exist: People can use ad blockers, or Google can block them and annoy people. There is a very good third option for people: pay for the (expensive due to bandwidth) service you’re using and you see no ads. And Google won’t block it because it’s encouraged as the solution to this exact issue. The level of “I should get everything for…

Alphabet profited nearly USD 20 billion last quarter. Not revenue; net profit.

I'm pretty sure they can afford airing less ads per video watched without any damage to their bottomline. So… sorry, but there's a third, better way. The problem is: it doesn't work in a late capitalist environment where Google/Alphabet and all public trade companies operate.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#30

Post by timeagain »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #15

It strikes me as so odd that people readily pay for netflix, hulu, HBO etc, but when the idea of paying for youtube comes along, who directly profit shares with small creators you adore, people fall over backwards in disgust. I guess it has to do with initial value proposition. If you hand out lemonade for free, people are going to be pissed when you start charging a dollar, regardless of how good of a deal it is. Ev…

As it has been framed before, it’s like the lemonade stand put all the other stands out of business by handing out free lemonade.
Post reply on HN