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YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

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Re: YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

#21

Post by bitpush »

roscas wrote: post #14

"About 11% of YouTube users openly say they use ad blockers. Some communities report 40-60% of viewers use ad blockers. Overall global ad blocker usage is around 42.7% for all internet users." So, almost half of people online use adblockers. I know some use adblockers that have white lists. Everyone should use uBlock Origin as it does not have white lists to allow "some" ads and it is the best adblocker and protectio…

> First we have to close every company that depend on ads to survive. All of them.

Spoken like someone who has never built anything of value in the world. Even Apple, who famously "hates advertising and adtech companies" makes ads to promote their products. Ads exist for a reason.

Your statement is no better than "if your company emits carbon, you need to close". Sounds nice. Doesn't work

Re: YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

#22

Post by Telaneo »

tene80i wrote: post #13
Telaneo wrote: post #3

I wonder what the end goal is for Youtube. I doubt they have one, and they're just doing this on instinct/reflex. Not to mention they probably wouldn't have seen a need to to this as much if they didn't go down the path of shoving more and more ads down people's throats. If Youtube stops working with uBlock Origin, I'll just download the videos wholesale and watch them that way instead, and I doubt there's a realisti…

The goal is to increase revenue, and one way to do that is to make the experience worse for people blocking ads. Some, like you, will keep finding new ways to bypass them. Others will give up and allow the ads, or pay for ad-free. They don’t need to stop all the ad-blocking users, just more and more each time. And if you’re a die-hard who will never allow ads, they probably don’t care what you do at all. Why should t…

I have a hard time imagining a world which Youtube ceases to work in a browser with uBlock Origin. Instead we're in a world where Youtube screws us around for a bit, and then uBlock does an update and everything goes back to 'normal'. This isn't productive for either side. It's just busywork.

Maybe Youtube sees it differently and can actually imagine that world, but even then, it doesn't really seem like that's the state of things they're working towards.

Re: YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

#23

Post by zahlman »

mu53 wrote: post #11
Telaneo wrote: post #3

I wonder what the end goal is for Youtube. I doubt they have one, and they're just doing this on instinct/reflex. Not to mention they probably wouldn't have seen a need to to this as much if they didn't go down the path of shoving more and more ads down people's throats. If Youtube stops working with uBlock Origin, I'll just download the videos wholesale and watch them that way instead, and I doubt there's a realisti…

increasing friction for ad blockers will increase ad views will increase revenue. It is pretty easy for a company whose existence depends on ads to see people that use ad blockers as leeches or freeloaders or other derogatory terms to justify making their lives more difficult. Youtube premium is around $15, and depending on people's video usage, it pays for itself

> Youtube premium is around $15, and depending on people's video usage, it pays for itself

How many ads does YouTube have to serve in order to net $15 from the advertisers?

How much would they gross in this circumstance (vs. what they pay out to content creators)?

Re: YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

#24

Post by zahlman »

general1726 wrote: post #18

I mean just try to sumarize ads running on YouTube: Lightsabers ad which is actually a torch - scam. Wooden cutting board as source of microplastics - scam. Muscular old geezer selling Tai-chi - grift and scam. Mobile games advertising a "playthrough" but real game is completely something else - scam. Palestinians having difficult life - propaganda. Israel delivering help to Palestine - counter propaganda. I have see…

To be fair, the "wooden cutting board" ad is actually trying to tell you (if you listen to the whole thing) that plastic cutting boards are a source of microplastics but wooden cutting boards will instead result in bacterial contamination; thus they're selling you (supposedly) a titanium cutting board. Which of course will command some ungodly price tag both because of the material (supposing for the moment that this is legit) and because you'll supposedly only ever need one.

And I don't think any of these are nearly as bad as the ones trying to sell you on some purported absurdly large arbitrage on crypto markets. I've also seen some for supposedly super-advanced data storage devices that I'm quite confident are scams; and bogus scam ultra-high-capacity USB keys are already all over the place to the point where they'd be a huge problem even if never advertised.

(I usually don't care as much about first-party ads like this because at least the advertiser isn't serving me custom JavaScript. And I do sometimes let these things play if I have the video on in the background.)

It's also really noticeable how you'll keep seeing the same ads for the same few things, regardless of what your "algorithm" is currently doing. I really have to wonder how much YouTube makes off those cutting board guys.

Re: YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

#25

Post by prinny_ »

bitpush wrote: post #21
roscas wrote: post #14

"About 11% of YouTube users openly say they use ad blockers. Some communities report 40-60% of viewers use ad blockers. Overall global ad blocker usage is around 42.7% for all internet users." So, almost half of people online use adblockers. I know some use adblockers that have white lists. Everyone should use uBlock Origin as it does not have white lists to allow "some" ads and it is the best adblocker and protectio…

> First we have to close every company that depend on ads to survive. All of them. Spoken like someone who has never built anything of value in the world. Even Apple, who famously "hates advertising and adtech companies" makes ads to promote their products. Ads exist for a reason. Your statement is no better than "if your company emits carbon, you need to close". Sounds nice. Doesn't work

“Depends on ads to survive” is wildly different from “uses ads to promote the product it depends on to survive”. Apple doesn’t generate revenue from running ads. Google does because you can pay google to promote your ads and google makes money even when your product doesn’t sell.

Re: YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

#26

Post by bjourne »

sanswork wrote: post #17
roscas wrote: post #14

"About 11% of YouTube users openly say they use ad blockers. Some communities report 40-60% of viewers use ad blockers. Overall global ad blocker usage is around 42.7% for all internet users." So, almost half of people online use adblockers. I know some use adblockers that have white lists. Everyone should use uBlock Origin as it does not have white lists to allow "some" ads and it is the best adblocker and protectio…

Why should you have the right to dictate that no one is allowed to pay for their services by watching ads? You're suggesting cutting off services for the majority of the planet because you are in a financial position to pay for what you want.

Google has exploited network effects and the essentially free labor of millions of content creators to create a video platform no one can compete with. I don't find it the least immoral for me to block ads, while I watch someone play a game I like on a channel with less than 2k views/video.

It's like running a farm at a huge deficit until everyone else goes out of business and then jacking up prices.

Re: YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

#27

Post by dontlaugh »

sanswork wrote: post #17
roscas wrote: post #14

"About 11% of YouTube users openly say they use ad blockers. Some communities report 40-60% of viewers use ad blockers. Overall global ad blocker usage is around 42.7% for all internet users." So, almost half of people online use adblockers. I know some use adblockers that have white lists. Everyone should use uBlock Origin as it does not have white lists to allow "some" ads and it is the best adblocker and protectio…

Why should you have the right to dictate that no one is allowed to pay for their services by watching ads? You're suggesting cutting off services for the majority of the planet because you are in a financial position to pay for what you want.

That many using ad blockers would suggest there is something like a democratic mandate for disallowing ads as a business model.

Re: YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

#28

Post by xeonmc »

general1726 wrote: post #18

I mean just try to sumarize ads running on YouTube: Lightsabers ad which is actually a torch - scam. Wooden cutting board as source of microplastics - scam. Muscular old geezer selling Tai-chi - grift and scam. Mobile games advertising a "playthrough" but real game is completely something else - scam. Palestinians having difficult life - propaganda. Israel delivering help to Palestine - counter propaganda. I have see…

> Lightsabers ad which is actually a torch - scam.

Aren't they really just confined plasma torches though, lore-wise?

Re: YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

#29

Post by general1726 »

zahlman wrote: post #24
general1726 wrote: post #18

I mean just try to sumarize ads running on YouTube: Lightsabers ad which is actually a torch - scam. Wooden cutting board as source of microplastics - scam. Muscular old geezer selling Tai-chi - grift and scam. Mobile games advertising a "playthrough" but real game is completely something else - scam. Palestinians having difficult life - propaganda. Israel delivering help to Palestine - counter propaganda. I have see…

To be fair, the "wooden cutting board" ad is actually trying to tell you (if you listen to the whole thing) that plastic cutting boards are a source of microplastics but wooden cutting boards will instead result in bacterial contamination; thus they're selling you (supposedly) a titanium cutting board. Which of course will command some ungodly price tag both because of the material (supposing for the moment that this…

> It's also really noticeable how you'll keep seeing the same ads for the same few things, regardless of what your "algorithm" is currently doing. I really have to wonder how much YouTube makes off those cutting board guys.

Oh yes, that's true it has been happening to me as well. Israel/Palestine propaganda fight were biggest offenders. Every 10 minutes one or the other sometimes sprinkled with a scam mobile game ad. And I don't even play mobile games...

Btw cutting on titanium cutting board is the fastest way to have dull knives. So we moved from scam to deception.

Re: YouTube steps up fight against ad blockers again

#30

Post by scotty79 »

sanswork wrote: post #17
roscas wrote: post #14

"About 11% of YouTube users openly say they use ad blockers. Some communities report 40-60% of viewers use ad blockers. Overall global ad blocker usage is around 42.7% for all internet users." So, almost half of people online use adblockers. I know some use adblockers that have white lists. Everyone should use uBlock Origin as it does not have white lists to allow "some" ads and it is the best adblocker and protectio…

Why should you have the right to dictate that no one is allowed to pay for their services by watching ads? You're suggesting cutting off services for the majority of the planet because you are in a financial position to pay for what you want.

Same reason they shouldn't be able to pay with gambling, scamming, prostitution or their organs. Advertisement industry is all a scam. It's a privately levied tax that lets sellers win competition with themselves and ultimately the customer pays, both in price of products and in their attention as well.
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