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YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

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Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#331

Post by pera »

hutzlibu wrote: post #233
pera wrote: post #217

This is very bad: If you have ADHD ad-blockers are essential to use platforms like YouTube as they let you block comment sections and suggested content, which are highly distracting.

You can configure uBlock origin to only let through the ads, but still block the other garbage. Or you can pay for youtube - or you can find something else. I hope this move will strengthen alternatives.

Yeah but if they are simply detecting user agents with ad-blockers (which is often the case) then it won't matter

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#332

Post by amykhar »

mcpackieh wrote: post #309

I block ads because they're psychological warfare that corporations wage against me. I don't care how unobtrusive the ads are. I don't care if the ads don't track me. I grew up changing the channel on TV when ads came on, and ripping adverts out of magazines before sitting down to read them. I vote for billboard bans whenever I can. I have zero tolerance for ads of any sort. Advertisers have no morals, they're comple…

I also block ads - BUT I do go pay for services that I use daily and get benefit from. Otherwise, the sites that I love would go away because it's not sustainable to employee people to write code and run servers without some sort of revenue.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#333

Post by renewiltord »

_gabe_ wrote: post #313

This is just so funny to me. Google has to have the absolute worst PR for any company I've ever seen to make this happen. Somehow, they've duped the general public (at least on HN) into believing they insert the ads into videos. All they need to do is run a marketing campaign about how as a content creator you get to decide when ads play, whether they're unskippable, and how many ads to place in your video. Blast tha…

Part of their value is insulating creators from this. It's like Ticketmaster protects artists from pricing concerns.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#334

Post by toastercat »

Verdex wrote: post #222

I don't really understand either side of the equation here. So, on the one hand you have people who use ad blockers. The first retort that comes to mind here is: Well, we'll take our business elsewhere. Which is odd because without ads they aren't paying and them leaving is the goal. Of course on the other hand ... when I read the title my thoughts weren't that I would be okay because I don't ad block youtube. My tho…

> So, on the one hand you have people who use ad blockers. The first retort that comes to mind here is: Well, we'll take our business elsewhere. Which is odd because without ads they aren't paying and them leaving is the goal.

I use an ad blocker. If I can no longer block ads on YouTube, yes I will just stop using YouTube, or use an Invidious/Piped instance. I think your mistake is believing everyone who uses ad-block also believes ad-free YouTube is worth paying for. I do not.

Further, if Invidious, Piped, NewPipe, and yt-dlp stop working as well, I will simply just watch drastically less YouTube, which is what Google wants.

> Somebody has to pay something for youtube to be viable.

I don't care. Would I care if YouTube was run by a small company that didn't employ dark patterns or fuel unhealthy addiction of innappropriate content in kids? Probably, but YouTube is run by megacorp, so no, I don't care about their server costs.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#335

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

DeathArrow wrote: post #177
garciasn wrote: post #83

From the article: >“YouTube’s ad-supported model supports a diverse ecosystem of creators, and provides billions of people globally access to content for free with ads,” the company’s statement says. Let's at least be 100% honest with everyone and stop with the disingenuous garbage: 1. Ad-blocker usage is roughly 25-30% of US users. 2. The average YouTube content creator makes less than 0.02 per ad view and thus why…

>>“YouTube’s ad-supported model supports a diverse ecosystem of creators, and provides billions of people globally access to content for free with ads,” the company’s statement says. Before I switched to using adblocking on my phone for youtube (like I did for my desktop), I made sure I will never ever buy whatever crap was presented in YT ads. I believe I am not the only one for which ads have a contrary effect to t…

I get very suspicious of things I see advertised too much. It either implies that the company has way too much money and is blowing it on ads, implying some predatory monetisation, or that it's spending money it doesn't have on ads, which means it's going to either implode in a few months or have to jack up prices.

Remember: "Ad-supported content" isn't really ad-supported, it's supported by the customers of whoever's buying the ads.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#336

Post by ProtoAES256 »

I can't recommend enough of the spiritual successor to Vanced since the article briefly mentioned that. It's called Revanced. It requires more hoops than usual but I'm sure the intelligent folks here won't have a problem with that. It's on Github. Other results are probably fake.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#337

Post by 0xfedbee »

MaxikCZ wrote: post #17
0xfedbee wrote: post #2

> Child is dying from choking. YouTube search: how to stop a baby from choking > Two 30 second ads about how important vitamins are for me to get pregnant Meanwhile baby is dead. Install adblocker so I can save my next eligible heir quickly. > Next baby is choking. Quickly open YouTube. YouTube: you are blocked. Now I have two dead babies but thank god I know how to get pregnant again because of those Vitamins.

If a kid is choking and your impulse is to open youtube and search for tutorial, you should buy a phone. 911 or equivalent is free

Most of the world’s population lives in regions without “911 or equivalent”, ever thought about that?

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#338

Post by squaresmile »

jbm wrote: post #282
kitsunesoba wrote: post #226

This doesn't really affect me since I subscribe to premium, but something that a lot of ad-based services don't seem to grasp is why people block ads. It's because they've become increasingly obnoxious. Nobody blocked ads when they were a simple column of links in the gutter or maybe an animated GIF banner with 3 frames. No, adblockers became popular because ads kept getting more loud (both visually and audibly), in…

Let's not forget that so many advertisements are for things that are objectively damaging to you. "It's good for the economy and OK for you" school of advertising. High interest loans, fast foods, cable channels (with more advertising), sports gambling, et cetra. I still cannot understand why I paid to get a specific streaming service (Sportsnet) and had to sit through Wayne Gretzsky ruining his legacy by selling spo…

The ads could be worse: drugs that treat cancer, diabetes in 1 month, supplements that cure Hepatitis and so on. If YouTube can show fast food and gambling ads instead, that would be a nice improvement.

I assume because the ads are in language and region Google don't care as much, there's less priority or resource to filter them out. Maybe they should ask Meta how to do it since FB and Insta ads are way more "reasonable".

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#339

Post by BitwiseFool »

renewiltord wrote: post #333
_gabe_ wrote: post #313

This is just so funny to me. Google has to have the absolute worst PR for any company I've ever seen to make this happen. Somehow, they've duped the general public (at least on HN) into believing they insert the ads into videos. All they need to do is run a marketing campaign about how as a content creator you get to decide when ads play, whether they're unskippable, and how many ads to place in your video. Blast tha…

Part of their value is insulating creators from this. It's like Ticketmaster protects artists from pricing concerns.

Haven't a substantial number of creators turned towards sponsorships and embedded advertising because they felt like YouTube was being too capricious with their monetization policies?

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#340

Post by _fat_santa »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #294
kitsunesoba wrote: post #226

This doesn't really affect me since I subscribe to premium, but something that a lot of ad-based services don't seem to grasp is why people block ads. It's because they've become increasingly obnoxious. Nobody blocked ads when they were a simple column of links in the gutter or maybe an animated GIF banner with 3 frames. No, adblockers became popular because ads kept getting more loud (both visually and audibly), in…

Compare it with TV though, which is what youtube is; nobody blocked ads because they couldn't, there was no escaping them unless you physically exit the room. In my country that worked, because ads were neat 5 minute blocks every 15 odd minutes, but in the US it seems every few minutes there's an ad interrupting - but they're too short to tune out / do something else. The news channels are even worse, where the energ…

I only ever watch TV when there's a sporting event on. But every time I've noticed two things:

- Just how many ads there are. And it's not even that there are a bunch of different ads, it's the same 3-4 ads played in a loop.

- The absurd number of drug commercials. The last time I was I was at a friends place to watch a football game we played a drinking came called "ask your doctor". Anytime a drug ad said "ask your doctor is X is right for you", you take a shot. We were all drunk by the end of the game.

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