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YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

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Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#391

Post by anothernewdude »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #316
tlogan wrote: post #239

Why do we justify blocking ads, even when we know the content we’re consuming isn’t free to create and even if the content is free, it still costs money to store and distribute? We often rationalize using ad blockers because ads can be intrusive or annoying. But let’s asking ourselves: Why do we feel entitled to get this for free? This isn’t a moral judgment. I genuinely want to understand the reasoning.

Just want to point out, adding on to OP, that creators on youtube get 55% of revenue. I get that Google has infinite money and infinite evil. But how convenient you also get to skip out on paying the majority expense, which goes to the creator... And yes virtuous commentor, I know you are one of the 1.5% that convert to a patreon supporter. Now ask everyone else why they get to eat for free (while endlessly complaini…

People create for free. The content that is created in order to earn revenue suffers because of it.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#392

Post by bigbuppo »

mcdeltat wrote: post #234

I recently stopped watching youtube altogether and surprisingly haven't been missing it. And I used to watch a LOT (like hours per day) of youtube, mostly quality educational/scientific content. But ultimately you'd be surprised how much you don't need in your life. And side effect is no more ads. If someone sends me an occasional youtube video to watch, I'll take a look, but otherwise no engagement with the platform…

I did the same thing with Netflix. Also, killed off my Prime subscription and quit the entirety of Amazon. Well, except for AWS, because that's going to be impossible until they accidentally all the data.

As for youtube, I just pay for ad free. If they ever start violating that they'll also be banished to the corn field.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#393

Post by euleriancon »

andrekandre wrote: post #357
Karupan wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d gladly pay for YouTube or other Google services when they offer an option to not track my activity at all. For me it’s not about seeing ads just on YouTube, but being tracked all through the web and still being served inappropriate or spammy ads.

> when they offer an option to not track my activity this right here, im not opposed to paying for content, but the tracking and sharing is a big concern for me too if all i'd watch are tv shows like netflix its one thing, but yt has such broad content i'd rather not be advertised/tracked about stuff i just clicked once and never again...

While I strongly doubt this fully disables tracking, you can at least disable your watch history on youtube which will have the effect of the recommendation algorithm not adjusting to your preferences.

You can change it from Google account > Data & Privacy > History Settings > youtube History

If you have youtube premium + a general purpose ad blocker + disable watch history its really hard to tell if you are being tracked.

If you do decide to disable watch history, be prepared for just how terrible the median youtube interest is. All recommendations become beyond worthless.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#394

Post by stiray »

stickfigure wrote: post #277
mcdeltat wrote: post #234

I recently stopped watching youtube altogether and surprisingly haven't been missing it. And I used to watch a LOT (like hours per day) of youtube, mostly quality educational/scientific content. But ultimately you'd be surprised how much you don't need in your life. And side effect is no more ads. If someone sends me an occasional youtube video to watch, I'll take a look, but otherwise no engagement with the platform…

Or just pay for it? I have my whole family on my plan. Nobody gets ads. It is a bargain. You're right, I could probably finish my motorcycle build projects without videos. But why??

People dont understand how world works. Management reward are tied to earning more money. As long this is true, the next year, the reward will be tied to earning even more. The more you pay, the more it will cost. And when people wont be prepared to pay more, alternative model will be invented, like adding ads to paid content. There is only one way to stop this - break it from the start and make it nonviable, don't pay.

They are trying to block ads blockers as some manager wasn't able to get reward. Or is worried he wont get it. And this means that money that can be collected from ads has peaked. Now come the "optimizations", now payable, then no longer free, later payable with ads, then they will squeeze content creators, that will move to other platforms where you will have to pay for multiple platforms where you were once watching it for free on YT.

Sounds familiar?

Made it as short as possible, but this could be wall of text, from comparing to what happened to streaming services etc. Without piracy (not advocating but it is a fact that it forced publishers into internet model) we would probably still buy content on CDs and DVDs, maybe BluRays.

Greed of infinite growth in finite system has destroyed the planet and you can bet it will destroy YT too.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#395

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

tabony wrote: post #349
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm with you on this one. I pay for YT premium family, and it's basically the only subscription in 2025 that feels worth it to me. My wife watches YouTube instead of cable TV, so it's already a cheap cable bill. But you also get YouTube music! Which I'll admit is a slightly janky music app since it also kind of sits on top of YouTube videos that it decides are mostly music. But their actual music selection is g…

A lot of people will spend $30 at a coffee shop in a week. Maybe $150 in one month. I think $15 for a whole month of entertainment, tutorials, and useful content and to pay the people who create the videos is worth it.

You also have to account for whatever awful thing Google is likely to do with your $15.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#396

Post by Waterluvian »

akersten wrote: post #209

Thank you for your important work fighting this battle, it must be exhausting. The more Google insists on forcing advertising on us, the more we should look closely at the wildly inappropriate and downright scammy ads they are hosting. If they can't leave well enough alone and look the other way on ad blocking, (which is the only way to avoid exposing myself and family to these dangerous ads), they need to be under a…

It’s absolutely #%^*ing insane how bad and often inappropriate the ads are, to the point that I swear YouTube is in growth trouble. It feels like there’s just management layers who need their bonus or promotion, driven by some percent growth or some KPI so their standards are at the floorboards. I’ve seen porn in the still frame ads on mobile once (much worse than Evony Online if you remember those ads…)

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#397

Post by [deleted] »

tlogan wrote: post #239

Why do we justify blocking ads, even when we know the content we’re consuming isn’t free to create and even if the content is free, it still costs money to store and distribute? We often rationalize using ad blockers because ads can be intrusive or annoying. But let’s asking ourselves: Why do we feel entitled to get this for free? This isn’t a moral judgment. I genuinely want to understand the reasoning.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#398

Post by cobertos »

madars wrote: post #362
apitman wrote: post #353

> On Firefox this is easily resolvable - you can use a HTML filter to filter out the script tag from the source HTML before the page even starts being parsed. But that relies on extension APIs that Chromium doesn’t support. I'm shocked

The second Chrome drops uBlock Origin (as part of their "Manifest V3 without blocking Web Request" plan), I'm off to an alternative browser. Enough is enough.

Didn't this already happen? It just seems like it was only progressively rolled out to Chrome browsers. My work PC was hit with this about a month ago, and now I get ads there...

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#399

Post by zargon »

tjlingham wrote: post #371
gregoryl wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do it now? I use Firefox on all devices, it's completely fine.

I agree, but I do need to keep a chromium browser around for the odd times that: my webcam decides to flicker uncontrollably during a meeting, a website just happens to put JS that runs terribly on Firefox in the hot path and it slows to a crawl, or a new feature is being demonstrated with Chrome only support. Beats ads, as far as I'm concerned, but I can't help but feel like your average user wouldn't agree.

I used to keep a Chrome-based browser installed "just in case." But for about the last 5 years I've simply refused to have it on my machine. It's not needed.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#400

Post by free_bip »

grugagag wrote: post #271
akersten wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harder than it sounds! So much of what we interact with online winds up with YouTube in the dependency chain. Kids' coursework, how-to videos, etc. I could also just pay the $$/month to "solve" this problem, but I need my petty cash more than Google does. I'm confident the brilliant minds there can figure out how to monetize my visit even without the real-time bidding industrial complex burning my CPU cycles.

Download the content offline, make a playlist. You can also archive the content forever. No distractions, its organized however you want. Yes, it does take some effort but it fixes all the problems

So long as we're pretending to care about the Youtube TOS, offline downloading without premium is against their TOS. And even then you're only permitted to download and view offline through the YouTube phone app.
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