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

YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

iter.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 1001 posts

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#461

Post by tshaddox »

stiray wrote: post #443
scoofy wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also pay for YouTube. I do. It’s nice, not crazy expensive. No ads. Creators get paid. Everyone wins.

You lose on long run. In few years, you will pay more and still watch ads while YT will no longer be free. (let me remind you of video streaming services) Managers want their rewards that are tied to earnings and stockholders want to earn more. And once they both get their money, the next year reward will be tied to even more earnings. And stockholders will want to earn more.

I’ve paid for YouTube Premium from the beginning (remember YouTube Red?) and it has been a mostly great service for 10+ years. The value I get is vastly greater than Netflix or any other streaming service. But if they ever start putting ads in the paid subscriptions (like many streaming services now with their basic tier) I’ll jump ship.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#462

Post by noman-land »

bitpush wrote: post #259
noman-land wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There exists crowdsourced adblocking based on timestamps (SponsorBlock, Tubular). Soon we will have realtime on-device content-aware AI adblocking. They will ever win.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but ad blockers are on borrowed time. This is like saying I was able to sneak into a concert. Sure, but at some point the restrictions are gonna come down hard.

All I ask is that I can pay the creator directly for content without any middle-man. Anything less will be routed around.

It's not like sneaking into a concert. It's like attending a free concert at a mall and wearing a mask so the cameras can't read your lips. Or covering your phone screen with your hand when you show a friend a private photo of a special moment.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#463

Post by p2detar »

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 have also greatly decreased the time I watch YT and I have not been missing it. I used to have playlists, favs, lots of channels to follow. I stopped doing all that. Occasionally I’d “watch“ something on the background while I work, but it has to be non-engaging. The truth about YT is—you don’t need it.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#465

Post by stiray »

tshaddox wrote: post #461
stiray wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lose on long run. In few years, you will pay more and still watch ads while YT will no longer be free. (let me remind you of video streaming services) Managers want their rewards that are tied to earnings and stockholders want to earn more. And once they both get their money, the next year reward will be tied to even more earnings. And stockholders will want to earn more.

I’ve paid for YouTube Premium from the beginning (remember YouTube Red?) and it has been a mostly great service for 10+ years. The value I get is vastly greater than Netflix or any other streaming service. But if they ever start putting ads in the paid subscriptions (like many streaming services now with their basic tier) I’ll jump ship.

Yep, you were a test project. Will people pay for free content or punish them by leaving the platform. And will they start to pay if you increase number of ads. Now they moved to next stage.

Anyway, not there yet. Frog is boiled slowly, slow enough that people dont notice until it is to late.

First they need to kill ad blockers tier. Then you increase number of ads to unbearable (they are already doing that) and get as much people as possible to paid content. Also market must be ripe enough, so there will be no more ships to jump. Then you will get ads, different tiers to pay, segmentation of content etc.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#466

Post by tshaddox »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #173
Toritori12 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity I clicked the link and it is funny how they try to blame the extension when is them actually causing the problem.

The extension is stealing from them. I get stealing a zero marginal cost good is minor but the agreement you make with YouTube is that you watch an ad in exchange for the video. Why should they serve you the video if you refuse your part of the agreement?

I never agreed to that. Shrinkwrap contracts don’t count. Also, if they don’t want to serve me the video without ads, they’re welcome to do that.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#467

Post by wincy »

uncircle wrote: post #458
scoofy wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also pay for YouTube. I do. It’s nice, not crazy expensive. No ads. Creators get paid. Everyone wins.

I have paid for Youtube Premium for a long time. Now it’s pushing shorts (you tried to hide the section and it told you “ok, we won’t show you shorts for 30 days.” I don’t want to see them ever, respect my goddamn choices. Now you can’t hide shorts any more), telling I’m not interested is like yelling into the void, search is useless to the point of being insulting and full of clickbait. Youtube Music is so smart it…

At least it respects it for 30 days, the Facebook app (which I use to keep in touch with family) is a desolate place where literally every time you open the app your feed is filled with shorts and posts from people you aren’t friends with. And those aren’t event the ads!

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#468

Post by simianwords »

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…

Idk man instead of freeloading how about paying for the service? I generally avoid dismissive comments like these but I think it needs to be said.

If you don’t like ads pay for the service. You don’t deserve content for free.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#469

Post by tshaddox »

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.

I pay for YouTube Premium, but I don’t share your moral opposition to ad-blocking. It’s not entitlement, because the service is totally free to stop serving me the videos.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#470

Post by uncircle »

the_af wrote: post #437
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…

For some of us, YouTube is part of our creative and mindful pursuits. It either drives our interests (much like reading a magazine about specialized topics would, in the past), or explains how to do something, or simply builds a community of like minded people all over the world. I find the argument of "how much you don't need in your life" not very compelling. On one hand, we "need" very little: health, food, shelte…

Passively consuming content is not the same as reading a magazine or a book.

Agreed that anyone can fill their own free time with whatever they want. But youtube is just junk food for the mind, packaged as stuff that interests you. It’s conveniently split to increase ad revenue, uses clickbait to drive engagement, and all the techniques developed on TV the past 80 years to keep us glued in front of the screen. Youtube and the “content” itself is designed to keep you watching.

And I say that as someone who used to mainly watch long form essays, not the trending bullshit. It’s all just distraction and opium for the masses, disguised as edutainment.

Post reply on HN