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YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

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Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#511

Post by Mindwipe »

hirvi74 wrote: post #416
jfoster wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sheer resistance to paying for YouTube Premium is proving the need for ads.

YouTube has an estimated worth, if it were a stand-alone company, of $475 billion to $550 billion. I'm sure they'll survive off just fine continuing to sell my personal information just like that always have.

Google do not, and literally never have "sold your personal information."

They deliver targeted advertising due to the information they have. That's the model. They make literally zero dollars a year selling personal information.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#512

Post by penguin_booze »

Even as a uBlock and Firefox user, I get the occasional delay at the start of some videos. My workaround is to click on another random video (which, for some reason starts playing immediately), and then go back to my original video, and that starts playing straight away. No-mo waiting.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#513

Post by PurestGuava »

matwood wrote: post #499
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.

Agreed. This isn’t a situation where you can’t pay. YT has a clear, reasonably priced solution for no ads. It also comes with YT music. If people don’t think there’s enough value in YT, then don’t pay and don’t use it. Reminds me of the early justification of Napster where people would complain the latest B. Spears song was garbage and not worth paying for, yet it was the most downloaded song.

> If people don’t think there’s enough value in YT, then don’t pay and don’t use it.

The most common throughline of all pro-piracy discourse is that there's a lot of people who feel completely entitled to free entertainment, and they will come up with all sorts of bizarre mental gymnastics to justify that as something other than "I want free entertainment and don't want to see ads."

I don't think anyone could articulate a coherent logical argument as to why they feel they should get YouTube's services, and the entertainment produced by the creators who are on YouTube, while not paying either of them through any means, other than pure selfishness.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#514

Post by palmfacehn »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #414

The primary thing that makes advertisements disagreeable is their irrelevance. That’s not to say whether or not the advertisement is for a product or service for which the viewer is interested in purchasing but how it relates to the context in which it is viewed. People complain about billboards next to a countryside highway because it is entirely irrelevant to driving through the countryside. Actual complaints may b…

Consuming content online has always been about agency. You choose the content. Previous media landscapes were largely passive endeavors. Broadcast media choices were limited. You either muted the ads, turned off the TV/radio or endured the advertisements. I often find myself closing YT when ads are played.

Not only are they largely irrelevant, but they are frequently in the wrong language. If I want to immerse myself in the local language, I will go outside and interact in that language. If I am listening to a podcast in English, typically around Anglophone cultural or political topics, why would they invade my space with non-English content?

I don't want to hear local music or K-Pop when I am listening to classical music.

In many cases, the language isn't even local to the country which I reside in. If I cannot have an English-only space on my own computer, I won't be using the site. There's a time and a place for immersion into other cultures. My personal computer in my home office isn't the place.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#515

Post by Brian_K_White »

scoofy wrote: post #426
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #414

The primary thing that makes advertisements disagreeable is their irrelevance. That’s not to say whether or not the advertisement is for a product or service for which the viewer is interested in purchasing but how it relates to the context in which it is viewed. People complain about billboards next to a countryside highway because it is entirely irrelevant to driving through the countryside. Actual complaints may b…

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

I pay for youtube too and it still completely sucks. I hate when people try this bs.

* I don't want to have to have an account and be logged in to it.

* I pay for youtube but I don't always get to use my account. Other people's houses and devices exist. Other people's accounts exist even on my own device.

* I pay for youtube and still have to get all the baked in ads.

* I pay for youtube and have a wonderful black screen with no suggestions or discoverability because I have history turned off. (the feature does not depend on the history data, because for years this was never a problem, only a few years ago they suddenly decided to essentially penalize people who don't play ball like good little data cows). This even after I partially gave in and subscribed to a bunch of channels, which previously I never did.

* I pay for youtube and still have no control to disable shorts. (don't tell me about browser plugins. The world is far more varied than one browser on one pc. There is no youtube browser plugins for roku or the 100 other platforms that have youtube players. And even on a pc, you're not always on your own pc where you are free to hack on the browser.)

Here is the value you get from paying for youtube:

It's having only 8 of your fingernails pulled out instead of all 10.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#516

Post by interloxia »

Mindwipe wrote: post #503
petesergeant wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or just pay for it? So I do now, but only since I moved to a country where it doesn't cost so much. I watch maybe 6 hours absolutely tops of YouTube a month? I get charged $7/m for it, which still feels usurious, but in the UK they want almost $17/m which is firmly in "go fuck yourself" territory. I'd like them to tier pricing so casual users like me aren't paying for people who are using YouTube as their primary e…

[flagged]

They want 23.99€ for a family account for me. It's hard to say if it's fair or reasonable but it's too rich for me.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#517

Post by petesergeant »

Mindwipe wrote: post #503
petesergeant wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or just pay for it? So I do now, but only since I moved to a country where it doesn't cost so much. I watch maybe 6 hours absolutely tops of YouTube a month? I get charged $7/m for it, which still feels usurious, but in the UK they want almost $17/m which is firmly in "go fuck yourself" territory. I'd like them to tier pricing so casual users like me aren't paying for people who are using YouTube as their primary e…

[flagged]

> No it isn't. YT Premium in the UK is £12.99.

https://www.google.com/search?q=12.99+GBP+in+USD

> It's funny how people are so dishonest on HN

seriously?

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#518

Post by nofunsir »

asadotzler wrote: post #433
zdragnar wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very simple answer. You want to watch some content. The content provider offers you two options: pay and get no ads, or watch for free and also sit through some ads. You are not obligated to watch ads. You are opting to watch them in exchange for the free content, then skipping out on a commitment you volunteered for while still taking the free content. The "unethical contact" argument is bullshit, because…

>You want to watch some content. The content provider offers you two options: pay and get no ads, or watch for free and also sit through some ads. Thee provider made the content public on the Web. That means I can view it under any terms I chose until they find a way to exclude me without excluding all the attention that being on the public Web gives them. There are not 2 options as you claim. There are infinite opti…

>I can view it under any terms I chose until they find a way to exclude me without excluding all the attention that being on the public Web gives them.

This is the unsung argument everyone forgets! It goes to the very start of why someone might register a domain name and set up a website on the... World Wide Web... for people to visit with their User Agent software, ask for some HTML and get some HTML back. "HOW DARE YOU NOT DO A RANDOM SOCIALLY DEFINED THING AFTER ASKING FOR OUR HTML (AND OTHERS' MP4S)?"

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#519

Post by wiseowise »

sandworm101 wrote: post #454
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The primary thing that makes advertisements disagreeable is their irrelevance. That's not true. We don't hate billboards because of their irrelevancy. We hate billboards because they're giant ugly attention grabbers that make the world look worse for everybody in exchange for making someone money. If the billboards were all about driving-related products, they'd still suck. The YouTube ads are hated because that's…

>> that make the world look worse for everybody in exchange for making someone money. There are places where billboards act as rather effective sound barriers, shielding quiet neighborhoods from road noise.

Found marketing director of an ad agency.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#520

Post by globular-toast »

debugnik wrote: post #500
otterley wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what pays your own salary?

Not the same poster, but: Products and services that someone actually signed a contract to pay for. Google is free to not send me free video if they don't want to, I'm just connecting to their website using my browser. But the only reason so many creators are exclusively on youtube is the fact that anyone can watch there. Google tolerates my ad blocker to some degree (unlike other sites) because the alternative is lo…

Exactly. YouTube wants to have its cake and eat it too. YouTube would not be what it is today if it wasn't public and free at the point of use.

Anyone is free to do something in private and ticket people for it. I'm doing a concert tonight in my home, it's 100 credits for a ticket, hope you'll come! I can't guarantee anyone will come, but I can guarantee anyone who comes will pay.

There are platforms like Floatplane that use this model.

Then there's the busking model. You do it in public. You can't guarantee anyone pays, but they'll definitely come, and some will probably pay.

YouTube wants both. It wants to be the place where people busk (like the public square) but also force advertising on you. You can't have it both ways. Either go private or accept that this is public and I will do what I want with my browser.

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