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YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

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Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#581

Post by mrob »

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 think paying for Youtube will increase the chances of my Google account getting banned. I've never heard of Google banning somebody for rejecting adverts. But if I pay them money, there's a chance there will be a problem with the payments, and that risks triggering false positives on automatic fraud detection. If that happens I assume I would be banned with no recourse and no human intervention. The safest thing to do is never change how you interact with Google in any way unless you absolutely have to.

I don't like depending on Google in this way but I've had a Gmail account for a very long time and changing to a different email address would be a major inconvenience.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#582

Post by Borgz »

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.

Perhaps one justification for blocking ads is protecting users from personal information harvesting, tracking, and malware delivered through advertising networks. Aside from that, I can't think of a justification.

I actually think it would be good if there were filter lists that whitelisted ads that were not harmful to users in those ways, but that sounds difficult/impossible to fairly maintain, and I doubt anyone else wants it.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#583

Post by xigoi »

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.

Then I’d have to use the official YouTube app, whose UX is utter garbage compared to Tubular.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#584

Post by chippiewill »

bspammer wrote: post #566
layer8 wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Injecting the ads directly would make them skippable. Unskippable ads are inherently detectable (because the unskippability has to be communicated to the client-side player controls), so there’s no easy way out.

Twitch seems to have won the war against adblockers by injecting directly into the video stream. It’s been months now and I still see ads. I assume it isn’t as easy as you say to skip them otherwise uBlock would have done it already.

For livestreaming it's easier because you can't skip forward anyway

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#585

Post by petepete »

jmbwell wrote: post #272
timmg wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more Google insists on forcing advertising on us... You can... just not visit youtube, right?

I was visiting my kid’s class one day. They were using some YouTube product that seemed oriented at schools, that I’d never seen before. An ad would pop up, and one of the kids (whosever turn it was next?) would run up and tap the skip ad button. So even if you’re trying to use YouTube for something of value, you’re battling ads. Or at least our kids are.

I hope there's no ads before educational videos on how to do CPR or perform the Heimlich manoeuvre!

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#586

Post by thejazzman »

Defletter wrote: post #560
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…

Steel-manning the argument, near where I live, it's not that uncommon to see small to moderately sized advertisements along the road, such as a sign outside/near the entrance of a farm that's selling eggs, meat, etc. I am wholly unopposed to this. In fact, I'm very supportive of this, and used them to find a farm to buy local honey from. Whereas the stereotypical massive slabs whose advertisements get wallpapered on,…

And where I live it's an ever growing hell of political signs, dominos pizza, and anyone else who realizes there is no enforcement against this wide scale littering. The signs are never removed and continue piling up. Abandoned / unmonitored lots are also a frequent target.

And it's rapidly getting worse

Glad you're cool with it though, I guess? Cuz I've considered running for office on the sole platform of having them perpetually removed and perpetrators prosecuted.

There are literally signs advertising to hire people to place more signs.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#587

Post by helsinkiandrew »

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…

> If I go to Costco and see an advertisement for tires... well, I’m at Costco, where I buy stuff. Things are sold at Costco and people go there to have things sold to them

If you visit content on the internet that the Google Ad network thinks suggest you might be interested in purchasing new tyres, then showing you ads for companies that sells tyres is, unfortunately, relevant no matter what your doing now, because you're more likely to click them, or remember the company/brand when choosing a purchase.

Also a large proportion of ads aren't designed to affect immediate purchase - cars, movies, coca-cola, and other brands are hoping to get into your (sub) consciousness so you'll remember when you buy days, weeks or months later.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#588

Post by meroes »

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…

The most disagreeable thing is they are psychologically insidious.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#590

Post by raincole »

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…

I really hope ads to stay as irrelevant as possible, for as long as possible.

However it seems impossible to last for our society with all the tracking, product placement and astroturfing.

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