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

Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

blog.prototypr.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 302 posts

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#61

Post by ramblerman »

duxup wrote: post #29
the_snooze wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the piece? It goes more than just "being exposed to an ad." It's about implementing unpredictable UX around ads.

Yes. I read it. The presence of the ability to skip an ad or not is entirely obvious when you're on YouTube. Sometimes you can't skip an ad, that's not surprising nor dark. It is right in front of you and the result is obvious.

Weird hill to die on...

You still seem to be missing the point OP was making though. The dark pattern isn't that you can't skip the ad.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#62

Post by sergiotapia »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #3

Just gonna leave this link to ublock origin here. If nothing else, install it as a small "fuck you" to dark patterns: Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa...

How can I adblock on my nvidia shield tv? I hate youtube ads. So much that I switched from iOS to Google Pixel just to be able to install vanced.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#63

Post by zerocrates »

duxup wrote: post #32
throw10920 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few people are objecting to the presence of ads, but instead the fact that Google tries to trick you into watching more ads and blame yourself for doing so. In an alternate universe without this dark pattern, there would still be ads - they would just have a consistent design that allowed you to skip the skippable ones without any thought, or alternatively longer/unskippable ads.

The fact that you can or can't skip ads doesn't imply any "blame" to me.

I think the complaint here is not exactly about the fact that you can't skip some of the ads, but that by varying the UI a bunch, users don't reliably "catch" all the skippable ads, so they watch more of them or take longer to skip them than would be the case if it was always immediately obvious what you could and couldn't skip.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#64

Post by gonzo41 »

ghoomketu wrote: post #43

People complain a lot about Youtube ads and how awful they are but as a thought experiment I once tried to imagine the amount of storage and bandwidth Youtube must need everyday to operate. So after some basic research it looks like they need to add almost 1 petabytes of storage and I couldn't find much info on the bandwidth and servers it uses. As much as I don't like Google for their shady business practices, I cou…

I often feel that the 90's child me would slap me across the face in disgust at how casually I take for granted the age of magic we live in now.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#65

Post by thallium205 »

paulpauper wrote: post #48

use a vpn and new chrome session in some low income country. this will remove most of the ads but now what many content creators are doing nowadays is making the ads part pf the video itself, so you cannot skip it or block it. The product placement may transition seemingly in such a way as you may be listening to a video about the history of some math concept and suddenly the narrator will start talking about VPNs, a…

What's worse is those who do pay for YouTube premium will still get these ads.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#66

Post by Nextgrid »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #42
Darmody wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they don't even care. I don't know the percentage of people using ad blockers but I'm sure it is very, very low. In fact, most users watch YouTube from the app, so no ad blocking. I just hope they don't make any significant change to their API so I can still use Vanced to listen to music when I'm outside.

>In fact, most users watch YouTube from the app, so no ad blocking. If many people used ublock on the Web, many would iuse NewPipe to enjoy the same ad free experience on mobile (Android). I don't understand why so we few people care about their attention? Is this just ignorance? Or do they willingly want their desires to be manipulated in order for creators to be paid by platforms? Me I'm just happy to tip the chann…

There's a lot of idiots out there for whom installing a browser extension is akin to rocket science. In fact, they may not even be aware of what extensions are.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#67

Post by elzbardico »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #54
ghoomketu wrote: post #43

People complain a lot about Youtube ads and how awful they are but as a thought experiment I once tried to imagine the amount of storage and bandwidth Youtube must need everyday to operate. So after some basic research it looks like they need to add almost 1 petabytes of storage and I couldn't find much info on the bandwidth and servers it uses. As much as I don't like Google for their shady business practices, I cou…

I’m not seeing the connection you’re making between the admitted marvel of engineering at scale and ads.

It costs money. Plain and simple.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#69

Post by tenebrisalietum »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #54
ghoomketu wrote: post #43

People complain a lot about Youtube ads and how awful they are but as a thought experiment I once tried to imagine the amount of storage and bandwidth Youtube must need everyday to operate. So after some basic research it looks like they need to add almost 1 petabytes of storage and I couldn't find much info on the bandwidth and servers it uses. As much as I don't like Google for their shady business practices, I cou…

I’m not seeing the connection you’re making between the admitted marvel of engineering at scale and ads.

The ads pay for the marvel.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#70

Post by gonzo41 »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #54
ghoomketu wrote: post #43

People complain a lot about Youtube ads and how awful they are but as a thought experiment I once tried to imagine the amount of storage and bandwidth Youtube must need everyday to operate. So after some basic research it looks like they need to add almost 1 petabytes of storage and I couldn't find much info on the bandwidth and servers it uses. As much as I don't like Google for their shady business practices, I cou…

I’m not seeing the connection you’re making between the admitted marvel of engineering at scale and ads.

You have to pay for it somehow, the adds are probably a fair price.
Post reply on HN