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YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

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Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#61
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe that we have been fortunate that Google's ad business was willing to subsidize it for us for so long with so little required in return. Unfortunately it appears that possibly the screws are getting turned, and there is less appetite for the subsidy. Um well no. They still have appetite to support the business with Ads (and they offer a paid version if you don't like Ads). The thing they no longer have app…

well it's not their computer, and I'll run what I want on it (...so far)

I feel this is a perfectly valid response. Equally valid is Google then saying, "well then we don't want to send you bytes."

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#62

It's amazing to me how Google is allowed to control every side of the market with no real repercussions. I don't want to be the cynic who says Google has been paying lots of money to "the right people" in order to keep the status quo, but.. Google has been paying lots of money.. That might be a moderate huge win for Firefox.. until someone at Google makes a phone call to Mozilla's offices. Worst case scenario it help…

Why are you consuming any YT videos, then? Why are so many people feel entitled to YT videos without ads?

Won't somebody please think of the trillion-dollar conglomerate's feelings?? https://companiesmarketcap.com/alphabet-google/marketcap/

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#63

It strikes me as so odd that people readily pay for netflix, hulu, HBO etc, but when the idea of paying for youtube comes along, who directly profit shares with small creators you adore, people fall over backwards in disgust. I guess it has to do with initial value proposition. If you hand out lemonade for free, people are going to be pissed when you start charging a dollar, regardless of how good of a deal it is. Ev…

YouTube does not provide the same value as it used to and therefore paying for it seems only to block ads. These days I rarely find new content creators and content creators are probably struggling even more. The recommendation algorithm is totally biased towards some screwed sterotypes and clicking I do not want to watch this content creator's video never helps. Some ads are so offensive/dangerous you do have to use an ad blocker just to protect your mental health.

It is like someone peed into the free lemonade and demands money for it.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#64

It strikes me as so odd that people readily pay for netflix, hulu, HBO etc, but when the idea of paying for youtube comes along, who directly profit shares with small creators you adore, people fall over backwards in disgust. I guess it has to do with initial value proposition. If you hand out lemonade for free, people are going to be pissed when you start charging a dollar, regardless of how good of a deal it is. Ev…

This isn't about paying for youtube, this is about ads.

People don't want youtube ads, and frankly it's their good right to not have to download, display and watch them if they so choose. What youtube now wants is proof that people have watched ads. This is problematic for 2 reasons. The first is that there is no way to prove you've watched an ad in a way that's not a privacy nightmare and extremely hostile to users. The second is that most people are simply unwilling to watch youtube ads.

I'm not disgusted with the idea of a paid youtube, I'd simply go somewhere else, I'm disgusted by having ads shoved down my throat and that of others.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#65
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe that we have been fortunate that Google's ad business was willing to subsidize it for us for so long with so little required in return. Unfortunately it appears that possibly the screws are getting turned, and there is less appetite for the subsidy. Um well no. They still have appetite to support the business with Ads (and they offer a paid version if you don't like Ads). The thing they no longer have app…

well it's not their computer, and I'll run what I want on it (...so far)

Well it's their server, they will serve what they want to whom they want.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#66
post #53
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also pay to avoid ads AND support the creators i watch as they make more per my paid view then an ad supported view.

>support the creators i watch as they make more per my paid view then an ad supported view. I didn't know that. Good to know, thanks!

Either way they're making incredibly little compared to supporting them more directly like Patreon. Even Patreon takes a tasty cut.

If the mental gymnastics helps, awesome. But paying Google is paying Google more than it is supporting creators.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#67
post #35

Youtube has been a fantastic demonstration of how valuable it can be to enable democratized, low-barrier-to-entry content publishing. Think of how much treasure there is on the service, with millions upon millions of hours of educational, informative, or archival content, all published and viewable for free, with incredible reliability and availability. Of course this is also fantastically expensive to build and main…

What screws are really being turned though? This content is still available completely free of charge to anyone with an internet connection. You just need to watch a couple of ads if you're not willing to pay.

The problem is you can't just tape the shows and fast forward through the ads etc, or at least that's the direction things are going, it's a very very bad precedent.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#68
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can't pay for Youtube. You can pay for a bundle of some mostly unrelated products that's named Youtube Premium, or you can live with an insanely degraded product experience on Youtube, but you can't pay for Youtube.

> You can pay for some unrelated product that's named Youtube Premium What do you mean "unrelated"? For the price of your Spotify subscription, you get an YouTube Music and ad-free YouTube. Seems like a good value prop. I'm a subscriber.

I mean unrelated as in unrelated, I, nor anybody have I talked to want a Youtube Music subscription or yet another podcast app.

Re: YouTube's 'War' on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet

#69

It strikes me as so odd that people readily pay for netflix, hulu, HBO etc, but when the idea of paying for youtube comes along, who directly profit shares with small creators you adore, people fall over backwards in disgust. I guess it has to do with initial value proposition. If you hand out lemonade for free, people are going to be pissed when you start charging a dollar, regardless of how good of a deal it is. Ev…

As it has been framed before, it’s like the lemonade stand put all the other stands out of business by handing out free lemonade.

YouTube isn't the only one. YouTube isn't even the majority of online video, it's just the biggest one.

Others are just so much worse or charge for storage on the creator side... but they don't have ads.

Today you can consume a lot of creator video content straight in platforms like Patreon... but you have to actually pony up some cash for that.

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