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YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

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Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#601

Post by amstan »

dredmorbius wrote: post #96
SirMaster wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why even download? You can use third party media players like MPC-BE or MPC-HC that leverage yt-dlp to stream the video into a media player without any ads of course. Yes, sometimes it makes sense to download if you want to keep the video, but to just watch just stream it via yt-dlp to a media player.

Downloading is an option , though there are of course numerous others: - You can stream directly. I do this via a bash function for cases where mpv itself doesn't play a video (for reasons I've been unable to / not had the spoons to track down): ytmpv () { yt-dlp -o - -f bestaudio "$1" | mpv - ; } - You can use ytdlp as a front-end to other tools, and in fact if you peek under the bonnet you'll find that many YouTube…

My mpv calls yt-dlp directly, and it can even seek.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#602

Post by illiac786 »

Veserv wrote: post #514
crop_rotation wrote: post #126

YouTube premium perfectly showcases why ads dominate the internet, because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay (And I am not talking about too broke to pay cases). Serving an infinite video catalog is very expensive in terms of all resources (And yes Netflix is not comparable, unlike YouTube, Netflix can highly leverage cache boxes at ISPs). Vime…

No, it perfectly showcases that people do not want to pay 1000% more money for the privilege of paying a monthly subscription. Youtube Premium costs $12/month [1]. Ads average something like $2 per 1000 views to the creators (in some of the most common categories) [2]. Youtube takes a ~45% cut, so Youtube makes ~$4 per 1000 views from ads. So, to reach $12/month, you would need to average 3000 views per month. At a a…

You're assuming YouTube is not loosing money with non-paying customers...

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#603

Post by MaxikCZ »

jay3ss wrote: post #422
alwayslikethis wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another alternative is Piped. https://piped.kavin.rocks . Comes with sponsorblock in addition to not showing ads. For Android users, use Youtube ReVanced if you want algorithm recommendations, NewPipe if not.

NewPipe is great. I haven't tried ReVanced in a few months because it was a bit buggy. Has it improved?

Been using revanced (and just vanced) for years and never encountered a bug. What problems have you had?

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#604

Post by knallfrosch »

karmasimida wrote: post #356
valine wrote: post #183

Other than driving a mass exodus to Firefox, I don’t see this having any real impact. Unless you own the whole software stack adblock is a game of cat and mouse. Let’s say worst case scenario google embeds ads into the video itself, and refuses to stream the actual video packets until the length of the ad has elapsed. The repetitive nature of advertising makes if trivial to detect when the served video is an ad and w…

You are not their target TBH, it is just a trade-off.

Anyone on HN is too tech-savy already. YouTube "just" wants to capture the 99,9% that won't compile a homebrew YT app.

As long as the grandchild can't simply click "install UBlock Origin", they're going to be fine, revenue-wise.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#605

Post by alpaca128 »

morsch wrote: post #594
aww_dang wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving them my card data feels more expensive than $12/month. The model of paying to remove ads always felt like hostage taking. "Is this ad annoying enough for you? No? You think you're a tough guy? Here's an advert of me slicing off your toes. Now tell me your home address so I can mail them to you. Read me the CVV2 numbers from the back of the card to make it stop!"

You can choose to pay for convenient download functionality and background playback on mobile, and think of the ads as a bonus, if you prefer.

Let me guess: the download functionality doesn't actually give me access to the DRM-free video file and when YT deletes a video it's useless to me.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#606

Post by unstuck3958 »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #312
Nextgrid wrote: post #82

Invidious is a third-party frontend (you can self-host) that solves this problem: https://github.com/iv-org/invidious As a bonus, it is super fast because it doesn't have to justify the salaries of dozens (hundreds?) of frontend developers and can get away with server-side-rendered HTML and minimal amounts of Javascript.

Another alternative is Piped. https://piped.kavin.rocks . Comes with sponsorblock in addition to not showing ads. For Android users, use Youtube ReVanced if you want algorithm recommendations, NewPipe if not.

Piped works great! However it is let down by the (IMO) poor UX design. I would love for some graphics designer to step-in a create more usable CSS stylesheets for it.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#607

Post by Mashimo »

arepublicadoceu wrote: post #91
deltree7 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN/Reddit : For years, "I'm happy to pay for services that has no/few ads". Companies: Here's a ad-free version. Subscribe HN/Reddit: Why are you asking me to subscribe? I hate this

Please teach me how I can watch Linus Tech Tips on YouTube without ads with YouTube premium and without installing an extension. There are several levels of ads on YouTube and paying for YouTube premium only gets rid of one.

Press the L button twice when Linus says "just like the segway to our sp.."

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#608

Post by bagels »

RestlessMind wrote: post #532
Veserv wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it perfectly showcases that people do not want to pay 1000% more money for the privilege of paying a monthly subscription. Youtube Premium costs $12/month [1]. Ads average something like $2 per 1000 views to the creators (in some of the most common categories) [2]. Youtube takes a ~45% cut, so Youtube makes ~$4 per 1000 views from ads. So, to reach $12/month, you would need to average 3000 views per month. At a a…

Apart from the excellent points raised by u/12907835202 in a sibling comment, another important consideration is that YT premium consumers are disproportionately rich compared to the entire YT consumer base. So if you are taking averages, you have to multiply them by at least 3x (i.e. 300%) to account for higher CPMs due to higher conversion values expected from such demographics.

This is the trap Musk was trying to walk Twitter in to with pay to remove ads.

Advertisers are paying a lot more to show ads to exactly the people that might pay to remove ads, wealthy people, especially US people.

The break even price for the subscription has to be much higher than the average revenue per user (globally ~1/10th of US revenue per user), and has to be higher than the average revenue for US users because of much higher advertising spend per user on that demographic.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#609

Post by squeaky-clean »

morsch wrote: post #594
aww_dang wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving them my card data feels more expensive than $12/month. The model of paying to remove ads always felt like hostage taking. "Is this ad annoying enough for you? No? You think you're a tough guy? Here's an advert of me slicing off your toes. Now tell me your home address so I can mail them to you. Read me the CVV2 numbers from the back of the card to make it stop!"

You can choose to pay for convenient download functionality and background playback on mobile, and think of the ads as a bonus, if you prefer.

I'm a premium subscriber but the background playback thing is a pretty insulting idea to me. They can save like 95% of the bandwidth if I'm listening to something audio-only. So why make it part of the more expensive option?

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#610

Post by mobiuscog »

crop_rotation wrote: post #126

YouTube premium perfectly showcases why ads dominate the internet, because even when there is a paid option for a service much cheaper than any alternative, people do not want to pay (And I am not talking about too broke to pay cases). Serving an infinite video catalog is very expensive in terms of all resources (And yes Netflix is not comparable, unlike YouTube, Netflix can highly leverage cache boxes at ISPs). Vime…

Does youtube premium:

- Make the TV app be useful and not utter trash

- Allow me to globally disable/remove 'shorts'

- Stop promoting the front-page trash that is 'trending'

- Allow me to permanently filter music by genre or remove sports entirely

- Fix the recommendations engine to actually work

- Allow grouping/filtering subscriptions

Unless it does all of the above, there's no way I'm paying. Ads are an annoyance (and as others have said, most videos now run their own sponsorships/ads inside the video as well), but not having a well functioning 'application' in the first place means there's nothing worth paying for.

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