YouTube's new anti-adblock measures • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#611

Post by Gareth321 » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:31 AM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #277

mcdeltat wrote: post #234

I recently stopped watching youtube altogether and surprisingly haven't been missing it. And I used to watch a LOT (like hours per day) of youtube, mostly quality educational/scientific content. But ultimately you'd be surprised how much you don't need in your life. And side effect is no more ads. If someone sends me an occasional youtube video to watch, I'll take a look, but otherwise no engagement with the platform…

Or just pay for it? I have my whole family on my plan. Nobody gets ads. It is a bargain. You're right, I could probably finish my motorcycle build projects without videos. But why??

I used to, but I stopped recently.

1. They still serve ads. Often for Google products underneath the videos and in the feed. Content creators are also allowed to turn on contextual ads over the top of videos, as well as merchandise underneath their videos.

2. Sponsored segments are unbelievably widespread now, and can take up significant portions of the video. These are ads, and they are also permitted by YouTube.

3. YouTube has been making the service worse and worse as time goes on. I cannot turn off shorts, even though I despise them. They're all over my feed. Removing the downvote score means I cannot tell if a video is spam before clicking on it now. Ostensibly YouTube serves more video hours now, but at our expense.

4. YouTube recently raised my price 40% overnight.

There was space for reasonable prices without making their service worse. They crossed that line for me and I think for many others too.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#612

Post by Brian_K_White » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:32 AM UTC

raincole wrote: post #595

Brian_K_White wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sc…

Sure. All you said is completely true. I have a good solution: don't use YouTube then.

My comment was in response to : "You can also pay for YouTube. I do. It’s nice, not crazy expensive. No ads. Creators get paid. Everyone wins."

"then don't use youtube" is a non-sequitur to that.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#613

Post by spixy » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:33 AM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #316

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.

Just want to point out, adding on to OP, that creators on youtube get 55% of revenue. I get that Google has infinite money and infinite evil. But how convenient you also get to skip out on paying the majority expense, which goes to the creator... And yes virtuous commentor, I know you are one of the 1.5% that convert to a patreon supporter. Now ask everyone else why they get to eat for free (while endlessly complaini…

Right, because all that hardware needed for storing and streaming all that video is free.

55% is OK

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#614

Post by Brian_K_White » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:34 AM UTC

wincy wrote: post #467

uncircle wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have paid for Youtube Premium for a long time. Now it’s pushing shorts (you tried to hide the section and it told you “ok, we won’t show you shorts for 30 days.” I don’t want to see them ever, respect my goddamn choices. Now you can’t hide shorts any more), telling I’m not interested is like yelling into the void, search is useless to the point of being insulting and full of clickbait. Youtube Music is so smart it…

At least it respects it for 30 days, the Facebook app (which I use to keep in touch with family) is a desolate place where literally every time you open the app your feed is filled with shorts and posts from people you aren’t friends with. And those aren’t event the ads!

Doesn't respect it on any of my tvs.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#615

Post by Brian_K_White » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:34 AM UTC

jonex wrote: post #545

wiseowise wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for some reason I have to watch ads installed by the creators themselves despite paying 26 EUR.

I find that annoying too. In case you haven't seen, there's the sponsor block extension for that, which is not limited by anti-adblock measures.

Not on tvs.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#616

Post by ptero » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:35 AM UTC

sdeframond wrote: post #565

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…

> If the billboards were all about driving-related products Well, I don't complain about road signs.

The road signs are also unwelcome eye sores. However, they provide a lot of value by achieving safer road traffic so we tolerate them.

That value still needs to be compared and evaluated for delivering information vs delivering annoyance. If information were delivered by giant, flashing, multicolored road signs every 50 meters the answer would be different. My 2c.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#617

Post by Brian_K_White » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:37 AM UTC

Oarch wrote: post #502

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 is one of the times I'm fully behind a Google business model. I'd happily pay for products rather than have them datamine me senseless.

You have to have an account and log in to it!

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#618

Post by ptero » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:39 AM UTC

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.

Trees, dissipating sound instead of reflecting it, are even more effective.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#619

Post by uzerfcwn » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:39 AM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #211

> This locks a few global objects by using Object.defineProperty to set them as non-writable, which prevents later code from overwriting them with a Proxy that alters their behaviour. So uBlock Origin can only proxy JSON.stringify if it can run before this locker script does. This seems like a bug in browsers, or possibly in the spec. Page content and scripts should never be able to restrict what browser extensions c…

Feel free to write a bug report to Chrome developers or ManifestV3 authors. In the meantime, Firefox users can override any delivered content with the webRequest API.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#620

Post by Brian_K_White » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:39 AM UTC

qwery wrote: post #598

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're right to point out the "relevance factor" is not what people commonly take it to be. The context is (as always) crucial. Of course, the degree to which an individual tolerates advertising varies for a multitude of reasons. > billboards [...] countryside I think people simply find this to be an ugly thing. They object to the ugliness of it. They're in the countryside -- i.e. not the town/city -- and they find t…

We're all living in Truman's world. About the only thing that might make it better is maybe some of this nice Ovaltine recommended by 9 out of 10 doctors.