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

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#621

Post by maelito » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:40 AM UTC

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…

No, we just hate ads because they're trying to tell us what to buy. It's the definition of illiberal.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#622

Post by franga2000 » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:41 AM UTC

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…

10000x NO!

I absolutely hate advertisements in stores specifically because of their releavance. If I go there to buy cereal, I expect to go to the cereal shelf, look at the options, evaluate them and pick the optimal one for my set of criteria.

What I absolutely do not want is for one cereal brand to be placed right as I come in, exploiting my psychological quirks to get me to either buy it on the spot without going to evaluate other options or just occupy a slightly larger part of my attention to skew my evaluation process when I get to the shelf.

Advertising is just another money multiplier. If you have a ton of money to throw at ads, you'll make more money than those that don't. And to make up the ad investment, you'll necessarily have to be a worse deal for consumers.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#623

Post by jay_kyburz » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:44 AM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #554

ranger_danger wrote: post #9

I'm surprised they don't just inject the ads directly into the video stream, I think that would solve their issue overnight (not that I want any ads personally). You could also rate-limit it to the playback speed to prevent pre-downloading the stream easily. But now that everything uses HLS/DASH, it's easy to inject different content right in the middle of the stream without re-encoding anything.

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.

The server can just ignore the player and send the bytes for the ad until its finished.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#624

Post by dkga » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:45 AM UTC

Dear YouTube,

It’s not so much that I don’t want to see ads - nobody does, but very very often the ad breaks the vibe of what I am watching and it displeases me to the point I will invest my soul and energy to block ads. Some real-life examples:

- watching a video about coding where the creator has a monotonic, calm voice that keeps me engaged, and VS Code in dark mode which is easy on my eyes in my dark room at 2am, then suddenly comes an ad with bright lights, incredibly high sound and a high-energy backtrack.

- watching a meditation video, the exact same ad appears.

You get the idea.

At the very least, please ensure the ad is in the same volume as the original video. That alone wouldn’t be too hard. In addition, please at least try to match the background overall brightness or color, and the vibe. All this would create value because people would actually watch much more ads.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#625

Post by nehal3m » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

AlecSchueler wrote: post #506

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…

> We don't hate billboards because of their irrelevancy. We hate billboards because they're giant ugly attention grabbers If you read the rest of the paragraph it becomes clear that this is what was meant by irrelevant.

It’s probably stretching the meaning of the word, I think obtrusive would fit better.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#626

Post by jay_kyburz » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:52 AM UTC

tigrezno wrote: post #548

AI will kill youtube. You'd be able to watch youtube with like 20 seconds global delay while an AI will silently skip all the ads it finds. It will be our personal content censor.

That's a level of optimism I haven't encountered in a while.

Sure AI will stream Youtube for you, but it will be chock-a-block full of its own ads.

The actors will pause mid sentence, turn to the camera and smile while they slam down a coke and tell us all about the latest samsung phone.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#627

Post by kotaKat » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:53 AM UTC

Do I have to go show up at Youtube's HQ and start deliberately slowing people down from entering the building?

Note: when security shows up, I'm going to tell them "maybe later" if I'm asked to leave.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#628

Post by gardnr » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:53 AM UTC

conradfr wrote: post #575

cpitman wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just pay for Youtube.... $8/ month gets rid of most of the ads in videos, $15/month to remove ads from music, shorts, and search results.

Lite is not available everywhere, also those streaming services basically up their price every year, like we're frogs.

I had YouTube Lite for a couple years. They sent me an email saying it was being discontinued in my country. I had always been watching with an Ad Blocker. The main difference now is that they refuse to accept the money I am willing to pay them.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#629

Post by eur0pa » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:53 AM UTC

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.

I don't need to justify jack

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#630

Post by joelthelion » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 9:54 AM UTC

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.

Ads are bad for you and bad for the planet. Google is a monopoly and doesn't even create the content themselves.

I understand ad blocking isn't morally perfect but I can live with it.