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YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

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Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#651

Post by keep_reading »

greatNespresso wrote: post #576
wodenokoto wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did. They ran at a huge deficit for a very long time while expanding. But this seems to be the play book for all VC funded web apps. Facebook and MySpace did the same. In fact, you can argue that moving towards profitability too soon and too fast is what killed MySpace. But that argument only works if you are willing to see the growth phase as something other than predatory pricing. I think your comment is a sob…

Agreed. Bruce Schneier allocated a chapter in his last book, .A hacker's mind': "Venture capital itself is not a hack. The hack is when unprofitable companies use VC funding to ignore the dynamics of the market economy. We don’t want some central planner to decide which businesses should remain operational and which should close down. But this is exactly what happens when venture capital firms become involved. The in…

He's literally complaining about one of the worst "features" of fiat money but attacks Bitcoin in his other publications. Amazing.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#652

Post by HeavyStorm »

boredpeter wrote: post #449
eqvinox wrote: post #427

This is of course bringing up the discussion on the "morality" of Adblocking. I'd like to point out something that I don't think is getting enough attention. There was a point in the past where video platforms were competing, and by no means was it clear that YouTube would end up dominating this area to the point of being close to a monopoly. When YouTube won that race, they won it with a given set of parameters, inc…

This reminds me of the concept of predatory pricing which is when a business lowers their prices to below cost in order to drive out all its competitors and create a monopoly. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... I do wonder if it could be argued (maybe even in the current monopoly case against google) whether youtube engaged in predatory or below-cost pricing in order to drive out all of i…

_Dumping_, how it was called when I was young, is the main strategy of most startups out there: operate at a loss until they establish themselves (usually as the sole provider of certain services or goods) then start to climb the prices.

It _should_ be illegal, but since it's the current status quo, it won't change anytime soon.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#653

Post by keep_reading »

nvm0n2 wrote: post #606
eqvinox wrote: post #427

This is of course bringing up the discussion on the "morality" of Adblocking. I'd like to point out something that I don't think is getting enough attention. There was a point in the past where video platforms were competing, and by no means was it clear that YouTube would end up dominating this area to the point of being close to a monopoly. When YouTube won that race, they won it with a given set of parameters, inc…

> To me, there's currently no alternative to going onto YouTube Vimeo, Rumble, DailyMotion, Facebook Video and self-hosting all still exist you know. There are plenty of alternatives.

Vimeo changed their model and are focused on paid business users now

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#654

Post by ndriscoll »

pohuing wrote: post #351
ndriscoll wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your form of payment is running malware, don't be surprised that security software (recommended by the FBI mind you[0]) blocks it. Same as if your form of payment were running a crypto miner or exploiting local IoT devices to set up a botnet. Don't be surprised also that if your business is distributing malware that people won't be very sympathetic toward you when they take the bait you offer without running the p…

Aren't ads in YouTube locked down to displaying a video and some plain text you fill into a template. Doesn't sound like a great attack vector. I understand this for shady file sharing sites, but in the case of yt I'm not so sure.

Adware and spyware are malware. Youtube delivers both. uBlock blocks them.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#655

Post by pigbearpig »

dessant wrote: post #117
crop_rotation wrote: post #9

Apart from the Youtube stuff, the post also highlights something else, entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin. > It’s one thing to play cat and mouse with YouTube. It’s quite another to deal with a wave of angry users. > And then one of the moderators actually deleted their Reddit account. “The ID in the post wasn’t updated because my mother was hospitalized,” they said. It’s sad to see them leave becau…

It also feels awful to be called a beggar and a panhandler just because you're trying to find a balance and build a sustainable project by having a donation popup (that can be disabled) in your software. This disgusting review was sitting at the top of the review page for Search by Image on the Chrome Web Store: https://i.imgur.com/P1QU176.png This person has edited their review a couple of times in the past year whi…

That review is completely respectable and something I would leave if an extension added popups asking for money to my browsing experience.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#656

Post by sensanaty »

eqvinox wrote: post #427

This is of course bringing up the discussion on the "morality" of Adblocking. I'd like to point out something that I don't think is getting enough attention. There was a point in the past where video platforms were competing, and by no means was it clear that YouTube would end up dominating this area to the point of being close to a monopoly. When YouTube won that race, they won it with a given set of parameters, inc…

Morally, I consider ads to be outright evil, especially the modern day cancer we call advertisement where they track every singular molecule of your existence. As soon as these scumbags stop hiring psychologists and other similar professionals to make the most addicting and psychologically impactful advertisements possible, then maybe I'll consider them less than pure evil.

I still have uBlock turned off on a few sites, though that list is becoming vanishingly smaller. 4Chan, funnily enough, has the best ads, where it's just old school banner ads on the top of the page and the very bottom of the page. No click hijacking, no embedded ads made to mimic organic content, no fucking audio and flashing lights ads. The only type of targeting those ads have is that the general audience that goes on 4Chan is into anime and Japan, both of which I don't care about. If the internet still had these kind of ads, I think adblockers would be much less of a "problem", but since 99% of them are invasive garbage, whoever is pushing them and whoever argues it's "immoral" to block them can go fuck themselves.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#657

Post by zeraholladay »

carlosjobim wrote: post #298
zeraholladay wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think we agree that blocking ad blockers is in YouTube's immediate, short-term interest. However, I'm not sure it's in their long-term interest because it goes against the principle of reciprocation. Regarding reciprocation, a lot of platforms offer a free tier and then offer additional features for paid subscribers. There's the principle of reciprocation at play: they give me something for free and that then makes m…

Why aren't you hostile against your Internet service provider for charging you for access? Why do you accept paying the ISP to access YouTube, but not paying YouTube or video creators?

I think with ISPs there's an obvious upfront material cost for building infrastructure. In that sense I'm very much the consumer. Obviously, there's substantial infra cost too with social media platforms like YouTube. However, the consumer-producer dichotomy isn't as clear with social media platforms since the user base is the product. That is, the value of a social media platform comes first from the masses of people using it and second the design, the infrastructure, etc. This is why I think reciprocity (in the psychological sense) is so important for social media companies because the product can just walk out the door.

My understanding is that content creators see very little or next to none of the ad revenue. The content creators are the reason people are using YouTube. So I prefer to support them through Patreon. Second, I've heard that the vast, vast majority of content creators make next to nothing through YouTube -- these content creators are paying the opportunity cost to "make it big" or simply enjoy making content or using YouTube as a promotional vehicle for other services. I'm not trying to define a moral equivalence of why it's right to directly support content creators but not YouTube (Google is making enough money off me so that I have a clear conscience), but for the price of their ad free service I'd like to see a more equitable distribution.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#658

Post by noqc »

The argument for the morality of adblockers, in my opinion, begins and ends with the idea that, were the adblocker something you could insert in your brain directly, you would clearly have the right to do so, and also clearly have the right not to disclose this to google.

Google gets paid by advertisers to go fishing. They bait the hooks. I don't think it is reasonable to complain that the fish eat the bait and not the hooks.

Maybe it's not good for their business model, but I don't understand why the fish has any duty to the fisherman. You want me to pay for this content? Great, let's settle on a price that doesn't involve your dominant market position first. What do you think you could charge everyone without losing your moat? That seems like a price I'm much more willing to pay.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#659

Post by kikokikokiko »

HeavyStorm wrote: post #652
boredpeter wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the concept of predatory pricing which is when a business lowers their prices to below cost in order to drive out all its competitors and create a monopoly. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... I do wonder if it could be argued (maybe even in the current monopoly case against google) whether youtube engaged in predatory or below-cost pricing in order to drive out all of i…

_Dumping_, how it was called when I was young, is the main strategy of most startups out there: operate at a loss until they establish themselves (usually as the sole provider of certain services or goods) then start to climb the prices. It _should_ be illegal, but since it's the current status quo, it won't change anytime soon.

I think that the amount of free services we got in the last decade is the strongest argument IN FAVOR of dumping. They got there through subsidized services, now they want to fleece everyone, let's see how it goes. My guess is that competitors will arise and gain market share. It's happening to Uber down here in Brazil. The prices are getting too high, Brazilians are migrating to other apps, especially InDrive, a russian based app. Capitalism is great.

Re: YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

#660

Post by wintermutestwin »

fennecbutt wrote: post #345
crop_rotation wrote: post #9

Apart from the Youtube stuff, the post also highlights something else, entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin. > It’s one thing to play cat and mouse with YouTube. It’s quite another to deal with a wave of angry users. > And then one of the moderators actually deleted their Reddit account. “The ID in the post wasn’t updated because my mother was hospitalized,” they said. It’s sad to see them leave becau…

Doesn't the same apply to YouTube then? People who want to block ads are entitled imo. Those people outright refuse to pay or to simply not use the service if they don't like ads. And it enrages so many people when this is pointed out. Google made a mistake in offering free drive, gmail, Google docs, etc etc. Imagine telling someone in the 90s all the shit we get for free with a couple ads/our data being sold. People…

Why does youtube have a paid option to avoid ads but not to avoid the violation of our privacy?

Everyone talks about how no one cares about their privacy and just want free stuff. When the world was signing up for gmail or watching youtube, where was the big click to acceopt that explained the (obscenely unfair) trade users were making?

Entitled? Google is the one that feels entitled to our data.

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