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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

#691

Post by whackx »

redbell wrote: post #653
freehorse wrote: post #615

It is not just about youtube. The whole internet is bloated with ads right now, and the vast majority of them quite the opposite of discrete. I just cannot browse the internet without adblocker, it is too slow, but more importantly too distracting. I could count the times that I have found an internet ad interesting in my lifetime using half the fingers of one hand. Personalised or not, the vast majority is useless,…

I totally agree on this! Some websites just keep throwing an enormous number of ads into your face to the the extent you start losing consciousness why you came here in the first place. On computer, you still able to use an AdBlock but on mobile, I suffer terribly, not only because I could not disable ads but because on some sites while you are reading an article a random ad video that took about half of the screen k…

On iOS you can install browser extensions from firefox and chrome to the Orion browser.

I've found it a few month back in this threat here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34562553, it is working sufficiently so far, seems even a bit faster than safari to me, too.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#693

Post by wafriedemann »

freehorse wrote: post #615

It is not just about youtube. The whole internet is bloated with ads right now, and the vast majority of them quite the opposite of discrete. I just cannot browse the internet without adblocker, it is too slow, but more importantly too distracting. I could count the times that I have found an internet ad interesting in my lifetime using half the fingers of one hand. Personalised or not, the vast majority is useless,…

I see no ads.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#694

Post by ben_w »

geraldhh wrote: post #640
ben_w wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Serving an infinite video catalog is very expensive in terms of all resources How much would they save if "free" users only got 480p videos? I'd be fine with 480p resolution.

don't be so modest. 720p is an acceptable low bar

For me, 480p is not even modest, it's close to the height I get for a landscape video when holding my phone in portrait.

I also don't usually need the extra pixels, as there is seldom important content in the fine details — a few years ago, when I was prepping to leave the UK but not everything lined up to the same dates, I was using PAYG mobile for home internet and therefore set the videos to 240p; the only reason that didn't really work was that not all videos had such low resolution, and when they didn't the site defaulted to 720p.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#695

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #685
lofaszvanitt wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with YT is: - I start the video, an ad is shown within 30 secs. - I fast forward a few minutes, the SAME ad is shown again. - I jump to anywhere on the timeline, the SAME ad is shown again. At least show me something that is relevant, like facebook does. The ads there reflect what I usually look for. On YT, none of the ads are relevant to me, ever. It's just ridiculous.

Yeah, I think Facebook has the better algorithms for knowing what I'm interested in. I use Instagram more than Facebook but quite a few times I've seen ads for things that have caught my attention. I've even bought something because of one. I've never bought anything by looking at a Google ad. They are almost always something I know about already. What good is an ad for something I know about?

This is how brand advertising works, it's psychological 'trickery' to try and associate that brand with what people find positive, such associations influence us when we make buying choices or when we react to other people's buying choices.

For many years I thought I was immune to such ads, but really I think we are all affected by them -- increased desire for 'things', with reduced happiness for anyone who can't or won't buy them.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#696

Post by princevegeta89 »

mkmk wrote: post #11
pwg wrote: post #6

Or just download with yt-dlp ( https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp ).

Slightly off-topic, is there an easy way to automatically stream files you've downloaded to your local machine to play on an iPhone later?

You're looking for a media server. Plex, Jellyfin and Emby are the 3 popular choices, out of which Jellyfin is the only completely free open source software

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#697

Post by omega3 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #156
karaterobot wrote: post #67

Is it weird that this makes me want to subscribe to YouTube premium less than before? Feels like I've been poised to give them money for a while, since so many people seem to like the service. Now I feel like they're challenging me to a duel.

If you weren’t a paying customer, refuse to become a paying customer, and refuse to watch the ads, they don’t gain anything by having you as a user. It only costs them to retain you. If doing something as simple as asking you to hold up your end of the deal of using their website (letting ads load for the ad-supported content) is too much to ask but paying for the website is also too much to ask, you have to be hones…

> If you weren’t a paying customer, refuse to become a paying customer, and refuse to watch the ads, they don’t gain anything by having you as a user. It only costs them to retain you.

It helps yt achieve their mission /s

Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world.

We believe that everyone deserves to have a voice, and that the world is a better place when we listen, share and build community through our stories.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#698

Post by hankidotdev »

seanhunter wrote: post #627

I would happily pay for youtube premium if: - They removed the useless "shorts" - They removed the "mix" things that keep coming back like a bad smell - They let me remove youtube music - Their suggestions were less terrible. Like seriously they run the biggest data centers in the world, have some of the best ML researchers and know what I actually watch. How do they manage to be so consistently bad at this? - Their…

You can hide all shorts with uBlock Origin

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#699

Post by throwaway290 »

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…

A model where the uploader pays. Vimeo pro plans have something like that.

This idea that uploading is free artificially created by big data and somehow we think that's the way it should be. But really it's just their strategy, get as much data in then tax those who want to access it, even forgetting about the whole ML angle it's very simple to understand.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#700

Post by peoplefromibiza »

aquafox wrote: post #557
seventytwo wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what’s my time worth, not sitting through ads each month? If I make $12/hr, and I have to watch 120 30sec ads in a month of watching YouTube, I’ve broken even. I think most of us make a bit more than 12/hr… so it quickly becomes worth it.

Only if the time you save not watching ad, you actually work. What if you would just watch more videos in the same time or go to 9gag?

What if I am watching more videos that teach me something that ultimately make me earn more?

ADS is money I'm leaving on the table.

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