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YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

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Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#741

Post by gblargg »

throwaway31094 wrote: post #344
zdragnar wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very simple answer. You want to watch some content. The content provider offers you two options: pay and get no ads, or watch for free and also sit through some ads. You are not obligated to watch ads. You are opting to watch them in exchange for the free content, then skipping out on a commitment you volunteered for while still taking the free content. The "unethical contact" argument is bullshit, because…

Do the less fortunate not deserve to have access to culture and information without being subjected to the psychological abuse that is advertising?

Google isn't obligated to pay the bandwidth costs just so the population can have ad-free access, no.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#743

Post by [deleted] »

dkga wrote: post #624

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,…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#744

Post by joshvm »

safety1st wrote: post #408
joshvm wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top tip from using only high-latency satellite internet for long periods: add a significant delay to every request to problematic sites. As soon as the dopamine loop is broken, you'll find the wait so frustrating that you won't bother.

I love this idea, what sort of technical methods do you have in mind for implementing it?

I imagine there are tools that will artificially slow down requests.

The lazy way would be to VPN somewhere as far away as possible and throttle your bandwidth. That would get you 250ms of round trip latency for free. In Antarctica we had up to 3000ms on a bad day. You learn to do stuff offline, build from source instead of download compiled binaries and use Kiwix. Nowadays it's less of an issue because you can ask LLMs questions and have them search for you and all you need to transfer is text. Much much easier than loading heavy websites.

This app looks fun: https://jagt.github.io/clumsy/index.html (randomly interferes with your packets)

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#745

Post by adamgordonbell »

a2128 wrote: post #665
dkga wrote: post #624

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,…

And videos like this one really shouldn't ever have ads, they shouldn't try to block playback for having an adblocker installed, and they shouldn't tell you to "sign in to confirm you're not a bot"[0], and it feels like YouTube should be liable for negligent manslaughter when they do all of the above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtYSTrjKonU [0] https://i.imgur.com/8SDKRkZ.png

WebMD decided to put ads on that video. Every uploader has that option, to monetize or not.

YouTube is the most creator friendly social media platform that exists now. Creators choose when to include ads and receive a large amount of the revenue.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#746

Post by gblargg »

yugioh3 wrote: post #243
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck that. My household uses Newpipe we don't pay for shit.

Stealing from creators shouldn't be celebrated.

If watching with an adblocker is stealing because the video creator doesn't get ad revenue, is not watching also stealing, since they also don't get revenue? If not, how is one taking from them and the other not? What have they lost in the first case but not in the second?

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#747

Post by a2128 »

malfist wrote: post #707
a2128 wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And videos like this one really shouldn't ever have ads, they shouldn't try to block playback for having an adblocker installed, and they shouldn't tell you to "sign in to confirm you're not a bot"[0], and it feels like YouTube should be liable for negligent manslaughter when they do all of the above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtYSTrjKonU [0] https://i.imgur.com/8SDKRkZ.png

I'm anti ads as much as the next person, but negligent manslaughter for showing ads? That isn't reasonable.

They've captured the online video provider market by price dumping in a way nobody but Google could afford, and have become THE video website. Now they're implementing restrictive measures in a negligent manner that affect first-aid videos that people have come to rely on.

Google clearly has the AI know-how to label when videos are important medical videos. They could skip ads and skip forced sign-in, but they don't care enough. There was a viral tweet once about somebody's grandma choking on a fishbone where YouTube responded telling them to buy YouTube Premium, so they're probably aware, but don't care enough. And they're implementing more measures like the forced sign-in for scraping prevention that happen to disproportionately affect public networks at restaurants and hotels. That's negligence.

Why's it so unreasonable?

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#748

Post by bobsmooth »

asadotzler wrote: post #441
bobsmooth wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video hosting is expensive. Making videos is expensive. You're not noble for stealing from Youtube or its creators.

It's not stealing. It's using. I have no obligation under any legal framework to use their content the way they wish I would. Trust me, or pay a lawyer to learn the same truth at considerably more cost.

You're legally and morally in the wrong. Just accept this instead of getting defensive. I pirate literally all of the media I consume but I don't think I;m in the right for doing so.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#749

Post by bobsmooth »

Lio wrote: post #729
bobsmooth wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video hosting is expensive. Making videos is expensive. You're not noble for stealing from Youtube or its creators.

It's not stealing; no one is deprived of anything except rent. If anything the cost of making the video is sunk by the creator just once and then rapidily payed off. Once that happens it's just hosting costs and Moore's, Kryder's and Koomey's Laws are brining that down exponetially. Funnily enough though you never see the amount of avertising shown getting shorter to represent the lower costs involved eh?

It costs money to serve video. You're stealing from YouTube and by extension creators. No amount of mental gymnastics will change this.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#750

Post by bobsmooth »

gblargg wrote: post #746
yugioh3 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing from creators shouldn't be celebrated.

If watching with an adblocker is stealing because the video creator doesn't get ad revenue, is not watching also stealing, since they also don't get revenue? If not, how is one taking from them and the other not? What have they lost in the first case but not in the second?

It costs money to serve video. In exchange for being served the video, you watch the ad. By not watching the ad, you're stealing from YouTube and creators.
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