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YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

iter.ca

761–770 of 1001 posts

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#761

> On Firefox this is easily resolvable - you can use a HTML filter to filter out the script tag from the source HTML before the page even starts being parsed. But that relies on extension APIs that Chromium doesn’t support. I'm shocked

Youtube pushing ads in this way has convinced several non-technical friends who couldn't care less about their browser-choice to switch to Firefox with uBlock origin. Blocking ads in Chrome became such a hustle and is basically not working for Google's own services. Recommending people how don't care to not use chrome in the past was basically hopeless and now I have seen some switch basically from their own. Which I…

GOOD

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I resisted paying for premium (out of spite) until very recently and only because my girlfriend complained. I have been astounded at how scammy those ads are. There is a major class of ads that make fairly significant bullshit medical claims and I’m semi convinced the purpose is not for someone to make money but to wage psychological warfare on vulnerable people. Another class of ads says “the US government is going…

You are getting those ads because you are likely not very well tracked, so you get the lowest tier ads. Most users are regular non-tech folks who are (unknowingly perhaps) well tracked and profiled. They (like my family members) get normal big name ads like you see on TV.

All I get is adds for Grammarly. Every single time.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#763

Here’s something many people probably don’t know. I live in a west-Eu country with several well-defined language borders. Each time we cross a border (on holiday), the youtube ads change language. When I’m logged in. I don’t have a driver’s license, yet the most common ad I get is for second hand cars. I’m in a relationship, yet I regularly get ads for dating sites. I have a job, get ads for jobhunting advice. And th…

Well, it works. Unfortunately it doesn’t remove sponsored content in the videos. I’m paying for an ad free experience, but I’m still hearing about AC1. Annoying.

You should check SponsorBlock out: https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#764
post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passively consuming content is not the same as reading a magazine or a book. Agreed that anyone can fill their own free time with whatever they want. But youtube is just junk food for the mind, packaged as stuff that interests you. It’s conveniently split to increase ad revenue, uses clickbait to drive engagement, and all the techniques developed on TV the past 80 years to keep us glued in front of the screen. Youtub…

> But youtube is just junk food for the mind, packaged as stuff that interests you This is demonstrably false. There's no such thing as "YouTube stuff", there's thousands of people uploading videos, some interesting to you, some not, some junk, some very in-depth, some garbage, some very thoughtful -- Sturgeon's Law applies. There are music videos, science videos, history videos, hobby videos, videos analyzing everyt…

It is not demonstrably false. You operate under the assumption that more knowledge and the more you know about things, the better. So from your point of view spending 12 hours watching philosophy essays and history videos can only be a good thing.

Well, I strongly disagree with this (widespread) premise. It is still marketing-driven consumption and another form of pervasive distraction which plagues the modern world, whether you spend 6 hours watching reality TV or essays on the conquests of Genghis Khan. What matters is how much time you spend in a stupor passively receiving useless information, to detach yourself from a reality you have no control over; the content itself is just a matter of taste.

I want to stress there is of course a difference between decompressing with a nice and well-written YouTube video after dinner and wasting your life watching memes. But it is still a form of distraction, and YouTube does its utmost to make the experience as exciting and addictive as possible, just like McDonalds.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#765

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…

> 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 you saw a giant, attention grabbing billboard for something you are looking for, you wouldn't hate it. In the context of roads, these are businesses putting their signs on the side of the road. For example I usually find billboards/signs pointing to the nearest supermarket, restaurant or gas station to be useful, because that's the kind of thing I may want do do when I am driving, and I am getting useful information out of them.

Driving-related products like tires are annoying on a billboard on the side of the road because I am obviously not going to look at my tires while I am driving, and it is usually not something you have an urgent need for. They are however relevant (and therefore less annoying) in a gas station, where you can check your tires as you are filling up your tank. It may even give you the idea of checking tire pressure, which is a good thing. One of the most clever driving-related ad was a letter I received from the garage I did car maintenance with, reminding me a couple of weeks before the next scheduled maintenance that it was to be done (with, of course, an offer on their part). It was useful, yet 100% an ad.

And yeah, we usually call things "ads" when they are annoying and by some other word when they are not, and advertisers tend to avoid the word for this reason. Calling it "sponsored" for instance. But it doesn't change that fact.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#766
I would love YouTube to include comments in their ads as they do with all other videos. To borrow a current phrase, they chicken out on actual critical feedback and keep pushing their money making agenda with an iron fist. If YouTube actually cared to make their users happy, public comments in ads would filter out all the garbage ads in hours and the entire platform would be forced to accept a minimum yet independent and user driving bar for advertising.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#767
post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have all ad targeting features turned off on my account - which I assume means i unfortunately get the bottom-of-the-barrel ads. The still frame ads are always NSFW games or ads for viagra-like products. In shorts, the ads are always scams of some kind. Usually deepfakes of elon musk “giving investment advice” but also “medical experts” recommending likely dangerous scams, or “free money the government isnt telling…

YouTube has decided that my family is African American and Spanish speaking at some point, and nothing will convince them otherwise. We are neither of those things. At one point a few years ago my daughter wanted to listen to the Peppa Pig album in Spanish and I guess maybe that’s why? It’s crazy how bad and mistargeted it all is.

[dead]

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#768

I accidentally did something. I don’t get ads on YouTube in Chrome on iOS. I have a few ideas on how

Most likely is that you are in some control group to determine effects of ads in general.

Nah. I get ads in the app and on other browsers. It happened after I was futzing around with dns settings years ago. There’s some combination of whatever I did that keeps chrome ad free. It has persisted through iOS updates as well.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#769

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…

It's not irrelevance, it's lack of trust.

I could see an ad for the exact thing I need and I still wouldn't click it. Either it's a scam, or it's technically not a scam because offering 90% off in the first month of a 12 month contract is legal, or it's the worst product on the market and the only way it can get users is blowing VC cash on ads, or there's something else that will surely disappoint me.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#770
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,…

Any business model where ads can be paid off has no incentive to make good ads. Ads are meant to be annoying enough so that people prefer paying. Hence the war on ad-blockers.

Huh? Who do you think are creating and buying the ads? Ads are supposed to get the word out about products. No-one is making ads with the intention to annoy people
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