YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#771

Post by city41 » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 1:27 PM UTC

Roark66 wrote: post #769

I'll sooner stop using youtube than watch it with the ads. I've been watching it exclusively via smartyoutubetv app (an open source android TV app). Every couple of months youtube does something to break the app. Every single time the app it fixed within a couple of hours. It's not even about just the ads. I use it because it let's me remove all the crap I don't want force fed to me while all I want it watch my subsc…

I don't block YouTube ads and watch YouTube quite a bit. I've not had this experience. I don't think I've ever seen an unskippable 30 second ad. It seems to me unskippable tops out at 15 seconds. When YouTube flipped the switch a few years ago to drastically increase the number of ads it was super painful. But I have to admit I've totally gotten used to it. It's still dramatically better than cable. To me, YouTube ads are just on the cusp of acceptable.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#772

Post by boplicity » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 1:57 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #357

mcpackieh wrote: post #309

I block ads because they're psychological warfare that corporations wage against me. I don't care how unobtrusive the ads are. I don't care if the ads don't track me. I grew up changing the channel on TV when ads came on, and ripping adverts out of magazines before sitting down to read them. I vote for billboard bans whenever I can. I have zero tolerance for ads of any sort. Advertisers have no morals, they're comple…

> It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. And advertisement is the rich asking for more money. A man would be annoyed if he found himself in a mob of millionaires, all holding out their silk hats for a penny; or all shouting with one voice, “Give me money.” Yet advertisement does really assault the eye very much as such a shout would assault the ear. “B…

> And advertisement is the rich asking for more money.

Actually, one of the main innovations of the past 20 years is that advertising has become easily accessible to those who are not rich. Small businesses and individuals can easily become advertisers on FB, Google, Etc. This has helped, many, many people earn a living. Myself included. I'm certainly not a millionaire.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#773

Post by westurner » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 1:59 PM UTC

Students don't even have the option of paying for premium using their school account, and so if you assign them videos to watch (using that account) they must watch ads; is that correct?

I think YouTube should just drop the creators who demanded the greater subscription revenue that must've precipitated this change; go sell your own content.

FWIW, ad-free Khan Academy videos are subsidized by Alphabet/Google/YouTube.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#774

Post by paulryanrogers » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #737

kitsunesoba wrote: post #226

This doesn't really affect me since I subscribe to premium, but something that a lot of ad-based services don't seem to grasp is why people block ads. It's because they've become increasingly obnoxious. Nobody blocked ads when they were a simple column of links in the gutter or maybe an animated GIF banner with 3 frames. No, adblockers became popular because ads kept getting more loud (both visually and audibly), in…

What I don't understand is that the whole industry seems to be based on...lying? If I trick the user into clicking on something that looks organic but it's not, I will be paid money. Showing an ad full screen on youtube, forced, won't guarantee that is has any effect on the viewer, but the advertiser has to pay and on top of that, the user experience is ruined. So based on lies, we ruin experience. Isn't there a way…

Lying is too often cheaper and more effective than honestly building something useful and compelling. There is also the background noise of so many competitors and other things, folks feel compelled to exaggerate to build name recognition.

Then there is the fact that we consumers struggle to maintain and communicate a blocklist of bad actors.

And even good actors can sell out or slide into mediocrity.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#775

Post by throwuwu » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

nicce wrote: post #764

throwuwu wrote: post #763

Now that I’m experimenting with blocking YouTube altogether for longer and longer periods of time, I find that I don’t need it at all anymore. I used to heavily rely on it for tutorials but ChatGPT has replaced that; why watch a 30 minute explanation of something that winds up being tangentially related to what you’re doing when you can just talk directly to the documentation and ask follow up questions? Other than t…

> why watch a 30 minute explanation of something that winds up being tangentially related to what you’re doing when you can just In the past there used to be well written blog posts and you were able to read them in 15 minutes and better understand the matter. Now we have to waste 15 mins more of our life to get the same point.

I don’t even bother with blog posts anymore unless they are new information and in that case it’s often easier to use Edge and Bing chat to interrogate the page directly. It’s far better than skimming or ctrl-f

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#776

Post by RamblingCTO » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

jvolkman wrote: post #250

RamblingCTO wrote: post #215

You know, if YouTube wouldn't insist on absolutely annoying the living shit out of me with unskippable, bad, long, and frequent ads I wouldn't mind that much. But YouTube with ads is one of the worst things there are.

There are no ads if you pay

I don't like being bullied into a subscription by out of line ads. The subscription doesn't add any value. YouTube still fails to create a viable business model that doesn't depend on bullying.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#777

Post by worewood » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

Unless they make the ads part of the video itself by re-encoding it on the fly with the ads inserted, there will be a way around this. Instead of blocking the ads, the ad blocker just needs to download the content anyway and run it off-screen.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#778

Post by InCityDreams » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

I tried no adblocker on youtube. I made the mistake of putting Steve Hillage: Rainbow Dome Music on.

So fuck you Barilla pasta for shitting your disgraceful ad right in the middle.

C'è casa? C'è merda.

How the hell people do yoga and other calming things with youtube with ads is way beyond what i can understand.

At least, i tried, although i got burned. Never going back - and if yt manages to defeat me, fuck them too. I'm not against ads per se, but please...try and be tasteful!

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#779

Post by Jean-PaulSartre » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

I analyzed all 1200 comments and asked the following:

Which comment found or suggested, the best way to circumvent,avoid or get around youtube approach without paying subscription?

A: None.

I suggest we start doing, cause they're ahead of us..... before is too late.

Re: YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers

#780

Post by PurpleRamen » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 3:33 PM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #226

This doesn't really affect me since I subscribe to premium, but something that a lot of ad-based services don't seem to grasp is why people block ads. It's because they've become increasingly obnoxious. Nobody blocked ads when they were a simple column of links in the gutter or maybe an animated GIF banner with 3 frames. No, adblockers became popular because ads kept getting more loud (both visually and audibly), in…

> Nobody blocked ads when they were a simple column of links in the gutter

Not true. People are blocking ads whenever they have the chance. Even when they are just a lousy picture on the side, in the text or a banner at the top, they were always annoyed from all of them and found ways to remove them. And it makes sense, because Ads need to have a certain level of "in your face"ness to work, that's unavoidable.