Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

bleepingcomputer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

781–790 of 1001 posts

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#781

Post by magicalhippo »

red_admiral wrote: post #688
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,…

Ad-blocking also gives you similar if not more extra security to anti-virus software, with fewer downsides (faster not slower). I'm afraid the ad ecosystem is so big that occasionally, threats slip through.

Indeed. Some years ago a fairly well-known news site here in Norway had their ad platform hacked, and it started serving a payload that exploited a vulnerability to infect a machine visiting the site with zero user interaction and zero visibility.

The payload would then proceed to hijack the browser and intercept sessions to the most popular online bank, allowing it to redirect funds behind the scenes without alerting the user.

That's the point when I realized ad blockers aren't a nice-to-have, but an essential protection element.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#783

Post by kalleboo »

Veserv wrote: post #514
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…

No, it perfectly showcases that people do not want to pay 1000% more money for the privilege of paying a monthly subscription. Youtube Premium costs $12/month [1]. Ads average something like $2 per 1000 views to the creators (in some of the most common categories) [2]. Youtube takes a ~45% cut, so Youtube makes ~$4 per 1000 views from ads. So, to reach $12/month, you would need to average 3000 views per month. At a a…

When looking at these numbers you have to remember that they are global numbers. Ads in rich countries like the US will make them way more money per user than the ads in poor countries. And YouTube Premium is also far cheaper in poor countries - it's like $2/mo in India, which probably pretty accurately reflects how much an average user draws in in each country.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#784

Post by [deleted] »

sn41 wrote: post #373
adtech772 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in adtech, we're getting into eye tracking for verifying ad viewership on smart TVs. So.. yeah.

Thank you for this information. I just find it amusing that instead of calling it "Big Brother telescreen" just calling it "Smart TV" made everyone comfortable with the technology : we are all smart, right? As they say: just because you are paranoid, it does not mean that they are not after you.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#786

Post by throwaway290 »

crop_rotation wrote: post #762
throwaway290 wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That model doesn't work, see the link I included about Vimeo.

The model would work, it just needs to be properly implemented. I guess it's hard when YouTube etc. keeps people accustomed to not even rock bottom prices but completely free stuff.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#788

Post by kuschku »

kerkeslager wrote: post #435
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…

I've said it before and I've said it again: ad-based content and pay content are incompatible business models. YouTube Premium fails because the content isn't worth paying for. The content is not worth paying for because it's been designed from the ground up to sell ads . When a website designed to sell ads fails to sell content, that's not evidence that selling content doesn't work, it's evidence that selling conten…

I've got youtube premium, nebula, curiositystream and I subscribe to various youtubers on floatplane.

And I've got to be honest – youtube premium is not really worth it. All the other services have high-quality content, because they're designed from the ground up for paying users.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#789

Post by tmtvl »

It would be interesting if we could create some sort of digital Suica Card, where someone can load their eSuica up and whenever they visit a website that's in on the plan they can view the website without ads, without needing to subscribe, and the site would automatically charge like 3 cents (or whatever) to their card.

Maybe Brave works like that, IDK, I don't use it, but I would like to see something like that in Firefox.

Re: YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers

#790

Post by retSava »

culturestate wrote: post #757
meindnoch wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spaced repetition ;) It works, and they know it.

The ad I most frequently get on YouTube - we’re talking three times per video, every other video - is for a shingles vaccine targeted at adults over 60. No amount of spaced repetition is going to make me, an adult decades under the age of 60, talk to my doctor about that shingles vaccine. This cannot possibly be a truly cost-efficient ad platform.

You are just a little bit extra resistant, but no worries, there are decades to beat you down, chip by chip.
Post reply on HN