YouTube's new anti-adblock measures • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#851

Post by dimator » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

Karupan wrote: post #325

stickfigure wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just pay for it? I have my whole family on my plan. Nobody gets ads. It is a bargain. You're right, I could probably finish my motorcycle build projects without videos. But why??

I’d gladly pay for YouTube or other Google services when they offer an option to not track my activity at all. For me it’s not about seeing ads just on YouTube, but being tracked all through the web and still being served inappropriate or spammy ads.

at this point, there's no use in implanting the goal posts into the ground, they're going to be moved again in a few seconds.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#852

Post by faragon » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

The more YouTube does that, the more I use Spotify.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#853

Post by TJTorola » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

Not sure what this says about me, but I ran into youtube putting a 3 video limit on me because I was using adblocking and when I hit that limit I just ended up going outside to have a lovely day. Honestly wish video limits was just a feature I could turn on.

Funny enough, awhile back they made it so that if you turned off watch history, they would disable the front page feed. Not sure if that was seen as a punishment to try to encourage people to turn back on watch history but that also ended up being a welcome change.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#854

Post by malfist » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

a2128 wrote: post #747

malfist wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a big difference between being a monopoly and negligent manslaughter.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#855

Post by socalgal2 » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 5:19 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #848

Paying for YouTube has probably been the digital subscription with the single greatest return on a dozen dollars. Content is uninterrupted without having to engage in the arms race. Music selection is great. Random movies are available.

Music selection is great. Music recommendation (and video recommendation) is utter crap. I know running something as big as youtube means there is unlikely to be a true competitor but there is sooooooooo much low-hanging fruit to do a better job.

My home page is on average 60% wasted/irrelevant.

I'm a little surprised they haven't added "AI" yet. They add some prompt "tell us what you like". I tried it the opposite "Do not show me cat videos!" and of course it was just keyword based and started showing me cat videos.

On the video front, my Japanese is pretty good. I watched one high level Japanese language video. Now my feed is full of beginner Japanese language videos. I'm pretty confident if I could ask some LLM "Don't show me beginning level Japanese videos" it could figure it out.

Same with Music. If I play any song from the 80s their shit algo will decide what I want is "hits of the 80s", not "more songs similar to the song I just played". Again, I feel like I could tell an LLM that. Play me songs by band X and songs similar to band X". "Play me songs that influenced band X" (LLM can reference interviews for that).

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#856

Post by eurekin » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 5:21 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #848

Paying for YouTube has probably been the digital subscription with the single greatest return on a dozen dollars. Content is uninterrupted without having to engage in the arms race. Music selection is great. Random movies are available.

Same here. Netflix, Hulu, Disney plus, HBO... I've had them disabled after months of zero usage.

YouTube on the other hand...

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#857

Post by strathmeyer » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #848

Paying for YouTube has probably been the digital subscription with the single greatest return on a dozen dollars. Content is uninterrupted without having to engage in the arms race. Music selection is great. Random movies are available.

But how is it different than those of us who access it for free? I get a popup asking me to pay once a month but that's about it. Are you just happy to throw your money away if it goes to a giant corporation?

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#858

Post by Hackbraten » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

strathmeyer wrote: post #857

wwweston wrote: post #848

Paying for YouTube has probably been the digital subscription with the single greatest return on a dozen dollars. Content is uninterrupted without having to engage in the arms race. Music selection is great. Random movies are available.

But how is it different than those of us who access it for free? I get a popup asking me to pay once a month but that's about it. Are you just happy to throw your money away if it goes to a giant corporation?

You get rid of the ads, so it’s not exactly throwing money away.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#859

Post by Barbing » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

dakiol wrote: post #648

v5v3 wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get it. You are not the target Most advertising is seeking the less intelligent consumer. Or the young and still naive consumer. They outnumber you 1 million to 1. It's why female musicians make more money putting their name to a makeup brand then their music. It's why Elon will make some promise that is unrealistic. It's why Apple put low paid everyday tech support staff in their stores and called them Gen…

Couldn’t youtube easily discern those who are young and naive from those who aren’t so that the latter don’t get ads? It would be a win-win for everyone: youtube spends less (no need to spend bandwidth), companies dont get hated that much, non-naive-young consumers are not bombarded with ads.

Anecdotally, YouTube will show to boomer home owners scam solar product ads which they'd never show their younger, more scam-resistant counterparts. So they at least make some adjustment.

Also wouldn't we farm & sell our ad-free accounts

PS: maybe they could just show us Coke ads, whichever ubiquitous brands necessarily advertise to stay in our consciousness etc.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#860

Post by stackedinserter » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

I just can't pay youtube a penny, because it solidifies their monopoly and control. They can and do ban content that they think is "harmful" for whatever reason, they push content that they (not me) like, I don't want to reward any of this.