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YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

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Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#951

Post by raffraffraff »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #414

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…

Not for me. I don't have a TV and I have used adblockers for decades. I live somewhere that I don't really notice offensively intrusive ads. And I wear blouse cancelling headphones whenever people annoy me. At this point I'm completely sensitised to over-friendly, over-confident "HEY FRIEND, DO YOU HAVE THIS PROBLEM? I HAD TOO, AND THIS WONDERFUL PRODUCT SOLVED IT". If I click on a link for Rick Astley "Never gonna give you up", damnit I don't want to listen to an ad first. I have a hair trigger insta CTRL+w on ads. Even the ones that the YouTuber directly refers to in that segment of their video. "Fuck your sponsor"

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#952

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

CaptainFever wrote: post #543

I just use yt-dlp (YTDLnis on Android, which has a great UI that makes it quite YouTube-like). Downloading instead of streaming (read: downloading then automatically deleting) is so much better. 1. It's all offline play, so I can use my favorite players like VLC. Also, no buffering (after the initial download, of course). 2. I can do anything I want to the video: make edits, splice ads out, extract audio, generate su…

I do this so I can watch powerpoint style math videos with the colors inverted, so it's white text on black background instead of black text on white background.

Download the video and then open with `mpv --vf=negate --hwdec=no`.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#953

Post by mcdeltat »

the_af wrote: post #722
mcdeltat wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each to their own. I'm not saying youtube is all garbage useless content, definitely there are quality conversations about varying topics. The level of community probably varies between interests and for my interests, youtube was hardly a core facet of the hobby. Perhaps for you it's different. However, I will add 2 counterpoints. Firstly, I don't think consuming a huge amount (e.g. the amount I was) of passive video…

> Second, I think it's interesting to examine why youtube must "drive" your hobby/interest to a large degree. Is there perhaps a mental trap of thinking you must be in with the crowd and the latest and greatest? No? There's the "human as a social animal" aspect, I enjoy being part of a community. Nothing particular to YouTube here.

Your point about community is valid, we need community.

I would argue though that digital community is a tenuous definition in comparison to in-person community. I won't claim this doesn't differ person to person but for me doing a hobby with people has no comparsion to watching youtube videos about the hobby (even though I am introverted). I like to consider to myself: "is this digital interaction preventing or taking the place of an in-person interaction I could be having right now?" 6 hours of youtube a day was preventing a lot. Further I considered my own hobbies which themselves were primarily digital and may be unhelpful for finding fulfilment in social aspects of life.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#954

Post by scbzzzzz »

yugioh3 wrote: post #235
akersten wrote: post #209

Thank you for your important work fighting this battle, it must be exhausting. The more Google insists on forcing advertising on us, the more we should look closely at the wildly inappropriate and downright scammy ads they are hosting. If they can't leave well enough alone and look the other way on ad blocking, (which is the only way to avoid exposing myself and family to these dangerous ads), they need to be under a…

people deserve to get paid for the work they put into creating content and building platforms, no? books, movies, tv shows, news, etc, are all distributed in some way or another that costs the consumer either money or their time viewing advertising. if you don't want to watch ads, pay YouTube for a subscription.

My major problem with ads is the disrespect of my privacy. People deserve to get paid for the hard work they put. I have immense respect for creators .

But at the same time, these yt creators are relying on google ads . Which are intrusive, doesn't acknowledge and care about privacy. If you turn on ad privacy, you see gambling, scams ,crypto ads. How is that responsible? You as a creator is ok with getting money and ok with indirectly making people addicted, fall for scams? That's not right.

I am ok with sponser ads and am against sponsorblock. They are not tracking me, violating my privacy and telling me about new products .

youtube subscription doesn't stop youtube for collecting you data and use it for ads during other google service .

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#955

Post by wkat4242 »

I have to say also, Youtube's ads really suck now.

I watched a mentour pilot video recently on a machine which did not have adblock or sponsorblock (a meta quest headset). I got the same stupid car ad every 2-3 minutes of it. It is basically unwatchable now with ads.

On top of that, the guy had a 5 minute sponsor crap thing in it also.

Youtube is just ridiculous now.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#956

Post by wkat4242 »

matwood wrote: post #499
scoofy wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also pay for YouTube. I do. It’s nice, not crazy expensive. No ads. Creators get paid. Everyone wins.

Agreed. This isn’t a situation where you can’t pay. YT has a clear, reasonably priced solution for no ads. It also comes with YT music. If people don’t think there’s enough value in YT, then don’t pay and don’t use it. Reminds me of the early justification of Napster where people would complain the latest B. Spears song was garbage and not worth paying for, yet it was the most downloaded song.

> It also comes with YT music.

This is a big part of it. It drives the price up a lot but I don't want it so I pay for nothing,

> If people don’t think there’s enough value in YT, then don’t pay and don’t use it.

I don't pay and I use adblock and sponsorblock. I don't watch enough to make it worth it and with ads YT is literally unwatchable now. I watched a mentour pilot video the other day without the blockers and every 2-3 minutes there was an ad interruption, every time for the same stupid car. Not even relevant because I don't buy or use cars.

And there is no competition for YT right now.

Also, I really don't care about the ethics. I don't care if you think it's wrong. I'm just saying why I do it, not trying to justify it ethically. Because I have no ethics when it comes to big corporations. Just like they don't towards their customers.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#957

Post by wkat4242 »

dimator wrote: post #840
zwnow wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you pay though its really simple to block ads and youtube is already rich enough. Why bow down to consumerism and enrichment of the already rich?

Why pay for clothes? Nordstrom's is already rich enough, just walk in and take something.

If you take a youtube video, they don't have one less of course.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#958

Post by DidYaWipe »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #414

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…

I disagree. I was willing to tolerate pretty much any ad on YouTube as long as it was normal ad length (:15, :30, or even a minute) if they eventually ended and THE PROGRAM RESUMED.

But then YouTube started PERMANENTLY interrupting what I was watching with never-ending commercials or full-on infomercials... forcing me to manually use the Skip button to stop the commercial onslaught and return to the show I was watching. And they forced me to herd the show along like this every few minutes.

I put stuff on to watch while I'm cooking or doing something; I can't run to wash my hands so I can mash the control on the remote, over and over and over.

So that's when I installed a third-party YouTube client that skips ads. Google took someone who was willing to watch ads, and turned him into someone who never sees one. So Google cost itself and the content creators, through its asshole behavior.

Then they had the gall to WHINE about the uptick in ad-blocking. It's right out of the Trump/Putin playbook: attack someone, and then feign outrage and whine when they fight back.

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#959

Post by wkat4242 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #793
zwnow wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you pay though its really simple to block ads and youtube is already rich enough. Why bow down to consumerism and enrichment of the already rich?

> youtube is already rich enough maybe, hard to say. but the people who make videos, and get 55% of the revenue (give or take a bit), frequently are not (unless you insist on watching mega channels only).

They screw us too though. For premium viewers they already get more money, but you still have to put up with their sponsor stuff. They could put clean videos on their patreon or something but almost nobody bothers

Re: YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

#960

Post by wkat4242 »

freehorse wrote: post #789
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #414

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…

I hate the ad-centered nature of modern web anyway, but I don't understand why ads are not based on the content of a webpage/video. I am much less disturbed by ads eg on a podcast where the podcaster gives a sponsored message about a service relevant to the topic of the podcast. And prob if I watch the podcast I am already most probably part of the target audience. There is no need to profile me over the websites I v…

> I hate the ad-centered nature of modern web anyway, but I don't understand why ads are not based on the content of a webpage/video.

This is because tracking data is google's moat.

They don't want people to offer content-based ads. Why? Because they will find out that they work pretty well while preserving privacy. And will start using them. But then Google has a problem, because to offer those you don't need a global pervasive tracking network to do it. Anyone with a few million can set up an ad network and compete with Google.

So, they try to double down on their tracking driven approach because it's something only they and a few other big ones can do. Content-driven ads they discourage with propaganda that they don't work, just not offering or making them difficult to use.

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