As YouTube declares war on ad blockers, Google sponsors ad blocking conference(404media.co)
404media.co
As YouTube declares war on ad blockers, Google sponsors ad blocking conference
https://www.404media.co/as-youtube-declares-war-on-ad-blockers-google-sponsors-ad-blocking-conference/
13 comments
Works for channels looking to only promote something else. But majority of content on YT is to make money to the creator. Ads is the sole source of any revenue there, comsidering the ad revenue share model. Or the premium subscription revenue share. Either way it hard to do away with ads in still booming creator economy.
"Ads is the sole source of revenue" is plainly wrong, unless You're maybe just beginning. Looking at some breakdowns (strangely, quite a few channels publish them) the ad revenue seems to be just a minor slice these days.
The actual income is either from sponsorship, Patreon, merch, or just plain "advertising yourself" (seemingly the case of many photo/videography channels).
It's not too much of a stretch to say YouTube ads are detrimental to any of these revenues.
The actual income is either from sponsorship, Patreon, merch, or just plain "advertising yourself" (seemingly the case of many photo/videography channels).
It's not too much of a stretch to say YouTube ads are detrimental to any of these revenues.
[deleted]
if youre looking at a sample of me, its 100% ;)
In my case it's closer to 1%. Sponsorblock + uBlock Origin gets rid of practically all ads on the platform. Including the ones embedded by the video creator, which makes it even better than YouTube's subscription.
No, and I'll tell you why: your video does not exist in a vacuum or some idealized free market of passing observers who are themselves free to see it or not, view it or not, and so on.
You're posting from within YouTube and engagement largely depends on getting YouTube to show it to the largest possible demographic, which in turn must respond by seeing and then viewing the video. It's a symbiotic thing: it has to start with YouTube algorithmically deciding your video is going to be popular and that they stand to benefit from it being popular, and then the audience justifying this assumption.
This is why you can get YouTube hammering you with particular video suggestions: it's decided that video is going to be popular and insists on you giving it a watch. It'll try for a while even if you don't bite.
The FIRST step here is YouTube deciding your video is going to be popular in such a way that it will benefit them. They've recently taken steps to remove people's ability to even specify that they don't want to run certain kinds of ads: my assumption has been that this pressure was already in place, and that they favored video makers who went along with what YouTube wanted, namely default ad pressure as they define it, mid-rolls and so on.
I would say that outside of external regulatory pressures, YouTube will punish video makers who don't serve YouTube's ad purposes to the fullest extent. I observe this myself, and have got about 10k subscribers by now in spite of very non-clickbaity, obscure content with low-pressure thumbnails and editing.
That's my approach: I will use ad blockers personally, and expect my audience to be more predisposed to using ad blockers, while also turning over my video output to the preferences of YouTube with the understanding that if I don't comply, YouTube will punish me for it.
It's pretty trivial to algorithmically scan a thumbnail to see if it says 'AMAZING' in big letters, or has striking value and hue contrasts, and then hype such videos more than the others on the grounds that they're better able to get clicks and thus ads. It's still fairly trivial to scan the video and see whether it's cutting from shot to shot more than once a second, and then hype such videos more than the others on the grounds that zoomers want it that way.
Whether you click the 'enable mid-roll ads' checkbox is the MOST trivial signal you can send YouTube about whether you're serving their interests. It's direct interaction with their algorithm, intended to withhold something from which they make money. The idea that they don't respond to this signal is kind of ridiculous.
So… you've got it backwards. The audience might like not getting badgered with ads, but if you're a YouTuber you don't serve your audience, you're working for YouTube or they'll literally take your audience away from you. You serve them first and they are your boss.
You're posting from within YouTube and engagement largely depends on getting YouTube to show it to the largest possible demographic, which in turn must respond by seeing and then viewing the video. It's a symbiotic thing: it has to start with YouTube algorithmically deciding your video is going to be popular and that they stand to benefit from it being popular, and then the audience justifying this assumption.
This is why you can get YouTube hammering you with particular video suggestions: it's decided that video is going to be popular and insists on you giving it a watch. It'll try for a while even if you don't bite.
The FIRST step here is YouTube deciding your video is going to be popular in such a way that it will benefit them. They've recently taken steps to remove people's ability to even specify that they don't want to run certain kinds of ads: my assumption has been that this pressure was already in place, and that they favored video makers who went along with what YouTube wanted, namely default ad pressure as they define it, mid-rolls and so on.
I would say that outside of external regulatory pressures, YouTube will punish video makers who don't serve YouTube's ad purposes to the fullest extent. I observe this myself, and have got about 10k subscribers by now in spite of very non-clickbaity, obscure content with low-pressure thumbnails and editing.
That's my approach: I will use ad blockers personally, and expect my audience to be more predisposed to using ad blockers, while also turning over my video output to the preferences of YouTube with the understanding that if I don't comply, YouTube will punish me for it.
It's pretty trivial to algorithmically scan a thumbnail to see if it says 'AMAZING' in big letters, or has striking value and hue contrasts, and then hype such videos more than the others on the grounds that they're better able to get clicks and thus ads. It's still fairly trivial to scan the video and see whether it's cutting from shot to shot more than once a second, and then hype such videos more than the others on the grounds that zoomers want it that way.
Whether you click the 'enable mid-roll ads' checkbox is the MOST trivial signal you can send YouTube about whether you're serving their interests. It's direct interaction with their algorithm, intended to withhold something from which they make money. The idea that they don't respond to this signal is kind of ridiculous.
So… you've got it backwards. The audience might like not getting badgered with ads, but if you're a YouTuber you don't serve your audience, you're working for YouTube or they'll literally take your audience away from you. You serve them first and they are your boss.
This is a fairly balanced article, and seemingly well-informed.
What I would like to know is who uses an ad blocker and not uBlock, and why? What's the point of using an inferior product if the best one is free and ubiquitous?
What I would like to know is who uses an ad blocker and not uBlock, and why? What's the point of using an inferior product if the best one is free and ubiquitous?
AdGuard is useful on iOS because of how limited browsers are on it. They also provide a DNS adblocking service which for someone less technical who can’t setup a pihole is a useful service.
Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer ;)
It occurs to me that this situation is ideally achieved if
1. Your friends are imaginary (pretty close: right in your head)
2. Your enemies are your own split personalities (even closer)
1. Your friends are imaginary (pretty close: right in your head)
2. Your enemies are your own split personalities (even closer)
> 1. Your friends are imaginary (pretty close: right in your head)
Dissociative Identity Disorder results in exactly this situation (source: I have it)
> 2. Your enemies are your own split personalities (even closer)
... touchè
Dissociative Identity Disorder results in exactly this situation (source: I have it)
> 2. Your enemies are your own split personalities (even closer)
... touchè
YouTube Premium everyone… If you get the family version, 6ppl can watch YT without Ads from the main apps, imho a great deal
(I don‘t have any other video subscriptions)
(I don‘t have any other video subscriptions)
I don't really think youtube has good enough content to justify paying for it, but setting that aside I still think a premium subscription has one major problem. Google has no reliability, so why would I trust that if I subscribe to youtube they won't just replace it with a worse product?
[deleted]
> Google has no reliability, so why would I trust that if I subscribe to youtube they won't just replace it with a worse product?
It's ok it's a 1-month contract, not a lifetime one.
In terms of it being not worth it I agree, but if two people have a music subscription to Spotify for example, you can replace it with YouTube premium for family which includes Youtube music and the ad removal is essentially free.
It's ok it's a 1-month contract, not a lifetime one.
In terms of it being not worth it I agree, but if two people have a music subscription to Spotify for example, you can replace it with YouTube premium for family which includes Youtube music and the ad removal is essentially free.
The family version is not available for Google Workspace accounts (which was pushed as something useful for families for years when it first came out, and family use remained free when they did away with other free uses so they are very aware it's used that way). So it's $14 per month per person in my US-based family. That's too steep compared to Netflix, Disney+, etc. for us.
If they provided a way to move subscriptions, viewing history, playlists, etc. to a vanilla account, I'd do that. Without that, I've invested too much time in curating things to start over. Especially without knowing what steps in user experience degradation lie ahead.
If they provided a way to move subscriptions, viewing history, playlists, etc. to a vanilla account, I'd do that. Without that, I've invested too much time in curating things to start over. Especially without knowing what steps in user experience degradation lie ahead.
Youtube: made video quality worse, installed an insane amount of ads, demonetizes a lot of creators, treats them like dust, community strikes get applied for no reason, it's also a profitable company for a few years already. So I don't see why I should pay.
I might have considered that for a millisecond, if Google hadn't demonetised a lot of the creators I care about. I'd rather support them directly.
It’s quite good for the price if you use the seats, considering you also get YouTube music as well, it’s not a bad deal in my opinion. I ended up liking it over spotify quite a bit.
A true, I did the same and cancelled my spotify
The only complaint I have is that there's no way to downgrade to YouTube Premium Lite. Lite is going away now, and I can't figure out if it's a deliberately botched launch or just plain incompetence. You couldn't downgrade to lite, it was never really pushed in any way, it was just a stealth product.
YouTube Premium is the subscription I get the most value from, even if I could do without the forced YouTube Music subscription, but my wife likes the music streaming.
YouTube Premium is the subscription I get the most value from, even if I could do without the forced YouTube Music subscription, but my wife likes the music streaming.
But that supports YouTube itself too, I'd rather it goes bust.
If there were a platform where the creators paid a share of their revenue to the platform operators, not the other way around, I'd pay. This model where the platform operator pays a share of ad revenue to the creators will always allow the platform to take actions I disagree with, since all the power is with them.
Given that the platform operator is _Google_, it's a non-starter for me. They're already performing actions against creators — and other content based actions — I disapprove of.
If there were a platform where the creators paid a share of their revenue to the platform operators, not the other way around, I'd pay. This model where the platform operator pays a share of ad revenue to the creators will always allow the platform to take actions I disagree with, since all the power is with them.
Given that the platform operator is _Google_, it's a non-starter for me. They're already performing actions against creators — and other content based actions — I disapprove of.
I kinda thought about this for a few months now. My problem with YouTube these days isn't ads. It's content quality.
It's probably just my personal preference, but what I'm looking for is long form. Lectures, classes, essays, analysis... This sort of stuff.
And it seems that from my viewpoint we're now in some sort of race to the bottom. There seems to be more and more of a push towards short Tiktok style stuff. And I hate that with passion.
My current solution is probably subscribing to Nebula, not YouTube Premium.
It's probably just my personal preference, but what I'm looking for is long form. Lectures, classes, essays, analysis... This sort of stuff.
And it seems that from my viewpoint we're now in some sort of race to the bottom. There seems to be more and more of a push towards short Tiktok style stuff. And I hate that with passion.
My current solution is probably subscribing to Nebula, not YouTube Premium.
[deleted]
No
chromium derivatives, such as vivaldi, brave, edge, etc... must have an open source fork on top chromium which removes any manifest v3 enforcement and ensures ad blocking capabilities.
if they will have to do it alone, it would be too great of an effort as I'm sure google with couple v3 code everywhere and make it hard to remove this enforcement alone.
they also need to help remove blocking popups like youtubes one which works and act exactly like an ad.
I'm sure this could bring more usage to these browsers. I've moved to vivaldi and never looked back
they also need to help remove blocking popups like youtubes one which works and act exactly like an ad.
I'm sure this could bring more usage to these browsers. I've moved to vivaldi and never looked back
manifest v3 doesn't prevent blocking ads from youtube
didn't say it is. its related to the article and future of ads and web browsers and v3 + youtube ad popups feel to me like 2 big issues that are ongoing
Although I use Firefox, I will dutifully mention that Brave seems to be the best of all of them. I initially thought Brave was about seeing ads and earning crypto. Turns out this is something you opt-into. It goes much further than ungoogled-chromium and adds a ton of patches to protect privacy.
What's a good youtube alternative? The only thing I found so far was odysee. I'd rather go back to quality videos made by actual humans than money grab spam. Are there some sites where some creators cross post?
There really isn’t one. That’s what a monopoly is and why we used to have laws that were enforced that prevented that from happening.
Standard Oil YouTube is where you will get your videos.
Standard Oil YouTube is where you will get your videos.
Check out Curiosity Stream and Nebula
A bunch of creators I liked on YT were advertising Nebula, among other things talking about not dealing with "The Algorithm", so I tried it out. I liked not having the ads, but it turns out "The Algorithm" is actually a feature for me. On Nebula, it's like Netflix: your home page is whatever they feel like showing you, not stuff somewhat connected to what you've watched and liked before. Also, there's no comments or likes, so no way to give the creators any kind of feedback (even something as simple as, "You have an editing mistake at 2:24").
That's a shame because I love having recommendations for the same topic. On YouTube the videos in the sidebar don't have anything to do with the video I'm watching and that sucks.
Thanks, I'll check out Nebula.
I'm not sure if I'm the outlier in this regard, but in my case, I simply stopped watching YouTube. (Good job, Google!)
I have been using Piped to watch a few programming related videos, though.
I have been using Piped to watch a few programming related videos, though.
I watch Youtube on Apple TV so ad blockers don’t work. Instead I bought YouTube premium from India via VPN which costed me 1159 INR or 14USD for 12 months. Totally worth the time saved.
I thought they already closed the loophole. You have to have a local card to be able to buy it.
Perhaps depends which country? I know someone who just did it with Venezuela and it worked fine.
What happens if you set your Apple TV hosting device to use Ad Guard DNS, or your local LAN router to use the same?
https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html
https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html
DNS level blocking doesn’t work for YouTube as far as I know.
Will not work, yt is sending requests through https. The only way, as I saw recently would be a script that decodes https and Google's encoded objects and sets some flags to true, making yt believe you have premium or altering them in a way that will make the ad request invalid
It has nothing to do with HTTPS, it's just that ads are served from the same domain.
You can use Yattee with Invidious or Piped
on a Apple TV without
any jailbreak
https://github.com/yattee/yattee
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yattee/id1595136629
Guide https://np.reddit.com/r/Yattee/comments/13d3lj7/how_to_set_u...
https://github.com/yattee/yattee
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yattee/id1595136629
Guide https://np.reddit.com/r/Yattee/comments/13d3lj7/how_to_set_u...
Can’t use my account with it though
Seems like you can, no?
https://github.com/yattee/yattee/wiki/Features#availability
https://github.com/yattee/yattee/wiki/Features#availability
The guide said "It doesn't support Google or YouTube accounts, but it does support Invidious and Piped accounts." so that's what I was referring to. Not sure.
> Instead I bought YouTube premium from India via VPN
Tangentially, I would sometimes buy Switch games from Nintendo's online Hong Kong store.
This cost slightly less (like, USD$57 instead of $60) than buying them from the US store. But, if you connect your Switch through a VPN to Hong Kong, your Hong-Kong-purchased game will unlock according to the local time in Hong Kong, getting you almost a full extra day compared to the US release date. (I actually used a VPN to Singapore; that's what's available on Digital Ocean. Still works.)
Tangentially, I would sometimes buy Switch games from Nintendo's online Hong Kong store.
This cost slightly less (like, USD$57 instead of $60) than buying them from the US store. But, if you connect your Switch through a VPN to Hong Kong, your Hong-Kong-purchased game will unlock according to the local time in Hong Kong, getting you almost a full extra day compared to the US release date. (I actually used a VPN to Singapore; that's what's available on Digital Ocean. Still works.)
Talking about tangential matters your comment make me look up region locks because I remember buying japanese PS2 games only to find at home that they don't work in Europe. Turn out the PS2 was the last region locked console, wasn't aware they removed this restriction from latter consoles.
I did not know this either. I had three PS2s, three Gamecubes and three Xboxes for this reason. I used to spend hundreds of dollars to get them shipped from Japan overnight on launch day. Those were the days!
Until they disable your account for a TOS violation. I’d only do this with a throwaway account in case the get zealous about this.
The "war" headline makes it sound incendiary.
What I read was a fascinating story about how conflicted the whole space is, and how Google is sponsoring developers to work on ad-blocking technology, and about how Google concedes that advertisement is problematic from many sides, privacy, distraction, inappropriate context....
Personally I loathe and detest advertisements, and the entire advertising industry because "consumerism" is a derelict philosophy.
But from a simply practical stance, I use video clips in education, so yt-dlp ensures I have a reliable offline copy for lectures. Having ads show up in a lesson or conference would be wholly inappropriate.
On the other hand I've read comments from people here who say they love ads. They say they find them useful, and even that targeted ads bring value to their lives.
If those people are being sincere (and why would they not be?), then there's obviously a market for advertising. And a need for ad-free technology too. I'm all for diversity. It's nice that different people have different tastes and needs.
So if YouTube were sincere, and technically capable, we'd simply have two URLs
https://noads.youtube.com/ and https://ads.youtube.com/
People could choose what they want. Ads or no ads.
Instead of that we get "war", which is always a bonfire of wealth, and psychologically deleterious to all involved.
So some thoughts come to mind;
Maybe The people who say they "like ads" aren't sincere. They are either paid mouthpieces for the advertising industry, or they suffer from "identification" (aka fanboyism) which leads them to make dishonest comments.
Or perhaps YouTube haven't realised how stupid they are being spending millions on fighting ad-blockers when instead they could just offer an ad-free channel to those that want it.
Or even more silly; nobody has realised that the optimal solution (economically and politically) is just giving people what they want in the first place, rather than turning it into a childish battle of wills.
What I read was a fascinating story about how conflicted the whole space is, and how Google is sponsoring developers to work on ad-blocking technology, and about how Google concedes that advertisement is problematic from many sides, privacy, distraction, inappropriate context....
Personally I loathe and detest advertisements, and the entire advertising industry because "consumerism" is a derelict philosophy.
But from a simply practical stance, I use video clips in education, so yt-dlp ensures I have a reliable offline copy for lectures. Having ads show up in a lesson or conference would be wholly inappropriate.
On the other hand I've read comments from people here who say they love ads. They say they find them useful, and even that targeted ads bring value to their lives.
If those people are being sincere (and why would they not be?), then there's obviously a market for advertising. And a need for ad-free technology too. I'm all for diversity. It's nice that different people have different tastes and needs.
So if YouTube were sincere, and technically capable, we'd simply have two URLs
https://noads.youtube.com/ and https://ads.youtube.com/
People could choose what they want. Ads or no ads.
Instead of that we get "war", which is always a bonfire of wealth, and psychologically deleterious to all involved.
So some thoughts come to mind;
Maybe The people who say they "like ads" aren't sincere. They are either paid mouthpieces for the advertising industry, or they suffer from "identification" (aka fanboyism) which leads them to make dishonest comments.
Or perhaps YouTube haven't realised how stupid they are being spending millions on fighting ad-blockers when instead they could just offer an ad-free channel to those that want it.
Or even more silly; nobody has realised that the optimal solution (economically and politically) is just giving people what they want in the first place, rather than turning it into a childish battle of wills.
> So if YouTube were sincere, and technically capable, we'd simply have two URLs https://noads.youtube.com/ and https://ads.youtube.com/
They do. The noads one is available with a subscription.
They do. The noads one is available with a subscription.
Exactly!
You can _pay_ not to be inconvenienced and harmed. Whereas they could simply be less greedy and make money from the folks for whom advertisements are a harmless convenience.
That's precisely what makes YouTube (and therefore Google) an unethical company.
I mean, you made the case for me! I was avoiding saying that Google are wicked and evil by presenting a rational win-win - along with the possibility that they might have missed the rational solution :)
But your observation that they _exploit_ the discomfort of others (rather than providing a valued product) , when there is no need to, says everything that needs to be said.
TFA presents Google as being "conflicted" by a "complex landscape". So much so that they "sponsor" ad-blocking researchers. And we are supposed to be sympathetic and say; "geee yah, ain't business hard"
The reality is that they're just greedy and totally full of shit.
You can _pay_ not to be inconvenienced and harmed. Whereas they could simply be less greedy and make money from the folks for whom advertisements are a harmless convenience.
That's precisely what makes YouTube (and therefore Google) an unethical company.
I mean, you made the case for me! I was avoiding saying that Google are wicked and evil by presenting a rational win-win - along with the possibility that they might have missed the rational solution :)
But your observation that they _exploit_ the discomfort of others (rather than providing a valued product) , when there is no need to, says everything that needs to be said.
TFA presents Google as being "conflicted" by a "complex landscape". So much so that they "sponsor" ad-blocking researchers. And we are supposed to be sympathetic and say; "geee yah, ain't business hard"
The reality is that they're just greedy and totally full of shit.
I think they're unethical for other reasons (e.g. WEI and other attempts to break interoperability).
But just asking for money or ads is pretty common in business. And basically no one likes either. Just because people don't want to part with their cash doesn't make it unethical to demand it in exchange for goods or services, does it? Or to demand money for a higher-value product.
I figure a lot of this seemingly contradictory behavior is out there for plausible deniability when they go before the judge. "No, see we weren't trying to force people into a certain product by leveraging our majority market position. We're trying to give them options!"
But their number one goal is to make money, so, yes, they are greedy in that regard.
But just asking for money or ads is pretty common in business. And basically no one likes either. Just because people don't want to part with their cash doesn't make it unethical to demand it in exchange for goods or services, does it? Or to demand money for a higher-value product.
I figure a lot of this seemingly contradictory behavior is out there for plausible deniability when they go before the judge. "No, see we weren't trying to force people into a certain product by leveraging our majority market position. We're trying to give them options!"
But their number one goal is to make money, so, yes, they are greedy in that regard.
Sure. Let's not start enumerating all the ways that Google are
unethical, because I am not sure how well Dang and the team have
hardened $max_post_length against buffer overflows.
> Just because people don't want to part with their cash doesn't make it unethical to demand it in exchange for goods or services, does it?
I don't think I said or even implied that. There are many ways to provide value and run a good business. And "cash"! I'm probably one of the biggest advocates of that around here :)
> I figure a lot of this seemingly contradictory behaviour is out there for plausible deniability when they go before the judge. "No, see we weren't trying to force people into a certain product by leveraging our majority market position. We're trying to give them options!"
That, very much. So, in Cantor's style, let's add dishonesty to the infinite set of all ways Google are unethical :)
> Just because people don't want to part with their cash doesn't make it unethical to demand it in exchange for goods or services, does it?
I don't think I said or even implied that. There are many ways to provide value and run a good business. And "cash"! I'm probably one of the biggest advocates of that around here :)
> I figure a lot of this seemingly contradictory behaviour is out there for plausible deniability when they go before the judge. "No, see we weren't trying to force people into a certain product by leveraging our majority market position. We're trying to give them options!"
That, very much. So, in Cantor's style, let's add dishonesty to the infinite set of all ways Google are unethical :)
GOOG is an ad company so any sponsoring they do is only going to be to their benefit. It particular it will be used as a means to promote their ad-blocking technology in Chrome which allows only certain ads through. If you can't beat them then try to control them within. Fox in the chicken coup, etc. Plenty of metaphors for GOOG's predatory practices here. Personally, the sooner ad companies like GOOG are wiped from the face of the planet then the better for humanity.
> Personally, the sooner ad companies like GOOG are wiped from the
face of the planet then the better for humanity.
I fully agree. The Bill Hicks position on advertising and marketing always seemed a little charitable to me.
And yet there is space, indeed a great necessity, for companies like the one Google used to be. Independent commercial actors are an absolutely vital element of our information ecosystem. Otherwise, who wants to rely on governments and regulators to oversee search and manage "truth" ?
Here, we all know that the story of Google is a story of "The Fall" (Not Mark E Smith's band). And we always talk of that corruption as if it were "inevitable", a fact of human nature no less. But I don't think so, and remain optimistic that "How we stop the enshitification of everything?" remains a vital question.
Google is the lesson.
Google became an ad company. They fucked up. They dropped the ball. They turned their back on a worthy and moral mission. They turned their back on truth. In the end nothing achieved at Google by all those smart hard working people will be remembered as anything but a cheap manipulation. Just another crappy advertiser who took the immense potential of "The Information Age", held it in their hands, and then utterly betrayed it.
I fully agree. The Bill Hicks position on advertising and marketing always seemed a little charitable to me.
And yet there is space, indeed a great necessity, for companies like the one Google used to be. Independent commercial actors are an absolutely vital element of our information ecosystem. Otherwise, who wants to rely on governments and regulators to oversee search and manage "truth" ?
Here, we all know that the story of Google is a story of "The Fall" (Not Mark E Smith's band). And we always talk of that corruption as if it were "inevitable", a fact of human nature no less. But I don't think so, and remain optimistic that "How we stop the enshitification of everything?" remains a vital question.
Google is the lesson.
Google became an ad company. They fucked up. They dropped the ball. They turned their back on a worthy and moral mission. They turned their back on truth. In the end nothing achieved at Google by all those smart hard working people will be remembered as anything but a cheap manipulation. Just another crappy advertiser who took the immense potential of "The Information Age", held it in their hands, and then utterly betrayed it.
To be honest blocking ad sounds like borderline piracy specially when a service offered for free depends on it.
Idk if I'd go that far. But I'm surprised at how much anger there is around the move. As if a service like YouTube could run without revenue forever.
It's a twitter-like situation. You can't simply look to payment of money directly to the company as a metric of how much power they've got.
What is it worth to wholly control the algorithm by which the whole world is shown its media, and have it summed up as 'the algorithm' and neither publicized nor questioned? How much would you pay to be in that situation? How much could you ask of third parties if you are the choke-point by which everyone gets their limited picture on the world: limited by specifically you, and you get away with it?
Monopoly in this kind of space is WAY more valuable than getting paid by users. You literally control the world on a statistical basis, which is how that is done in the first place. It's power arguably beyond states and governments, in a black box that just goes on operating, without much argument.
That's better than revenue, if you can keep it up and running, which Google has no trouble doing. There's a reason they do.
What is it worth to wholly control the algorithm by which the whole world is shown its media, and have it summed up as 'the algorithm' and neither publicized nor questioned? How much would you pay to be in that situation? How much could you ask of third parties if you are the choke-point by which everyone gets their limited picture on the world: limited by specifically you, and you get away with it?
Monopoly in this kind of space is WAY more valuable than getting paid by users. You literally control the world on a statistical basis, which is how that is done in the first place. It's power arguably beyond states and governments, in a black box that just goes on operating, without much argument.
That's better than revenue, if you can keep it up and running, which Google has no trouble doing. There's a reason they do.
I hear you. They ignored AdBlock for a while but the business is maturing and shareholders want dollars. What you describe is useful as a business strategy but waxing on about the intangible influence of controlling YouTube isn't going to play well if the business unit revenue is down.
I think Google is tightening up the business to keep the party going.
I think Google is tightening up the business to keep the party going.
The thing is, the areas where that strategy is MOST useful are the areas that'll get you in big trouble. They could well have taken big money, even nation-state money, for a while there, upended the whole damn planet in service of aiding state actors who're now imploding, and could be scrambling to transition to a less risky strategy.
That would be an example of trading on the true power of monopoly, algorithm and YouTube, and then having it turn and bite you. If you're selling influence to bad actors for exorbitant sums, you'd better win, by which I mean THEY had better win. Otherwise you're left holding the bag.
If it's that, I'm happy to have them pivot. Because that would be a pretty apocalyptic scenario, even as a nebulous strategy that was never implemented. If it WAS ever implemented, I'm betting it backfired and they're desperate to fall back on more seemingly normal behavior.
That would be an example of trading on the true power of monopoly, algorithm and YouTube, and then having it turn and bite you. If you're selling influence to bad actors for exorbitant sums, you'd better win, by which I mean THEY had better win. Otherwise you're left holding the bag.
If it's that, I'm happy to have them pivot. Because that would be a pretty apocalyptic scenario, even as a nebulous strategy that was never implemented. If it WAS ever implemented, I'm betting it backfired and they're desperate to fall back on more seemingly normal behavior.
I committed piracy everyday growing up then when I went to the bathroom during commercial breaks.
Who was that TV exec who said that skipping ads on commercial telly is theft.
I don't remember, but I think it was a congressional hearing...? I was definitely all about DVR ad skipping.
Somebody on the panel asked if it was acceptable to get up and go to the bathroom during an ad, and the TV executive was forced to answer that it was.
Somebody on the panel asked if it was acceptable to get up and go to the bathroom during an ad, and the TV executive was forced to answer that it was.
I do not have a problem with ad support. I have next to no tolerance for the way too common behaviour where a service pretends to be free to attract a large enough user base to make switching expensive, whereafter the service starts monetising its users aggressively. (The first steps in "enshittification".)
I do not feel any moral obligations to such companies.
I do not feel any moral obligations to such companies.
This is called capitalism. Everyone tries to get as much for themselves as possible. No morals needed. Greed is good ;). Why should only Big Cos play that game? AdBlockers aren't breaking any laws yet (might change soon).
Going into Target and stuffing a pack of socks down your pants isn't technically illegal either. Walking out with it becomes stealing though, so while having hotdogs down your pants isn't specifically illegal, it doesn't have to be.
The CFAA is written broadly enough that adblockers could already be considered illegal under it.
The CFAA is written broadly enough that adblockers could already be considered illegal under it.
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Agreed, I would not be surprised if adblocking were treated like piracy in the near future: "You wouldn't download a car without watching the ads first" ;)
In my humble opinion, they are buying their tickets to the ad-blocking technology they need.
A sure fire way to guarantee this access, is to sponsor said conference.
A sure fire way to guarantee this access, is to sponsor said conference.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish?
EEE doesn't work in open-source context. Adblock is not a product - it's a culture.
Considering that Hacker News is a developer-oriented website, I half-expected the responses here to be "pfft, I don't watch Youtube on Youtube anyway, never seen any ads". There are technical solutions to this and I don't mean workarounds like ad blockers. I don't want to sound dismissive or condescending but why are we being held hostage by the likes of Youtube?
The code has been cracked. We know that by the existence of utilities like Invidious and youtube-dl yet people still behave as if we are somehow helpless in the face of Big Tech. You guys should be offering solutions but you seem content to just bellyache about it. I am sorry to see that.
The code has been cracked. We know that by the existence of utilities like Invidious and youtube-dl yet people still behave as if we are somehow helpless in the face of Big Tech. You guys should be offering solutions but you seem content to just bellyache about it. I am sorry to see that.
Seems like anyone who wants their video to get maximum exposure would want to eliminate ads for anyone who's willing to watch it and should be able to buy out the ads on their end.