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> if everyone were to start using Vanced overnight, YouTube wouldn't be able to justify staying up indefinitely. I personally find categorical imperative argum

> if everyone were to start using Vanced overnight, YouTube wouldn't be able to justify staying up indefinitely. I personally find categorical imperative arguments to be ridiculous. almost anything could be bad if everyone did them all the time. the reality is that adblocking, torrenting, and similar workarounds are used by a small subset of technically savvy users. most people just don't care enough to configure any of these tools (or even switch to a browser where they are on by default!). Google is not going to run out of ad revenue any time soon. I don't feel any obligation to allow Google to use my own device and internet connection to serve me ad content that I don't wish to see. Google doesn't seem to care very much either; the most they do is reorganize APIs every so often to break these kinds of workarounds. I'm not sure that's even intentional tbh. content creators have reacted by embedding ads in the content itself. this is usually more tolerable than the preroll ads, so I don't really mind. I do agree there is a cost to adblocking and torrenting, but it's not the one you identified. when I pay for content or view associated ads, I am voting for more of that type of content to exist in the future. when I don't pay or block ads, I am throwing away my vote. for most throwaway content, I don't really care. but I find a way to pay for stuff I do care about, or at least disable adblock while I'm consuming it.

gtirloni 5y ago
If Youtube enabled an ad-free experience on a per creator/channel basis, would that be a good compromise for you?
- bduerst 5y ago
  What would that user experience look like? $0.50/mo per channel? $5/mo for all minecraft channels? Given the overhwelming negative response to how cable priced and bundled channels, and the simplicity that competitors like Netflix have, I'm not sure users would prefer that.
- realusername 5y ago
  I can answer since I'm also using Vanced. The core issue for me is that what YouTube provides isn't valuable enough by itself for a monthly payment. They don't produce their own content like Netflix, they are at best a video distribution platform, I can pay to creators I watch via Patreon but to YouTube itself, that's complicated, they would have to get a very low share of the creator revenue to start to feel convincing.
DetroitThrow 5y ago
>I personally find categorical imperative arguments to be ridiculous. almost anything could be bad if everyone did them all the time. Btw..... This is in good faith but...... If everyone started using electric cars at once, the traffic jam would be unimaginable!!!! To me, individuals aren't thinking of the negative externalities :(( (especially to private oil monopolies)
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  Traffic jam? What kind of autonomy do you think modern EVs have? If you're gonna make a good faith argument about why we couldn't switch to 100% EV over night, talking about grids' capacities would be more genuine.
  - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
    I believe your parent poster was just poking fun at the "if everybody started to do X" construct. If all humans started to use EVs (or any other type of vehicles) at the same time, the traffic jams would indeed be horrific. At any given time perhaps <5% of people are on the roads, so how would you even fit 100% of people onto roads at the same time?
    - BbzzbB 5y ago
      Oh, didn't cross my mind. I think you are right and I probably misinterpreted the comment. My brain went straight to it being about running out of power and causing jams, probably because it was such a common fear with regards to EVs (and still is to an extent, CC Bill Gates and Porsche/Tesla in 2020). I'm sorry, GGP.
      - DetroitThrow 5y ago
        It was just a teasing comment about these devil's advocate style of comments being non-sensical and counter productive, and often in favor of some incumbent which normally receives pretty fair criticisms.
arnaudsm 5y ago
This used to be true, but now that 30-40% of the web audience uses adblockers, a wake-up call is imminent.
- lapetitejort 5y ago
  The wake-up call should be directed towards ad creators, not viewers. Ads slow down pages, clutter content, potentially inject malware, negatively emotionally manipulate the viewer, etc. I pay for two sites that I use daily so I don't see ads. Every single ad-serving site should have this option. My only fear is that Facebook, Twitter, et. al. cannot survive on a subscription amount alone. Our data and ad viewing is just too lucrative for them to stop.
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    The absolute worst is malvertising. That was actually my #1 reason for using an ad blocker: to prevent ads from trying to exploit security vulnerabilities and hijacking my web browser. It's exceptionally rare, for sure, but I've had ads on legitimate web pages forward me to an advertising site with no input from me. These days, though, the web is god damn near unusable without an ad blocker, especially on mobile. So much bandwidth (That I'm PAYING for! Data isn't free!) is wasted on content I don't want. I've seen a page have TWO ad videos playing at once, taking up well over 40% of my screen. Advertisers can cry me a god damn river. If they didn't make ads so damn intrusive, I wouldn't need a blocker. I don't even care about trackers, at least they make my ads relevant so I'm not seeing ads for Tampax. Now if only there was an easy way to block the god damn "WE USE COOKIES!" alerts.
    - frontier 5y ago
      > Now if only there was an easy way to block the god damn "WE USE COOKIES!" alerts. The Chrome extension store has you covered! I am using one called "I don't care about cookies" and I rarely see them these days.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> I don't feel any obligation to allow Google to use my own device and internet connection to serve me ad content that I don't wish to see. That's disingenuous because you're omitting the other half of the transaction: You are choosing, voluntarily, to consume the content that they are offering on their website. The implied arrangement is that you watch the ads (at least the first five seconds until the skip button appears) in exchange for them doing all the work of collecting, hosting, and delivering that content to you. Now obviously the financial value involved is de minimis in the case of a YouTube video, but nevertheless you're taking service and declining the payment. The actual offense is so vanishingly small that they basically don't care enough to do anything about it, but let's be honest about what's really happening here. They're not just sending ads to you for no reason without your consent.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  Google is so powerful they can basically mold their audience and is one of the most profitable companies in the world. I do not care if consumers want more control over their lives and do not wish to be propagandized by ads. Nor do I mind if they don't want to transfer more wealth to the fabulously wealthy. The transactional relationship morality being posited is more appropriate for relatively equal parties, or for the stronger party to give the the weaker party. For the weaker parties to owe stringent obligations to the cosmically stronger party creates a positive feedback loop of oppression. You might reply, but that's how the economy works. You have now advanced one step in your understanding.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > You are choosing, voluntarily, to consume the content that they are offering on their website. And they are choosing, voluntarily, to serve you videos unbundled from advertisements.
  - nomel 5y ago
    My assumption is that it's less of a monetary loss for them to serve the ads unbundled compared to putting the engineering resources behind bundling them. They, obviously, have the exact numbers readily available, and I assume the "money lost" lines will cross eventually. Regardless, there is a loss, and they'll respond to it when it becomes significant enough. edit: uBlock Origin has over 10,000,000 users, according to the chrome web store. I can only imagine something will change soon, or there's some serious technical debt holding things back.
AnyTimeTraveler 5y ago
YouTube Vanced also has experimental support for the SponsorBlock, which skips those sections of videos. You have to enable it manually and it works amazingly well.

gtirloni 5y ago

If Youtube enabled an ad-free experience on a per creator/channel basis, would that be a good compromise for you?

bduerst 5y ago
What would that user experience look like? $0.50/mo per channel? $5/mo for all minecraft channels? Given the overhwelming negative response to how cable priced and bundled channels, and the simplicity that competitors like Netflix have, I'm not sure users would prefer that.
realusername 5y ago
I can answer since I'm also using Vanced. The core issue for me is that what YouTube provides isn't valuable enough by itself for a monthly payment. They don't produce their own content like Netflix, they are at best a video distribution platform, I can pay to creators I watch via Patreon but to YouTube itself, that's complicated, they would have to get a very low share of the creator revenue to start to feel convincing.

DetroitThrow 5y ago

>I personally find categorical imperative arguments to be ridiculous. almost anything could be bad if everyone did them all the time. Btw..... This is in good faith but...... If everyone started using electric cars at once, the traffic jam would be unimaginable!!!! To me, individuals aren't thinking of the negative externalities :(( (especially to private oil monopolies)

BbzzbB 5y ago
Traffic jam? What kind of autonomy do you think modern EVs have? If you're gonna make a good faith argument about why we couldn't switch to 100% EV over night, talking about grids' capacities would be more genuine.
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  I believe your parent poster was just poking fun at the "if everybody started to do X" construct. If all humans started to use EVs (or any other type of vehicles) at the same time, the traffic jams would indeed be horrific. At any given time perhaps <5% of people are on the roads, so how would you even fit 100% of people onto roads at the same time?
  - BbzzbB 5y ago
    Oh, didn't cross my mind. I think you are right and I probably misinterpreted the comment. My brain went straight to it being about running out of power and causing jams, probably because it was such a common fear with regards to EVs (and still is to an extent, CC Bill Gates and Porsche/Tesla in 2020). I'm sorry, GGP.
    - DetroitThrow 5y ago
      It was just a teasing comment about these devil's advocate style of comments being non-sensical and counter productive, and often in favor of some incumbent which normally receives pretty fair criticisms.

arnaudsm 5y ago

This used to be true, but now that 30-40% of the web audience uses adblockers, a wake-up call is imminent.

lapetitejort 5y ago
The wake-up call should be directed towards ad creators, not viewers. Ads slow down pages, clutter content, potentially inject malware, negatively emotionally manipulate the viewer, etc. I pay for two sites that I use daily so I don't see ads. Every single ad-serving site should have this option. My only fear is that Facebook, Twitter, et. al. cannot survive on a subscription amount alone. Our data and ad viewing is just too lucrative for them to stop.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  The absolute worst is malvertising. That was actually my #1 reason for using an ad blocker: to prevent ads from trying to exploit security vulnerabilities and hijacking my web browser. It's exceptionally rare, for sure, but I've had ads on legitimate web pages forward me to an advertising site with no input from me. These days, though, the web is god damn near unusable without an ad blocker, especially on mobile. So much bandwidth (That I'm PAYING for! Data isn't free!) is wasted on content I don't want. I've seen a page have TWO ad videos playing at once, taking up well over 40% of my screen. Advertisers can cry me a god damn river. If they didn't make ads so damn intrusive, I wouldn't need a blocker. I don't even care about trackers, at least they make my ads relevant so I'm not seeing ads for Tampax. Now if only there was an easy way to block the god damn "WE USE COOKIES!" alerts.
  - frontier 5y ago
    > Now if only there was an easy way to block the god damn "WE USE COOKIES!" alerts. The Chrome extension store has you covered! I am using one called "I don't care about cookies" and I rarely see them these days.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> I don't feel any obligation to allow Google to use my own device and internet connection to serve me ad content that I don't wish to see. That's disingenuous because you're omitting the other half of the transaction: You are choosing, voluntarily, to consume the content that they are offering on their website. The implied arrangement is that you watch the ads (at least the first five seconds until the skip button appears) in exchange for them doing all the work of collecting, hosting, and delivering that content to you. Now obviously the financial value involved is de minimis in the case of a YouTube video, but nevertheless you're taking service and declining the payment. The actual offense is so vanishingly small that they basically don't care enough to do anything about it, but let's be honest about what's really happening here. They're not just sending ads to you for no reason without your consent.

tehjoker 5y ago
Google is so powerful they can basically mold their audience and is one of the most profitable companies in the world. I do not care if consumers want more control over their lives and do not wish to be propagandized by ads. Nor do I mind if they don't want to transfer more wealth to the fabulously wealthy. The transactional relationship morality being posited is more appropriate for relatively equal parties, or for the stronger party to give the the weaker party. For the weaker parties to owe stringent obligations to the cosmically stronger party creates a positive feedback loop of oppression. You might reply, but that's how the economy works. You have now advanced one step in your understanding.
tshaddox 5y ago
> You are choosing, voluntarily, to consume the content that they are offering on their website. And they are choosing, voluntarily, to serve you videos unbundled from advertisements.
- nomel 5y ago
  My assumption is that it's less of a monetary loss for them to serve the ads unbundled compared to putting the engineering resources behind bundling them. They, obviously, have the exact numbers readily available, and I assume the "money lost" lines will cross eventually. Regardless, there is a loss, and they'll respond to it when it becomes significant enough. edit: uBlock Origin has over 10,000,000 users, according to the chrome web store. I can only imagine something will change soon, or there's some serious technical debt holding things back.

AnyTimeTraveler 5y ago

YouTube Vanced also has experimental support for the SponsorBlock, which skips those sections of videos. You have to enable it manually and it works amazingly well.