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I wonder if we're gonna see an ad-blocker-blocker-blocker kinda race going on here. As long as the code runs in the users' browser, there should be a way around

I wonder if we're gonna see an ad-blocker-blocker-blocker kinda race going on here. As long as the code runs in the users' browser, there should be a way around it. Makes me wonder if they'll ever move to WASM... though I assume there's gonna be ways to block ads regardless.

rolph 3y ago
im assuming there's gonna be ways to bypass y0utub3 and go straight to the videos. in the meantime g00gle continues to footgun, provide motivation and traction for exodus and competition, and a peertube-like non-exclusive for the masses.
lp0_on_fire 3y ago
I'll just stop using YouTube if they make ads unblockable. The quality of content on the site has decreased dramatically as the result of of their pushing corporate media/youtube "creators" to the top of search results. It's literally not worth it to me to pay for a subscription that _might_ reduce the number of ads I see.
- tharkun__ 3y ago
  This. I recently re-setup my HTPC and forgot to add the usual plugins and suddenly instead of actually being able to watch youtube stuff, there was a BS ad every few minutes. It was essentially unwatchable. But I would never pay premium for that. Sure I care about some of that content, but it's not a lot and if I had to pay for it, I'd rather pay the author directly via say Patreon than to give it to Google and the author may or may not get some of that and they constantly have to try and "be nice to the algorithm" in order to get their share of the money. I really don't care if the algorithm thinks they're worthy of being listed in people's feeds. I like their content, period.
  - _trampeltier 3y ago
    And most serious (tech) channels are on other platforms too. So most times no problem.
  - lp0_on_fire 3y ago
    Honestly the algorithm they use to pick and choose which ads they show me is as annoying as video feed algorithm. I didn't mind the 5-second ads. Two to three of them before a video? I'd deliberately sit through those. Seemed a fair deal. That's now largely gone away (in my experience) and now it wants to show me longer, un-skippable ads. Not only at the beginning but randomly in the middle of videos regardless of what's going on in the video. At least on Television has natural commercial breaks "baked in" to the format. Oh. And stop showing me the same four cookie-cutter ads every few minutes. It's annoying at best, condescending at worst. If you must advertise to me at least give me some variety.
- TheBozzCL 3y ago
  I feel you. It's a shame though, the interesting content is still there. Hopefully those youtubers will branch into other platforms.
dvngnt_ 3y ago
there's already: new pipe, revanced, and invidious. I could see Google trying and eventually giving up after blocking the the most obvious workarounds just like everything else they do
progmetaldev 3y ago
I'm honestly surprised that Google hasn't directly injected the ads into the video itself, so it can't be skipped beyond some kind of AI looking for drastic scene changes.
- TheBozzCL 3y ago
  Shhhh, don't give them ideas.
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    They definitely have had the idea for a long time. It is almost certainly a technical limitation stopping them. I'd guess that decoding, splicing, and then re-encoding is too compute intensive for it to be worth it.
    - waselighis 3y ago
      No need to re-encode the video. Just split the video at a keyframe and inject an ad at that point, no re-encoding required. Most video files have keyframes every few seconds or so. The proper term is I-frames, though they're commonly known as keyframes as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_type...
      - M95D 3y ago
        Not so easy with audio. With any variable bitrate audio codec, there will be sync problems.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Google doesn't do it but the creators already do. There's sponsorblock for that though. Paying for things is also on the table.
  - Gigachad 3y ago
TillE 3y ago
That's exactly what's been going on with Twitch for the past several months, and frankly Twitch is winning. All of the ad blockers are now pretty jank. Sometimes they don't work at all, sometimes you need to refresh a couple times to get the stream to play. I think Alternate Player somehow still works despite being unmaintained, but its stream is always 5+ seconds behind no matter how you tweak the buffer settings.
- Jnr 3y ago
  Could it be that they are testing it only on some users? Or maybe the limits of manifest V3 come into play for Chrome? ( https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ublock-origin-stopped-working-manifestv3 https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ublock-origin-stopped-working-... ) I am using Firefox with uBlock origin and don't have those issues on Twitch.
  - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    Same as you but I still have trouble with Twitch.
- psychphysic 3y ago
  The easiest way to win this war is if an adblocker is detected just make your site unreliable outright claiming an error is risky (see the infamous AARD code[0]) so better let the user come to the realisation. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code

rolph 3y ago

im assuming there's gonna be ways to bypass y0utub3 and go straight to the videos. in the meantime g00gle continues to footgun, provide motivation and traction for exodus and competition, and a peertube-like non-exclusive for the masses.

lp0_on_fire 3y ago

I'll just stop using YouTube if they make ads unblockable. The quality of content on the site has decreased dramatically as the result of of their pushing corporate media/youtube "creators" to the top of search results. It's literally not worth it to me to pay for a subscription that _might_ reduce the number of ads I see.

tharkun__ 3y ago
This. I recently re-setup my HTPC and forgot to add the usual plugins and suddenly instead of actually being able to watch youtube stuff, there was a BS ad every few minutes. It was essentially unwatchable. But I would never pay premium for that. Sure I care about some of that content, but it's not a lot and if I had to pay for it, I'd rather pay the author directly via say Patreon than to give it to Google and the author may or may not get some of that and they constantly have to try and "be nice to the algorithm" in order to get their share of the money. I really don't care if the algorithm thinks they're worthy of being listed in people's feeds. I like their content, period.
- _trampeltier 3y ago
  And most serious (tech) channels are on other platforms too. So most times no problem.
- lp0_on_fire 3y ago
  Honestly the algorithm they use to pick and choose which ads they show me is as annoying as video feed algorithm. I didn't mind the 5-second ads. Two to three of them before a video? I'd deliberately sit through those. Seemed a fair deal. That's now largely gone away (in my experience) and now it wants to show me longer, un-skippable ads. Not only at the beginning but randomly in the middle of videos regardless of what's going on in the video. At least on Television has natural commercial breaks "baked in" to the format. Oh. And stop showing me the same four cookie-cutter ads every few minutes. It's annoying at best, condescending at worst. If you must advertise to me at least give me some variety.
TheBozzCL 3y ago
I feel you. It's a shame though, the interesting content is still there. Hopefully those youtubers will branch into other platforms.

dvngnt_ 3y ago

there's already: new pipe, revanced, and invidious. I could see Google trying and eventually giving up after blocking the the most obvious workarounds just like everything else they do

progmetaldev 3y ago

I'm honestly surprised that Google hasn't directly injected the ads into the video itself, so it can't be skipped beyond some kind of AI looking for drastic scene changes.

TheBozzCL 3y ago
Shhhh, don't give them ideas.
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  They definitely have had the idea for a long time. It is almost certainly a technical limitation stopping them. I'd guess that decoding, splicing, and then re-encoding is too compute intensive for it to be worth it.
  - waselighis 3y ago
    No need to re-encode the video. Just split the video at a keyframe and inject an ad at that point, no re-encoding required. Most video files have keyframes every few seconds or so. The proper term is I-frames, though they're commonly known as keyframes as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_type...
    - M95D 3y ago
      Not so easy with audio. With any variable bitrate audio codec, there will be sync problems.
fragmede 3y ago
Google doesn't do it but the creators already do. There's sponsorblock for that though. Paying for things is also on the table.
- Gigachad 3y ago

TillE 3y ago

That's exactly what's been going on with Twitch for the past several months, and frankly Twitch is winning. All of the ad blockers are now pretty jank. Sometimes they don't work at all, sometimes you need to refresh a couple times to get the stream to play. I think Alternate Player somehow still works despite being unmaintained, but its stream is always 5+ seconds behind no matter how you tweak the buffer settings.

Jnr 3y ago
Could it be that they are testing it only on some users? Or maybe the limits of manifest V3 come into play for Chrome? ( https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ublock-origin-stopped-working-manifestv3 https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ublock-origin-stopped-working-... ) I am using Firefox with uBlock origin and don't have those issues on Twitch.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Same as you but I still have trouble with Twitch.
psychphysic 3y ago
The easiest way to win this war is if an adblocker is detected just make your site unreliable outright claiming an error is risky (see the infamous AARD code[0]) so better let the user come to the realisation. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code