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So YouTube is going to make it impossible to watch without ads. Reddit's communities are going dark because Reddit (essentially) wants more ad revenue. Facebook

So YouTube is going to make it impossible to watch without ads. Reddit's communities are going dark because Reddit (essentially) wants more ad revenue. Facebook and Instagram have been plastered with ads for longer than they haven't. And we're just a short hop from ads being "Attention required" with eyeballs tracked. I wonder if there's a possibility that this will shake Youtube from it's dominance.

smarkov 3y ago
> I wonder if there's a possibility that this will shake Youtube from it's dominance. Sadly, very unlikely. I recommend AdBlockers and YouTube app alternatives without ads to basically everyone and the vast majority of people would rather watch ads than deal with installing something even if it'll take a few seconds. There's enough of us (adblock users) for Google to want to take profit from but not enough to make a dent in YouTube's monopoly even if we all moved to something else.
ThatPlayer 3y ago
> if there's a possibility that this will shake Youtube from it's dominance. Yes, I'm sure everyone is fighting for an audience who refuse to pay and block all ads. And of course the audience who do sit through ads or pay are therefore not going to switch and stick with YouTube. So unless you want to burn money, I really don't see a viable business model there. Unless you think you can take the initial hit to grow a big enough audience and then force ads and paid subscriptions on everyone to make that money back.
grishka 3y ago
Not impossible. It's not like they're going to DRM this shit with treacherous execution environments and all that. Your browser is still your user agent. I'm sure an extension to bypass this would pop up days after the wide rollout, if any.
cwkoss 3y ago
Reminds me of 'PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN' copypasta Ads are truly a cancer on human culture, I hope society decides to wage a war on them soon.
- RoyGBivCap 3y ago
  Didn't you hear? It's now EAT VERIFICATION SANDWICH: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/get-diablo-4-early-beta-access-by-buying-a-kfc-sandwich/1100-6512194/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/get-diablo-4-early-beta-ac... They're doing another promotion for cosmetics too. And it's not even per sandwich, it's per purchase. So to get them all, you have to have 4 separate transactions.
- ohdannyboy 3y ago
  And replace them with what? Direct payment options?
  - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    Most people are probably too poor to do too many direct payment options, so they'll get choosier about what they consume, and advertisers will still be SOL. Strangely I don't feel any pity for the human-shaped turds.
  - thiht 3y ago
    It’s too late for that. On YouTube even if you pay for premium, you still get ads in the form of sponsored segments, and probably in the recommendation algorithm (I’d be surprised if big corps had no way to pay to bump their videos in search results). More and more platforms will try the « paid subscription with ads » in the coming years.
    - thallium205 3y ago
      But with premium the scroll bar at least will tell you where to scroll to to skip the ad via the histogram.
      - thiht 3y ago
        With SponsorBlock it will skip the ad for you.
    - ryan-allen 3y ago
xboxnolifes 3y ago
> So YouTube is going to make it impossible to watch without ads. There is an option.
- thiht 3y ago
  The only option is uBlock + SponsorBlock. YouTube premium is still full of ads.
  - ryan-allen 3y ago
    What country are you in? I have YouTube Premium and I don't get _any_ ads at all from YouTube, only the sponsored segments from creators directly (and no, NordVPN, I don't need a VPN, yes I know you exist).
    - thiht 3y ago
      These are ads.
      - nickthegreek 3y ago
        They aren't Google's ads.
        thiht 3y ago
        They’re still ads which I don’t want to see
        JCharante 3y ago
        Blame the creators you watch
        wiseowise 3y ago
        Why should they? YouTube Premium literally says ad-free. Not my problem how Google moderates their videos. They’re pretty efficient in demonetizing videos or entire channels for a couple of swear words or god forbid a nipple somewhere, but taking a mental dump in my head with some useless shit that I don’t care about is apparently fine.
weeblewobble 3y ago
Nah Reddit is pretty much back to normal. The protest is over. There are a few big subreddits like r/interestingasfuck that are still closed, but these are more like meme channels than communities. People can just get the same dozen gifs a day from r/damnthatsinteresting, r/whoadude, etc.
- Panoramix 3y ago
  Didn't their valuation dropped in half? An effort to marginally increase profits cost them billions in the end.
- coremoff 3y ago
  That might be true today - but tomorrow (1st July) may be different; that's when the API changes take effect and 3rd party apps no longer work. If, as is widely (self) reported, many mods and power users interact with reddit via 3rd party apps; we won't see the true impact of the API changes until they're active.
  - Balgair 3y ago
    Already, r/all is now a lot more of strange subreddits (trurateme?) that really shouldn't be there and were founded on much smaller communities. If what the mods say about their tools is in fact true, then: Next, you're going to see a lot more spam as mods tools are gone and most of America is on a long weekend with a family holiday at the end. Next, the spammers are going to quickly figure out the mods are asleep/gone and up the crap game even more. Next, the creeps are going to post more less-than-kosher material, with reporting of it essentially going into unread inboxes by overworked mods. Next, r/all is going to be, well, boring and gross. All the spam will make you go, huh, that's not very interesting. All the less-than-kosher stuff is going to make you go yuck. Then, you're going to say to yourself, we'll see how long this lasts. And if it lasts until ~July 8th or so, you'll have found your next reddit fix. Again, all predicated on what the mods are saying is true.
    - miki123211 3y ago
      > Next, the creeps are going to post more less-than-kosher material, with reporting of it essentially going into unread inboxes by overworked mods. If anything can hurt Reddit, it's that kind of material. Advertisers really, really don't like controversial content, and are the first to pull out of any service that even smells of controversy or political incorrectness, see what happened to Twitter revenues after the Musk takeover. The Reddit protests would have been far more effective if people started posting (and/or moderators stopped removing) gore, porn and Swastikas everywhere, maybe with a sprinkling of racism and homophobia on top.
ryan-allen 3y ago
The warning screenshot posted in the article says that you can enjoy YouTube without ads if you sign up for Premium.
tantalor 3y ago
> impossible to watch without ads https://www.youtube.com/premium https://www.youtube.com/premium > Enjoy watching YouTube uninterrupted by ads whenever you sign in - on your mobile device, desktop, or enabled TV.

smarkov 3y ago

> I wonder if there's a possibility that this will shake Youtube from it's dominance. Sadly, very unlikely. I recommend AdBlockers and YouTube app alternatives without ads to basically everyone and the vast majority of people would rather watch ads than deal with installing something even if it'll take a few seconds. There's enough of us (adblock users) for Google to want to take profit from but not enough to make a dent in YouTube's monopoly even if we all moved to something else.

ThatPlayer 3y ago

> if there's a possibility that this will shake Youtube from it's dominance. Yes, I'm sure everyone is fighting for an audience who refuse to pay and block all ads. And of course the audience who do sit through ads or pay are therefore not going to switch and stick with YouTube. So unless you want to burn money, I really don't see a viable business model there. Unless you think you can take the initial hit to grow a big enough audience and then force ads and paid subscriptions on everyone to make that money back.

grishka 3y ago

Not impossible. It's not like they're going to DRM this shit with treacherous execution environments and all that. Your browser is still your user agent. I'm sure an extension to bypass this would pop up days after the wide rollout, if any.

cwkoss 3y ago

Reminds me of 'PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN' copypasta Ads are truly a cancer on human culture, I hope society decides to wage a war on them soon.

RoyGBivCap 3y ago
Didn't you hear? It's now EAT VERIFICATION SANDWICH: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/get-diablo-4-early-beta-access-by-buying-a-kfc-sandwich/1100-6512194/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/get-diablo-4-early-beta-ac... They're doing another promotion for cosmetics too. And it's not even per sandwich, it's per purchase. So to get them all, you have to have 4 separate transactions.
ohdannyboy 3y ago
And replace them with what? Direct payment options?
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Most people are probably too poor to do too many direct payment options, so they'll get choosier about what they consume, and advertisers will still be SOL. Strangely I don't feel any pity for the human-shaped turds.
- thiht 3y ago
  It’s too late for that. On YouTube even if you pay for premium, you still get ads in the form of sponsored segments, and probably in the recommendation algorithm (I’d be surprised if big corps had no way to pay to bump their videos in search results). More and more platforms will try the « paid subscription with ads » in the coming years.
  - thallium205 3y ago
    But with premium the scroll bar at least will tell you where to scroll to to skip the ad via the histogram.
    - thiht 3y ago
      With SponsorBlock it will skip the ad for you.
  - ryan-allen 3y ago

xboxnolifes 3y ago

> So YouTube is going to make it impossible to watch without ads. There is an option.

thiht 3y ago
The only option is uBlock + SponsorBlock. YouTube premium is still full of ads.
- ryan-allen 3y ago
  What country are you in? I have YouTube Premium and I don't get _any_ ads at all from YouTube, only the sponsored segments from creators directly (and no, NordVPN, I don't need a VPN, yes I know you exist).
  - thiht 3y ago
    These are ads.
    - nickthegreek 3y ago
      They aren't Google's ads.
      - thiht 3y ago
        They’re still ads which I don’t want to see
        JCharante 3y ago
        Blame the creators you watch
        wiseowise 3y ago
        Why should they? YouTube Premium literally says ad-free. Not my problem how Google moderates their videos. They’re pretty efficient in demonetizing videos or entire channels for a couple of swear words or god forbid a nipple somewhere, but taking a mental dump in my head with some useless shit that I don’t care about is apparently fine.

weeblewobble 3y ago

Nah Reddit is pretty much back to normal. The protest is over. There are a few big subreddits like r/interestingasfuck that are still closed, but these are more like meme channels than communities. People can just get the same dozen gifs a day from r/damnthatsinteresting, r/whoadude, etc.

Panoramix 3y ago
Didn't their valuation dropped in half? An effort to marginally increase profits cost them billions in the end.
coremoff 3y ago
That might be true today - but tomorrow (1st July) may be different; that's when the API changes take effect and 3rd party apps no longer work. If, as is widely (self) reported, many mods and power users interact with reddit via 3rd party apps; we won't see the true impact of the API changes until they're active.
- Balgair 3y ago
  Already, r/all is now a lot more of strange subreddits (trurateme?) that really shouldn't be there and were founded on much smaller communities. If what the mods say about their tools is in fact true, then: Next, you're going to see a lot more spam as mods tools are gone and most of America is on a long weekend with a family holiday at the end. Next, the spammers are going to quickly figure out the mods are asleep/gone and up the crap game even more. Next, the creeps are going to post more less-than-kosher material, with reporting of it essentially going into unread inboxes by overworked mods. Next, r/all is going to be, well, boring and gross. All the spam will make you go, huh, that's not very interesting. All the less-than-kosher stuff is going to make you go yuck. Then, you're going to say to yourself, we'll see how long this lasts. And if it lasts until ~July 8th or so, you'll have found your next reddit fix. Again, all predicated on what the mods are saying is true.
  - miki123211 3y ago
    > Next, the creeps are going to post more less-than-kosher material, with reporting of it essentially going into unread inboxes by overworked mods. If anything can hurt Reddit, it's that kind of material. Advertisers really, really don't like controversial content, and are the first to pull out of any service that even smells of controversy or political incorrectness, see what happened to Twitter revenues after the Musk takeover. The Reddit protests would have been far more effective if people started posting (and/or moderators stopped removing) gore, porn and Swastikas everywhere, maybe with a sprinkling of racism and homophobia on top.

ryan-allen 3y ago

The warning screenshot posted in the article says that you can enjoy YouTube without ads if you sign up for Premium.

tantalor 3y ago

> impossible to watch without ads https://www.youtube.com/premium https://www.youtube.com/premium > Enjoy watching YouTube uninterrupted by ads whenever you sign in - on your mobile device, desktop, or enabled TV.