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Until YouTube starts injecting ads into the video stream (like Twitch), it's not going to be effective at all. There's no way to do a client-side anti-adblock a
by matsz 3y ago
Until YouTube starts injecting ads into the video stream (like Twitch), it's not going to be effective at all. There's no way to do a client-side anti-adblock and not have it bypassed.
And TBH: since YouTube is not doing that, I think they might've decided the cost of that solution outweighs the projected revenue so they've chosen a cheaper solution.
In Twitch's case, more of the audience might be techy, so ad injection ended up being the more optimal option.
- Retr0id 3y agoSponsorblock already exists as infrastructure to slice out ads embedded into the video streams themselves. Of course, the sponsor segments weren't put there by youtube, but the same (or similar) solutions would apply if they were. It's much easier for anything non-live.
- WaxProlix 3y agoThe ads don't always have to be injected into the exact same parts of a video, and YT can also choose not to stream any more bits until it thinks something's been "watched".
- bentcorner 3y agoSponsorblock would be easy to work around if ad-breaks were randomly selected. Whenever you upload a video YT could process the video and "search" for good ad-break locations, at display time client bits get pushed ads randomly, making time-code blocking useless. They could even upsell to content creators by giving them the means to dynamically replace sponsors in old videos using the same tech, maybe with some knobs and switches for content creators to select where sponsor breaks occur.
- kzhe 3y agoI guess something could detect if the frame shown is a frame from the video and if not skip
- allanwind 3y agoMaybe someone could use train a AI for something useful like skipping advertisement? Switching from time to content id, i.e. like they use for copyright strikes, would work even better than status quo.
- xnx 3y agoSponsorblock tagged videos would serve as excellent training data for an ad-detecting AI.
- hot_gril 3y agoSponsorblock only works because YT allows you to skip anywhere in a video.
- Etheryte 3y agoThis is, in my opinion, shortsighted. It's straightforward to create ads that you can't block on the client so long as you are the server of the ads yourself, as Google is. I'm not going to detail how since I don't want anyone on HN to get any ideas and build a business of it, but I'm sure it will happen eventually. For the time being I suspect it's cheaper to keep the current tech running since it brings in enough revenue, but if that ever stops being the case, I expect things not to end well for people who don't like ads. Google search is a good example of this, ads are literally intertwined into the search results, if you take this a few steps further you have ads that you literally can't block on the client.
- jefftk 3y agoI used to work in ads, and I agree this is an arms race that the advertisers could win, at least in cases like YouTube where they control the whole stack. I don't think it would be trivial, but YouTube could do it if they decided to.
- allanwind 3y agoAre there any workarounds for smart tv apps (browser, player)? They probably already "won" there and the user experience is horrible.
- mistermo 3y agoMaybe a pihole.
- HenryBemis 3y agoIf it is Android, try NoRoot Firewall app.
- lanuk 3y agoSmartTube for Android TV
- xnx 3y ago