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See related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37798150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37798150 YouTube will be rolling out more aggressive Adb

by cebert 3y ago

See related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37798150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37798150 YouTube will be rolling out more aggressive Adblock detection. If you don’t like ads and desire to continue using the service, it’s time to consider paying for it.

mortallywounded 3y ago
Or, get a better adblocker.
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
No. Anything that blocks adblockers does not get my support. The adblocker is there for my own comfort, safety and security. Anyone who asks me to disable it is not my friend. Virus scanners and adblockers serve a similar purpose these days, they prevent access by malicious actors. If a service asks you to disable the virus scanner, would you do that too? If they want me to pay for content produced by 3rd parties... sure, if they're distributing that money fairly to those parties why not? But I'd still run an adblocker. The argument "If you don’t like ads and desire to continue using the service, it’s time to consider paying for it." doesn't make sense to me. Anytime any service has asked to be paid to avoid ads? Ads got added on later on anyway.
- smolyeet 3y ago
  What kind of mental gymnastics? You think you’re entitled to use a service with an adblocker instead of the service they offer supported by ads/subscription? So you just want to use a service for free?
  - 36933 3y ago
    It was free before and can be free now. What kind of mental gymnastics do you have to do to justify the greed? Ads are dangerous. You’re entitled to protect yourself.
  - prepend 3y ago
    Is google entitled to force me to view ads? I’m entitled to view whatever data comes into my device in whatever order I desire. Entitlements aren’t all bad. In the US, social security is an entitlement. Are you against that too? Corporations don’t get to override human dignity because it makes them more money. When talking about humans vs corporations, I think I try to default the entitlements to the human.
    - dangus 3y ago
      You're entitled to do whatever you want with your client, but YouTube is equally entitled not to serve you content if they detect that you're using an ad blocker.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    Up until they actually stop serving me that content, yeah. I've backed up more than 2tb of YouTube channels I like and I've got no intention of stopping until they cut me off.
- dangus 3y ago
  Well, are you willing to stop using YouTube or not? The way I see it, if everyone installs an ad blocker and nobody pays for Premium, there's nobody to pay for the hosting. > Anytime any service has asked to be paid to avoid ads? Ads got added on later on anyway. This was the case for live TV and sports, but that's more like a counterexample than a laundry list of ad-free subscription products. And, heck, the NFL actually added an ad-free subscription in 2009 (NFL Red Zone, "7 hours of commercial-free football"). Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Discovery+, Paramount+, Apple TV+, Spotify, Apple Music...where is this mythical streaming service that has ads in its highest tier paid version? Can you find one? Some providers might eventually serve ads to their premium tiers, but there isn't much precedent outside of live TV and sports, especially if you expand your view to include SaaS products (e.g., subscribing to a mobile app like MyFitnessPal to remove ads). Meanwhile, your comment suggests that every premium subscription service will eventually get ads, even though the vast majority of them offer a completely ad-free package through the present day.
- idonotknowwhy 3y ago
  I wonder if we'll end up with a piratebay style site for YouTube content if they block adblocks. Kind of like how pirates get better quality TV shows, movies, games with drm removed, etc
throwaway67743 3y ago
Or use an alternative frontend, or download the videos first? Why would I pay for content that isn't monetised and thus the "creator" (for lack of a better word) gets nothing anyway? I'm not going to fund Google, they already get some from reading my (spam) emails.
- gruez 3y ago
  >Or use an alternative frontend, or download the videos first? If they're going to roll out anti-adblock code, what makes you think they won't be going after unofficial third party clients?
  - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
    Already have been for a long time.
  - throwaway67743 3y ago
    They do, and invariably fail but I'd argue trying to hide an adblocker is going to be more tricky than pretending to be android, for example. But both downloading and alternative frontends still work fine, I just got the message on youtube for the first time (only on desktop though, not android, firefox on both), minor inconvenience to run yt-dlp in an internet accessible folder and means I retain the content should their random behaviour make it unavailable in the future.
    - gruez 3y ago
      > They do, and invariably fail but I'd argue trying to hide an adblocker is going to be more tricky than pretending to be android, for example. AFAIK thirdparty youtube clients are just a glorified webview. Also, if anything pretending to be android is way harder than pretending to be a browser. There's way more fingerprinting/attestation that's available on android than through javascript APIs.
      - throwaway67743 3y ago
behnamoh 3y ago
It's not just about ads though—I use uBlock to "detox" many websites by hiding certain HTML elements.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mvncleaninst 3y ago
> If you don’t like ads and desire to continue using the service, it’s time to consider paying for it. Or maybe just use something like AdNauseum that just emits a bunch of noise
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
prepend 3y ago
> If you don’t like ads and desire to continue using the service, it’s time to consider paying for it. Or just get better ad blockers. I think it’s a pretty fundamental right that I choose what to do with data sent to me. Should televisions not be able to use the mute button during ads?
- polishdude20 3y ago
  That's exactly it. It's like a tv network disabling your mute button whenever you see a commercial. You can send me data but how I view it once it's on my network is my right. Just like mail.
  - idonotknowwhy 3y ago
    Gl with that, I'd be soldering in a switch to the speaker wire if they tried that
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  If everyone just uses ad blockers, the system doesn't work. YouTube goes away tomorrow. If you go to a nice country park with an honor system tip jar you can say that it's your fundamental right to go anywhere that someone doesn't stop you but if everyone did that the park wouldn't have money for upkeep. At a certain point this isn't the wild West anymore, and these services need to keep the lights on. I personally feel like ads are phycological warfare and find them detestable but I also recognize that means I need to support the service somehow else or I'm a net drain on the system.
  - prepend 3y ago
    A tip jar is not ads. A nice park with a tip jar might work. If it didn’t work, the park wouldnt cease to exist, but people would find a different funding model. Taxes that fund parks definitely work. Remember that public parks are a pretty recent innovation. Imaging someone saying of private gardens in 1700 “if the king didn’t pay for a park, the park would cease to exist” as a justification for an oppressive monarchy. YouTube will continue to exist without ads. Business models change. It may make less profit margin, but saying it will cease to exist is hysterical hyperbole.
shard972 3y ago
[dead]

by cebert 3y ago

mortallywounded 3y ago

Or, get a better adblocker.

Kim_Bruning 3y ago

No. Anything that blocks adblockers does not get my support. The adblocker is there for my own comfort, safety and security. Anyone who asks me to disable it is not my friend. Virus scanners and adblockers serve a similar purpose these days, they prevent access by malicious actors. If a service asks you to disable the virus scanner, would you do that too? If they want me to pay for content produced by 3rd parties... sure, if they're distributing that money fairly to those parties why not? But I'd still run an adblocker. The argument "If you don’t like ads and desire to continue using the service, it’s time to consider paying for it." doesn't make sense to me. Anytime any service has asked to be paid to avoid ads? Ads got added on later on anyway.

smolyeet 3y ago
What kind of mental gymnastics? You think you’re entitled to use a service with an adblocker instead of the service they offer supported by ads/subscription? So you just want to use a service for free?
- 36933 3y ago
  It was free before and can be free now. What kind of mental gymnastics do you have to do to justify the greed? Ads are dangerous. You’re entitled to protect yourself.
- prepend 3y ago
  Is google entitled to force me to view ads? I’m entitled to view whatever data comes into my device in whatever order I desire. Entitlements aren’t all bad. In the US, social security is an entitlement. Are you against that too? Corporations don’t get to override human dignity because it makes them more money. When talking about humans vs corporations, I think I try to default the entitlements to the human.
  - dangus 3y ago
    You're entitled to do whatever you want with your client, but YouTube is equally entitled not to serve you content if they detect that you're using an ad blocker.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  Up until they actually stop serving me that content, yeah. I've backed up more than 2tb of YouTube channels I like and I've got no intention of stopping until they cut me off.
dangus 3y ago
Well, are you willing to stop using YouTube or not? The way I see it, if everyone installs an ad blocker and nobody pays for Premium, there's nobody to pay for the hosting. > Anytime any service has asked to be paid to avoid ads? Ads got added on later on anyway. This was the case for live TV and sports, but that's more like a counterexample than a laundry list of ad-free subscription products. And, heck, the NFL actually added an ad-free subscription in 2009 (NFL Red Zone, "7 hours of commercial-free football"). Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Discovery+, Paramount+, Apple TV+, Spotify, Apple Music...where is this mythical streaming service that has ads in its highest tier paid version? Can you find one? Some providers might eventually serve ads to their premium tiers, but there isn't much precedent outside of live TV and sports, especially if you expand your view to include SaaS products (e.g., subscribing to a mobile app like MyFitnessPal to remove ads). Meanwhile, your comment suggests that every premium subscription service will eventually get ads, even though the vast majority of them offer a completely ad-free package through the present day.
idonotknowwhy 3y ago
I wonder if we'll end up with a piratebay style site for YouTube content if they block adblocks. Kind of like how pirates get better quality TV shows, movies, games with drm removed, etc

throwaway67743 3y ago

Or use an alternative frontend, or download the videos first? Why would I pay for content that isn't monetised and thus the "creator" (for lack of a better word) gets nothing anyway? I'm not going to fund Google, they already get some from reading my (spam) emails.

gruez 3y ago
>Or use an alternative frontend, or download the videos first? If they're going to roll out anti-adblock code, what makes you think they won't be going after unofficial third party clients?
- Kim_Bruning 3y ago
  Already have been for a long time.
- throwaway67743 3y ago
  They do, and invariably fail but I'd argue trying to hide an adblocker is going to be more tricky than pretending to be android, for example. But both downloading and alternative frontends still work fine, I just got the message on youtube for the first time (only on desktop though, not android, firefox on both), minor inconvenience to run yt-dlp in an internet accessible folder and means I retain the content should their random behaviour make it unavailable in the future.
  - gruez 3y ago
    > They do, and invariably fail but I'd argue trying to hide an adblocker is going to be more tricky than pretending to be android, for example. AFAIK thirdparty youtube clients are just a glorified webview. Also, if anything pretending to be android is way harder than pretending to be a browser. There's way more fingerprinting/attestation that's available on android than through javascript APIs.
    - throwaway67743 3y ago

behnamoh 3y ago

It's not just about ads though—I use uBlock to "detox" many websites by hiding certain HTML elements.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mvncleaninst 3y ago

> If you don’t like ads and desire to continue using the service, it’s time to consider paying for it. Or maybe just use something like AdNauseum that just emits a bunch of noise

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

prepend 3y ago

> If you don’t like ads and desire to continue using the service, it’s time to consider paying for it. Or just get better ad blockers. I think it’s a pretty fundamental right that I choose what to do with data sent to me. Should televisions not be able to use the mute button during ads?

polishdude20 3y ago
That's exactly it. It's like a tv network disabling your mute button whenever you see a commercial. You can send me data but how I view it once it's on my network is my right. Just like mail.
- idonotknowwhy 3y ago
  Gl with that, I'd be soldering in a switch to the speaker wire if they tried that
idiotsecant 3y ago
If everyone just uses ad blockers, the system doesn't work. YouTube goes away tomorrow. If you go to a nice country park with an honor system tip jar you can say that it's your fundamental right to go anywhere that someone doesn't stop you but if everyone did that the park wouldn't have money for upkeep. At a certain point this isn't the wild West anymore, and these services need to keep the lights on. I personally feel like ads are phycological warfare and find them detestable but I also recognize that means I need to support the service somehow else or I'm a net drain on the system.
- prepend 3y ago
  A tip jar is not ads. A nice park with a tip jar might work. If it didn’t work, the park wouldnt cease to exist, but people would find a different funding model. Taxes that fund parks definitely work. Remember that public parks are a pretty recent innovation. Imaging someone saying of private gardens in 1700 “if the king didn’t pay for a park, the park would cease to exist” as a justification for an oppressive monarchy. YouTube will continue to exist without ads. Business models change. It may make less profit margin, but saying it will cease to exist is hysterical hyperbole.

shard972 3y ago

[dead]