4 ms·

That's kind of Google's intention. You are costing them money.

by rjh29 3y ago

threatripper 3y ago
If you wage war on the innovators the innovators will not stop innovating but they will innovate somewhere else.
- rjh29 3y ago
  Running a browser extension is innovation?
tnbp 3y ago
Good.
EA-3167 3y ago
I bet it's cheaper for a bunch of bored techies to figure out "loopholes" in whatever Google builds, than it is for Google to adapt. That sort of asymmetry is why giant companies can't stamp out piracy as well.
- ta8645 3y ago
  Given how few people continue to use Bittorrent these days, I'd say media companies have demonstrated an ability to do pretty well at customer capture and enforcement. Similarly, they don't have to completely eradicate adblockers, just reduce their usage into the noise.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    That's only true if you ignore that Bittorrent has been largely replaced by pirate streaming.
pbasista 3y ago
I would assume that network traffic and server costs are negligible to Google. In my opinion, what they are looking for is not to cut down the costs but to increase the revenue. Either by more people watching ads or by more people using their paid service.
- candiodari 3y ago
  ... which also means that the Youtube subscription is at best a temporary escape from ads. It's rapidly going to become worse than adblockers. It's already started. With Youtube premium you still see "promoted" videos, ie. paid ads, in the feed. So in a way it already doesn't deliver. Plus hosting your own videos is pretty cheap nowadays.
  - O1111OOO 3y ago
    > which also means that the Youtube subscription is at best a temporary escape from ads. Exactly. Decades ago, I remember *paying* for my first cable subscription. I was shocked at the number of commercials (ads) I was bombarded with. It only got worse... higher cable fees, more ads. They can't have it both ways. I cut the cord many years ago (pre-streaming), never looked back.
- rjh29 3y ago
  Why would you assume that, Google employees frequently comment here that youtube has never turned a profit. There are other costs such as music licensing, moderation and paying content creators.
Nadya 3y ago
This makes a lot of assumptions in the same way that "pirating loses game companies money" - yes but its not always clear cut or an exact science. Pirating was also a big factor of Minecraft's initial popularity. What if adblockers contribute to a video going viral? Or even sharing a video with family/friends who may not have an adblocker installed? What if I'm a content creator who uses adblock and now I share my content elsewhere? What if I'm a content creator primarily funded by Patreon and many of my viewers were adblock users and I move to another platform to retain my patrons and now YouTube loses money on all my subscribers who weren't adblockers? What if enough people are exiled that the go to place to watch new videos is no longer YouTube but Vimeo or another competitor? Social media sites rely pretty heavily on network effects and if enough users leave (Myspace, Digg) a competitor will fill the space (Facebook, Reddit). The gamble here is that more people will subscribe than people who will leave. Which is likely true but it could have knock on effects.
- Ferret7446 3y ago
  There's a pretty big difference in that analogy, in that video game pirates literally cost companies nothing, as the data is served by pirates. Whereas Google directly loses money serving data for each "pirated" view of a video. If you downloaded the videos and torrented/streamed them to other users, then the analogy would be more comparable.
  - Nadya 3y ago
    I also share a video link with many, many, many more people than I ever could convince to buy a game. I might convince 2 or 3 friends to buy a game but I can incidently get 30,000 people to watch a video with a single tweet. Think of it more like a loss leader. Costco sells hotdogs at a loss because it brings in more than what it costs them. I'm sure Google/YouTube has crunched the data and came to the conclusion that it isn't worth it anymore but I also don't think data can even give a complete picture. Data can't predict how many people will leave vs subscribe when all is said and done. Results from limited rollouts are not guaranteed to follow in a full rollout.
    - 3y ago

That's kind of Google's intention. You are costing them money.

by rjh29 3y ago

That's kind of Google's intention. You are costing them money.

threatripper 3y ago

If you wage war on the innovators the innovators will not stop innovating but they will innovate somewhere else.

rjh29 3y ago
Running a browser extension is innovation?

tnbp 3y ago

Good.

EA-3167 3y ago

I bet it's cheaper for a bunch of bored techies to figure out "loopholes" in whatever Google builds, than it is for Google to adapt. That sort of asymmetry is why giant companies can't stamp out piracy as well.

ta8645 3y ago
Given how few people continue to use Bittorrent these days, I'd say media companies have demonstrated an ability to do pretty well at customer capture and enforcement. Similarly, they don't have to completely eradicate adblockers, just reduce their usage into the noise.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  That's only true if you ignore that Bittorrent has been largely replaced by pirate streaming.

pbasista 3y ago

I would assume that network traffic and server costs are negligible to Google. In my opinion, what they are looking for is not to cut down the costs but to increase the revenue. Either by more people watching ads or by more people using their paid service.

candiodari 3y ago
... which also means that the Youtube subscription is at best a temporary escape from ads. It's rapidly going to become worse than adblockers. It's already started. With Youtube premium you still see "promoted" videos, ie. paid ads, in the feed. So in a way it already doesn't deliver. Plus hosting your own videos is pretty cheap nowadays.
- O1111OOO 3y ago
  > which also means that the Youtube subscription is at best a temporary escape from ads. Exactly. Decades ago, I remember *paying* for my first cable subscription. I was shocked at the number of commercials (ads) I was bombarded with. It only got worse... higher cable fees, more ads. They can't have it both ways. I cut the cord many years ago (pre-streaming), never looked back.
rjh29 3y ago
Why would you assume that, Google employees frequently comment here that youtube has never turned a profit. There are other costs such as music licensing, moderation and paying content creators.

Nadya 3y ago

This makes a lot of assumptions in the same way that "pirating loses game companies money" - yes but its not always clear cut or an exact science. Pirating was also a big factor of Minecraft's initial popularity. What if adblockers contribute to a video going viral? Or even sharing a video with family/friends who may not have an adblocker installed? What if I'm a content creator who uses adblock and now I share my content elsewhere? What if I'm a content creator primarily funded by Patreon and many of my viewers were adblock users and I move to another platform to retain my patrons and now YouTube loses money on all my subscribers who weren't adblockers? What if enough people are exiled that the go to place to watch new videos is no longer YouTube but Vimeo or another competitor? Social media sites rely pretty heavily on network effects and if enough users leave (Myspace, Digg) a competitor will fill the space (Facebook, Reddit). The gamble here is that more people will subscribe than people who will leave. Which is likely true but it could have knock on effects.

Ferret7446 3y ago
There's a pretty big difference in that analogy, in that video game pirates literally cost companies nothing, as the data is served by pirates. Whereas Google directly loses money serving data for each "pirated" view of a video. If you downloaded the videos and torrented/streamed them to other users, then the analogy would be more comparable.
- Nadya 3y ago
  I also share a video link with many, many, many more people than I ever could convince to buy a game. I might convince 2 or 3 friends to buy a game but I can incidently get 30,000 people to watch a video with a single tweet. Think of it more like a loss leader. Costco sells hotdogs at a loss because it brings in more than what it costs them. I'm sure Google/YouTube has crunched the data and came to the conclusion that it isn't worth it anymore but I also don't think data can even give a complete picture. Data can't predict how many people will leave vs subscribe when all is said and done. Results from limited rollouts are not guaranteed to follow in a full rollout.
  - 3y ago