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FWIW, I get all of that with a single Safari extension called Vinegar, which replaces the hostile YouTube video player (and its associated scripts for hijacking

FWIW, I get all of that with a single Safari extension called Vinegar, which replaces the hostile YouTube video player (and its associated scripts for hijacking the screen) with a native HTML5 Video element, thus restoring picture-in-picture, background playback, bitrate selection including 1080p, and continue watching (assuming I'm logged into YouTube). No bullshit or hacked apps required. Just a $1.99 purchase of a Safari Content Extension from the Apple App Store to restore native features of my OS that hostile JS on YouTube attempted to take away from me.

dangus 3y ago
It’s a personal preference, but I watch YouTube heavily on mobile and streaming tv box devices, so I prefer the app over the website unless I’m on desktop. I think the app works better, faster, easier than the mobile website. You didn’t mention offline downloads, and that’s a major advantage of the app. I queue up downloads for plane rides all the time. I’m not going to use a desktop interface for my TV, either. I want an app that is designed for use with a remote. So you found a solution to get around it, and you’re now part of the statistic that Google uses to figure out how much to charge for Premium and how many ads to play for people who don’t block ads. You’re that X% of people who block ads and don’t pay for premium but still use up Google’s hosting resources. What that means is that you effectively increase the price for paying customers like me, and increase the amount of ads that people who don’t block ads get to see. It is mathematically no different than people entering a Walmart and shoplift roughly 1.6% of the inventory [1], you make the business overhead that little bit higher. Thanks! Personally, I think for the amount I get out of it the pricing is very fair, it’s a trivial expense, under $4/person/month with the family plan. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/retailers-lost-112-billion-to-inventory-shrink-in-2022 https://www.businessinsider.com/retailers-lost-112-billion-t...
- chatmasta 3y ago
  lol, I have to admit that's an interesting argument against ad blocking. I'm not sure whether it makes me feel better or worse about it though... btw, do you think YouTube Premium will eventually include ads? Because the same sort of game theoretic argument applies there, doesn't it? If everyone subscribes to Premium then YouTube will feel emboldened to serve ads there too. Maybe people like you actually need people like me to maintain Premium's differentiation... and about your "shrinkage" analogy - I could say the same about you, assuming you don't purchase the things in the ads. I'm costing Google money, but I'm saving advertisers money by keeping my non-consuming eyeballs away from them. If Google served me ads they'd just be wasting more money from advertisers, because I wouldn't buy the products advertised in them. (And the only counterargument to this is "well actually you might be convinced to buy something from the ads," which is basically an argument that I should submit myself to psychological warfare, at which point you've lost all moral high ground.)
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    That's actually exactly what Netflix did, and cable TV before them so it's on fact highly likely
    - dangus 3y ago
      Netflix added a cheaper ads tier, it still has the original ad-free plans. I don’t know why everyone insists that streaming services are adding advertisements when literally all of them have ad-free plans.
      - chatmasta 3y ago
        I'm the guy you're arguing with upthread, but I agree with this one. I've never seen an ad on Netflix. But Hulu, Prime, and (I think) Paramount+ all show ads to their paid subscribers. Although Paramount and Prime mostly limit their ads to promotions for their own shows, whereas Hulu sells slots to outside advertisers. (And this is ignoring the $100+ monthly cost of traditional cable packages that show at least a minute of ads for every two minutes of content, on every channel). And ok, maybe those streaming services offer ad-free plans, but that's moving the goal posts from the original impetus of subscribing to the first (and initially only) tier of a non-free plan (e.g. YouTube Premium in this analogy) explicitly to opt out of ads. And in fact its further evidence that future YouTube will likely offer a paid tier that includes ads, which would negate the primary argument for using any paid tier from them now (if you give a mouse a cookie...)
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - dangus 3y ago
    You still lose Google more money than someone who views the ads and never buys anything on the ads. You didn’t lower the value of Google’s ad network by being less likely to buy things off of advertisements, but you still cost Google 100% of the bandwidth, storage, compute, and labor costs required for you to serve the video. Hypothetical Example: Let’s say serving one video costs 5 cents in fixed costs. An advertiser pays 10 cents for an advertisement to be shown to you. The average YouTube premium subscriber pays roughly 10 cents per video and didn’t get shown an ad. Let’s say you never buy anything but watch the ad. Google got their 10 cents but because you’re the type of customer who will never buy anything, Google’s ad is now worth less. Because you’re such a bad customer Google lowers their ad price down to 9 cents per view, because we can assume that maybe 10% of people who watch ads will just ignore 100% of them. That means you made Google 9 cents, minus 5 cents for fixed costs, that’s 4 cents in profit. Now let’s say you pay for premium. The math is obvious, 5 cents of profit. Now you watched the video with ads blocked. Google paid 5 cents to serve you the video, but nobody paid for it. Net loss is 5 cents. I know the numbers are far off and made up but you get the idea. People who aren’t susceptible to ads are already baked into the market price of ads. A response rate of something like 5-10% for marketing emails is considered excellent. If you block ads and don’t pay for premium you’re not even a customer. I realize that that’s not your problem, but again, it’s Google’s prerogative to refuse you service. And you can call advertisements psychological warfare and perhaps they are in some way, but I don’t see how society would function without them. Basically everyone advertises, including on the individual level. Inviting your friends to a party is an advertisement. Does your employer advertise? And you work for someone who engages in psychological warfare? How could you!! But seriously, how do you develop anything new with the involvement of more than one person without the ability to evangelize it? How do you exchange goods without the ability to make your presence known? As long as advertisement is moderated in some way it’s just a normal reality of living in society. It’s basically just communication.

dangus 3y ago

It’s a personal preference, but I watch YouTube heavily on mobile and streaming tv box devices, so I prefer the app over the website unless I’m on desktop. I think the app works better, faster, easier than the mobile website. You didn’t mention offline downloads, and that’s a major advantage of the app. I queue up downloads for plane rides all the time. I’m not going to use a desktop interface for my TV, either. I want an app that is designed for use with a remote. So you found a solution to get around it, and you’re now part of the statistic that Google uses to figure out how much to charge for Premium and how many ads to play for people who don’t block ads. You’re that X% of people who block ads and don’t pay for premium but still use up Google’s hosting resources. What that means is that you effectively increase the price for paying customers like me, and increase the amount of ads that people who don’t block ads get to see. It is mathematically no different than people entering a Walmart and shoplift roughly 1.6% of the inventory [1], you make the business overhead that little bit higher. Thanks! Personally, I think for the amount I get out of it the pricing is very fair, it’s a trivial expense, under $4/person/month with the family plan. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/retailers-lost-112-billion-to-inventory-shrink-in-2022 https://www.businessinsider.com/retailers-lost-112-billion-t...

chatmasta 3y ago
lol, I have to admit that's an interesting argument against ad blocking. I'm not sure whether it makes me feel better or worse about it though... btw, do you think YouTube Premium will eventually include ads? Because the same sort of game theoretic argument applies there, doesn't it? If everyone subscribes to Premium then YouTube will feel emboldened to serve ads there too. Maybe people like you actually need people like me to maintain Premium's differentiation... and about your "shrinkage" analogy - I could say the same about you, assuming you don't purchase the things in the ads. I'm costing Google money, but I'm saving advertisers money by keeping my non-consuming eyeballs away from them. If Google served me ads they'd just be wasting more money from advertisers, because I wouldn't buy the products advertised in them. (And the only counterargument to this is "well actually you might be convinced to buy something from the ads," which is basically an argument that I should submit myself to psychological warfare, at which point you've lost all moral high ground.)
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  That's actually exactly what Netflix did, and cable TV before them so it's on fact highly likely
  - dangus 3y ago
    Netflix added a cheaper ads tier, it still has the original ad-free plans. I don’t know why everyone insists that streaming services are adding advertisements when literally all of them have ad-free plans.
    - chatmasta 3y ago
      I'm the guy you're arguing with upthread, but I agree with this one. I've never seen an ad on Netflix. But Hulu, Prime, and (I think) Paramount+ all show ads to their paid subscribers. Although Paramount and Prime mostly limit their ads to promotions for their own shows, whereas Hulu sells slots to outside advertisers. (And this is ignoring the $100+ monthly cost of traditional cable packages that show at least a minute of ads for every two minutes of content, on every channel). And ok, maybe those streaming services offer ad-free plans, but that's moving the goal posts from the original impetus of subscribing to the first (and initially only) tier of a non-free plan (e.g. YouTube Premium in this analogy) explicitly to opt out of ads. And in fact its further evidence that future YouTube will likely offer a paid tier that includes ads, which would negate the primary argument for using any paid tier from them now (if you give a mouse a cookie...)
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- dangus 3y ago
  You still lose Google more money than someone who views the ads and never buys anything on the ads. You didn’t lower the value of Google’s ad network by being less likely to buy things off of advertisements, but you still cost Google 100% of the bandwidth, storage, compute, and labor costs required for you to serve the video. Hypothetical Example: Let’s say serving one video costs 5 cents in fixed costs. An advertiser pays 10 cents for an advertisement to be shown to you. The average YouTube premium subscriber pays roughly 10 cents per video and didn’t get shown an ad. Let’s say you never buy anything but watch the ad. Google got their 10 cents but because you’re the type of customer who will never buy anything, Google’s ad is now worth less. Because you’re such a bad customer Google lowers their ad price down to 9 cents per view, because we can assume that maybe 10% of people who watch ads will just ignore 100% of them. That means you made Google 9 cents, minus 5 cents for fixed costs, that’s 4 cents in profit. Now let’s say you pay for premium. The math is obvious, 5 cents of profit. Now you watched the video with ads blocked. Google paid 5 cents to serve you the video, but nobody paid for it. Net loss is 5 cents. I know the numbers are far off and made up but you get the idea. People who aren’t susceptible to ads are already baked into the market price of ads. A response rate of something like 5-10% for marketing emails is considered excellent. If you block ads and don’t pay for premium you’re not even a customer. I realize that that’s not your problem, but again, it’s Google’s prerogative to refuse you service. And you can call advertisements psychological warfare and perhaps they are in some way, but I don’t see how society would function without them. Basically everyone advertises, including on the individual level. Inviting your friends to a party is an advertisement. Does your employer advertise? And you work for someone who engages in psychological warfare? How could you!! But seriously, how do you develop anything new with the involvement of more than one person without the ability to evangelize it? How do you exchange goods without the ability to make your presence known? As long as advertisement is moderated in some way it’s just a normal reality of living in society. It’s basically just communication.