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Google is desperate to display ads on YouTube. YouTube videos, even of poor quality, often rank highly in Google search results. This means that Google can doub

Google is desperate to display ads on YouTube. YouTube videos, even of poor quality, often rank highly in Google search results. This means that Google can double its profits by displaying ads on YouTube, in addition to its search advertising revenue.

echelon 3y ago
Google is too big. All of the giant tech companies are. This behavior is a symptom of reaching across industries in search of growth. Is there any reason a grocery store should be a movie studio? This sucks the air out of the room for smaller companies to innovate. Search would be much better if it wasn't being shoved down our throat by a single company that controls (or buys access to) all of the panes of glass Americans use to compute.
- izacus 3y ago
  Ok, so if Google is too big and YouTube is split away from Google... who exactly will pay for bandwidth, server and transcoder costs for all the adblocking freeloaders? If you ever tried to host videos yourself, you'll quickly see that it costs a stupid amount of money to manage. Why would a standalone YouTube LLC. allow anyone to access it with an adblocker and without subscription? (People seem to lose their mind on HN every time someone even tries to recommend something as ridicolous as paying for YouTube.)
  - RunningDroid 3y ago
    > If you ever tried to host videos yourself, you'll quickly see that it costs a stupid amount of money to manage. Why would a standalone YouTube LLC. allow anyone to access it with an adblocker and without subscription? Why would anyone host a peertube instance? https://instances.joinpeertube.org https://instances.joinpeertube.org
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    > Ok, so if Google is too big and YouTube is split away from Google... who exactly will pay for bandwidth, server and transcoder costs for all the adblocking freeloaders? If a "business" can only exist when artificially propped up, should it exist? > People seem to lose their mind on HN every time someone even tries to recommend something as ridicolous as paying for YouTube. People on HN also regularly endorse Nebula, so it isn't paying that's the problem (if we pretend HN is a monolith).
  - 13415 3y ago
    Either Youtube has a viable business model (e.g. with subscriptions) or they don't. If they don't have one, that's certainly not my problem. I'll use Youtube with an ad blocker as long as it works and won't use it otherwise. It's not rocket science.
  - echelon 3y ago
    An independent YouTube would figure it out. Netflix works. Facebook works. Ad-supported video streaming works. A standalone YouTube would remove the insane perverse incentives and double dipping that Google has wrought in their ownership of YouTube.
  - pixxel 3y ago
    P2P. They could have implemented it years ago but instead prefer to control humanity’s video library and take on the full financial burden. Some people don’t want to pay Google to continue to harvest their data, and they despise the parasitical corporation.
    - ThatPlayer 3y ago
      And just like how people refuse to watch ads, they'll refuse to "donate their storage, bandwidth, and battery life to Google". With everyone else on phones and laptops, P2P will never be mainstream.
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Which means eventually they will do something desperate like using WASM on the all pages or requiring DRM trusted by a TPM chip. And adblockers won't work anymore. We are loosing control over the client a little bit more everyday, and given the new generation know only locked down devices, they don't even notice.
- softg 3y ago
  Just curious, what more can they do with WASM to prevent ad blockers? Can they prevent an extension that blacks out the ad and waits until it plays out for example?
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    Create your own VM for execution and rendering, then make sure it runs only trusted signed code. Skip the dom and js entirely. It's a black box, so ad blockers wouldn't be able to target anything in there without very hard reverse engineering. We know it's possible because the community can hack the playstation and xbox. We also know it takes a lot of time and resources. Unlike the consoles, they can just upload a new blob and suddenly, it becomes so expensive for adblock to keep up we lose it. It will also be super expensive for google, but they can afford it.
gdevenyi 3y ago
Imagine how much better they would rank if one could search video content I'm not so convinced Google cares to use YouTube to it's full potential.
distract8901 3y ago
I wonder at what point will Google start splicing ads directly into the video feed? Surely there's a way to do it without transcoding the entire file again.
- tumsfestival 3y ago
  Twitch already does this on the fly and it's a pain to bypass, I think the question is why Youtube hasn't started doing it yet given how effective it is.
  - distract8901 3y ago
    I can't imagine that google hasn't thought about it. The sheer scale of the processing cost to do it is probably too high with as much video they serve.

echelon 3y ago

Google is too big. All of the giant tech companies are. This behavior is a symptom of reaching across industries in search of growth. Is there any reason a grocery store should be a movie studio? This sucks the air out of the room for smaller companies to innovate. Search would be much better if it wasn't being shoved down our throat by a single company that controls (or buys access to) all of the panes of glass Americans use to compute.

izacus 3y ago
Ok, so if Google is too big and YouTube is split away from Google... who exactly will pay for bandwidth, server and transcoder costs for all the adblocking freeloaders? If you ever tried to host videos yourself, you'll quickly see that it costs a stupid amount of money to manage. Why would a standalone YouTube LLC. allow anyone to access it with an adblocker and without subscription? (People seem to lose their mind on HN every time someone even tries to recommend something as ridicolous as paying for YouTube.)
- RunningDroid 3y ago
  > If you ever tried to host videos yourself, you'll quickly see that it costs a stupid amount of money to manage. Why would a standalone YouTube LLC. allow anyone to access it with an adblocker and without subscription? Why would anyone host a peertube instance? https://instances.joinpeertube.org https://instances.joinpeertube.org
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > Ok, so if Google is too big and YouTube is split away from Google... who exactly will pay for bandwidth, server and transcoder costs for all the adblocking freeloaders? If a "business" can only exist when artificially propped up, should it exist? > People seem to lose their mind on HN every time someone even tries to recommend something as ridicolous as paying for YouTube. People on HN also regularly endorse Nebula, so it isn't paying that's the problem (if we pretend HN is a monolith).
- 13415 3y ago
  Either Youtube has a viable business model (e.g. with subscriptions) or they don't. If they don't have one, that's certainly not my problem. I'll use Youtube with an ad blocker as long as it works and won't use it otherwise. It's not rocket science.
- echelon 3y ago
  An independent YouTube would figure it out. Netflix works. Facebook works. Ad-supported video streaming works. A standalone YouTube would remove the insane perverse incentives and double dipping that Google has wrought in their ownership of YouTube.
- pixxel 3y ago
  P2P. They could have implemented it years ago but instead prefer to control humanity’s video library and take on the full financial burden. Some people don’t want to pay Google to continue to harvest their data, and they despise the parasitical corporation.
  - ThatPlayer 3y ago
    And just like how people refuse to watch ads, they'll refuse to "donate their storage, bandwidth, and battery life to Google". With everyone else on phones and laptops, P2P will never be mainstream.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

Which means eventually they will do something desperate like using WASM on the all pages or requiring DRM trusted by a TPM chip. And adblockers won't work anymore. We are loosing control over the client a little bit more everyday, and given the new generation know only locked down devices, they don't even notice.

softg 3y ago
Just curious, what more can they do with WASM to prevent ad blockers? Can they prevent an extension that blacks out the ad and waits until it plays out for example?
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  Create your own VM for execution and rendering, then make sure it runs only trusted signed code. Skip the dom and js entirely. It's a black box, so ad blockers wouldn't be able to target anything in there without very hard reverse engineering. We know it's possible because the community can hack the playstation and xbox. We also know it takes a lot of time and resources. Unlike the consoles, they can just upload a new blob and suddenly, it becomes so expensive for adblock to keep up we lose it. It will also be super expensive for google, but they can afford it.

gdevenyi 3y ago

Imagine how much better they would rank if one could search video content I'm not so convinced Google cares to use YouTube to it's full potential.

distract8901 3y ago

I wonder at what point will Google start splicing ads directly into the video feed? Surely there's a way to do it without transcoding the entire file again.

tumsfestival 3y ago
Twitch already does this on the fly and it's a pain to bypass, I think the question is why Youtube hasn't started doing it yet given how effective it is.
- distract8901 3y ago
  I can't imagine that google hasn't thought about it. The sheer scale of the processing cost to do it is probably too high with as much video they serve.