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YouTube's Anti-Adblock and uBlock Origin

• cmbernard333 3y ago
  Mega thread issue on GitHub tracking this https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/19976 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/19976 Reddit is not and should not be considered a tech support site.
  • dylan604 3y ago
    why is Reddit any less of a viable tech support than twit..er,X?
  • taftster 3y ago
    There's not many other good choices, these days. All of the useful tech support sites have been overrun with trolls. stackoverflow, for example. Github issues is probably the best place, but when its abused, there's just no more appropriate place to go. Do you have better suggestions if not Reddit?
    • chii 3y ago
      dont ask for tech support on this particular problem, and instead just wait for an update. It's unlikely that any report from any user is going to add nor be helpful anyway.
      • nathanasmith 3y ago
        Exactly. It either works or it doesn't today. If it doesn't I assume it'll be fixed soon so I'll come back tomorrow.
• 3seashells 3y ago
  With great need for revenue comes great foolishness. Like the idea you could squeeze the 1% of the population who could, if hostile, easily undo all your drm defenses in a bang and help the rest of the population to do that too. Another unity moment, created by well incentivized management.
  • konschubert 3y ago
    This 1% has been free-riding the YouTube experience. I am part of it. But I know I'm a free-rider, I am not feeling righteous about it.
    • 3seashells 3y ago
      All those companies are free riding open source specific and humanity in general. Nothing of value is lost. Google will dissappear. People will install some p2p thing on old laptop stacks, and peer tube will take over. Life finds a way.
      • konschubert 3y ago
        who needs Dropbox, am I right?
        • 3seashells 3y ago
          Mostly the same company's which would abuses p2p for data storage?
• CuriouslyC 3y ago
  YouTube will "lose" the war, but they'll make adblocking difficult enough for a while that it might get some premium subscribers in the short term in exchange for the loss of goodwill.
  • jimmaswell 3y ago
    They haven't lost any good will from me. I don't feel entitled to use an ad supported service for free without the ads. Personally I've been paying for premium for a while and I find it worth it.
    • meiraleal 3y ago
      > I don't feel entitled to use an ad supported service for free without the ads So don't watch things for free. Many people think that if a company is giving things for free you are not obligated to pay them in any way. The company can stop it if they can't afford anymore.
    • bluescrn 3y ago
      Did you always watch the ads on live TV? you never changed the channels, muted it, went to the loo, or fast-forwarded through the ads when you'd recorded something to VHS? Ad-avoidance is hardly a new thing. And as ads have got increasingly obnoxious and untrustworthy, ad-avoidance technology has inevitably become more popular.
  • Analemma_ 3y ago
    If you're neither paying YouTube any money nor watching their ads, meaning you're a pure money sink, why should they care about your goodwill?
    • hanniabu 3y ago
      That viewpoint will extend to others
    • CuriouslyC 3y ago
      If I'm referring thousands of people to YouTube, and I stop doing that while simultaneously joining the chorus of anti-YT sentiment on the internet, their bottom line should care.
• bluish29 3y ago
  I use youtube in Firefox via a dedicated container, I wish that I can specify ublock rules by container because I have to disable most of rules to avoid adblock detection of youtube. I don't know what it is possible except creating a specific profile for YouTube which is annoying.
• ketzo 3y ago
  Why, from first principles, should YouTube allow this? Why shouldn’t they go thermonuclear? I understand ads are annoying - I block as many as I can! - but I’ve never seen someone put together a coherent defense of the practice.
  • throw_pm23 3y ago
    What about ads displayed on a busstop? Should I feel guilty for looking the other way? It subsidizes public transportation afterall..
    • jamielife 3y ago
      Not really a fair comparison. The equivalent to "looking the other way," on YouTube would be exactly that, looking somewhere other than the ad (opening another browser, going to the bathroom, etc.). Ad Blockers are essential painting over the bus stop ad completely, so you don't even have a chance to see it.
      • jstanley 3y ago
        That's an even worse analogy, because ad blockers only block the ads for you, not for everyone else. A better analogy is getting someone else to paint over all the ads in the free ad-supported newspaper before you read it.
      • bluish29 3y ago
        While the comparison is not 1:1 but the result is the same in the two cases. I don't see the ads, one of them I have more control on how effective I can prevent ads. Also in both cases I pay for the bus from my money so that I pay for the internet connection from my own money. The internet is built on free protocols and I can use it whatever I want. Google does not pay TCP/IP..etc designers/operators a portion of theid ad revenue. Why would they feel entitled to the the internet infrastructure they don't pay for?
        • jamielife 3y ago
• crop_rotation 3y ago
  Apart from the Youtube stuff, the post also highlights something else, entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin. > It’s one thing to play cat and mouse with YouTube. It’s quite another to deal with a wave of angry users. > And then one of the moderators actually deleted their Reddit account. “The ID in the post wasn’t updated because my mother was hospitalized,” they said. It’s sad to see them leave because of some drive-by comments — new users who sign up for Reddit, leave their comments, I have seen this becoming more and more common on open source projects and totally free services, where people act as if they are entitled to something as if it is their god given right. The people doing public services like uBlock origin can only take so much from the mob.
  • philipwhiuk 3y ago
    If they didn't have such entitlement they wouldn't be blocking the ads in the first place.
    • hotnfresh 3y ago
      "I sent you data so you have to use all of it exactly the way I want" is the entitled perspective.
      • frebdo 3y ago
        As opposed to the so un-entitled "customers have no right to negotiate use of their data". ACCEPT THE EULA PLEB
      • pohuing 3y ago
        Nonsense. I provide a service in exchange for payment, then not paying is entitlement.
        • wredue 3y ago
          The problem is that for YouTube to get that payment, I have to give them, and other ad networks a major view in to my whole life. Ad networks are currently scum of the earth, easily giving lawyers a good name. If ad networks were riddled with crime, invasion of privacy, and other bullshit, people would be much more willing to entertain them. Today though, they’re obnoxious AND invade your privacy AND may actually just a virus AND are of questionable legality or outright illegal. It’s not just about funding the platform. You’re not “getting a service in exchange for payment”. Or at least, that is massively understating the behaviour of the scum of the earth ad networks.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• kiernanmcgowan 3y ago
  This ad block debate makes me think about patio11’s post “The optimal amount of fraud is non zero”. Essentially in trying to make a system as fraud-free as possible you make it too difficult to work with / the cost of fighting fraud is higher than the cost of the fraud. Ads vs Ad Blockers seem to be in that space, but on the cost of customer good will. Can YouTube squeeze more money from ads by doing this? Sure. Is it worth the customer anger? Maybe? https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fraud/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...
  • tomComb 3y ago
    I doubt YouTube is going for zero. I suspect they only took action recently because ad blockers have become very common.
    • ls612 3y ago
      I thought it was still something stupid low like 10% of people using adblockers?
      • tech234a 3y ago
        More than 10% of telemetry-enabled Firefox users worldwide use adblockers. In Poland it's 15%. In the United States, Germany, and Russia it is closer to 20%, and in France it is closer to 30% [1]. [1]: https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior (see near the bottom of the page)
        • yborg 3y ago
          And the population that will block ads will include a lot that block telemetry as well on principle, so the percentage is higher than that.
          • Yujf 3y ago
            But the population that blocks (opt-out) telemetry is likely low, at least that is what I would assume. So I don't think it makes a big impact
• lalaland1125 3y ago
  YouTube's anti adblock efforts are a good thing. For too long have a huge number of users been freeloading off free content
  • w4yai 3y ago
    This is desillusional... How can it be a good thing ? Blaming users not willing to be forced to watch brain-washing videos is the right thing ? Really ? I'm pretty sure there's a middle ground agreement. Such as serving 480/720p videos for free users, 1080p+ for ad watchers and 4k+ for subscribers. YouTube already makes a good amount of money only from monetizing watching habits and selling that data. We're giving away our tastes and deepest interests to a company at a daily basis for multiple decades. Why should we show them pity ? They don't have any for us.
    • dawidpotocki 3y ago
      YouTube has already implemented Premium-only quality in a form of 1080p Premium, i.e. higher bitrate 1080p. Though they don't seem to be worried that yt-dlp can download it without a subscription. Maybe they will make 2160p option Premium in the future, the backend is ready.
• oaththrowaway 3y ago
  I use NewPipe on my phone, SmartTubeNext on my Android TV, and uBlock+FF inside of a container without being logged in on my laptop. I was at a friend's house yesterday and they showed me a video on YouTube. I couldn't believe how many ads there were. It was unwatchable. Not sure how people don't pay for premium or block ads. What a miserable experience.
  • Yhippa 3y ago
    I presume that you don't pay for Premium? And that the average user isn't interested in installing a tech cocktail on their systems?
    • giantrobot 3y ago
      Not the GP but I spend very little time on YouTube. Even me binging YouTube is watching maybe one or two videos in a row. I hate YouTube ads because they're usually worse than the most obnoxious TV ads with blaring audio or just obnoxious content. I don't watch YouTube enough that Premium is anywhere close to worth the money. So I happily block ads and will drop YouTube in a second if they block me for using an ad blocker. They'd be better off limiting the quality of streams to ad blockers. By blocking those users YouTubers lose paid placement online advertising.
      • ryandrake 3y ago
        > I hate YouTube ads because they're usually worse than the most obnoxious TV ads with blaring audio or just obnoxious content. It's the absolute bottom of the barrel, too. AI voices pitching scam colon cleanses and scam detox shakes, and yes everything is LOOOOUD and interruptive. At least on network TV, the content has natural pauses for ads, but on YouTube they just shove em in whenever. Nothing quite like listening to quiet ambient or classical piano music and then all of a sudden some giant, roided-out asshole is screaming at me: "LET ME HELP YOU GET RRRRRRRIPPED AT THE GYMMM!!!" I have no ethical qualms about blocking that shit.
        • 3y ago
• n0zmer 3y ago
  Jesus Christ, some people are so entitled. I want YouTube to be free! I want my YouTube ad free! I want my adblocker free! I want support and devs for my free adblocker to be on top of everything and to make sure I never have to watch an ad and never pay a dime on the Internet!
• alin23 3y ago
  As the dev of a macOS app that breaks all the time because of external hardware, the tone of the article hits close to home. (I’m talking about https://lunar.fyi/ https://lunar.fyi/ whose brightness control commands can be blocked by USB-C hubs, “smart” monitors, too long cables etc.) I had to disable public GitHub issues on the app repo [1] because people seemed to fuel each other with spiteful comments and “why can’t you just!!” sentences. The contact form still attracts many such “entitled” people and it hurts to wake up to such messages, but at least I can choose to ignore those if I can’t bring anything to the discussion. There’s no peer pressure. These people are expecting too much from a handful of developers who are sharing a lot of free work and time that could have been spent better than hunting new IDs in URLs and updating regular expressions. [1] https://github.com/alin23/Lunar https://github.com/alin23/Lunar
  • microtonal 3y ago
    :( So sorry to hear this. I don't use Lunar, but know many people who love it. They all appreciate the work that you are doing!
    • alin23 3y ago
      To be honest I sometimes (rarely) do get heartfelt messages like these, and it’s what still keeps me working on apps. Sure, it feels ok to sell a bunch of licenses and get a few thousand dollars at the end of the month, but it feels so much better to see your hard work appreciated and people improving their lives with it. So really, thank you!
      • lxgr 3y ago
        Wait, DDI brightness control is possible on macOS!? Thank you!
  • j1elo 3y ago
    I believe that FOSS maintainers should jump to the public showroom of providing open source software with a much stronger mentality of quoting and adhering to the license more frequently. That solves a lot of the user entitlement, in my experience. Just like a proprietary software provider would first try to be helpful but otherwise point to some rules that limit their responsibility. Paraphrasing most if not all of the open source licences, the software is provided with no guarantee, not even with a promise that it will be fit for any purpose. Most users don't even think of the possibility that, given how the source code is offered, private contractors can be hired to make whichever modifications are deemed useful by anyone. I like to remind that to people who get too insistent. That's basically a less lazy reply form of "just fork it", but it tends to draw the line pretty well. Just quote the license, folks. Otherwise, people usually don't bother to read it.
• photochemsyn 3y ago
  My solution seems ethically valid: I watch the majority of YT videos on a browser with adblocks turned off, but if it's a long technical video I'm trying to learn something from, then I use a full adblock setup on a different browser because the advertising interruptions make concentration impossible. I suppose if I was rolling in money I'd just pay for premium - though I'm sure all that data would also be fed into their user-marketing-optimization database and sold on to whoever, which I also dislike.
  • cvoss 3y ago
    Interesting, I was expecting to hear kind of the opposite: that you'd selectively tolerate the ads on videos that meet some bar (where that bar might be quality, importance, education, artistic value, personal support for the creator, etc.) and then leave the ad blocker on for all the junky other things that we honestly need less of. But maybe you only watch good non-junky things anyway, in which case, carry on.
• SlackingOff123 3y ago
  I've been wondering, how much does the average YouTube viewer generate in revenue by watching ads? $0.1 a month? $0.25? $0.5 if avid viewer? Given that I'm not an avid viewer and I do not care at all for YouTube Music, I just find the monthly cost of YouTube Premium too high. I don't know what the right price should be, but by comparing with other digital subscriptions I have, I think I would be OK with paying something like $5 a month. It could be like a lighter version of Premium. Just ad-free and none of the other "benefits".
  • crop_rotation 3y ago
    I did some napkin math on this and I think 5 USD will not replace the ad revenue or even half of it. Keep in mind that this is the price only in the developed world and in the developing world both the YouTube premium price and ad price are very low and generate little revenue.
  • cj 3y ago
    Paying $20-40 per thousand views isn’t unusual on the advertiser side. If you watch 100 videos that’s $2 if there’s 1 ad per video. But these days it’s more like 2-3 ads per video (or dozens for long videos)
  • zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    It looks like the average revenue is $1/user/month. However, the "average" isn't very interesting because the typical person that signs up to this would likely be far above average--no one is going to pay $5/month if they watch a single video, but if you watch 2 hours/day that's a great deal. So it's hard to say what a "fair" price would be.
  • xboxnolifes 3y ago
    It depends what kind of content you watch. Home improvement ada pay well. Finance ads pay well. Video Game ads pay much less.
  • PrivateButts 3y ago
    Others in the thread have pointed this out, but they did have a lite plan that wasn't rolled out broadly for some insane reason. They axed it this month: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/25/23889917/youtube-premium-lite-subscription-discontinued-retired https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/25/23889917/youtube-premium-...
• ExMachina73 3y ago
  There is an adblocker for Youtube. It's called Youtube Premium for $13.99 a month. Youtube is a business pure and simple. You either pay with your attention/time (ads) or cash money. I think its hard for people to realize they are like any other streaming service like Netflix, Disney+ or Hulu.
  • olig15 3y ago
    They’re not the same though. YouTube doesn’t make the content.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
• cj 3y ago
  At a technical level, what prevents Google from deploying unblockable ads on YouTube? I’m honestly surprised adblockers are able to block YouTube at all. The easiest way to prevent an adblocker from blocking is to make ads and real content indistinguishable in frontend code and network requests. Tie ads and real content together in a way that if you block ads, the video also doesn’t load. Or in the case of video ads, you could stream the ad as part of the video itself instead of a separate pre roll. If I had a billion dollars of revenue on the line, I’m pretty sure I’d be able to make the YouTube player serve ads in a way that evades adblockers. The fact that they haven’t been able to do this makes me think I’m underestimating the difficulty of the problem.
  • hotnfresh 3y ago
    > The easiest way to prevent an adblocker from blocking is to make ads and real content indistinguishable in frontend code and network requests. Tie ads and real content together in a way that if you block ads, the video also doesn’t load. Ads that the creators themselves put in their videos are exactly what you're suggesting. Yet there exist fairly-effective (if not perfect) ad blockers for those, too.
    • chii 3y ago
      If it's statically spliced, yes. but if it is dynamically spliced in, it'd be harder to do the same to block it. You'd have to detect the ad itself, and YouTube may not allow the video to be timeseeked, which might make the viewing experience suck with a black screen for the duration the ad.
  • userbinator 3y ago
    Or in the case of video ads, you could stream the ad as part of the video itself instead of a separate pre roll. Back when people watched an actual "tube", ads were indeed like that. Yet VCRs could easily detect and skip over them when recording. Remember that this was before AI too, so the technology exists to counter it already. I suspect YouTube keeps the ads separate from the content because the sort of "splicing" that would be required is not trivial to do at the scale YouTube handles video. Also, perhaps they'd rather users who are adblocking not waste their bandwidth downloading ad videos which are going to be ignored anyway.
• yukkuri 3y ago
  A lot of absurd moralizing here about "you're stealing by not watching ads". I keep adblock on for most sites because ads are so intrusive and often malware vectors. If advertisers want my eyes they need to not be obnoxious. I started blocking YouTube ads in particular because it kept serving me ads that were brazenly homophobic ("how gross and smelly is gay sex? Find out!") I feel no moral problem with this, if you do then your priorities are bad, IMO. Edit: as a counter example, ubo doesn't seem to work on Twitch but I have never attempted to find a different solution as it has never run ads worse than the usual "lying about how good a product is" you always get with marketing. Further, I don't see them very often because the channels I watch the most I buy subscriptions.
  • throwaway346434 3y ago
    Agree. Many are ignoring the fact that these ads aren't all traditional advertising. Particularly appauling in my view is the propaganda: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/clive-palmer-spends-100-times-more-than-major-parties-on-advertising-20220218-p59xq4.html https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/clive-palmer-spends-... We saw similar things with The Voice referendum recently. When someone has paid to manipulate society en masse, and there are no more targeted controls to stop the content being forced on you available, why is anyone surprised people choose to filter that?
    • BLKNSLVR 3y ago
      ... and Australia has (had maybe?) pretty good rules around television advertising. I mean, at least it's a good way up the logarithmic scale from internet advertising standards anyway. P.S. I use Clive Palmer's advertising as a useful data point for what not to support, so it's not a total waste.
  • praisewhitey 3y ago
    This is the kind of content adblock users are missing out on. https://twitter.com/baroquespiral/status/1716488758030118931 https://twitter.com/baroquespiral/status/1716488758030118931
• d3w4s9 3y ago
  If YouTube provides a service that removes ads ONLY for $4.99/month, they would already have my money. However they have to bundle it with YouTube Music and other stuff into "Premium", then never mind.
  • jconnop 3y ago
    Until extremely recently, they did offer exactly such a service, though only in a handful of markets (mine was one). They called it Premium Lite. It was exactly what you want, a much lower priced subscription which just removed ads, and didn't include any other premium features. I happily paid for it. It was discontinued this month.
  • Shekelphile 3y ago
    Even if they did that there would be no guarantee the price would remain the same. Google has done unannounced price increases for premium at least 3 times in the last year or so.
• Aurornis 3y ago
  A lot of the HN comments are about YouTube, but this article is really about how toxic the internet technology enthusiast community can be. The uBO volunteer teams are trying their best to give people the tools and information they want, but they’re becoming the outlet for people’s anger instead. The part about people failing to follow instructions but then taking the time to complain about the instructions not working hits home for me. My limited experience being on the front lines of a much less popular project was marked by similar experiences: Many of the people who took the time to make accounts and participate in online forums seemingly had all the time in the world to complain about us, but couldn’t be bothered to read basic instructions. In many cases people would write pages of complaints about us and rant on social media about how awful we were before they’d even try contacting support. Not everyone is awful like this. It’s actually only a small number of people. However, it doesn’t take many people to make forums and social media into completely toxic places for a subject. The first impression for anyone coming to Reddit or other places for support might be that it’s a dumpster fire, even though it could be as few as 20 in a vocal, toxic minority setting the tone. The internet is a weird place. The demographic of users who complain that the volunteer support staff for their free ad blocker which lets them avoid watching ads on their free website being toxic is not at all surprising to me.
• bruce511 3y ago
  >> Maybe that’s how YouTube will win this war of attrition. YouTube will win because they are financially incentivised to so so. UBO and other free blockers will fail because there is so much downside, and no upside. Wars are always won by those with the most resources, whether it is money or people or both. I say this not to gloat (I'm no fan of google) but rather because it can be useful to understand both the goals, and where the goals are leading to. I know HN doesn't appreciate some truths being spoken, and I imagine I'll be down-voted, but YouTube is paid for by advertisers. Content creators are paid by adverts (and embedded sponsors.) Yes we all want our entertainment for free. Yes we done want ads. Yes we dont want to pay for our content (or our software.) I get that, I really do. But content creators need to eat. Someone has to pay for the bandwidth. Since I'm not chipping in, I appreciate advertisers doing so. Personally, and this is not a recommendation, or a judgement, I don't use an ad blocker. I'd there are too many ads I stop visiting a site. For the rest, including YT, I understand what I get and I understand what I give. I get this is not the popular HN position. Each sees this his own way.
  • hotnfresh 3y ago
    > YouTube will win because they are financially incentivised to so so. UBO and other free blockers will fail because there is so much downside, and no upside. This has been the situation for the ad-blocking war since it started. If the pro-ads side is destined to win, they're sure taking their sweet time about it.
    • bruce511 3y ago
      You call it a war, I'm not sure YouTube thinks of it that way. YouTube revenue was 29.2 billion dollars in 2022. On the other side you have a couple guys complaining about Reddit users. Sure, a few tech-savy folk install ad-blockers, and Google keeps the space dynamic enough to avoid it getting serious traction. But it's less a "war" and more of a minor irritation. Winning isn't making ad-blocking go away, winning is 29.2 billion $. The entitled user base will do the rest.
      • hotnfresh 3y ago
• forrestthewoods 3y ago
  > entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin. To be fair uBlock origin users feel entitled to use YouTube, an extremely expensive operation to run, without giving anything in return. I say this as someone who uses Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin. Websites are nigh unusable without ad block. But as far as ads go YouTube is far and away one of the least offensive imho. If you don’t like ads you could choose to pay for YouTube Premium or simply not use the service. Demanding to use the service for free is rather entitled.
  • w4yai 3y ago
    Because you can monetize from free videos. How do you think TikTok makes so much money?.
    • forrestthewoods 3y ago
      Uhhh what? TikTok makes money via ads and in-app purchases. How do you think TikTok makes so much money? How do you think YouTube should make money storing and serving petabytes of high quality video?
      • w4yai 3y ago
        TikTok ads : skipable In-app purchases: you answered your question yourself
        • forrestthewoods 3y ago
          If you have a viewpoint state it plainly and clearly.
  • jackjeff 3y ago
    I’ve never given YouTube or any ad sponsored website anything in return. Whether I use software or not, the last thing on earth I’ll do is watch your ad. Not done seen one for over 20 years and I intend to keep that streak.
• atum47 3y ago
  My main issue with YouTube, being a paying customer, it's that they still try to shove trash down your throat like cringe shorts or stupid bullshit news. I still think there's some shady monetization going regarding their recomedation system as well, where the "algorithm" will recommend shit that has nothing to do with the content you watch
• seydor 3y ago
  I wonder why Youtube does not try other kinds of ads.why not ads in the sidebar, under the videos etc. They know which products and keywords are mentioned, and sometimes i google them anyway. Why do they insist on silly clickbait ads that are much worse than old-time TV ads. I don't want that because i don't like people wasting my time beyond a few hundred milliseconds. They d probably have made more money if they showed me banner ads instead of trying to make me stop using blockers I guess it's because they want to sell "video inventory" to their advertisers. But why really? They own both the demand and the supply of advertising and they can 'convince' advertisers to use banners instead of videos. Why not be a good monopoly ?
  • zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    Banner ads are completely ineffective.
    • seydor 3y ago
      > Google ad revenues from search alone were at $42.6 billion, up from $40.7 billion in the second quarter of the previous year. This marked a 4.8% annual rise. Meanwhile, gross revenue from YouTube ads came in at just under $7.7 billion, a 4.4% increase from the $7.3 billion in Q2 2022.
  • Cilvic 3y ago
    >I guess it's because they want to sell "video inventory" to their advertisers. But why really? My guess is because the non-modal video ads are the only things that a human can not ignore easily. Banner blindness is a thing and I'm pretty sure we are great at "blocking" everything around the video (that we actually want to look at). So the only option is to withhold what we want (the content) until we consumed what we don't want (the ad).
  • xboxnolifes 3y ago
    Old YouTube used to. I assume banner ads were deemed useless.
• aorth 3y ago
  Sad to see this because Google won't let me pay for Premium—it is not available in most of the countries I've lived in for the last few years. I wish I could pay for the right for my kids to not see ads, but Google won't let me. It's terrible when a relaxing piano video gets interrupted by some loud, materialistic ad and my kids can't take their eyes off it.
  • crop_rotation 3y ago
    Just out of curiosity what countries are those?
    • aorth 3y ago
      Jordan and Kenya. I'm American, for what it's worth. Frustrating that I can't just pay and use Premium while they sort out their content jurisdiction issues. They know what I'm watching, and from where—can't they figure out how to do their licensing stuff?! If I subscribe while in the US/EU (or on a VPN) it works, but the second you connect from an IP in a country that isn't supported, you get a notice that you will see ads. And it's not realistic or efficient to be on a VPN on all my (and my family's) devices 24/7.
      • verteu 3y ago
        You expect Google to prioritize Youtube Premium support in a country with $2,000 GDP per capita?
        • elaus 3y ago
          Apparently those countries are important enough to provide the service and show ads – is it really so absurd that people in those countries are frustrated by not having the ability to buy YT Premium?
• codedokode 3y ago
  By the way I haven't seen a single ad on Youtube in a year because of sanctions. Do not need an adblocker. Wish other ad platforms would comply with sanctions too.
• akokanka 3y ago
  Surely monsters like Google can easily find the hell out of you. Make you bankrupt easily just for working on and blocker
• bluGill 3y ago
  I.try to search for videos on a peertube instance first. Not much is there, but I want the few who put content there to be rewarded with my eyeballs. More video is uploaded someplace than there is time. Even if we restrict ourself to great content you can't watch it all (most are also looking for a subject they are interested in which keeps things manageable)
• 404mm 3y ago
  For tech capable people following a few channels and nothing else, here’s another option. Set up and use podsync. It uses your free API credits to monitor YouTube content and downloads them for you. Then just use any simple web server to share the static files and import the “channel” using your favorite Podcast player. End result, you have YouTube ad-free in your podcast app, with notifications (per channel) for new episodes and likely some offline caching. While this is my top favorite way to watch YT, I also support my channels directly through Patreon.
• leke 3y ago
  I suspect these redditors that create an account to leave a nasty comment, then delete it, are being paid todo so.
• andirk 3y ago
  Let's consider other options. What about: - Select "Watch ads later" a few times, until required, so time sensitive situations aren't bothered - Choose "Watch 1 long ad, then no more today" and pay the piper all at once with a couple minutes of ads. - Only relevant ads! When I worked at [video game news co], video game content got video game ads. The now defunct Grooveshark's ads were bands showcasing their music and upcoming shows. And doesn't this Youtube ads issue seem like Google is getting desperate for ad revenue? Like they have a lever and they're pulling it to 100% now.
  • crop_rotation 3y ago
    > Select "Watch ads later" a few times, until required, so time sensitive situations aren't bothered - People will simply clear their cookies when it becomes required, and this will be automated via extensions. > Like they have a lever and they're pulling it to 100% now. They are not pulling it to 100%, I think yt-dlp and similar stuff is still working. If they want to do it at some point, they will have to do it before adblocking usage is more than 50% of the population, at which point the uproar will be even higher and the change impossible to make.
  • bigthymer 3y ago
    > - Choose "Watch 1 long ad, then no more today" and pay the piper all at once with a couple minutes of ads. People would walk away and do something else.
    • hhjinks 3y ago
      I already do that if I'm on a device without adblock, by muting the tab and switching to something else.
    • andirk 3y ago
      True, and we do, but broadcast and cable TV have done this for decades, and some current streaming services do this. If an advertiser wants to pay for guaranteed attention, maybe some sort of "click this dot in next 10 seconds" and the ad ends, else it'll play through. The online ad space is a pile. Silly options may work better than the current models.
• SirMaster 3y ago
  This all seems over-complicated. Why not just use fadblock? https://github.com/0x48piraj/fadblock https://github.com/0x48piraj/fadblock It doesn't need to be updated in this cat and mouse game. it just skips the ads in milliseconds and you don't even notice them.
• zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  I use an ad blocker but I'm not entitled. If YouTube decides to stop me from using it I'll either pay for Premium or stop watching YouTube. I don't think I have any right to watch it for free without paying if they don't want to allow that. It's hard to know if in the long run they will start requiring subscriptions, develop better anti-blocker tech, or just give up and eat the loss. But somehow I wouldn't bet on #3.
• twirls 3y ago
  Just to summarize: I have nothing against marketing/ads as long as it is responsible, treats me with respect, as a human being, and does not break local laws. I have multiple problems with YouTube ads and online ads in general. It seems, to me, that there are severe flaws in online advertisement regulations or it's just extremely hard to enforce. One can compare the regulations and what responsibilities advertisers have for ads in other media vs. online ads. Here are some of the reasons why I have problems with YouTube ads: 1. Online ads are often scummy, marketing some pyramid scheme, plainly lying with fake videos/screenshots, breaking my country's laws (probably, hard to verify) or, in the case of some web ads, contain malware. 2. YouTube takes no responsibility for what is shown to me or on which videos (for example, showing political propaganda from "ultra right" as ads). 3. The amount of online ads per minute of video is often obscene, even if you can skip some of them. 4. Ads volume is through the roof - this is intentional. 5. (off-topic) Zero protection from YouTube against abuse of copyright strikes. 6. (off-topic) YouTube takes no responsibility for their recommendation algorithms and yet wants to make money on all videos, regardless of the topic. I think such behaviour is irresponsible for such a big corporation as Alphabet. Edit: To summarize: please treat me with respect and I'll watch your ads.
• taftster 3y ago
  Maybe a minority opinion, but I believe uBlock just needs to stop trying. Let Youtube "win" and further sink into garbage heap and become more irrelevant. The more ads Youtube shows, the less useful and relevant it becomes. Sure, I mean, maybe Youtube always exists and always makes money, but its origins are practically lost at this point.
• JCharante 3y ago
  I’m totally surprised that the users who don’t want to pay for youtube premium and who don’t want to pay their fair share through ads are also the entitled type who harass the adblock devs expecting instant service for free.
• mrkramer 3y ago
  I watch ads on YouTube mobile app because there in no way to block ads over there but why the hell YouTube and Google want me to watch ads on a desktop YouTube?! Doesn't majority of Google's and YouTube's ad revenue come from mobile?
  • microflash 3y ago
    Use uBO with Firefox Android and you won't have to watch ads on mobile. Or Adguard with Safari if you're in the walled garden OS.
    • mrkramer 3y ago
      I know that Firefox Android supports extensions and therefore adblocker but I want to use YouTube's native mobile app because it is faster, more stable and has more features than the mobile web version of YouTube.
    • davkan 3y ago
      altstore makes it easy to sideload apps even on ios. uyou+ even has sponsorblock built in
  • chii 3y ago
    On android, you can use Revanced to watch YouTube and it blocks all ads. https://old.reddit.com/r/revancedapp/ https://old.reddit.com/r/revancedapp/ has info on what to do.
• KingGeedorah 3y ago
  I feel like if you're the type of person to download uBlock and set specific filters you're the type of person to never click on an ad on purpose. I don't understand why Youtube is doing this, wouldn't it make their numbers look better if the people that won't click ads never have them delivered to them (5% of users clicked on ads vs 1% of users clicked on ads)
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• Condition1952 3y ago
  “Open source software is not about you” Related article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18538123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18538123 >As a user of something open source you are not thereby entitled to anything at all. You are not entitled to contribute. You are not entitled to features. You are not entitled to the attention of others. You are not entitled to having value attached to your complaints. You are not entitled to this explanation.
• astrostl 3y ago
  I am otherwise unGoogled on purpose (Kagi, Fastmail, Apple Maps, etc.) and YouTube Premium is some of the best money I spend on a monthly basis, especially because of family usage and plan. YouTube Music has been a surprisingly excellent throw-in as well, and I often end up using it more than Apple Music because it's so easy to browser-search with an Alfred shortcut. I want to support creators, and cannot personally wrap my head around western IT folks deeming it worthwhile to either spend time watching ads or trying to evade them.
• wdb 3y ago
  I think an anti-adblock is a perfect reason to try to shake off my Youtube (shorts) addiction and return back to more productive use of my time
• plutoh28 3y ago
  Ads are the unfortunate trade off we make to keep things free. I hate ads. I hate the idea of ads. Tailored propaganda to manipulate you into purchasing product just sounds awful… especially when it’s targeted at children (a demographic where advertising is especially effective). I think YouTube’s current system is a fair deal. You either watch the content and pay by watching ads, or you pay by purchasing YouTube premium. If you don’t want to pay, and you don’t want to watch ads: leave.
  • perryizgr8 3y ago
    > You either watch the content and pay by watching ads, or you pay by purchasing YouTube premium and still get shown ads. Fixed that for you.
    • okdood64 3y ago
      I've had Premium for years. Never have seen a single ad.
      • aezart 3y ago
        You've never seen a "this video is sponsored by..." segment?
        • okdood64 3y ago
          That's not an ad in the context of this thread. It's something edited into the video by the creator themselves.
          • perryizgr8 3y ago
            It's an ad by any definition. If I'm paying to remove ads, but ads are not removed, whats the point?
• dmuso 3y ago
  I would happily pay for YouTube if they didn’t ban and demonetize creators who I would pay to watch.
• colinprince 3y ago
  I have not seen youtube's warning on iphone safari (not logged in, firefox focus and 1blocker legacy content blockers) but that could be because i am using vinegar[0] to replace youtube's player with a <video> tag 0. https://andadinosaur.com/launch-vinegar https://andadinosaur.com/launch-vinegar
• fennecbutt 3y ago
  Fucking hell, if you don't like ads then just don't use YouTube. Everyone bitches about this sort of stuff and then refuses to boycott. Look at the fucking shitshow Twitter has become under ol Musky...and have people left? Yeah, some for sure, but not very many at all. The problem isn't just these companies, we can't act like the problem isn't us as well. Pay for their services, or stop using them. If enough people did this simple thing, they'd have to react to it. Twitter would already be dead if everyone had _actually_ left.
  • briHass 3y ago
    I don't care about YT and would happily use anything else. However, I do care about the content placed there exclusively. Much of that older video may not be available elsewhere, and it was probably uploaded at the time under the assumption that it would remain freely available. I'm usually not watching videos popular enough to make any money for the creators. They certainly didn't have any exclusivity arrangement.
• daeros 3y ago
  While it has ultimately come up in this discussion my honest input is most of the comments I see here evaded the elephant in the room of all of it which is that Google doesn't do a good enough job of vetting the people who advertise with it, its search engines have repeatedly allowed malware to slip through the cracks leading to people being exploited and nothing stops those same malware developers from serving up ads on YouTube with the self same malware and engaging in malvertisement. "Entitled" came up a lot, but I would have to disagree. Au contraire, YouTube is the one that feels "Entitled" to show me advertisements, even when that feature potentially exposes me to the risk of Malware.
  • PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    Even if the advertising were perfect in every way I'd run ad-block. you don't get free access to my time, there will never be a point where I'm willing to spend time watching an advertisement or sifting through advertisements looking for real content. I haven't watched television regularly since the mid-90's specifically due to the commercials, I'll be damned if I'm going to do it online. And I don't give a shit if you think I'm entitled or not, it's my time not yours.
  • BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    Absolutely the case for me too. Google ad for a scam site made to look like a legitimate Australian Bank: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-21/scammers-using-text-messages-calls-emails-fake-ads-to-get-money/101167848 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-21/scammers-using-text-m... Youtube's home page seems to always have, at the top, some kind of get-rich-quick video advertisement when I (rarely these days) visit it. Far from trying to improve on this, it feels as if Google/YT are actively trying to normalise scam advertising. I just cannot support that, at all, ever. If Google has no mechanism to prevent their platform from being used by scammers, I feel it's my responsibility that their platform doesn't reach my screen, lest I, or my family members fall for a scam - which can be psychologically damaging beyond the potential financial damage. I've mentioned before that this isn't a problem Google are inspired to solve, since their current advertising scheme successfully scales to the size of the Web. However, appropriately policing advertising to ensure scams don't get through would seriously affect the ability to scale. And it's the scaling that makes the billions. Regulate Internet advertising the same way television advertising is regulated. Colour me unsympathetic at my most forgiving.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
  "YouTube isn't rolling out the anti-adblock to everyone. It seems to depend on things like your account, browser, and IP address. And if you're not logged in or you're in a private window, you're safe." If I am not mistaken one also needs to have Javascript enabled. "And... if you're not logged in, you're safe."
  • chupapimunyenyo 3y ago
    Youtube doesn't work with javascript off, I don't understand your point. It's like saying you need to have your computer on
  • TobiWestside 3y ago
    I've been getting the anti-adblock pop-ups despite not being logged in. So that last statement seems to not be universally true.
• bane 3y ago
  Holy moley the ads. This latest campaign finally convinced me to turn off the adblockers on youtube and goodness Foxnews emergency rations and buygold are the ads utter contemptable garbage. Obvious scams, get rich quick schemes, Trump political ads....please for all that is holy get that shit off of my screen. I'd even be willing to watch a blank screen for the length of the ads if I didn't have to see this trash.
• siddheshgunjal 3y ago
  Reddit shouldn't be considered as a tech support site. As most of the drama happens there. GitHub issues might have less drama as compared to that. Just avoid reddit at all costs for your peace of mind.
• globalnode 3y ago
  I run ad-blockers because most of the internet becomes unusable without them and I'd rather focus on education and interesting things. If that ceases to be the case, I'll cease using the internet and go to my local library. There's no scenario where I'll watch ad's on youtube. The internet is just not structured for money making unless its a paid service. Advertisers are the aberration here. They're wasting their and others' time and contributing to global warming unnecessarily. Maybe if people had more critical thinking skills they would see what a burden advertising/marketing/propaganda is on their time and how often they become biased by it - in one form or another.
• eqvinox 3y ago
  This is of course bringing up the discussion on the "morality" of Adblocking. I'd like to point out something that I don't think is getting enough attention. There was a point in the past where video platforms were competing, and by no means was it clear that YouTube would end up dominating this area to the point of being close to a monopoly. When YouTube won that race, they won it with a given set of parameters, including the kind and amount of ads they show. Society at large has, at that point in the past, basically decided that YouTube's offering is the best, and given this market domineering position. YouTube is increasingly moving away from the parameters of this implicit agreement, in minor ways at first, more now. Had they "competed" in the video platform race with current policies, maybe everyone'd be using Vimeo now. And here's the crux. YouTube can only do this because their old policies allowed them to establish this domineering position, and by doing so are breaking the implicit "deal" that actually allowed them to get into this position. To me, there's currently no alternative to going onto YouTube. And no, I won't pay for YouTube Premium — because that wasn't part of the deal either. The platform won the race as a free platform. So, until Google can figure out how to serve a reasonable amount of safe ads — adblocker it is.
  • darklycan51 3y ago
    The real reason why anyone could never compete with Youtube was (lack of) monetization
    • eqvinox 3y ago
      That's actually an interesting question in itself. Google also has a domineering (though not monopoly) position in ads. If someone were to try to compete with an ad-funded service… how much of a problem would that be? Also: part of the problem is the quality of the ads. Could you actually get "better quality" ads for a competitor video platform? Do such ads even exist in sufficient number at this point? (I vaguely remember a significant portion of larger companies reducing their internet ad budgets because they simply weren't seeing good returns…)
    • raincole 3y ago
      There is a very interesting example, but unknown to western readers. It's called Bilibili. It's the largest video platform in China[0]. However, it keeps losing money since forever, including in last year, and is expected to keep losing more in 2023. [0]: Youtube is blocked in China and you need a VPN to access it there.
• Zuiii 3y ago
  Youtube is entitled to the technical shenanigans it uses to force people to watch ads and I am entitled to the technical shenanigans I use to avoid them on my own device. If youtube blocks off access completely, people will stop considering it a reliable video host and another "default" website will take its place.
  • hahn-kev 3y ago
    I think you overestimate how many people use AdBlock.
  • raincole 3y ago
    Good luck for that "default" website to survive financially :)
    • amlib 3y ago
      There are many reasons why youtube reigns supreme but I wonder if newer, extremely efficient video codecs designed with AI inference (as shown in some demos for the last 2 years) would help in breaking up youtube's moat. It's very clear to me that the cost of hosting video content is one of the main things keeping alternatives from popping up, and maybe a codec 50x more efficient than what we have now will finally help us break free from google...
      • raincole 3y ago
        I didn't do the calculations, but it sounds like trading hosting cost for GPU cost. Or you can decode on client side, but what if the client device is not powerful enough? Maybe decode on server or client depending on if the user has better internet connection or GPU...? But anyway it's not my point at all. My point is that if your "killing feature" to attract existing YouTube users to your platform is "No ads", then, well, good luck to survive financially.
        • amlib 3y ago
          Arguably having a more efficient video codec lowers the financial burden on those types of sites, tough probably not enough. Going a bit further, I'm also not just thinking of content aggregation "tube" sites but such advances could allow content creators to self host video in their own websites, just like we do with images on a blog post for the last 25 years. But of curse, hosting your own site is a bit out of fashion nowadays :(
• atleastoptimal 3y ago
  The big issue is, I know ads pay for Youtube, but maybe 1 times out of 100 do I see an ad that promotes positive feelings about the product being advertised. the other 99 times I am less inclined to purchase the product out of annoyance by the ad. Shouldn't the billions of dollars of recommendation research at this point reached a peak where ads are ideally appealing to the viewers they're served to? Wouldn't that maximize profits for all sides? It still feels like ads at this point are aimed deliberately to annoy me.
  • Renaud 3y ago
    It's like Google, with all its tracking might, is unable to actually show relevant ads. That, or it's broken on purpose. The proof of this may be that ads on YT are actually completely unrelated to the content I subscribe to and watch on YT. Even if Google has zero web tracking information on me, they know what are my interests through what I watch on their own platform. Yet, I have never seen an ad for something related to the topics I follow. This makes me think that Google is not interested in being too good at targetting ads, they wouldn't have much to sell otherwise.
  • thinkingemote 3y ago
    Ads work whether you like them or not. If you see an ad for a toaster from brand ToastX that annoys you and no other toaster ads then you are more likely to buy ToastX brand when you are shopping for a toaster. People do not remember the ads when they go shopping. Instead our brain goes "I've seen this brand before". (Obviously a positive emotion works better) This insidiousness.and manipulation is a good reason to block them as much as possible. And maybe the recognition of manipulation might strengthen our mental resistance and increase consideration when shopping for things. Almost all people including myself don't bother!
    • rchaud 3y ago
      if that was the case, wish.com would be displacing Walmart.
• fbrncci 3y ago
  I guess I fall in the minority camp here, that I don't mind paying for YouTube to not see ads. I think they've earned it, the creators earned it, but I still use Sponsorblock to block most other ads on Youtube.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• PrivateButts 3y ago
  I wouldn't mind subscribing to YouTube Premium. I use YouTube a crap ton, and every time I hear a creator weigh in on the matter, they claim that subscribers that use YTP earn them way more than 100s of ad views. This could potentially solve my problem with patron, where I just don't have the monthly budget to support everyone directly. A fixed donation that's divided up between everyone I watched that month sounds like a good alternative to those who don't make the cut for my patron budget. However, I hate how they price YTP. Why is everyone so allergic to options/add-ons with subscriptions? Ideally, I just want to pay for two seat license to YTP+Music, so my wife and I can consolidate our Spotify duo plan with YTP. Failing that, I would love to pay for just YTP without Youtube music and keep Spotify. Under the current model I would have to either pay for two separate full price subscriptions for $28, or for less money, get the family plan and have 3 extra licenses I don't need. I could sublet them to friends or other family, but I don't want to mix our accounts together, and I shouldn't have to be a mini-landlord because Google won't do $14/m + $2.5/m per seat.
• Gazoche 3y ago
  I'd feel more guilty adblocking Youtube if I was certain a fair share the advertising money was going to the creators producing the content. But from their own testimonies, Youtube keeps demonetizing videos for absurd reasons, or allows bad actors to file false copyright claims and outright steal their revenue. It's gotten to the point where I've seen a couple creators give up on the Youtube monetization and go "I don't care, use Adblock, I make my money on sponsorships anyway". There's also been a rise in popularity of creator-owned platforms like Floatplane and Nebula.
  • inemesitaffia 3y ago
    I believe video costs around $.1 per TB to deliver above 100PB. Is the provider making that much?
    • graphe 3y ago
      No, but it also pays for users attention, data and opportunity cost, basically me not using another platform competitor. I could be reading a book instead too.
• ranting-moth 3y ago
  I don't think "Ads" is the right term. There's a lot of fraud, misinformation and and targeted political propaganda peddled by YT as "ads". I do wonder what the right term for those videos are, but it ain't "ads".
• leke 3y ago
  Some interesting information in that article about youtube blocking people with privacy plugins. So it seems you need to wave your state given privacy rights to to use youtube. Even after disabling my only adblocker, Youtube seems to partally load, then break for long periods. I don't even have any extra privacy plugins installed, but I do use Brave browser, that does have some privacy settings built in. If I try to open in private mode, the video loads fine.
  • hoffs 3y ago
    > Some interesting information in that article about youtube blocking people with privacy plugins. So it seems you need to wave your state given privacy rights to to use youtube. Which state rights does YouTube violate?
• softsound 3y ago
  YouTube is at the breaking point for me this week. Apparently I was tested with the optional popup that I needed to remove my adblocker or else. I refused now they don't bother with the popup and just display a message on the video itself and block me because of my adblocker. Literally a few minutes ago I tried to reply to a comment on my phone (that doesn't have adblockers) and every ad would cause what I typed to disappear while I was typing so I had to make sure to only comment after like 3 ads ran first. But I got so frustrated with it I left halfway through the video. Google is known for having bad service with useless customer support so why would I want to pay for service I know will continue to get worse no matter what? There is no reward for trying to maintain what I had. Are there no other means then a subscription to bring back what I once had for free? Why not invent something instead of ruining my feeds and forcing dumb shorts everywhere that are worse then tiktok? I am happy to pay it's competition for service.
  • hoffs 3y ago
    > Are there no other means then a subscription to bring back what I once had for free? > I am happy to pay it's competition for service You can just pay for YouTube.... How many times did you need customer service on YouTube that it's your main argument for not paying
• triyambakam 3y ago
  No one here uses Brave? Ads blocked automatically.
• gigel82 3y ago
  Just embed the ads in the video stream at upload time. I might be inclined to not fast forward if they're short enough and entertaining. I will always use an ad blocker otherwise, because the main thing I'm protecting against is tracking. Similarly, I don't mind the old school static ads some blogs and websites still use but I will go out of my way to block all dynamic ads for the same reason (tracking).
• croatan 3y ago
  It would not be a problem if YouTube and other platforms would serve us ADs that are not annoying but they are sharing everything everywhere. I'm marketing guy by profession and I'm creating Ads, but I still use adBlockers.
• throwaway5959 3y ago
  Look, just say you’re a cheapskate if you use Adblock and don’t pay for Premium. Just say “I want to get something for nothing”. There are people that refuse to tip because they think the tipping system in the US is immoral. No, they’re just cheap. People are here writing tomes on why they don’t want to pay with attention or $$$ when they’re really just cheap. Edit: Look if you’re going to downvote, at least provide a coherent rebuttal. K8sToGo already failed in that regard with this gem: “Well since you are not cheap you can just buy premium for all of us. Thanks in advance.”
  • k8sToGo 3y ago
    Well since you are not cheap you can just buy premium for all of us. Thanks in advance.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • Doxin 3y ago
    How about "I want to get something for the price previously agreed"? I didn't start out blocking ads because there was a reasonable amount for them. There no longer is. Youtube broke their implicit agreement with me, so I really don't feel bad for doing the same in return. If youtube ever manages to actually block adblockers I'll simply stop using youtube.
    • throwaway5959 3y ago
      What do you mean by implicit agreement? Why can’t companies change how many ads they run over time? It seems entitled to use a product you’re in no way paying for. Like if this were water or food, and corporations made it impossible for people to be able to afford it, I could see an argument for stealing it. But this is YouTube. No one _needs_ YouTube.
  • kahnclusions 3y ago
    Google freely sends a bunch of video content to my computer. Why don’t I have the right to decide which parts of that content I want to watch? Which parts are permitted to execute on my computer? My computer, my home, my rules. Google has their policies, I have mine. It’s none of Google’s business whether I watched the ads or not.
• JakeAl 3y ago
  Here's what I do, I use Brave for YouTube and another browser for everything else. Brave apparently bocks the ads and they don't get to spy on me anywhere else but their own site.
• ginko 3y ago
  I would have expected for youtube to splice the ads directly into the video stream ages ago. Combined with some stream throttling it'd make it almost impossible to skip (or at least waiting for the ad to be over). Any reason why this hasn't been done so far?
• the_omegist 3y ago
  Not sure this is the best topic to ask this. This is not a domain I am knowledgeable about but : if Youtube detects (somehow) when an ad is blocked , why don't adblockers become "adfastworwarders" ? I am using a bookmarklet to play Youtube videos faster & I noticed the videos are also played at the same speed. Couldn't "adfastworwarders" detect the start of an ad & like play it at x10 or x20? It would still create a tiny "cut" in the watching experience but perhaps a way to skip ads ? Any reason this cannot be a path for adblockers?
  • akashmeshram 3y ago
    This plugin does exactly that, works for me so far. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fadblock-friendly-adblock/mdadjjfmjhfcibgfhfjbaiiljpllkbfc https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fadblock-friendly-...
    • the_omegist 3y ago
      Thanks for the link. I will check that. From the comments, it seems quite effective...until perhaps youtube decides to check the ads speed & blocks them at x1.
• erremerre 3y ago
  I miss stage6.
• Aerbil313 3y ago
  Lots of talk. I just wish people with free time could gather together and build a completely distributed Google (YouTube, Search etc.) * On top of Freenet 2023 * As performant as Google * Funding the project by ads. Yes, you need it.
• cykros 3y ago
  Not sure if it's AdNauseam or BypassPaywalls (which does prevent you from seeing your logged in algorithmic recommendations), but I'm not getting ads or bothered anymore. I was, using Brave, with or without uBlock Origin turned on. Hopefully this brings more creators over to Rumble, Bitchute, and/or Odysee though -- it's about time YouTube gets ditched en masse, and not just for the fringe content.
  • cykros 3y ago
    Curious if hosts file based blocking, or a PiHole, would trigger their block as well.
• noqc 3y ago
  The argument for the morality of adblockers, in my opinion, begins and ends with the idea that, were the adblocker something you could insert in your brain directly, you would clearly have the right to do so, and also clearly have the right not to disclose this to google. Google gets paid by advertisers to go fishing. They bait the hooks. I don't think it is reasonable to complain that the fish eat the bait and not the hooks. Maybe it's not good for their business model, but I don't understand why the fish has any duty to the fisherman. You want me to pay for this content? Great, let's settle on a price that doesn't involve your dominant market position first. What do you think you could charge everyone without losing your moat? That seems like a price I'm much more willing to pay.
  • Night_Thastus 3y ago
    That's a good argument. Mine is a bit different: * Who paid for the computer displaying the content? * Who paid for the electricity powering that computer? * Who paid for the internet service the computer is connected to? * Who paid for the housing the computer is in? The answer to all of those is ME. That seals it personally, I am not seeing ads in my own home when I'm paying for all that. I'm not denying Google has costs to keep YT running. I'm just stating that from my perspective, I've already paid plenty - both upfront and monthly. It would be different if it was a computer in a public library where I paid for nothing, and the ad revenue went to support that library. But that isn't the situation.
• jhiggins777 3y ago
  just do back and forward really quick and no ads: ⌘+[ and ⌘+]
• singron 3y ago
  It's interesting how few users can ruin a FOSS project. I doubt Google would stoop this low, but sabatage seems surprisingly practical by pumping a lot of low effort comments through open communication systems. The uBO had similar issues with Facebook's anti-adblock. IMO the anti-adblock worked. The maintainers probably all muted the thread, and now 99% of the time, ads show up in the feed.
  • rchaud 3y ago
    I don't see why it should. Every game torrent I've ever uh, "evaluated", has had a never ending stream of comments of "it doesn't work" from people who don't read the instructions. I never the uploader get involved in the comments. We used to call them noobs and tell them to re-read the instructions, that would be that.
• rchaud 3y ago
  I've never paid for Youtube because it isn't a proper product. It's a hodgepodge network of amateur videos that've been cobbled together into an offering that just barely resembles something you can throw a price tag on. There's plenty of content o Youtube that's simply stolen from the original creators (home video fail compilations, newsreader bloopers). Yet YT can take a cut of the ad revenue from the tens of millions of view those videos get.
• arendtio 3y ago
  I use uBO for many years now and from time to time I wondered why YouTube worked so well even without the ads. Knowing how much effort is being put into this, explains a lot. I absolutely love this extension and every time I come across a browser without it, I am horrified what the normal web is like today. Thanks a lot for providing everyone with a very good chance to experience a much better web.
• aneutron 3y ago
  Youtube, I don't want Youtube Music or Youtube Shitnuggets. Give me a plan where I pay 5€ a month just to watch youtube with no fucking ads. Is that not enough ?
• anonu 3y ago
  I just pay $10/month
• miwi666 3y ago
  [dead]