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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 o

by 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 :(
dschuetz 3y ago
I'm also kinda amazed that in order to avoid YT's anti-adblocker you just have to logout from Google's account and you're golden. Basically, Google is indirectly destroying their own userbase that way. "Oh Google, you're blocking me now? lol what am I needin ya for anyway?" What genius came up with the idea anti-adblock flagging Google accounts?
- chii 3y ago
  i think they track you just as easily logged out as they do logged in.

by Zuiii 3y ago

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 :(

dschuetz 3y ago

I'm also kinda amazed that in order to avoid YT's anti-adblocker you just have to logout from Google's account and you're golden. Basically, Google is indirectly destroying their own userbase that way. "Oh Google, you're blocking me now? lol what am I needin ya for anyway?" What genius came up with the idea anti-adblock flagging Google accounts?

chii 3y ago
i think they track you just as easily logged out as they do logged in.