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I'm still unable to accept that people accept ads as a part of life. I can't use instagram it's full of ads. I did finally get YT premium convinced by people on

by ge96 8mo ago

I'm still unable to accept that people accept ads as a part of life. I can't use instagram it's full of ads. I did finally get YT premium convinced by people on here but UBO all the way. Thankfully I never got sucked into Twitch. I get it too I'm a bad person for not accepting articles where every other paragraph is an ad.

ozgrakkurt 8mo ago
Youtube is still very much ad spam even if you block the ads. Of course it depends on what kind of videos you watch. But videos themselves are becoming more ad filled and lower effort for me. I mainly consume software, gaming, cooking and hardware news videos. Huge portion of human effort going to ads is really sad
- ge96 8mo ago
  I watch stuff related to photography/cinematography, fishing (creeks), hobby electronics stuff, cars. That's most of it. Some makers like Hyperspace pirate. Travel videos like Japan Maibaru travel is good. Music recommendations, search a song and click on the "Song name + mix". The travel stuff I don't travel myself but the mood/atmosphere is great like Japanese towns near coast lines. It's funny being a developer you don't watch much developer content like Primogen though I'm jealous these guys can just talk into a camera and make money. It is a skill to be likeable/mass appeal, being entertaining. I already know the ad anyway, "this video is sponsored by SquareSpace". Bro I'm not going to use square space alright, I'm going to go into VS Code, make a SPA, host it on S3, buy a domain, connect the DNS, setup up ALB, CDN, setup RDS, cognito and then I'll have a website. Oh I also need github actions to do the build and push out the new changes. Will throw this random comment in. Competition with the masses is hard. I paid a friend of mine $100 per song he produced for me (which were bad). But then I can go on Epidemic Sound and for $10/mo pick from a shit ton of good songs... how does a single creator compete with that.
- michaelt 8mo ago
  The extension 'sponsorblock' automatically jumps over ad reads in the video, with user-submitted start/end data.
  - abnercoimbre 8mo ago
    Can't recommend it enough. And with this plugin you'll immediately notice if a video is vapid (read: only exists to plug the sponsor.)
    - kitsune1 8mo ago
      How does the extension know if the submissions are valid and not malicious?
      - crote 8mo ago
        Users are able to "downvote" a "skip", and a skip which isn't undone is considered an "upvote".
  - debian3 8mo ago
    I’m always surprised when I watch a video that is 9 minutes old and the sponsors segments get skipped automatically. That extension must be getting quite popular.
- throwaway85825 8mo ago
  Sponsor block works great.
- nozzlegear 8mo ago
  I pay for YouTube Premium to block YouTube's "native" ads on Apple TV, but yeah, the sponsorship crap is getting out of hand. I need to look into getting the Apple TV sponsorblock thing set up.
  - ge96 8mo ago
    This is a side complaint on YT but I have purchased so many UHD movies and they only stream in 480P. I think you have to have some kind of YouTube certified device to play it in UHD but annoying.
    - hedora 8mo ago
      Pro tip: If you still have a local record store with a used section, you can probably buy blurays and dvds super cheap. They’re typically 25-50% the price of renting on Amazon/Apple, or buying used media on Amazon. Also, it’s actually easier to bypass the DRM crap than not, so they’ll continue to play in full resolution moving forward.
      - ge96 8mo ago
        That's one of those things, gotta have all these discs... I already have a hoarding problem, but it is a solution I want to point out I'm still an apt dweller unfortunately
        BobaFloutist 8mo ago
        Nah, you can rip the discs and sell them back/toss them. You can also get discs from most libraries, book stores, many garage sails, ebay, for super cheap.
        iaaan 8mo ago
        At that point, why not just pirate and cut out the used disk middleman since the original creators aren't seeing any money from the purchase at that point anyway?
- hedora 8mo ago
  We use an official YouTube app, and it’s all ad fraud. It rapid rolls through video streams showing a second or two of each ad. Presumably this is so Google can charge advertisers for impressions that don’t actually exist.
  - slumberlust 8mo ago
    I've noticed this with shorts. I'll go through 20 or so, check my YT history and Google treats the worst ones as a watched video. I'll spend less than a second as my brain processes the slop and then skip. Sure as shit they act like I watched the whole video and recommend me more. It has to be some sort of revenue scam, no customer advantage has appeared to me yet.
- quickthrowman 8mo ago
  If you have YT Premium and start skipping ahead while an in video ad is playing, it helpfully provides a button to skip it. Still annoying, but much less so.
CompromisedTool 8mo ago
My 2.5 year old recognizes ads and says “ew, ads” because I’ve intentionally said it each time we see one.
- ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
  My 5-year-old skips over them saying "Why the hell would I want that" because I was not careful enough while skipping over ads saying "Why the hell would I want that". Children sample harder than Public Enemy.
xtracto 8mo ago
There was a Firefox extension long ago that did NOT block ads but hid them. Basically it loaded them and for all the site knew, the add was showing, so it was transparent. But, the ad wasn't rendering in the page. So the user didnt need to suffer them, but the website owners still profited. The only losers where ad buyers, who IMHO are exactly the ones that should be affected.until they realize that ads are not effective. Someone should bring something like that for current platforms. Even for video like, a placeholder video with a tip, interesting fact or whatever, playing while the page load the real video.
- Permik 8mo ago
  Not sure if you're talking about Adnauseam, but this is basically the lawful evil version of the extension you're describing. https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/ Adnauseam actually clicks on every ad in the background, otherwise it's just a wrapper on uBlock Origin.
  - xtracto 8mo ago
    Yes! That one. But we need it for video ads as well now. Ads are an evil that must be removed from the internet, and draining the wallets of companies using ads, without upside, would make them place less value on them.
- kyorochan 8mo ago
  If ads are not effective, why do you think companies keep buying them? Surely they would have realized by now.
  - rchaud 8mo ago
    Companies have ad budgets that must be spent to the last dollar lest that dollar be deducted from next year's budget.
    - ej88 8mo ago
      The only reason why have an ad budget is because buying ads was effective. If they were no longer effective there would be no ad budget
Wowfunhappy 8mo ago
The people who "accept ads as a part of life" are funding the content you read and watch. You are not in any way "a bad person", but you should be thankful that not everyone blocks ads.
- fsflover 8mo ago
  Ads are intentional psychological manipulation, and nobody should be thankful to anyone allowing this. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269
- Ukv 8mo ago
  Have always felt it's not really any different to allowing a website to run a JS crypto miner. It moves money (which is why it's done) but wastes resources (time/energy) so is on net a detriment to affordability.
  - Wowfunhappy 8mo ago
    So then how do you think websites should make money?
    - Ukv 8mo ago
      Many sites already exist to sell products (like Temu) or a paid subscription (like Dropbox), such that ads or crypto miners would just be double-dipping. On average, you would need to pay less than you do now if resources were not wasted on ads/crypto miners. For websites that aren't costly to host (blogs, tutorials, ...), there's often no need to monetize at all. Non-commercial sites on some topic ran by passionate hobbyists are already typically higher quality than sites designed for profiting through adspam/SEO. Donations and volunteer work (like Wikipedia) can be viable where there are non-negligible costs to cover. Grants and public funding can also help if it's a worthwhile cause. Some institutions/people benefit indirectly in recognition from putting information online - like universities, product support forums, or a security researcher writing up an investigation into a malware campaign. Could consider this a form of advertising, but the resources are being used in a productive way rather than just intentionally wasting time. Non-wasteful use of your time and computing resources are also fine by me, like torrent trackers that require you to maintain a minimum seed ratio. Google's CAPTCHAs are already sneakily giving you annotation work, just not paying for it. I'd claim federation also helps, in that services that ostensibly benefit from being one massive site (due to network effect) can actually be split up into smaller more feasible nodes. I use SDF's Mastodon/Lemmy instances for example, and host a Matrix server.

by ge96 8mo ago

ozgrakkurt 8mo ago

Youtube is still very much ad spam even if you block the ads. Of course it depends on what kind of videos you watch. But videos themselves are becoming more ad filled and lower effort for me. I mainly consume software, gaming, cooking and hardware news videos. Huge portion of human effort going to ads is really sad

ge96 8mo ago
I watch stuff related to photography/cinematography, fishing (creeks), hobby electronics stuff, cars. That's most of it. Some makers like Hyperspace pirate. Travel videos like Japan Maibaru travel is good. Music recommendations, search a song and click on the "Song name + mix". The travel stuff I don't travel myself but the mood/atmosphere is great like Japanese towns near coast lines. It's funny being a developer you don't watch much developer content like Primogen though I'm jealous these guys can just talk into a camera and make money. It is a skill to be likeable/mass appeal, being entertaining. I already know the ad anyway, "this video is sponsored by SquareSpace". Bro I'm not going to use square space alright, I'm going to go into VS Code, make a SPA, host it on S3, buy a domain, connect the DNS, setup up ALB, CDN, setup RDS, cognito and then I'll have a website. Oh I also need github actions to do the build and push out the new changes. Will throw this random comment in. Competition with the masses is hard. I paid a friend of mine $100 per song he produced for me (which were bad). But then I can go on Epidemic Sound and for $10/mo pick from a shit ton of good songs... how does a single creator compete with that.
michaelt 8mo ago
The extension 'sponsorblock' automatically jumps over ad reads in the video, with user-submitted start/end data.
- abnercoimbre 8mo ago
  Can't recommend it enough. And with this plugin you'll immediately notice if a video is vapid (read: only exists to plug the sponsor.)
  - kitsune1 8mo ago
    How does the extension know if the submissions are valid and not malicious?
    - crote 8mo ago
      Users are able to "downvote" a "skip", and a skip which isn't undone is considered an "upvote".
- debian3 8mo ago
  I’m always surprised when I watch a video that is 9 minutes old and the sponsors segments get skipped automatically. That extension must be getting quite popular.
throwaway85825 8mo ago
Sponsor block works great.
nozzlegear 8mo ago
I pay for YouTube Premium to block YouTube's "native" ads on Apple TV, but yeah, the sponsorship crap is getting out of hand. I need to look into getting the Apple TV sponsorblock thing set up.
- ge96 8mo ago
  This is a side complaint on YT but I have purchased so many UHD movies and they only stream in 480P. I think you have to have some kind of YouTube certified device to play it in UHD but annoying.
  - hedora 8mo ago
    Pro tip: If you still have a local record store with a used section, you can probably buy blurays and dvds super cheap. They’re typically 25-50% the price of renting on Amazon/Apple, or buying used media on Amazon. Also, it’s actually easier to bypass the DRM crap than not, so they’ll continue to play in full resolution moving forward.
    - ge96 8mo ago
      That's one of those things, gotta have all these discs... I already have a hoarding problem, but it is a solution I want to point out I'm still an apt dweller unfortunately
      - BobaFloutist 8mo ago
        Nah, you can rip the discs and sell them back/toss them. You can also get discs from most libraries, book stores, many garage sails, ebay, for super cheap.
        iaaan 8mo ago
        At that point, why not just pirate and cut out the used disk middleman since the original creators aren't seeing any money from the purchase at that point anyway?
hedora 8mo ago
We use an official YouTube app, and it’s all ad fraud. It rapid rolls through video streams showing a second or two of each ad. Presumably this is so Google can charge advertisers for impressions that don’t actually exist.
- slumberlust 8mo ago
  I've noticed this with shorts. I'll go through 20 or so, check my YT history and Google treats the worst ones as a watched video. I'll spend less than a second as my brain processes the slop and then skip. Sure as shit they act like I watched the whole video and recommend me more. It has to be some sort of revenue scam, no customer advantage has appeared to me yet.
quickthrowman 8mo ago
If you have YT Premium and start skipping ahead while an in video ad is playing, it helpfully provides a button to skip it. Still annoying, but much less so.

CompromisedTool 8mo ago

My 2.5 year old recognizes ads and says “ew, ads” because I’ve intentionally said it each time we see one.

ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
My 5-year-old skips over them saying "Why the hell would I want that" because I was not careful enough while skipping over ads saying "Why the hell would I want that". Children sample harder than Public Enemy.

xtracto 8mo ago

There was a Firefox extension long ago that did NOT block ads but hid them. Basically it loaded them and for all the site knew, the add was showing, so it was transparent. But, the ad wasn't rendering in the page. So the user didnt need to suffer them, but the website owners still profited. The only losers where ad buyers, who IMHO are exactly the ones that should be affected.until they realize that ads are not effective. Someone should bring something like that for current platforms. Even for video like, a placeholder video with a tip, interesting fact or whatever, playing while the page load the real video.

Permik 8mo ago
Not sure if you're talking about Adnauseam, but this is basically the lawful evil version of the extension you're describing. https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/ Adnauseam actually clicks on every ad in the background, otherwise it's just a wrapper on uBlock Origin.
- xtracto 8mo ago
  Yes! That one. But we need it for video ads as well now. Ads are an evil that must be removed from the internet, and draining the wallets of companies using ads, without upside, would make them place less value on them.
kyorochan 8mo ago
If ads are not effective, why do you think companies keep buying them? Surely they would have realized by now.
- rchaud 8mo ago
  Companies have ad budgets that must be spent to the last dollar lest that dollar be deducted from next year's budget.
  - ej88 8mo ago
    The only reason why have an ad budget is because buying ads was effective. If they were no longer effective there would be no ad budget

Wowfunhappy 8mo ago

The people who "accept ads as a part of life" are funding the content you read and watch. You are not in any way "a bad person", but you should be thankful that not everyone blocks ads.

fsflover 8mo ago
Ads are intentional psychological manipulation, and nobody should be thankful to anyone allowing this. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269
Ukv 8mo ago
Have always felt it's not really any different to allowing a website to run a JS crypto miner. It moves money (which is why it's done) but wastes resources (time/energy) so is on net a detriment to affordability.
- Wowfunhappy 8mo ago
  So then how do you think websites should make money?
  - Ukv 8mo ago
    Many sites already exist to sell products (like Temu) or a paid subscription (like Dropbox), such that ads or crypto miners would just be double-dipping. On average, you would need to pay less than you do now if resources were not wasted on ads/crypto miners. For websites that aren't costly to host (blogs, tutorials, ...), there's often no need to monetize at all. Non-commercial sites on some topic ran by passionate hobbyists are already typically higher quality than sites designed for profiting through adspam/SEO. Donations and volunteer work (like Wikipedia) can be viable where there are non-negligible costs to cover. Grants and public funding can also help if it's a worthwhile cause. Some institutions/people benefit indirectly in recognition from putting information online - like universities, product support forums, or a security researcher writing up an investigation into a malware campaign. Could consider this a form of advertising, but the resources are being used in a productive way rather than just intentionally wasting time. Non-wasteful use of your time and computing resources are also fine by me, like torrent trackers that require you to maintain a minimum seed ratio. Google's CAPTCHAs are already sneakily giving you annotation work, just not paying for it. I'd claim federation also helps, in that services that ostensibly benefit from being one massive site (due to network effect) can actually be split up into smaller more feasible nodes. I use SDF's Mastodon/Lemmy instances for example, and host a Matrix server.