5 ms·

Websites are expensive and other than charging users money, ads are an easy way to generate revenue. I like using free services and I'd like to support the owne

by ancarda 13y ago

Websites are expensive and other than charging users money, ads are an easy way to generate revenue. I like using free services and I'd like to support the owner. As such, I don't use AdBlock. However, YouTube forced me to. Back when YouTube used a small ad in the top-right, it was fine. Banner overlays were a bit more annoying, but still tolerable. Pre-rolls? No way, they stop me from getting to the content I want. I wish I could switch to Vimeo but there's not a lot of content there.

isomorphic 13y ago
I like using free services and I'd like to support the owner. As such, I don't use AdBlock. I remember years ago when Ars Technica ran the article "Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love": http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-devastating-to-the-sites-you-love/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-d... So I disabled AdBlock on Ars Technica. I was immediately greeted with a horrible blinking ad claiming some nonsense that was completely insulting--the IT equivalent of those "punch the monkey" ads. I turned AdBlock back on. I've never turned it back off on Ars Technica. Websites that run advertising cannot pretend that advertising is somehow separate from the site. Advertising becomes part of the content. Ads are therefore representative of the site. Website owners should curate the ads as carefully as the site's main content. Otherwise they're committing some of the same sins as spammers.
- Flimm 13y ago
  You haven't explained why you decided against avoiding visiting Ars Technica altogether.
VikingCoder 13y ago
Aren't most pre-rolls 3 seconds before you can watch the video? And it's funny to me to watch people smugly use AdBlock. All you folks who use it understand that Google could detect that you AdBlocked, and then refuse to show the video, right? I mean, you get that, right?
- ancarda 13y ago
  Almost all were but increasingly a lot make me wait 30 seconds or more.
  - ywyrd 13y ago
    youtube-dl not only bypasses the wait, but also the asinine "age verification".
- TillE 13y ago
  > Google could detect that you AdBlocked, and then refuse to show the video Emphasis on "could". They don't. So what? It's trivial to make anti-anti-adblock filters, so most sites don't even start that arms race.
  - VikingCoder 13y ago
    Are you logged in to YouTube when you're blocking ads? Google could announce, "Hey, everyone who has ad-blocked over the last year violated our Terms of Use, and so we're deleting their accounts." Or they could just shut down YouTube, because it's impossible to earn revenue off of people who aren't even willing to watch an ad before they feel entitled to watch a video.
- consonants 13y ago
  Then do it so we can find another way around it.
- isomorphic 13y ago
  Google could prepend the ad in such a way that it appears to be part of the main video data stream, so that the ad is impossible to block on a URL basis. I could write userland software to automatically skip ahead 30 seconds on any YouTube video. Google could prevent people from skipping the first 30 seconds of any video by delaying the data stream for the remainder of the video at the server level. At that point, I could go outside and watch the sunset. Or, I could buy a frak-ton of EC2 instances and cobble together a crappy IsomorphTube--with discreet text-based ads, which might attract viewers simply because Google had turned YouTube into an armed camp (with forced video viewing for all). Let's remember that even though Google has a huge scale advantage, it isn't Google that's creating the content on YouTube.
zoowar 13y ago
Centralized websites are expensive.
mgr86 13y ago
I often switched to embed. (youtube.com/watch?v=x89eyhj => youtube.com/embed/x89eyhj) I do it because I might want to watch a video full screen in one monitor and continue to work on another. Embed automatically takes up the full window. An added side effect is that the pre-roll ads disappear. The banner ads are still there.
- lelandbatey 13y ago
  For me, I find the Youtube has just gotten worse as time's progressed. At this point, the player's buggy, the site doesn't adjust well to different screen sizes, I have playback issues like crazy, the interface is unintelligible. I just automated the downloading and playing of Youtube videos from the command line. Here's the script that'll do it: https://gist.github.com/lelandbatey/7594106 https://gist.github.com/lelandbatey/7594106
  - mgr86 13y ago
    actually, you do raise a very good point. The playback has been super buggy for me the last six months or so. Often times beyond usable. It seems the only way to get it actually play is using watching the embedded video. I do it so much out of habit anymore that I often don't notice. I do actually have that installed (or at least something like it) I actually use it a fair bit for things I want to watch but don't want to listen too. Somewhere between comcast and youtube I find it nearly impossible to stream 1080p quality videos. I feel like youtube doesn't buffer like it used to.
    - lelandbatey 13y ago
      Yeah, I think they started to get really aggressive about controlling how people access Youtube videos, trying to keep from sending more data than is absolutely necessary over the wire to keep costs down.
magikbum 13y ago
Why is everyone so whiny? Should everything be free in life? In a time when PBS's budget is drastically cut I am glad free content still makes it out and I am happy to support it. No one is forced to watch ads.
- isomorphic 13y ago
  Whiny? Should everyone accept whatever site operators choose to shove at them? PBS is the wrong comparison; Google is a for-profit company. In the cold light of capitalism, this is a game theory problem. As a site operator, what ads can I get away with before I drive away my visitors? Will additional advertising reduce the effectiveness of my existing ads, due to visitor burnout? Am I making more money in the long run with the introduction of these ads? As a user: What content can I get from this site without wasting my time on ads? Are there technologies that let me see the content without the ads? Is this site even worth the hassle? The capitalist marketing purist would argue that an Ideal Ad is one that suggests something to the viewer that is exactly what he or she actually wants or needs, and said Ideal Ad is so well-done that the viewer does not mind watching it. Given that Google is the world's largest advertising company, with arguably the best data of any advertising company, how well do you think they are doing that?

by ancarda 13y ago

isomorphic 13y ago

I like using free services and I'd like to support the owner. As such, I don't use AdBlock. I remember years ago when Ars Technica ran the article "Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love": http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-devastating-to-the-sites-you-love/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-d... So I disabled AdBlock on Ars Technica. I was immediately greeted with a horrible blinking ad claiming some nonsense that was completely insulting--the IT equivalent of those "punch the monkey" ads. I turned AdBlock back on. I've never turned it back off on Ars Technica. Websites that run advertising cannot pretend that advertising is somehow separate from the site. Advertising becomes part of the content. Ads are therefore representative of the site. Website owners should curate the ads as carefully as the site's main content. Otherwise they're committing some of the same sins as spammers.

Flimm 13y ago
You haven't explained why you decided against avoiding visiting Ars Technica altogether.

VikingCoder 13y ago

Aren't most pre-rolls 3 seconds before you can watch the video? And it's funny to me to watch people smugly use AdBlock. All you folks who use it understand that Google could detect that you AdBlocked, and then refuse to show the video, right? I mean, you get that, right?

ancarda 13y ago
Almost all were but increasingly a lot make me wait 30 seconds or more.
- ywyrd 13y ago
  youtube-dl not only bypasses the wait, but also the asinine "age verification".
TillE 13y ago
> Google could detect that you AdBlocked, and then refuse to show the video Emphasis on "could". They don't. So what? It's trivial to make anti-anti-adblock filters, so most sites don't even start that arms race.
- VikingCoder 13y ago
  Are you logged in to YouTube when you're blocking ads? Google could announce, "Hey, everyone who has ad-blocked over the last year violated our Terms of Use, and so we're deleting their accounts." Or they could just shut down YouTube, because it's impossible to earn revenue off of people who aren't even willing to watch an ad before they feel entitled to watch a video.
consonants 13y ago
Then do it so we can find another way around it.
isomorphic 13y ago
Google could prepend the ad in such a way that it appears to be part of the main video data stream, so that the ad is impossible to block on a URL basis. I could write userland software to automatically skip ahead 30 seconds on any YouTube video. Google could prevent people from skipping the first 30 seconds of any video by delaying the data stream for the remainder of the video at the server level. At that point, I could go outside and watch the sunset. Or, I could buy a frak-ton of EC2 instances and cobble together a crappy IsomorphTube--with discreet text-based ads, which might attract viewers simply because Google had turned YouTube into an armed camp (with forced video viewing for all). Let's remember that even though Google has a huge scale advantage, it isn't Google that's creating the content on YouTube.

zoowar 13y ago

Centralized websites are expensive.

mgr86 13y ago

I often switched to embed. (youtube.com/watch?v=x89eyhj => youtube.com/embed/x89eyhj) I do it because I might want to watch a video full screen in one monitor and continue to work on another. Embed automatically takes up the full window. An added side effect is that the pre-roll ads disappear. The banner ads are still there.

lelandbatey 13y ago
For me, I find the Youtube has just gotten worse as time's progressed. At this point, the player's buggy, the site doesn't adjust well to different screen sizes, I have playback issues like crazy, the interface is unintelligible. I just automated the downloading and playing of Youtube videos from the command line. Here's the script that'll do it: https://gist.github.com/lelandbatey/7594106 https://gist.github.com/lelandbatey/7594106
- mgr86 13y ago
  actually, you do raise a very good point. The playback has been super buggy for me the last six months or so. Often times beyond usable. It seems the only way to get it actually play is using watching the embedded video. I do it so much out of habit anymore that I often don't notice. I do actually have that installed (or at least something like it) I actually use it a fair bit for things I want to watch but don't want to listen too. Somewhere between comcast and youtube I find it nearly impossible to stream 1080p quality videos. I feel like youtube doesn't buffer like it used to.
  - lelandbatey 13y ago
    Yeah, I think they started to get really aggressive about controlling how people access Youtube videos, trying to keep from sending more data than is absolutely necessary over the wire to keep costs down.

magikbum 13y ago

Why is everyone so whiny? Should everything be free in life? In a time when PBS's budget is drastically cut I am glad free content still makes it out and I am happy to support it. No one is forced to watch ads.

isomorphic 13y ago
Whiny? Should everyone accept whatever site operators choose to shove at them? PBS is the wrong comparison; Google is a for-profit company. In the cold light of capitalism, this is a game theory problem. As a site operator, what ads can I get away with before I drive away my visitors? Will additional advertising reduce the effectiveness of my existing ads, due to visitor burnout? Am I making more money in the long run with the introduction of these ads? As a user: What content can I get from this site without wasting my time on ads? Are there technologies that let me see the content without the ads? Is this site even worth the hassle? The capitalist marketing purist would argue that an Ideal Ad is one that suggests something to the viewer that is exactly what he or she actually wants or needs, and said Ideal Ad is so well-done that the viewer does not mind watching it. Given that Google is the world's largest advertising company, with arguably the best data of any advertising company, how well do you think they are doing that?