General > General Technical Chat
YouTube runs experiment addressing users with ad blocker
Nominal Animal:
Everything Youtube and Google is trying to achieve now with their "we must control the entire delivery system, up to and including the software used to access our services; think of the children!" and claiming "you're stealing from us if you don't watch our ads", has already been tried, done, and utterly failed in computer games' DRM.
Those who tolerate ads will just keep using the services, and being the commodity Alphabet sells to its customers (= the advertisers and information brokers).
Those who don't, either pay a premium so Alphabets get their pound of flesh coming and going, and the rest do something different.
I find all of this extremely funny, to be honest: I am old enough to remember how and why Google initially gained any attraction in the first place. It avoided all the noise and pushy advertising so prevalent on the other existing search engines.
It seems that the other greybeards here have forgotten history. Fear not, it will happen again. As Youtube becomes more and more annoying to its users to appease its customers (the advertisers and information brokers), one of the competitors will simply gain a sudden influx of users and creators who get fed up with it. That's how Google itself started, after all.
I will only watch Youtube videos with my ad blockers enabled. When that stops working, I'll just let the few content creators I care about know, and suggest they consider adding or switching to some of the other platforms, like Dave does. I haven't watched ads for a decade now, and honestly, I do not understand how people can abide the vast vapid inane majority of them. Fuck, I'd rather eat plain mashed potatoes for the rest of my life, than go back to dulling my brain with that commercial shit. They just aren't worth my time at all.
If anyone starts whining about "you're stealing from youtube!", I'll stop doing that the moment they stop using my information, my email address, my habits, the sites I visit, as a commercial product they buy and sell. I never gave them permission, and I never sold it to them in the first place. So, until they stop, I'll happily exploit them back exactly as much as they try to exploit me. Tit for tat is the marketplace rule.
NiHaoMike:
In the short term, I think they'll like stealth adblockers since they'll still get paid even though the ad was never visible. In the long term, "push" advertising has become so "pushy" that it deserves to "die in a fire".
ve7xen:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 17, 2023, 11:02:42 am ---I find all of this extremely funny, to be honest: I am old enough to remember how and why Google initially gained any attraction in the first place. It avoided all the noise and pushy advertising so prevalent on the other existing search engines.
It seems that the other greybeards here have forgotten history. Fear not, it will happen again. As Youtube becomes more and more annoying to its users to appease its customers (the advertisers and information brokers), one of the competitors will simply gain a sudden influx of users and creators who get fed up with it. That's how Google itself started, after all.
--- End quote ---
I for one haven't forgotten. The Internet landscape has crystallized; there is less room for dramatic technical improvement, the user expectations, revenue models, and market players have all solidified, and there is far more inertia than there was in the 2000s when it was still relatively nascent and Google, YouTube or Facebook had something fresh to offer. Facebook is perhaps a more apropos example, coming later, and while many agree that it really sucks, and avoid it, no serious competitor has emerged and it remains the 'universal' standard. Other than 'less ads', what is a YouTube competitor to offer that would compel the billions of users (and perhaps more importantly, content creators) to migrate? What potential competitor can put up the sustained fight against Google to earn and keep market share, and how will they earn enough money to fund continued operation without the same kind of ads as YouTube has? Maybe Twitch? But their ad story is arguably already worse than YouTube's.
--- Quote ---I haven't watched ads for a decade now, and honestly, I do not understand how people can abide the vast vapid inane majority of them. Fuck, I'd rather eat plain mashed potatoes for the rest of my life, than go back to dulling my brain with that commercial shit. They just aren't worth my time at all.
--- End quote ---
Me either, but I understand at the end of the day I will need to pay something to consume Google's resources. Nobody is going to offer me the 1000s of hours of video streaming I do every year out of the goodness of their hearts. As long as they take my money without destroying the experience, like game companies or traditional media have with their balkanization and DRM, I'm happy to pay a reasonable price.
I've no issue with piracy, I've been sailing the seas a lot more lately since all the TV and movie companies decided they wanted to make the experience of consuming their content suck by fragmenting into a dozen services, I just don't understand why people expect these companies to lay down and let you consume their resources without getting their due. Of course if a significant amount of people are doing that, they're going to spend resources to stop you. Folks acting like they're entitled to consume Google's resources without giving anything in return is absurd.
Bicurico:
I can imagine the following alternatives to Youtube:
1) People start to host the videos themselfes and Google has no other alternative than to show search results pointing to said videos. Example: Dave with EEVblog could host his videos himself and completely forget about Youtube. He would get his money from Patreons or ads, the increased bandwidth shouldn't be that expensive (I guess - could be wrong) and he would be in full control.
2) Youtube gets replaced by a torrent-like network, where all registered users share their bandwidth and disk space. Not one but several sites can then act as a search engine - pretty much how torrent based movie sharing works. A reward system could be implemented: host so many GB of contents and you get preferencial data streaming over those who don't share. Or make the sharing mandatory.
3) Netflix or a competitor offers his subscribers to upload and share videos! Why doesn't Netflix do that? Popular content can be rewarded (such content is produced without any investment and will gain new customers).
I am already a Netflix customer and I like the service so far. Why not allow people to share content? It could be limited to a given format like minimum 30 minutes, maximum 120 minutes, must not break any IP and be suitable for a potential audience of at least 5% of Netflix viewers. This would not work out for channels like the one I tried (I know, too specific, not enough viewers interested in it), but why not have the Fireplace Channel on Netflix (yes, that really exists - they only show like 6h of a fireplace, with a huge selection on different fireplaces). Or, instead of a minimal target audience, host the videos for an initial period and then renew this period based on a minimum of views. Those videos that don't reach the minimum view number get removed.
Bicurico:
Actually, I just went with it and made the suggestion to Netflix's support chat.
--- Code: ---As you probably know, Youtube is acting agressively against users using ad blockers.
The service used to be free, but is very annoying to use with all the ads (mostly unskipable)
I would like to suggest to Netflix
to use the opportunity and offer a "creators" functionality
allowing your users to upload their own videos to Netflix
with reasonable limitations (min/max duration, no IP infringement, etc.)
videos get an initial period
based on the views the period is renewed or the video removed
this way you don't have to host massive amount of useless videos
and creators will enrich the content for Netflix customers
Thank you
--- End code ---
I am only posting my part of the chat, as I don't like when people upload other replies without consent.
You like this idea? Why not share it with Netflix's support chat? The more suggest this, the better the chances they think about it.
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