General > General Technical Chat

YouTube runs experiment addressing users with ad blocker

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MK14:

--- Quote from: ve7xen on October 17, 2023, 11:52:41 pm ---It may very well be the case that there's a value disconnect between what Google needs to get to make the ad-free service viable, and what many users are willing to pay to not see ads. Whether that means they don't use YouTube, pay and grumble about the price, or just put up with the ads is up to them I guess, but apparently Google is interested in forcing them to make that decision.

I suspect that YouTube is a lot more expensive to operate per user than your posts suggest, and that even at the obnoxious level of ads, they aren't making a lot of money. Also do keep in mind that the content creators do have some control over the type and volume of ads presented on their content. This is not solely Google's decision; many creators are also willing to stuff their streams full of ads to the maximum extent to maximize their own revenue.

--- End quote ---

I agree.  I think that is very possible.
On top of that, the shareholders, might be wanting or insisting on pretty decently sized profit margins, on the whole thing, as well.

We seem to have had 'free lunches', from this relatively recent internet boom thing, in all sorts of ways.  It was fairly obvious, to some at least.  That sooner or later, many of these 'free' services, would either disappear, become horribly full of adverts and other annoyances, or have to charge subscriptions for the services.

Once investors dry up, who invest lots of money into internet companies, in the hope they become genuinely profitable and hence valuable companies, in their own right, in the possibly distant future.  Then the (usually) massive funds, needed to keep these massive internet companies running smoothly, will need to get money from real sources.
Such as subscriptions from their user base.

MK14:
Maybe the solution, is for there to be tiered subscriptions, which if the specified usage amount/budget is exceeded in any given month.  The user either has to bump up the subscription amount for that month to go back to normal operation, put up with adverts for the remainder of that month or just not use YouTube, until the new month kicks in.

E.g. Very light use $2.99 / Month, max 10 hours total.
Medium use, $5.99 / Month, max 25 hours total.
Heavy use, $8.99 / Month, max 60 hours total.
Unlimited use, $12.99 / Month, unlimited hours.

A bit like some of the mobile phone deals, that are available in the UK, and I suspect in many other countries of the world.

ataradov:
I use phone service from Google (Google Fi) and it is structured exactly like that. There is base rate $25/mo or so, then you pay for traffic $10/GB but after 6 GB traffic is free. There may be some limit if you consume A LOT more, no idea. So, the maximum bill is limited by a known value.

But this is not going to work for them in case of YouTube. This will make people limit watching in order to lower the bill. Even if this happens subconsciously, it will happen. And YT is not interested in you watching less. They want you to watch more with all the addictive algorithms and stuff.

PlainName:

--- Quote from: ataradov on October 18, 2023, 06:22:19 am ---If you think they stole your data and benefited from it - complain to the appropriate authorities.

--- End quote ---

Which would be who? And what's the expectation that anything at all will happen, even if many similar people complain? We already know the answer to that - it takes some bloody-minded person years of effort to even get noticed. And in the end what will happen? "Oh, sorry, a rogue engineer made a mistake. Fixed. Won't do it again." (and yet sucking up AP SSIDs and locations is now 'normal').

Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: ataradov on October 18, 2023, 05:54:22 am ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 18, 2023, 05:49:49 am ---that is the price I pay for using their services.

--- End quote ---
And you decided that this is enough of a payment. Google disagrees.
--- End quote ---
They never asked my permission to sell information about me.  disagree with that.  Why should Google get their way and me left with nothing?


--- Quote from: ataradov on October 18, 2023, 05:54:22 am ---It is like saying "I can steal tomatoes from the store, I'm already paying for bread".
--- End quote ---
That's like saying hitting a mugger is unsolicited violence, and worse offense than the mugging would have been.  Makes absolutely no sense, especially in this context.


--- Quote from: MK14 on October 18, 2023, 06:25:43 am ---We are, in general, all trying to have a free and open discussion here.  So just expressing a persons current feelings about the current topic of discussion, shouldn't result in them going on other peoples ignore list.
--- End quote ---
Equating things with criminal activity goes over the edge for me, far far more than using swear words.  I don't put people to my ignore list because I want to silence them, I only put them there because I know that for now, I cannot engage them in any mutually beneficial way.  In this particular case, the reason is my anger at the idiotic assumption of a behaviour corresponds to a crime, piracy, just because they feel like it does.

Confusing the two –– a behaviour that is legal but reduces the profit of a company that is exploiting their users as the commodity they make their profit off of, and an utterly illegal behaviour that harms the creators those same companies also exploit –– is exactly what those who make their massive profits by exploiting behavioural information of individuals would love you to do, too.

There is exactly one case where I condone media piracy: when the rights-owner does not want to sell the media to you at all.
(The reasons for this go deep into the roots of copyright, and the necessary interplay between culture and media, requiring a finite duration for copyright protection.)
Today, that is not the case anymore.

It is my opinion that Youtube and Google in general (as well as Meta and all other social media companies) already get an equitable "fee" out of users by collecting their information, packaging it, and selling it and making a profit out of it.  (Note that advertisements are only a part of the entire equation: market analysis, focus group information, also involves a LOT of money, and these companies are making a tidy profit out of all this.)
Google is fighting against adblockers, because it has decided it wants the additional profits from ad sales, and that the information they gather from humans to sell is no longer sufficient "payment".  I disagree, and I claim I have that right, because I never agreed to any of their practices in the first place, and I have no way of forcing them to use me as a commercial commodity they can exploit at zero cost.

I am NOT claiming I or anyone has any right to use their services, either.  Only that as long as they are collecting information on me to sell, I have the right to exploit their services back.  Tit for tat.  Now that Google is insisting the collected information is irrelevant and we also need to watch the advertisers they are pushing, I'm telling fuck that: only if they also stop collecting information on me and packaging and selling it.

In most legal jurisdictions only equitable contracts are legal between a private person and a company.  What Google and others are insisting by trying to block the use of (and indeed even the existence of, via their efforts of trying to establish a "trust chain" down to the software the users are using), is not equitable.  They already exploit me by collecting my information: what do I get in return?

Nothing?  Is that really your position that the humans these companies exploit for profit are entitled to nothing in return?  Fuck that, I say.


Being mutually beneficial, i.e. equitable relationships in the commercial sense, is extremely important to me.  I refuse to exploit others – even Google –, but I also refuse to be exploited if I can do anything about it.  If you do a search here, you'll even find posts where I explain that I have to block ads even here because they make it impossible for me to participate; but to compensate, I'm trying to be useful enough so that the cost to Dave is offset.
(To understand exactly how such offsetting works in real life, you need to understand why libraries increase rather than decrease author profits.)

What Google and others are doing, is like Dave collecting profiles and using the information gathered but not publicly shown, to create profile packages to sell for specialist recruiting companies and test equipment manufacturers/advertisers.  And then, while admitting doing that, claiming that users who also block ads are pirates stealing content from Dave.

Perhaps it is easier to accept such behaviour in cultures where even waiters are supposed to work on gratuities instead of getting a proper wage for the work they do for the company?  I think some members here are in dire need for some reflection on their own core values, before pointing fingers at others and shouting pirate!

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