General > General Technical Chat
YouTube runs experiment addressing users with ad blocker
MK14:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 18, 2023, 09:11:36 am ---
--- 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!
--- End quote ---
I agree with you, on at least both the main points, you have answered.
Firstly, yes, ignoring a person, manually (humanly) or automatically (ignore list), makes sense, in the context you described. I understand, and agree. It had not occurred to me, as a possible explanation, at the time of making my comment(s).
As regards me, and the other point(s), i.e. NOT wanting to give google data about oneself, while using the internet, for a huge number of reasons.
I also, have my own reasons. Let me give just one hypothetical (but I think it really can and does happen, with me).
(N.B. Made up story, but from a typical point of view it CAN be true).
My TV (or monitor etc), suddenly blows up and unexpectedly breaks and is a write off. It was many years old, and needed to be upgraded anyway, for higher resolutions and more HDMI sockets, etc.
I need to order one in the next couple of days, so have to choose now.
I've spent a few hours reading/watching reviews, unboxing videos, checked the prices on my short list, via various shopping options, in my price range.
I've narrowed it down to two or three models, and I will literally buy one of them, within the next 48 hours.
I now want to quietly chew over those options in my mind, and wait until I focus on a top option, possibly after a nights sleep. So I DON'T want to see or hear anything about TVs for sale, for the rest of the evening, while I quietly make up my mind.
Yet currently (typically), almost everywhere I go, while surfing the internet. Will show me adverts (admittedly fixed ones), offering various TVs for sale, and ones on the top of google searches, etc. I can find this very annoying, as I want to make the RIGHT unbiased decision, not buy e.g. a Samsung TV, because it was the most advertised one, while I innocently surfed the internet.
So to get to the point. I DON'T WANT to have to sign in to youtube, let alone sign in to a subscription. As I might not want the details of what I'm doing, be known to these various algorithms and advertising entities etc.
Ebay are so bad in this regards. That if I'm signed in, and look at certain items, especially for too long, so it looks like I want to buy it. I suddenly get these offers from the seller, via ebay, to buy those items, at a reduced price.
Despite trying to turn off all such options in ebay notifications settings.
As in the past, I would look at something, e.g. a PC. Then a couple of days later, get email(s) from ebay saying something like, "we noticed you were looking at that PC, which has now sold. We did a search, and these are some similar PCs, which are still for sale".
So in summary, I also have difficulties (annoyances), with all the somewhat forced, secretive data-sharing that seems to take place.
peter-h:
What surprises me is that you can make a browser which strips off the adverts without the server being able to detect it, but nobody has done it.
It would render the page onto a hidden pane and then implement an adblocker on a second, visible, pane.
madires:
--- Quote from: MK14 on October 18, 2023, 11:53:03 am ---So to get to the point. I DON'T WANT to have to sign in to youtube, let alone sign in to a subscription. As I might not want the details of what I'm doing, be known to these various algorithms and advertising entities etc.
--- End quote ---
That's exactly the same issue I have with YouTube. If you're logged in (with or without paid subscription) you'll be the product. You'll be also tracked when not logged in, but it's easier to counter that. Of course, content creators should earn money (if they wish to, there are also some altruistic creators) and the streaming platform too. However, I don't like to support a streaming platform which treats creators and users so badly.
PlainName:
--- Quote from: peter-h on October 18, 2023, 01:34:10 pm ---What surprises me is that you can make a browser which strips off the adverts without the server being able to detect it, but nobody has done it.
It would render the page onto a hidden pane and then implement an adblocker on a second, visible, pane.
--- End quote ---
Perhaps because there is no need for such just yet.
But... the server would be able to detect the skipped advert unless you download the entire video (at real time speed) before removing the adverts and then watch it. Most people want to click, watch rather than click, wait, bored, watch something else.
peter-h:
Not sure blocking YT ads works thus. With Adblock you don't see YT ads at all, and it doesn't achieve it by downloading the whole video. I don't know how it does it. Just recently YT stopped Adblock working.
BTW you can download YT videos very fast. Look at various YT downloaders... I have used many and it runs very fast. So that would be one way.
Habits vary, but personally I don't spend my life on YT the way so many people do. I tend to watch specific videos, short ones like 5 mins, each day (updates from Ukraine actually). Technically one could set up a script and download these and watch them in one go. This has been possible with web pages since for ever (grab a complete set of pages from say a forum and present only those you have not read since last time).
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