YouTube runs experiment addressing users with ad blocker

[madires]

YouTube's 'Ad blockers not allowed' pop-up scares the bejesus out of netizens: https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/10/youtube_ad_blockers/

[coppercone2]

usually means the business is gonna go belly up if it entered the shake down the users phase. Probably not youtube but the advertiser they partner with. Its like a drowning man with lead in his pockets grasping people to stay afloat.. try reducing mass . Because if youtube is not cool, people will stop posting videos, and it will just turn into some avant garde corporate gallary, and no one is gonna go there or talk about it. If people are talking about it being good it means you have alot of power.

if you did not notice, there has been a MASSIVE attempt by corporations to shake people down (employees, customers) for profits in the last few months. But now the radio is saying we are not in a recession but closed to a recession rather then the recession we were certainly in, so go figure. I think the finance industry had a panic attack.

I read the way face book treat its employees with the recent policies is kind of like a old rich person getting stingy on a date. DO YOU WANT ME TO PAY FOR THE UBER OR THE FOOD??? you know what those subjects are gonna decide to do... (because everyone figured out its dating and its NOT family)

when you act like the king, and you got people used to the court (dinner court and castle services), and then you start pushing them... history shows only a few things tend to happen from that point

I kind of imagine it like a liner on a cylinder (say corporate culture) that slipped off the cylinder and got stuck on the piston and there is just this metal cylinder slamming in and out of the engine block that is some how maintaining compression while getting severe internal stress before it cracks. Then its like the culture is doing more damage the more present it is (if its totally ignored it turns into a 4th dimensional object that does not interact with the system, but it maintains compression). Usually in this state, where its being jack hammered by a useless but corporeal object, the engine experiences severe vibration and starts to lose perfectly good parts on he road, which are picked up by other drivers, and must be replaced. Some times they just slip off but sometimes they take a chunk of casting with them

[NiHaoMike]

Now might be the time for stealth adblocking.

[Ranayna]

Youtube will be a *very* high priority for the developers of adblockers, i'm sure.
So i don't think that this will work in the long run. Well of course for chromium based browsers they will mess even more with the adblockers. But there still is Firefox

Interestingly, i had YT inserting still ads, staying visible for maybe 10 seconds, when i ran AdGuard on my iPad.
That would actually be something i can live with.

I would even consider getting Premium, if the cheaper "no frills" subscription would be available in germany. I do not need YT Music, i don't want to see their series and movies, i don't even want 4K. I just want no ads.

[David Hess]

I have not seen that yet, but for most of my Youtube watching, I download the video to local storage and then play it from there.  I will stream it after latency, bandwidth, and packet loss are fixed, which will never happen.

[ataradov]

So i don't think that this will work in the long run.

They can't force you to watch the ads, but it is in their power to not serve the video until ads play time has elapsed. So, you will get a blank screen for a few seconds/minutes before the video

Long time ago I used to block Hulu ads by making my own local server that would serve 1 frame video. Hulu used different domains for ads and the video, so it was easy to redirect ads to a localhost. But then they got smarter and started delaying video stream. And then then stopped serving the video entirely if ad failed to load from their servers. And then I stopped caring about Hulu once they lost all the good content.

I have been using YT Premium for years. I started when I was a part of one of those experiments where adblockers stopped working, and it was so frustrating that it was easier to pay. So, annoying users works. Some would quit, of course.

[Ranayna]

So, you will get a blank screen for a few seconds/minutes before the video

Honestly? I could easily live with that. That would be far better than the current crap ads.

As i mentioned this is essentially what happens on my iPad, with AdGuard (free Version) installed.
YT shows a still ad, without sound, with a tiny little timer in the corner. These last for maybe 10 seconds, sometimes there is a second ad like that, and then the video plays.

[Black Phoenix]

Well as someone who uses a VPN for reasons that it is know (no other way to access anything not authorised by the CCP when in Mainland China) I come to realize one thing: Geolocation of the VPN servers.

For some reason (that I don't know) when I choose as VPN server one in Taiwan no Ads are provided before, during or on the end of the video, being on Windows, Fedora or any of the Apps (Android and iOS).

Same can't be said if the server selected is on Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Australia, US, etc where Ads are delivered, some 30sec without skip option.

I find strange that no AD company selects Taiwan as a country to run their Ads. So something must be also at play here. And yes I tried with the Adblockers off (uBlock on Firefox, none on the mobile devices) and I also don't use stuff as a PiHole on my network or special rules in my network equipments.

[thm_w]

Haven't seen anything with ublock or SmartTubenext yet.

There was also a recent story about youtube creators seeing huge drops due to their views being flagged as bot views. May be due to adblocking.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2023/03/10/youtube-creators-say-video-revenue-down-up-to-90-something-is-definitely-off/?sh=518b90ef12a2

Of course, they'd get no revenue but youtube would still show you ads on the video.

[AndyBeez]

I just tap the mute and flick down the thumbnails until the ad times out. I'm from a generation that learnt to ignore adverts from an early age. Don't worry Dave, you still get the ad revenue even if I have no idea what they were selling.

[SiliconWizard]

Common ad blockers block the trafic for ads altogether and thus can be detected by the remote server.
If you're willing to sacrifice your network bandwidth, while not being bothered by ads, you can just implement an ad blocker that downloads anything ad-related (so the remote server can't tell the difference) and just doesn't display it to the end user.
Problem with video ads is that they are not served as fast as your connection is - they are streamed, so even if your ad blocker did act as above, the user would have to wait until the ad had been streamed entirely before seeing the actual video, if YT decides to block ad blockers altogether, this is an easy move to do. Whether they detect an ad blocker or not doesn't matter at this point, if you have to wait until the video ad is done streaming - whether you actually see it or not - this will be pretty annoying.
I don't really see a way around it at all if that's YT's decision.

[NiHaoMike]

Common ad blockers block the trafic for ads altogether and thus can be detected by the remote server.
If you're willing to sacrifice your network bandwidth, while not being bothered by ads, you can just implement an ad blocker that downloads anything ad-related (so the remote server can't tell the difference) and just doesn't display it to the end user.

Go a step further and fake "clicking" on the ad to really mess up their stats.
https://adnauseam.io/

Problem with video ads is that they are not served as fast as your connection is - they are streamed, so even if your ad blocker did act as above, the user would have to wait until the ad had been streamed entirely before seeing the actual video, if YT decides to block ad blockers altogether, this is an easy move to do. Whether they detect an ad blocker or not doesn't matter at this point, if you have to wait until the video ad is done streaming - whether you actually see it or not - this will be pretty annoying.
I don't really see a way around it at all if that's YT's decision.

Speculatively load the next video, downloading it to cache.

I wonder what would happen if you start "playing" the ad but then "reload" the page in the middle repeatedly. Maybe it would refuse to serve any more ads to your IP for a while? (If that blocks using Youtube altogether, it would be a lot of fun to do on a CGNAT or other shared IP!)

[.RC.]

I was searching swimming pools on youtube and these quasi c pron videos would popped up in the search results (think of the sort of thing like baywatch style attire, but with children) along with other pointless crap, years old, millions of views and I was wondering given the sensitivity of modern big corporations are these days to any social negativity, they support this sort of shit on youtube.

[YurkshireLad]

I don't know if it related but since they started their experiment, I can no longer load comments in YouTube using Firefox or brave on android. It's weird. Brave either spins forever but no comments load, or in a couple of cases, it showed the comments from a previous video I watched. Firefox seems to spin forever but loads nothing.

[YurkshireLad]

Brave has stopped even trying to load comments. It may be unrelated...

[MathWizard]

For me, Youtube is a million times better than having cable TV, there's no comparison. So I'm sure I'll keep watching utube if they enforce no adblock, but I'm not looking forward to it.

I'd understand 1 ad at the beginning, but if they have ads every few minutes or even 10's of minutes, I'll watch less and less stuff.

[artag]

Yes, it's a million times better. But it's no longer much good. I've blocked all the channels I didn't like and it struggles to find anything good - much of what it shows is clickbait or crap. There are a few good channels of course, but they don't provide many updates and youtube doesn't seem very good at finding high quality similar channels.

I think it's going to die. It wouldn't take much and compulsory ads would be the last nail.

[tszaboo]

Sure, you try to run two unskippable 20 seconds ad before a Youtube short, and get upset if I block it...

[coromonadalix]

oh on some occasion(s) even while listening videos, it cut  do an add  and continue

Firefox  w  facebook container, adblock origin and i dont care about cookies

[wilfred]

I watch Youtube amongst other things on a small Android media player box which worked fine with Youtube when I bought it. But as updates were applied it frequently would slow down and throw up a message "Youtube has stopped responding do you want to wait?". If you selected wait a few times it would eventually continue playing but it was clearly the transition to ads where the problem was.

I tried older YT app versions but it would repeatedly offer an upgrade with no option to refuse so I looked around the site where I downloaded tho old YT app .apk file and found smart_youtube_tv_v6.17.730. Which I still use. It can block ads and also the in video sponsor segments and standard lead-in credits. I'm pretty well unaware of ads and mostly unaware of in video sponsorship. I assume the YT creator has some incentive to mark such segments for the app to detect them.

Anyway I recommend it if you think it might suit. It's very flexible but I haven't found a way to read comments. Which I prefer to do on a computer.

It saved this weak little Android 6 box which cost me $20 at Officeworks from the scrap heap. That and a couple very angry letters to the ABC to tell them to pull their heads out of their arses when they tried to force their app upgrades to something incompatible with older (android 6) media boxes. And yes I am taking sole personal credit for that.

[hans]

Sure, you try to run two unskippable 20 seconds ad before a Youtube short, and get upset if I block it...

This.

I hate ads so much that I would probably switch to downloading videos from RSS feeds, and putting them on my media library so I can watch them in due time.
I did that back in '17/'18 as I was kicking off YT habits. It completely kills discoverability on the platform, but it made sure I only watched what I wanted to see. Half of the vids stayed unwatched and were automatically removed after a few weeks. It doesn't take much more than a few hundred lines of Python to make such a thing work.

It probably saves YT also a lot of money if I don't watch random crap. Is that a win-win?

[MrMobodies]

I think I prefer the webpage youtube and that goes for everything else when I am in more control of finding and killing wanted things such killing suggestions, animations and dimming overlays. I don't normally block adverts unless they start to interfere and cause distraction past their banner space and set to get in the way follow down the page and that goes with anything else. I have seen the ones where the video stops and it plays and so on.

I have seen "the app" advertised and some people using it last year on their phone and it has this a horrible dimming overlay with the controls large in size slapped in the middle of the video. I might being trying to see to find something and putting my hand where it can get in the way and obscuring the picture with the dimming overlay... I think is very stupid. Also going from light to dark to light excessively isn't very nice for my eyes.

I didn't know an adblocker or browser extension can operate outside of the browser in Android (unless I am mistaken and the "apps" are run from Chrome but in the background) but that I find that interesting that they are throttling by advert exposure.

[Infraviolet]

Haven't seen this yet for my browser configuration, I know it has only hit a random saple of users worldwide, but I'll make a few points:

Many of the channels on youtube don't make their money from google's inserted adverts any more, but from having product placement and internal adverts. Each video usually says at the start "sponsored by...", shoves links to ...'s website in the description, has a ... long piece at the video's end, and maybe inserts a ... advert in their own voice and visual style in to the video at a semi-convenient point in the middle.

Yes, these product placement ads can be annoying, but they aren't so bad. They are paying for the free videos, and they are inserted at timestamps where the channel's creator doesn't think they'll be too disruptive, they don't cut words in half.

With this in mind youtube's own inserted adverts are probably making money for youtube-google rather than for the person/organisation who actually made the video (who makes much more from product placement / internal adverts), and they get inserted at terrible times. If you have a video on in the background, a lecture or history documentary, whilst you're doing something you do not want to be having the volume suddenly jump in the middle of a sentence to bombard you with marketing for a product you know you'll never want (especially now you've seen how awful and disruptive an advert the seller is willing to create for it).

And that's before we get to the security aspect, yes I run Linux so am relatively safe from viruses, but the number of cases of malware exploits being packaged in to adverts, which get bought up by an ad network, which resells to another ad network, and so on until mal-adverts appear on the very most prominent of websites, are such that going online without an ad blocker is like running naked through a thorn hedge.

[langwadt]

So i don't think that this will work in the long run.

They can't force you to watch the ads, but it is in their power to not serve the video until ads play time has elapsed. So, you will get a blank screen for a few seconds/minutes before the video

Long time ago I used to block Hulu ads by making my own local server that would serve 1 frame video. Hulu used different domains for ads and the video, so it was easy to redirect ads to a localhost. But then they got smarter and started delaying video stream. And then then stopped serving the video entirely if ad failed to load from their servers. And then I stopped caring about Hulu once they lost all the good content.

I seem to remember an "adblocker" service that replaced the original ads with their own ads and the money from those ads going to charity, that was quickly killed off

I have been using YT Premium for years. I started when I was a part of one of those experiments where adblockers stopped working, and it was so frustrating that it was easier to pay. So, annoying users works. Some would quit, of course.

yeh, I also got Premium years ago, it's better and cheaper than cable TV anyway and someone has to pay

[nctnico]

I don't really see a way around it at all if that's YT's decision.

Well, if add-blockers are a problem for Youtube, viewers moving away will be a problem for content creators with paid product placement in their videos. The content creators might go to other platforms which don't scare away their viewers.

[thm_w]

Yes, it's a million times better. But it's no longer much good. I've blocked all the channels I didn't like and it struggles to find anything good - much of what it shows is clickbait or crap. There are a few good channels of course, but they don't provide many updates and youtube doesn't seem very good at finding high quality similar channels.

Old man yells at cloud.
You have to spend the effort to find good channels, and yes they exist, more than ever.

I have seen "the app" advertised and some people using it last year on their phone and it has this a horrible dimming overlay with the controls large in size slapped in the middle of the video. I might being trying to see to find something and putting my hand where it can get in the way and obscuring the picture with the dimming overlay... I think is very stupid. Also going from light to dark to light excessively isn't very nice for my eyes.

If the app is an issue you can try revanced, although I have not yet: https://revanced.io/youtube/

[chickenHeadKnob]

I have been using YT Premium for years. I started when I was a part of one of those experiments where adblockers stopped working, and it was so frustrating that it was easier to pay. So, annoying users works. Some would quit, of course.

" So Annoying users works ". This goes deeper than you think. I am convinced youtube was traffic shaping the adds to ones they figured out I would find particularly obnoxious, just before trying again to get me to sign up for premium. I would get inundated with health product and financial services scam ads ( some lasting more than 15 minutes !) for a few days then offers to sign up for premium. Click no for premium offers maybe 4 times and then back to a more normal add stream.

They know exactly what they are doing.

[madires]

Well, if add-blockers are a problem for Youtube, viewers moving away will be a problem for content creators with paid product placement in their videos. The content creators might go to other platforms which don't scare away their viewers.

There's another point to consider. When a user pays YouTube for ad-free videos would he also expect the videos to be free of in-video ads/promotions? Would the content creators have to create two versions of their videos, one with and one without in-video ads?

[ataradov]

would he also expect the videos to be free of in-video ads/promotions?

No, why would you expect that? You don't expect a movie to not have product placement if you watch it on a paid streaming service.

I doubt a lot of people will leave. There are no good alternative platforms. And especially platforms with back catalog that big. A significant part of stuff I watch today is from 10+ years ago and from channels that no longer make videos. Yet content is still there and it is better than new stuff in many cases.

At the same time, I do skip videos by channels that try to be crafty with the way they integrate the ad. Unless I'm extremely interested in what is going on, I will close the video if the ad comes up in the middle of the content. Thankfully most channels put sponsors at the beginning or the end of the video.

And if your content is very well-produced, I would pay extra. I pay for Nebula just to support a couple content creators. But this is not for the "sitting at the desk waffling about stuff" content.

[thermistor-guy]

YouTube's 'Ad blockers not allowed' pop-up scares the bejesus out of netizens: https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/10/youtube_ad_blockers/

The first expense that companies cut during an economic downturn is advertising. So I imagine YT is trying to
maximize revenue from the advertising that it can run.

I have ad blockers on Firefox, and connect to YT via VPN (Europe, Singapore, etc). My point of presence changes
each day. The browser deletes everything on close. So normally I don't see ads.

The exception is when setting up a new PC or rpi. Then I use YT on a browser, not yet locked down, to check that video,
audio, DNS, and so on work ok. It's a quick all-in-one test. It always shocks me to see just how many ads there are.

It reminds me of the movie They Live - glasses on, glasses off.

[vk6zgo]

Sometimes the ads are better than the content!

[gnif]

If they continue this way, the ad-blockers will just get to a point where they feed back false information to YouTube that the adverts have been seen, clicked on, etc, costing the advertiser for the false view, and forcing YouTube to pay the content creator for ad revenue that was not actually earned.

I sincerely hope things go this way, I would love to see a major exodus from YouTube to Odysee.

[james_s]

Sure, you try to run two unskippable 20 seconds ad before a Youtube short, and get upset if I block it...

I wish I could just block all of the shorts. If it's short enough to be called a short then it doesn't need to be a video in the first place.

[asmi]

I wish I could just block all of the shorts. If it's short enough to be called a short then it doesn't need to be a video in the first place.

You are just too old and too used to having a long attention span A lot of youngsters can't hold a focus on the same thing for longer than a minute or two, this is where TikTok came from, YT Shorts is a direct response to it. Even I feel like I'm too old for that stuff, even though I'm not even 40 yet, but when I talk to coops I coach sometimes I feel like they came from a mental institution because how stupid their "current thing" seems to me. But then again, I'm still young enough to remember than only 20 years ago or so I was the one telling my parents and other older relatives how cool "the current thing" was, and they returned blanks on me.

[boB]

I have found good stuff on YT for many years.   I just subscribe to YT Red and I can scroll past the added ads if I want to.

Too many good shorts too.  I find myself going from one to the next and on and on sometimes.

boB

[thm_w]

Sure, you try to run two unskippable 20 seconds ad before a Youtube short, and get upset if I block it...

I wish I could just block all of the shorts. If it's short enough to be called a short then it doesn't need to be a video in the first place.

https://www.wikihow.com/Disable-YouTube-Shorts

[madires]

YouTube is bringing 30-second unskippable ads to its TV apps: https://www.engadget.com/youtube-is-bringing-30-second-unskippable-ads-to-its-tv-apps-121051897.html

[nctnico]

If they continue this way, the ad-blockers will just get to a point where they feed back false information to YouTube that the adverts have been seen, clicked on, etc, costing the advertiser for the false view, and forcing YouTube to pay the content creator for ad revenue that was not actually earned.

Does it matter? In the end we all pay for the advertisement through the product price. Even the government runs commercials so you are even paying for media content through your taxes 

[SiliconWizard]

YouTube is bringing 30-second unskippable ads to its TV apps: https://www.engadget.com/youtube-is-bringing-30-second-unskippable-ads-to-its-tv-apps-121051897.html

No kidding.

[EPAIII]

Wouldn't that be difficult? I mean, when the video starts to play again, the YouTube server would need to start feeding that data again and it would be perfectly obvious that the ad has been skipped.

Now might be the time for stealth adblocking.

[EPAIII]

1. I like YouTube. I watch it a lot. One saving grace is I tend to like at least some things that must be so unpopular as to have no ads. But there are others that do.

2. I worked in the TV and ad business as an engineer. I sat in a lot of boring (to me) meetings and observed much of the process and the reasoning behind it. A lot of effort and expense was used in the placement of the ads. You didn't advertise women's underwear in a children's show. There are many other examples of that. Funny thing, the advertisers ACTUALLY EXPECTED RESULTS. Or, in other words, SALES. And that meant the ads had to be placed to reach the people who would buy that item. My final working years were with an advertising company that specialized in infomercials. My job existed, in large part, so that they could TRACK the results of their programs/ads. Those ads were personalized with different phone numbers for the viewers to place their orders. A phone number was assigned to a city or TV station or cable channel or even a particular payment schedule. The number of calls told them what worked and what didn't. Hundreds of different phone numbers could be used in a single ad campaign. My point is, success of the ads IS IMPORTANT. Or, at least was.

3. So the fact that there are ads on YouTube doesn't surprise me. What does is how inept they are. Google is an ADVERTISING COMPANY. It is built on collecting data on prospective buyers (all of us) and supposedly using that data to target prospective buyers and sell products. But, in spite of the fact that I take almost no measures to prevent them from collecting information on me and my purchasing habits or desires, they almost never show me anything that I am actually interested in.

I am a 79 year old man but get bombarded with ads for the latest loud music which I was NEVER interested in.

I almost never buy new vehicles (last new truck was a 70-something Chevrolet). But I am bombarded with ads for new trucks and other vehicles - at least two dozen a day. And I always cut them short so I don't even watch them.

It goes on and on: women's underwear (what do they think I am), new houses (I am going to die in this one), I-phone (never bought a single Apple product), etc. Item after item that I never buy.

And they almost never target me with ads for something that I am actively searching for. I have spent hours and hours searching on the internet (Google's playground) for an item that I really want and WILL buy. Sometimes an expensive item. But do I get Google/YouTube ads for that item? NEVER! What do they do with all that data they have on me?

Back in January of this year I needed a new microwave oven. I spent hours and even days searching and studying them on line. I asked questions in other groups. No attempt to hide that I wanted a microwave oven. And I wasn't looking for a cheap one. I was looking at the more expensive models. Did I get any ads for microwave ovens? NO! At least not until I had actually purchased one. Then, yes, only when I had already made a once-in-ten-years purchase, did they actually target me with ads for microwave ovens. Duhh, I just bought one, dude! Why on earth would I buy another one now. See me in 2033, if I am still around.

Google must be the single, worst advertising company in the world. EVER!

And, they are ripping off the advertisers far more than they are irritating the NON-POTENTIAL customers. If I were an advertiser, I would not spend a single dime with them. Not even a single penny.

[NiHaoMike]

Wouldn't that be difficult? I mean, when the video starts to play again, the YouTube server would need to start feeding that data again and it would be perfectly obvious that the ad has been skipped.

You pretend to play the ad, it's just that nobody actually sees it. Hence the term "ad hider" as a more accurate description of a "stealth adblocker".

[YurkshireLad]

My wife can perform a single Google search for one item, and 5 minutes later when she loads the Facebook app, bingo! She immediately sees an ad for the item she just searched for.

[boB]

My wife can perform a single Google search for one item, and 5 minutes later when she loads the Facebook app, bingo! She immediately sees an ad for the item she just searched for.

Another weird thing is that I will often see an ad for something that I just bought online !

boB

[MarkS]

I used ad blockers for years. However, last year I signed up for YouTube Premium and have never looked back. It's just a better viewing experience and much less hassle.

[james_s]

Sure, you try to run two unskippable 20 seconds ad before a Youtube short, and get upset if I block it...

I wish I could just block all of the shorts. If it's short enough to be called a short then it doesn't need to be a video in the first place.

https://www.wikihow.com/Disable-YouTube-Shorts

I found that too and tried the extension and found it didn't work. I'll have another go at some point and see if it gets updated.

[ve7xen]

Wouldn't that be difficult? I mean, when the video starts to play again, the YouTube server would need to start feeding that data again and it would be perfectly obvious that the ad has been skipped.

You pretend to play the ad, it's just that nobody actually sees it. Hence the term "ad hider" as a more accurate description of a "stealth adblocker".

I think the endgame here is that YouTube starts embedding the ads in what is effectively a 'livestream' from the client's perspective. If they only let you buffer 5-10s of video from the stream, it would be virtually impossible to skip the entire ad. You could blank it or show a 'buffering' spinner, but you'd still have to wait for the ads to roll.

Didn't see SponsorBlock mentioned yet. I have Premium so I don't see YT's ads, but SponsorBlock crowdsources automated skipping of 'sponsorship' segments.

[thm_w]

I found that too and tried the extension and found it didn't work. I'll have another go at some point and see if it gets updated.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hide-youtube-shorts/

This firefox one had the most users, seemed to work. Says its not monitored for security though. And yeah probably has to be updated every time youtube makes a big change.

[NiHaoMike]

If they only let you buffer 5-10s of video from the stream...

That's impossible to enforce, the client could pretend to to be playing the video all along when in fact it's saving it somewhere.

[ve7xen]

If they only let you buffer 5-10s of video from the stream...

That's impossible to enforce, the client could pretend to to be playing the video all along when in fact it's saving it somewhere.

Yes, you could save the stream (in realtime), and then watch it later, but who is clicking on a 10 minute YT video with the intent of waiting 10 minutes to watch it? That is definitely not a good user experience, or equivalent to what you can have today with an ad blocker.

The point is that just 'pretending' the ads have been viewed isn't necessarily enough, and if YT wants to, they can nip this in the bud more or less no matter what technical measures you employ on the client side.

[SiliconWizard]

If they only let you buffer 5-10s of video from the stream...

That's impossible to enforce, the client could pretend to to be playing the video all along when in fact it's saving it somewhere.

Of course, but that makes it an annoyance for the user and still uses their network bandwidth.

[james_s]

It's not ideal, but it's better than watching ads. My bandwidth is for all practical purposes unlimited, the amount consumed by youtube video is negligible.

[Ed.Kloonk]

If they only let you buffer 5-10s of video from the stream...

That's impossible to enforce, the client could pretend to to be playing the video all along when in fact it's saving it somewhere.

Yes, you could save the stream (in realtime), and then watch it later, but who is clicking on a 10 minute YT video with the intent of waiting 10 minutes to watch it? That is definitely not a good user experience, or equivalent to what you can have today with an ad blocker.

The point is that just 'pretending' the ads have been viewed isn't necessarily enough, and if YT wants to, they can nip this in the bud more or less no matter what technical measures you employ on the client side.

Podcasting used to work this way. And I used to watch EEVblog videos by downloading each one, for two reasons. Way back when, my internet connection was cancer. "wget -c" kept my sanity. The second reason was, and is still the case with our pay TV here, you want the whole file stored locally to ensure that you have the whole programme, uninterrupted. Also for seeking back 10 seconds.

I really saw red and went off at Dave when he decided to 'store' the blog vids on youtube rather than on the expensive file server. Here we are, what, 15 years later and I cannot get interested in watching y/t on a phone.

[RJSV]

   Well, uh, coppercone2 your analysis reminds me of one response I had (or non-response): when older car (engine) threw a rod, partially thru the block:

   DROVE that noisey / smokey old car, maybe another 15 miles, ignoring my ears.  Acted like was normal, while 'just get me home'.  But that thrown-rod engine didn't get better (go figure), instead the dash temperature gauge soared to max.  Maybe no oil by then, but hey; still 'driveable'...

I's goin down, but didn't want that, so...kept driving, at traffic speed.  Denial can be a powerful trait, get you through some, seemingly, bad consequences, just keep pushing the gas pedal....

   Tow truck, later, dropped off the car, and myself, at nearby service station.

[Circlotron]

I just use a hosts file. Works great for me.

https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/hosts

[wilfred]

IS this the same sort of list a Pi-hole, or DNS sinkhole, would use? I only recently heard about Pi-Hole in another thread here and thought it would be a good thing to set up. I'd find a network wide solution that someone else maintains the URL list for more suitable.

[JPortici]

If they only let you buffer 5-10s of video from the stream...

That's impossible to enforce, the client could pretend to to be playing the video all along when in fact it's saving it somewhere.

Yes, you could save the stream (in realtime), and then watch it later, but who is clicking on a 10 minute YT video with the intent of waiting 10 minutes to watch it? That is definitely not a good user experience, or equivalent to what you can have today with an ad blocker.

The point is that just 'pretending' the ads have been viewed isn't necessarily enough, and if YT wants to, they can nip this in the bud more or less no matter what technical measures you employ on the client side.

Podcasting used to work this way. And I used to watch EEVblog videos by downloading each one, for two reasons. Way back when, my internet connection was cancer. "wget -c" kept my sanity. The second reason was, and is still the case with our pay TV here, you want the whole file stored locally to ensure that you have the whole programme, uninterrupted. Also for seeking back 10 seconds.

I really saw red and went off at Dave when he decided to 'store' the blog vids on youtube rather than on the expensive file server. Here we are, what, 15 years later and I cannot get interested in watching y/t on a phone.

Revanced still works here, installation has been a bit clunky since vanced was taken down but i agree 100%, watching youtube from their app on a phone is an excersice in self flagellation. Youtube from the mobile browser is already 1000 times better, and that should say something

[madires]

Next experiment:
Selected users with ad blocker will be bothered by a pop-up telling that they may watch up to three videos with the ad blocker turned on. After that they will be blocked unless they disable their ad blocker or go for YouTube Pemium.

Media:
- YouTube tests restricting ad blocker users to 3 video views (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/youtube-tests-restricting-ad-blocker-users-to-3-video-views/)

[Bryn]

I don't really bother with YouTube in general, but what's being done would eventually drive me away from it. Although, I've not come across these "experiments" myself when I had found myself watching some videos. Not sure if my choice of adblocker makes me completely immune to it (which is uBlock Origin).

[SiliconWizard]

Thou shalt not watch YouTube with an ad blocker.

Contaminate our fingers with base bribes
And sell the mighty space of our large honours
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?

[Infraviolet]

3 videos, so I guess one just clears cookies after 3 vids? They couldn't dare enforce this by IP address because too many addresses are shared, so it will surely be a cookie.

[Messtechniker]

Thou shalt not watch YouTube with an ad blocker.

Or simply move on doing something else like watering the flowers.

Alternatively:
If you dont like it, leave it.

[Bryn]

Thou shalt not watch YouTube with an ad blocker.

Or simply move on doing something else like watering the flowers.

Or maybe watch videos on Dailymotion

[NiHaoMike]

I'd say just bring out the stealth adblockers and make the whole idea of "push" advertising come crashing down.

[rdl]

During the last week I was seeing a ridiculous number of Youtube Movies & TV ads in the suggested videos (down the right side) when watching something. Seriously was like 40%. Today it seems gone but replaced with "Free with ads" to the tune of about 25%
Maybe they're getting desperate for money?

[PlainName]

3 videos, so I guess one just clears cookies after 3 vids? They couldn't dare enforce this by IP address because too many addresses are shared, so it will surely be a cookie.

Probably use fingerprinting rather than cookies. NYTimes used to use cookies but then switched to something I haven't been able to circumvent. Blocks me without even letting me see one sample, so it knows it's me regardless of what clever circumvention my addons use. Naturally, it's not on my drop-in list any more, and I actually coughed to subscribe to an alternative site

[BrokenYugo]

Regarding money, is it even possible to have a viable business where you host HD video for other people free of charge and just quietly collect from the ad stream? I think that's kind of the elephant in the room, the sort of service we like from these tech companies usually starts out heavily subsidized at best and they either figure out a sustainable model later (with much grumbling from the user base) or they don't and go under.

[PlainName]

I reckon it has to be a loss leader for something if it's free. Hell, just showing one video to one person would be a loss if it's free!

[mendip_discovery]

Never quite understand stuff myself. I am a little simple.

But you are saying you want to watch stuff for free but you don't want to watch the adverts that pay for the service and pay the content creators to make the stuff. So you block the adverts but then get annoyed when the host starts to take steps to prevent you from using the service.

For some reason I just find this odd. I must admit I am not a big fan of the content creators putting in paid adverts as some of them have been scams (lord of a bit of land in scotland, or asking a beardy guy to sell razors) but if it's relevant to the customer base (reps is good at this) then I am fine.

[PlainName]

It's because no-one asked. They just bombard us with ads, and additionally such up our data gratis, because they can. Fuck 'em.

Rationally, they should charge an entrance fee and then we can either partake or not. But that would lead to problems for them ("Hey, I'm paying for this so where is the bloody video? Why is it in QVGA?") and there are so many sites we couldn't afford to visit them all without some means of making micro-payments. But they could still ask.

Adverts achieve nothing either. They waste our time and OUR resources, but we're not going to click them or even buy stuff we see in them. They are counterproductive.

[helius]

Between editing URLs and blocking Alphabet's ad serving domains, I haven't seen a youtube ad in almost a decade. Ad blocking plugins is just another bit of software I would have to trust, so I don't use them.

[coppercone2]

   Well, uh, coppercone2 your analysis reminds me of one response I had (or non-response): when older car (engine) threw a rod, partially thru the block:

   DROVE that noisey / smokey old car, maybe another 15 miles, ignoring my ears.  Acted like was normal, while 'just get me home'.  But that thrown-rod engine didn't get better (go figure), instead the dash temperature gauge soared to max.  Maybe no oil by then, but hey; still 'driveable'...

I's goin down, but didn't want that, so...kept driving, at traffic speed.  Denial can be a powerful trait, get you through some, seemingly, bad consequences, just keep pushing the gas pedal....

   Tow truck, later, dropped off the car, and myself, at nearby service station.

i see it like not eating a restaurant that suddenly got a suit and tie policy

[RJSV]

Just noticed today; YT video reached end, and I managed to pause and then TURN OFF auto-play (difficult button !).
   The lousy thing placed AN AD at the end, when there wasn't even a video to play (following)!

   Suspicious, how the 'autoplay' got enabled to begin with.

[Bryn]

Earlier, I watched at least three videos with an adblocker but when I progressed to watching a fourth onwards, I didn't get any message telling me to turn my adblocker off or anything like that. Perhaps it's only happening to some people? I've no idea...

[factory]

I've noticed the "autoplay" keeps turning itself back on (for the PC at least), very annoying.

David

[Bryn]

I've noticed the "autoplay" keeps turning itself back on (for the PC at least), very annoying.

That's not happened to me... but then again I always open video pages in a new tab.

[PlainName]

There is a firefox extension: Disable AutoPlay - Click to play

In use any autoplay video gets a red border and doesn't play. Just click it to play, otherwise ignore. Even works with gifs and the like, and nothing is going to disable it on the sly.

[tggzzz]

3 videos, so I guess one just clears cookies after 3 vids? They couldn't dare enforce this by IP address because too many addresses are shared, so it will surely be a cookie.

Browser fingerprinting is pretty good at identifying specific browsers, e.g....

https://www.amiunique.org/
Yes! You are unique among the 1935768 fingerprints in our entire dataset.

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
Our tests indicate that you have you have strong protection against Web tracking.
Is your browser:
Blocking tracking ads?    Yes
Blocking invisible trackers?    Yes
Protecting you from fingerprinting?    No
Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 167,649 tested in the past 45 days.
Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 17.36 bits of identifying information.

[madires]

There is a firefox extension: Disable AutoPlay - Click to play

In use any autoplay video gets a red border and doesn't play. Just click it to play, otherwise ignore. Even works with gifs and the like, and nothing is going to disable it on the sly.

Firefox has a built-in setting to disable auto-play (audio, audio & video). It's hidden under Privacy & Security, Permissions, Autoplay.

[PlainName]

Yes, but it appears to come undone arbitrarily.

Does it allow autoplay content to be played? Without effectively whitelisting a site?

[madires]

You can select a default for all websites and also add site specific settings. So you could deny autoplay by default, but allow it for some websites, or vice versa. 

[PlainName]

The addon allows you to disable everywhere, but nevertheless run something just by clicking. No dicking around with white or black lists, no setting and unsetting for a one-off view. Just massively simpler and friendlier.

[SiliconWizard]

Just a question, as I don't have the figures:
Does YT even make any profit?

[ataradov]

They generate $30bn  year,  this is 10% of total Alphabet revenue. They are highly profitable. And they have 50+ million premium subscribers, so that's a lot of direct cache.

[SiliconWizard]

The question is not about the revenue, it's about profits.
Many of these giant online services generate enormous revenues, yet have negative results. I'm not sure about YT, but I wouldn't be surprised.

[ataradov]

In 2019 their estimated operating profit margin was 3-18%. It is hard to find more recent numbers.

[m k]

I'd say just bring out the stealth adblockers and make the whole idea of "push" advertising come crashing down.

So ad-not-renderer API.

I'd say that ad-on-demand it the way.
I'd say also that westerners are practically already there, advertisers not quite yet.
Sort of like through the grapevine first.

[Bicurico]

I use uBlock Origin and today I got the first Youtube message complaining that it is not allowed to use ad blocker.

I can click the X on the message box (instead of the two buttons, one to switch off ad blocker, the other to subscribe to Youtube Premium) and the video is shown.

But the next video shows the message again...

Screw Youtube, I will significantly reduce my Youtube usage, which mainly consists in using it for playing background music, by listening to online radio or my own playlists for my own music collection.

Anyone using a "better" Ad Blocker, which is not recognized by Youtube?

[tom66]

You can watch any YouTube video by just pasting the URL into VLC.  I guess it won't take too long until a full desktop client becomes available if they keep pulling this crap.

[langwadt]

Screw Youtube, I will significantly reduce my Youtube usage, which mainly consists in using it for playing background music, by listening to online radio or my own playlists for my own music collection.

 if you are unwilling to pay for the service, one way or another, why are you using it? does Youtube owe you free service?

[tom66]

if you are unwilling to pay for the service, one way or another, why are you using it? does Youtube owe you free service?

I'm fine with text and even image based advertisements next to the video and even below the video, I know they need to make money.  And that's what YouTube used to do.

Now they've changed it to be like television with ads frequently interrupting the content.  Shame. 

[Bicurico]

Screw Youtube, I will significantly reduce my Youtube usage, which mainly consists in using it for playing background music, by listening to online radio or my own playlists for my own music collection.

 if you are unwilling to pay for the service, one way or another, why are you using it? does Youtube owe you free service?

I am indeed unwilling to pay for the service.

When it started, it was free and I contributed with content by uploading my videos, without getting paid for it.

Also, there is lots of content that does not respect any IP of the original owner and Youtube seemed to have circumvented legal action quite well.

How is it possible to have all those music videos, excerpts of series and movies, etc.? Does Youtube pay to host this? No, they don't.

Also, users come up with this crap on their video description:

Code: [Select]

Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the copyright act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

xxx only plays legally obtained physical copies of vinyl records. Their daily streams are solely for the purposes of education and demonstration. Viewers are regularly encouraged to support the creators and publishers of the music by purchasing their own physical copies.

What a bunch of bullshit! And I refuse to pay or watch ads on top of this.

Youtube grew to what it is by offering free viewing of videos uploaded by users, which more than often partially or fully contained copyrighted content. Nobody cared too much about that, as it was free to upload and free to watch.

Taking that huge content and suddenly monetizing it, doesn't seem fair to me and I wonder how the US of A would react if Youtube was i.e. an European company, full of copyrighted material from american people or companies.

And regarding supporting content creators: they nowadays use patreon and ads embedded in their own videos. They are sponsored by companies.

As a consumer I can only stand so many ads. If they get too much, I stop consuming or find ways to circumvent them. Also, I tend to avoid doing business with companies that annoy me with their ads. Finally, i don't understand how ads are so stupid in a time full of AI. How is it possible that I do a Google search for a product, buy it online and then have to see ads for simular products for months (i.e. a washing machine)?

To finish: I have no bad feeling on using ad blockers, especially with Google, Youtube and alikes. They suck my private data illegally and without my consent. So screw them.

[tom66]

YouTube does pay rights money to actual content creators, this is via the Content ID service.  So music in a video will lead to some/all of the revenue from that video going to the music creator.  YouTube were sued over this and it took many years to come to a resolution that satisfied the industry.

However, Content ID matching is only provided to a limited number of copyright holders, not to general creators of content.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370?hl=en-GB

[Bicurico]

Yes, but their business model was based on first abusing the IP and then reaching a dubious settlement with a few of the IP owners.

[JPortici]

Screw Youtube, I will significantly reduce my Youtube usage, which mainly consists in using it for playing background music, by listening to online radio or my own playlists for my own music collection.

 if you are unwilling to pay for the service, one way or another, why are you using it? does Youtube owe you free service?

I am indeed unwilling to pay for the service.

When it started, it was free and I contributed with content by uploading my videos, without getting paid for it.

Also, there is lots of content that does not respect any IP of the original owner and Youtube seemed to have circumvented legal action quite well.

How is it possible to have all those music videos, excerpts of series and movies, etc.? Does Youtube pay to host this? No, they don't.

Also, users come up with this crap on their video description:

Code: [Select]

Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the copyright act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

xxx only plays legally obtained physical copies of vinyl records. Their daily streams are solely for the purposes of education and demonstration. Viewers are regularly encouraged to support the creators and publishers of the music by purchasing their own physical copies.

What a bunch of bullshit! And I refuse to pay or watch ads on top of this.

Youtube grew to what it is by offering free viewing of videos uploaded by users, which more than often partially or fully contained copyrighted content. Nobody cared too much about that, as it was free to upload and free to watch.

Taking that huge content and suddenly monetizing it, doesn't seem fair to me and I wonder how the US of A would react if Youtube was i.e. an European company, full of copyrighted material from american people or companies.

And regarding supporting content creators: they nowadays use patreon and ads embedded in their own videos. They are sponsored by companies.

As a consumer I can only stand so many ads. If they get too much, I stop consuming or find ways to circumvent them. Also, I tend to avoid doing business with companies that annoy me with their ads. Finally, i don't understand how ads are so stupid in a time full of AI. How is it possible that I do a Google search for a product, buy it online and then have to see ads for simular products for months (i.e. a washing machine)?

To finish: I have no bad feeling on using ad blockers, especially with Google, Youtube and alikes. They suck my private data illegally and without my consent. So screw them.

FWIW, mediaset made a huge effort to have google delete everything on youtube that had their logos somewhere, and they complied.
Anyway i agree 100%, with the amount of money that google makes from me by monetizing my data (android phone, gmail, google drive - which i paid because i need the additional space - and also videos i had not monetized because screw ads but alas, they showed ads anyway) they owe me an ad free experience.

Today i started receiving the infamous popup, guess i'll wait a few days until ublock updates itself

[hans]

I looked on Reddit this week what to do. Some thread said to remove cosmetic filters on YT, purge the list cache, and then update them. But, I'm still getting the pop up message. However only once a day.

Another thread said to completely reset your uBlock profile, etc. But I'm not doing that; I've too many custom filters going on, and YT is not important enough for me to warrant that. At this pace, I'll watch videos via VLC or rip them with yt-dlp, and for "burning time" I'll dive into my backlog of TV series.

[tom66]

YT's problem is there are smart TV's from 2012 or so that still work with their service, they do show ads, but the ads are just added as entries to play in the stream.  uBlock just causes those to fail to play.  YT can defeat that by failing to play subsequent streams, but can't stop something like yt-dl or VLC playing the stream directly without also breaking all of those older devices without updates (which won't be provided as the manufacturers of smart TVs seem to get bored after about 12 months when it comes to software support... another reason to never buy one.) 

[Bicurico]

That's the thing: Youtube is not that important and there are so many other options. It is just confortable, but not to a point I would pay for it.

Example: I like to listen to some political comentators. The guy in particular has a huge following (for a Portuguese channel) and has a sponsor. Every single daily episode starts with a mention to his sponsor and the discount you get if you mention the channel name in the purchase. I am totally Ok with that.

Anyway, I listen to this daily Youtube video in my car, while driving. Of course I am not watching it. But my car allows to listen to the phone via Bluetooth and that works just fine. Because Youtube started to interrupt the video every 5-10 minutes for 2 minutes of ads at a much higher volume, it became impossible to use. So I started to use Youtube on my phone with Firefox and uBlock (works fine so far), instead.

If Youtube finds a way to make this unusable, too, I just start to listen to the respective Podcast! The author of this channel features all his Youtube videos as audio Podcasts. I am not using that right now, because I am just not used to Podcast and find some details annoying (somehow it used to automatically download the subscribed episodes, but then it stopped doing so and after some time I had so many downloaded episodes, it became difficult to navigate to the new ones, etc.). But I could switch today from Youtube to Podcast and my resistance would disappear once I understood the quirks of it.

Same with Dave's videos. I can watch them here on this blog as an embedded video and get (AFAIK) no ads. Why should I get ads when watching it in a dedicated Youtube tab on Chrome, which I would do to better adjust the screen size or to be able to read the comments?

Dave might complain that my use of ad blockers lowers his ad revenues, but on the other hand, I do spend time on the forum, contributing to it. Good or bad posts aside, the interest and importance in EEVBlog depends on active users posting here. I am not getting any money for posting here and sometimes my posts may be valuable for someone accessing this portal. I am not asking for any payout and am OK with the fact that Dave makes a living of it (hell, I am truly glad for him). But I don't see myself obliged to contribute with watching ads or even paying money.

[ve7xen]

but can't stop something like yt-dl or VLC playing the stream directly without also breaking all of those older devices without updates (which won't be provided as the manufacturers of smart TVs seem to get bored after about 12 months when it comes to software support... another reason to never buy one.)

As I've mentioned before, they can mux the ads directly into the video stream. It isn't as trivial as what they've done so far, but it's not difficult enough to be a barrier for the likes of Google either. There would be no way for uBlock or anything else to conclusively detect them, and if they wanted to, they could probably also enforce that you download those stream segments in order and in approximate real time, so they can't be trivially skipped. This requires no special support from the client device either.

This is an arms race that the freeloaders will lose, if it comes to it, but the juice may not be worth the squeeze for Google if they can get 95% of the way there with client-side adblock detection.

Operating YT is expensive. I'm not sure what alternative you guys are gunning for if not a subscription service (YT Premium) or ad supported service. What other revenue model would satisfy you? Keep in mind it needs to cover the cost of storing the 500,000+ hours of video that are uploaded every day, in HD, indefinitely (~1 petabyte added per day @ 5mbps).

[ConKbot]

My main thing is the ads I see when I listen to an occasional video on phone so ads aren't blocked, they are mostly scam/ripoff stuff. (Advertising personalization turned off in as many places as I can on google sites) It's truly a rarity to get a "we're xyz company and we sell uvw, check us out at <website>"
Like maybe if your ads weren't trying to take advantage of people, maybe I wouldn't feel morally superior for blocking them
But it's always the grossest feeling scummy ads, or if personalization was on, it would be "you thought about your kitchen towel earlier, heres ads for kitchen towels"

[tom66]

As I've mentioned before, they can mux the ads directly into the video stream. It isn't as trivial as what they've done so far, but it's not difficult enough to be a barrier for the likes of Google either. There would be no way for uBlock or anything else to conclusively detect them, and if they wanted to, they could probably also enforce that you download those stream segments in order and in approximate real time, so they can't be trivially skipped. This requires no special support from the client device either.

Such ads would be detectable because they offer the ability to either skip them or click on them to access other content.  The timecodes for this information would need to be provided to the client.  They can do traditional TV-style advertisement with no interaction, but that would probably not be that popular amongst advertisers (they -love- interaction.)  YouTube also precaches a huge amount at local datacenters; they want to supply each user with different ads. Encoding that into the stream is difficult. They can mux it into the stream but such muxes are detectable because they would break the I/P/B frame sequence of the video (or the equivalent for AV1/whatever Google use).

This is an arms race that the freeloaders will lose, if it comes to it, but the juice may not be worth the squeeze for Google if they can get 95% of the way there with client-side adblock detection.

Operating YT is expensive. I'm not sure what alternative you guys are gunning for if not a subscription service (YT Premium) or ad supported service. What other revenue model would satisfy you? Keep in mind it needs to cover the cost of storing the 500,000+ hours of video that are uploaded every day, in HD, indefinitely (~1 petabyte added per day @ 5mbps).

I've no issue with image based ads or even ads below the video, ads in search results, that kind of thing.  I just don't like the pre-roll and mid video ads.  YouTube premium is just a bit too expensive for my taste, if it was around £5-6 per month that might be more reasonable but at £12 per month (at least in the UK) it's as expensive as Netflix and the like when the production value and costs are far lower (especially given most YouTubers earn more from sponsors than the ad revenue).

[thm_w]

Operating YT is expensive. I'm not sure what alternative you guys are gunning for if not a subscription service (YT Premium) or ad supported service. What other revenue model would satisfy you? Keep in mind it needs to cover the cost of storing the 500,000+ hours of video that are uploaded every day, in HD, indefinitely (~1 petabyte added per day @ 5mbps).

They've already started deleting old gmail accounts that have not been used in a few years. They could make a decision at some point to either: only retain income generating videos, delete old videos without active views, etc. if they wanted. IMO would be completely fair if they wanted. Drive/Gmail/Photos is limited to 15GB per account unless you pay.

[PlainName]

Screw Youtube, I will significantly reduce my Youtube usage, which mainly consists in using it for playing background music, by listening to online radio or my own playlists for my own music collection.

 if you are unwilling to pay for the service, one way or another, why are you using it? does Youtube owe you free service?

They've already had their pound of flesh from search/mail/contacts/phones/youtube/etc data snaffling and selling (and they didn't bother asking either). And they can't even claim not to be evil any more.

[langwadt]

Screw Youtube, I will significantly reduce my Youtube usage, which mainly consists in using it for playing background music, by listening to online radio or my own playlists for my own music collection.

 if you are unwilling to pay for the service, one way or another, why are you using it? does Youtube owe you free service?

They've already had their pound of flesh from search/mail/contacts/phones/youtube/etc data snaffling and selling (and they didn't bother asking either). And they can't even claim not to be evil any more.

that data is only worth something if it means they can charge more for ads because they are better targeted, if you block ads what is that worth?

[PlainName]

The same as if they showed me ads. But that isn't my problem - they've sucked up data which is plainly worth something to them, and it's tough shit for them if they don't manage to do anything with it (although I seriously doubt that it is a waste for them). Maybe if they weren't sitting on that trove - which they never asked if they could take - I might feel a bit differently.

Maybe they sell it off to the likes of Cambridge Analytica. You don't think they would try not to be evil in their money making, do you?

[madires]

My main thing is the ads I see when I listen to an occasional video on phone so ads aren't blocked, they are mostly scam/ripoff stuff.

It depends on which target groups where selected by the advertiser. When I turn off uBlock I get the same stupid ads over and over again, quite monotonous. It's even worse than commercial TV.

[David Hess]

Ads when I get them have almost never been relevant.

I have noticed that the latest browser features allow apparently unblockable ads, and like on smartphones, they are getting better about hiding the close button.  I have had ads on Chrome on my smartphone which I could not close, and had to close Chrome or even reset my phone to get rid of them.  Of course Google's business is ads and I sure do not use their browser on my desktop; Microsoft Edge is bad enough.

And then of course there are companies like AT&T placing ads into their services.   When I make a phone call, I expect to connect to the person I called, and not to an ad for AT&T's services before my call is connected.

[tggzzz]

I have noticed that the latest browser features allow apparently unblockable ads, and like on smartphones, they are getting better about hiding the close button.  I have had ads on Chrome on my smartphone which I could not close, and had to close Chrome or even reset my phone to get rid of them.  Of course Google's business is ads and I sure so not use their browser on my desktop; Microsoft Edge is bad enough.

ISTR some ISPs in the US are using deep packet inspection to change what your browser receives and displays.

Yet another reason not to use smartphones.

Gurgle is continuing to try to deprecate URLs, and next year will remove the HTML interface to gmail. Nothing said about IMAP/POP, AFAIK; presumably too small a proportion or they realise those users do have a clue.

And then of course there are companies like AT&T placing ads into their services.   When I make a phone call, I expect to connect to the person I called, and not to an ad for AT&T's services before my call is connected.

Oh. Good. Grief. That would make me change phone company, pronto.

Just what you want when your call is "can you come round, I've fallen", or similar.

[tom66]

Ads on mobile make many websites almost unusable; try visiting news websites for instance. The small screen is taken up 1/3rds by ads.  Then there's the obligatory "you want cookies?" notification in the EU, and the random popup, and the begging to turn notifications on... My god it's unbearable sometimes, I wonder if any of the developers of these websites actually use them on mobile.

[madires]

And then of course there are companies like AT&T placing ads into their services.   When I make a phone call, I expect to connect to the person I called, and not to an ad for AT&T's services before my call is connected.

In that case the call should be free of charge. Anyway, it doesn't surprise me (based on my professional experience with them).

[madires]

The 'enforcing ads' story boils down to a simple assessment. How much are the operation costs for streaming video to viewers with an ad-blocker? And how much would ad profit drop when fewer viewers cause the platform to be less popular and make advertisers less willing to pay top dollar for ads.

[tggzzz]

My god it's unbearable sometimes, I wonder if any of the developers of these websites actually use them on mobile.

None of them, if they have any sense 

[CJay]

Running UBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and PiHole here, just recently started to get a dire warning about adblockers being banned on youtube or some such faux scary crap, I took it as notification to prune my subs list, went down from over 700 subs to 23 that I actually watch and post content that I find useful or interesting enough to endure Youtube's crap.

Clicking close on the pop up allows me to hit play and watch the videos ad free.

I don't mind paying content creators but I'm damned if I'm gonna put up with product placement, sponsored videos, mid play ads, pre-play ads, post play ads, data harvesting, targeted ads infringing on my privacy etc. etc. as well.

I'd rather do without.

So, in conclusion, Fuck Youtube.

[jonovid]

in recent years youtube advertizing has become so obnoxious, same with google and its cookies ..
IMO youtube notifications are useless. I use the youtube search box.

[PlainName]

Actually, I just realised I do get adverts - in the list of videos on the right, the top one is an advert. I can live with that, and my eyes have learned to ignore the top one anyway (which is why I forgot about it).

[YurkshireLad]

Someone posted a uBlock Origin script that claimed to get around this new Youtube restriction. No idea if it works.

https://files.enderman.ch/scripts/yt-antiadblocker.txt

[tszaboo]

Someone posted a uBlock Origin script that claimed to get around this new Youtube restriction. No idea if it works.

https://files.enderman.ch/scripts/yt-antiadblocker.txt

Thanks. I knew someone will block the adblocker blocker.

[nigelwright7557]

I just ignore the ad's so they have no effect on me.
I used to look at them but found hardly any relevant to me.
So all its doing is wasting my time and youtube ad customers money.

[David Hess]

And then of course there are companies like AT&T placing ads into their services.   When I make a phone call, I expect to connect to the person I called, and not to an ad for AT&T's services before my call is connected.

Oh. Good. Grief. That would make me change phone company, pronto.

Just what you want when your call is "can you come round, I've fallen", or similar.

I only had the AT&T prepaid account for a month, which was long enough to update the firmware on my *unlocked* AT&T phone.  US law requires AT&T to unlock phones to work on other carriers, but that does not prevent AT&T from locking them down so that you cannot update the firmware, except if you are an AT&T subscriber.

[CJay]

I just ignore the ad's so they have no effect on me.
I used to look at them but found hardly any relevant to me.
So all its doing is wasting my time and youtube ad customers money.

I bet you know a load of brand and/or product names for things that you never bought, are highly unlikely or never will buy though.

[coppercone2]

I like how it tries to sell you shit when you are watching international war news

that really puts me in the mood for getting soap delivered to my house 

[PlainName]

Better than an ad for a computer game like Call of Duty or something!

[AndyBeez]

Has anyone Wiresharked their LAN whist watching YT? What makes advertiser content dissimilar from creator content?

From my software design perspective, If I was building an 'advert play out cart', I would embed the the advert content in with the same transport stream as the channel content, so no AdBlocker could ever function. The experience would be the same as watching regular television. Obviously on planet MP4 things work different with unique filenames and client side Javascript to 'detect' ad blocking.

My usage of YT and others is, I just hover over the Skip Advert button and pay zero attention to the advert. It's a 'skill' I likely developed early on watching Kids TV. Later on in life I was involved with online advertising and analytics. Even having seen the other side of the banner advert, to this day, I still cannot understand why online advertising is regarded as profitable highly lucrative for those in the advertising industry. It's all just visual noise - like posters on the subway or neon signs in Times Square. I guess I am even developing immunity from the social media disease of brainless influencers. Find a way to block them and you're set for a chicken dinner for life.

[SiliconWizard]

Screw Youtube, I will significantly reduce my Youtube usage, which mainly consists in using it for playing background music, by listening to online radio or my own playlists for my own music collection.

 if you are unwilling to pay for the service, one way or another, why are you using it? does Youtube owe you free service?

They've already had their pound of flesh from search/mail/contacts/phones/youtube/etc data snaffling and selling (and they didn't bother asking either). And they can't even claim not to be evil any more.

that data is only worth something if it means they can charge more for ads because they are better targeted, if you block ads what is that worth?

The data is a gold mine, it can be sold for a very large number of purposes. Usually marketing, but not only. And even for marketing purposes, one company can sell data to another without necessarily selling ad space after that. It's just a bonus.

[hans]

Has anyone Wiresharked their LAN whist watching YT? What makes advertiser content dissimilar from creator content?

From my software design perspective, If I was building an 'advert play out cart', I would embed the the advert content in with the same transport stream as the channel content, so no AdBlocker could ever function. The experience would be the same as watching regular television. Obviously on planet MP4 things work different with unique filenames and client side Javascript to 'detect' ad blocking.

My usage of YT and others is, I just hover over the Skip Advert button and pay zero attention to the advert. It's a 'skill' I likely developed early on watching Kids TV. Later on in life I was involved with online advertising and analytics. Even having seen the other side of the banner advert, to this day, I still cannot understand why online advertising is regarded as profitable highly lucrative for those in the advertising industry. It's all just visual noise - like posters on the subway or neon signs in Times Square. I guess I am even developing immunity from the social media disease of brainless influencers. Find a way to block them and you're set for a chicken dinner for life.

Little chance of solving that at such low level. Ads are served from the same servers at regular videos. There is not some DNS or IP hostname you can block, as you can with many other ads that are served outside of the original "platform". All comms is also TLS/HTTPS, so little packet inspection possible (unless you're willing to MITM yourself 24/7)
.
As @tom66 posted in reply #96, ads may even appear (under the hood) like regular videos that are being played.

The anti-adblock measures seem to work on monitoring whether adblockers are running, the ad videos are skipped before possibility of skip (or they finish playing), etc.

The script posted by Yurkshirelad in reply #117 was force-setting some JS variables to clear the adblock detectors. But it seems to have been taken offline already, well the txt endpoint that is. The readme page seems to indicate its not completely bug-free... as YT will surely be monitoring what people are changing all the time. This is always a cat and mouse game. And IME ""the pirates"" eventually win, as there are also 'options' to use 3rd party players etc.

I'm actually surprised that YT hasn't put more effort into script obfuscation. Its still possible to set/clear unobfuscated variable names, instead of choosing completely random ones (as an anti-scraping technique used by some sites)..

[tom66]

I'm actually surprised that YT hasn't put more effort into script obfuscation. Its still possible to set/clear unobfuscated variable names, instead of choosing completely random ones (as an anti-scraping technique used by some sites)..

Or the truly nasty technique that Facebook uses (making accessibility crap too, but not that they care).
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fxx7ctkimcte21.jpg

Not that I need another reason not to use Facebook.

[RJSV]

(MathWizard, et al:)
   I saw your comment, comparing YouTube with cable TV (favorably).
However, before I go to ask at the local recreation Dept. Computer Training class, must ask,
Do other users seeing the YouTube screen format, where it's now just a blank white screen, with a tiny window...showing ADs ?
   Seems like yt is slowly catching everything up to that 'blank' screen, if unsubscribed.  Older videos more likely to do it the old way, that is the screen has initial view, of video, with big arrow to start the video.

   Icons not working, either, on that 'blank' white screen...

[Bicurico]

Today the anti-ad banner got more agressive: it now has a timer before you can click the X and close the stupid pop-up.

Also, I question if they haven't lowered the quality - even at FullHD the picture looks bad. Not sure if the video creator messed this up or if it is indeed caused by Youtube.

The more I think and read about it, the less sympathy I have for Youtube. I won't pay for Youtube even if ultimately I lose access to it.

[AVGresponding]

Yeah, they're rolling it out in stages across different areas; I went past that stage about a week ago, and I'm blocked from watching anything now, unless I disable my adblock.

Consequently, most of my viewing is now on Odysee, and I'm only watching stuff I really can't stand to miss on YT.

[madires]

The more I think and read about it, the less sympathy I have for Youtube. I won't pay for Youtube even if ultimately I lose access to it.

With all the bad things YouTube is doing (demonetization, invalid traffic issue, zero human response, etc) I won't support them either by paying for a subscription. Good riddance!

[MK14]

The more I think and read about it, the less sympathy I have for Youtube. I won't pay for Youtube even if ultimately I lose access to it.

With all the bad things YouTube is doing (demonetization, invalid traffic issue, zero human response, etc) I won't support them either by paying for a subscription. Good riddance!

I'm not entirely convinced by their (YouTube's) business plans.

Since the real YouTube Video creators, have to spend actual money, time and other resources, into making these videos.

If the viewership dwindles away, because of all these various antics by YouTube.  E.g. Down to 50% of what it was.

Then the various creators will get a lot less money from YouTube themselves (as the viewing figures will drop to e.g. 50% of what they were).

Similarly, creators revenue from other sources would diminish (again, perhaps by 50%, unless people who pay for YouTube premium, might be more likely to pay for Patreon, so maybe not that much of a drop?), because there would be much less viewers, to pay for Patreon or give product sponsorship deals value for money.

So they could end up destroying or damaging the platform.  Eventually leading to other companies, taking over the slack.

On the other hand.  Running YouTube, is probably extremely expensive, with extensive servers, electric power consumption, internet traffic bandwidth, staff, payments to creators and many other costs of running such a massive, global business.  So it is not a clear cut, black and white situation.

[ataradov]

It is not going to dwindle. There is a vocal minority of people that complain. Others will either sit though the ads or pay the subscription fee. People already pay for a lot of streaming services. They will just have to juggle one more.

For me personally, YT constitutes 90% of the media consumption, and subscription fee is absolutely worth it. But I'm not subscribed to any other streaming services because they are of no value to me.

[MK14]

It is not going to dwindle. There is a vocal minority of people that complain. Others will either sit though the ads or pay the subscription fee. People already pay for a lot of streaming services. They will just have to juggle one more.

For me personally, YT constitutes 90% of the media consumption, and subscription fee is absolutely worth it. But I'm not subscribed to any other streaming services because they are of no value to me.

Maybe, it won't dwindle.  But I wouldn't like to bet my own money, on that being the case.  A number of creators on YouTube, seem to be generally unhappy with the service it offers, for various reasons.

Such as channels suddenly being closed down, with little or no come-back, with human contact ways of talking to google (YouTube).

The creators seem to be receiving too little money from YouTube, to pay for stuff and make it worthwhile.

Microsoft (windows) and some other companies seem to show that once you get an apparent monopoly.  It is very difficult, for other business's to move in on your act.  Even if that company, seems to be doing a terrible service, horrible products, charging too much money, etc.

E.g. Some people think Microsoft windows is going to become a subscription only service.  Many say if that happens, they will move away from windows permanently.

So, it is not clear (to me at least), if some of these companies (YouTube/Google, Microsoft, Twitter etc) will end up self-destructing or not, in the longer term.

[ve7xen]

Such ads would be detectable because they offer the ability to either skip them or click on them to access other content.  The timecodes for this information would need to be provided to the client.  They can do traditional TV-style advertisement with no interaction, but that would probably not be that popular amongst advertisers (they -love- interaction.)  YouTube also precaches a huge amount at local datacenters; they want to supply each user with different ads. Encoding that into the stream is difficult. They can mux it into the stream but such muxes are detectable because they would break the I/P/B frame sequence of the video (or the equivalent for AV1/whatever Google use).

They would probably be detectable with the metadata, even if obscured - it would be annoying to keep up with this for the blockers. However if Google refuses to send the stream segments significantly ahead of their realtime target start, then this doesn't achieve much. You could block the ad from displaying based on the metadata, but you can't skip ahead if Google won't send you those frames early.

It's not trivial, but I don't think it's beyond an entity like Google to mux the ads into the stream. They rencode everything uploaded anyway, so they can place I frames where they need them (or keep track of precisely where the natural ones are in the original stream). I think they actually already do something similar to try to place ads at natural cuts in the source material, though it doesn't work that well, presumably it relies on I-frame placement, that would be the simplest way to make such a guess. Their caches are already intelligent enough to support DASH segmented streaming, so it would not be a huge stretch to assemble the video stream per-user, whether the client is using DASH or traditional HTTP, they 'just' need to serve a virtual stream that the web server can assemble from different files. Technically it seems quite achievable. Not allowing users to grab segments before they should seems like the harder part, and requires more state to keep track of where each player is (supposed to be) at, but all the information needed is there to do it.

I am just not sure it's worth it, it would definitely make other things like seeking difficult to implement for ad-based clients, and I guess simply taking the 'block the ad blockers' actions they have done will mostly achieve the goal of increasing ad views.

I've no issue with image based ads or even ads below the video, ads in search results, that kind of thing.  I just don't like the pre-roll and mid video ads.  YouTube premium is just a bit too expensive for my taste, if it was around £5-6 per month that might be more reasonable but at £12 per month (at least in the UK) it's as expensive as Netflix and the like when the production value and costs are far lower (especially given most YouTubers earn more from sponsors than the ad revenue).

I do think the price is a bit steep, but I think the 'low production value' user generated content is exactly what is compelling about it. I watch far more YouTube than any other media, and it is exactly because most of what I watch is relatively niche and would never have enough viewers to support TV-level production value. In fact, much of what I enjoy watch would probably be ruined by increased production value to that level; the off the cuff stuff, the failed projects, the hour long 'AMA' videos and so on. The main selling point to me is exactly that - the 'not profitable enough' content. I justify it with the included YouTube Music subscription.

Production costs might be lower (hard to say overall, there is orders of magnitude more content produced) but I suspect YouTube's operating costs are much higher, they host way more content, need to develop and maintain user-facing production and streaming tools, and I guess get a lot more views.

[Bicurico]

I tried to run a specific YouTube channel about satellite reception and professional field meters. These can cost several thousand Euros.
I made some videos and got views in the order of a few hundred, in other words, totally unprofitable. Of course I already owned said equipment, but I wouldn't be able to purchase such devices to maintain a flow of new videos.
On the other hand, I accidentally noticed that there were videos of budgie (small birds) chatting. They existed so that your single budgie could listen to other budgies. These videos were like 2 hours still image with a recording of a flock of birds chatting. They had millions of views.
That was the day that I understood that monetising YouTube videos requires to produce videos for large audiences and not niche themes. Those need to be fed by free content.
This is the free content that YouTube is killing.

[ataradov]

YouTube created the ability to do any of that in a first place. Now they fed up with hosting videos that cost more money to host than the value they bring in. The content is "free" to you because you don't care about storage and hosting costs, but YT needs to worry about that.

You can't have a channel with few hundred views and expect to make a living. Many channels start small and then transition into full-time if content is interesting. If your channel did not pick up, you either can't present it correctly or the topic is just something nobody cares about.

[Bud]

There is Nothing on youtube videos that cannot be found as static content on html WEB. If they (Youtube) disappear tomorrow there will be Zelch impact on information availability.

[MK14]

There is Nothing on youtube videos that cannot be found as static content on html WEB. If they disappear tomorrow there will be Zelch impact on information availability.

It is rather convenient, to have so much stuff, presented to you as options using the AI and software, as well as a huge set of videos, that can be searched from the search bar.

Also, its general characteristics, such as the video player features/controls are the same for the different videos that can be played back.  Which is also helpful.

But some things are annoying, such as the removal of the display of the dislike votes, and other annoying things, some or many of which have already been mentioned in this thread.

[thm_w]

There is Nothing on youtube videos that cannot be found as static content on html WEB. If they (Youtube) disappear tomorrow there will be Zelch impact on information availability.

Clearly false.
There are many people that post their experiments/science/teardowns/lectures/whatever exclusively to youtube and nowhere else. Whether you value that information or not is a different argument.

[ataradov]

Just results from the Applied Science alone are enough to disprove that statement. Sure, he relies on the information available out there, but he also contributes a significant portion back. And that only exists as a video.

Otherwise you can argue that all the information exists in printed books and screw the web, it has no value.

[hans]

According to appstores, a plugin like uBlock Origin has 10M(+) active users on Chrome and Edge. Around 7-8M on FF.
If other sources are to be believed, YT has a monthly user activity of 2.7B. The people that go into so much effort to block ads is fairly small. I don't want to make it out to be <1%, but its not going to be that massive many-dozens-of-percents chunk either I expect.

This is a classic case of users with strong opinions thinking they have more stake for a business than they actually have. For sure, I do value strong opinions when based on principles - and by that I'm pro adblock - but this is not going to bring YT down as a platform at all. If any, advertisers are willing to pay more because YT is aggressively countering adblockers. And what if YT does lose 10-20% viewers? Their platform growth may take a hit 0.5-1 year growth worth. Their revenue wouldn't go down, because we didn't watch ads anyhow. But they also save costs that have netted zero revenue for years. Gross margins goes up. Shareholders happyface.

I said earlier that I think pirates will eventually win. Yes; for the people that want to go into the effort, there will always be a way.
But hands up if anyone pays here for Spotify? Its a similar amount per month. I listen to music more than I consume YT. Should I reward creative processes more than a similar grindy process of someone making videos? Doubtful. But I still pay for Spotify, because I don't want to spend time on sourcing my music from shady sites, varying quality, and having to worry about archivin and sorting it.

And yes, I agree that YT holds some unique content. Whether video is the most suitable for all content, also doubtful. But unique nonetheless.

[thm_w]

According to appstores, a plugin like uBlock Origin has 10M(+) active users on Chrome and Edge. Around 7-8M on FF.
If other sources are to be believed, YT has a monthly user activity of 2.7B. The people that go into so much effort to block ads is fairly small. I don't want to make it out to be <1%, but its not going to be that massive many-dozens-of-percents chunk either I expect.

Add another 10M for adblock, 10M for adblock plus, maybe 50 million users all in? (I'm assuming they all block youtube ads, may not).
Monthly user activity is high yes, though daily is only 122 million. Premium youtube users 80 million. So 50 million is fairly large compared to either of those numbers, which are probably the ones they care about IMO.

Though the adblock/ublock user numbers might also be inflated.

[langwadt]

According to appstores, a plugin like uBlock Origin has 10M(+) active users on Chrome and Edge. Around 7-8M on FF.
If other sources are to be believed, YT has a monthly user activity of 2.7B. The people that go into so much effort to block ads is fairly small. I don't want to make it out to be <1%, but its not going to be that massive many-dozens-of-percents chunk either I expect.

This is a classic case of users with strong opinions thinking they have more stake for a business than they actually have. For sure, I do value strong opinions when based on principles - and by that I'm pro adblock - but this is not going to bring YT down as a platform at all. If any, advertisers are willing to pay more because YT is aggressively countering adblockers. And what if YT does lose 10-20% viewers? Their platform growth may take a hit 0.5-1 year growth worth. Their revenue wouldn't go down, because we didn't watch ads anyhow. But they also save costs that have netted zero revenue for years. Gross margins goes up. Shareholders happyface.

I said earlier that I think pirates will eventually win. Yes; for the people that want to go into the effort, there will always be a way.
But hands up if anyone pays here for Spotify? Its a similar amount per month. I listen to music more than I consume YT. Should I reward creative processes more than a similar grindy process of someone making videos? Doubtful. But I still pay for Spotify, because I don't want to spend time on sourcing my music from shady sites, varying quality, and having to worry about archivin and sorting it.

And yes, I agree that YT holds some unique content. Whether video is the most suitable for all content, also doubtful. But unique nonetheless.

there's a helluva lot of music is on YT

[coppercone2]

I like how every media service that tries to get greedy fails.

and with the cheapness of storage, and decreasing cost of internet, trying to contain media is more and more silly!

soon its gonna be like AI's scraping content and registering their own websites automatically lol

I think the dream of getting rich by running a automated database is a fallacy, its going to get burgled so hard lol. I have a feeling they want to reduce the company to a single board member running the service through a phone app.

getting services from professionals is cool, getting access to a robot ain't. and it pisses people off so much they fighting it for free.

it almost feels like with youtube, greed means you are losing X% of the human population spending time learning (be it arts or trade) / day and its counter productive to growth of society. its like related to national health I think. How easy is it for a average citizen to find immediate entertainment or distraction seems like a realistic metric for general quality of life, well being, crime reduction, so forth?

I think this stuff their implementing is messing up the eco system. You damn well know the board has some overly simplified model of what is happening but really its quite a biome and there could be disastrous results (kind of like how honey bees are related to basically everything) to the website. Always makes me think of toll bridges and robber barons of the mideaval age. The argument was that the little fiefdoms would go bankrupt if you got rid of the river castles (toll booths on the river) but it lead to the formation of great nations with tons of social benefits (compared to the middle ages). I imagine tons of people heard that you need to pay a fees to flow through the rhine and they were like 'fuck this water transport shit! that will never go anywhere!'

[Bud]

The people that go into so much effort to block ads is fairly small. I don't want to make it out to be <1%, but its not going to be that massive many-dozens-of-percents chunk either I expect.

If that is the case, then why Youtube gets in so much effort (which almost feels desperate) to fight ad blockers off.

[SiliconWizard]

The people that go into so much effort to block ads is fairly small. I don't want to make it out to be <1%, but its not going to be that massive many-dozens-of-percents chunk either I expect.

If that is the case, then why Youtube gets in so much effort (which almost feels desperate) to fight ad blockers off.

Yeah, I have no clue about the real figures. Absolutely zero. It's very likely more than 1%, but I don't know. I'd say more like in the order of 25%-30%.
Yes, even on mobile devices using ad blockers is not too hard. Only if you use the YT mobile app, you can't block anything, but if you use a web browser to watch YT, then you can block most ads on mobile phones and tablets too.

But even if that was just a couple %, that means that's roughly a couple % shaved off their revenue, hence their growth. Any % matters for the shareholders.
They probably have considerable pressure, not just from their shareholders, but from their clients (the people who buy ad space) as well, to curb ad blocking altogether. And they don't want to risk losing clients. That may be the main reason, rather than being just excessively "greedy".

And yes, their clients don't give a damn about users' privacy and tranquility, they just pay to shove as much ad content as possible up yours, and if YT can't quite deliver that, they'll get angry. Nice world really.

[ataradov]

It is just a low hanging fruit. I've been a part of some limited adblocker block test many years ago (2016 or something like that). All of a sudden adblockers stopped working and I tried to see if anyone else has that problem, and I found a few people complaining on the forums, but the only answers were "works for me". I could not stand the ads, so I paid for  YouTube Red and have been paying since then.

So, if a simple nudge can generate some revenue, why not?

[hans]

The people that go into so much effort to block ads is fairly small. I don't want to make it out to be <1%, but its not going to be that massive many-dozens-of-percents chunk either I expect.

If that is the case, then why Youtube gets in so much effort (which almost feels desperate) to fight ad blockers off.

Because they can get away with it. Just look at how the false DMCA claims have rolled; it has been going on for years from obvious copyright trolls, and the content creators+viewers combined don't have enough force to do anything about it.

This will likely be a similar battle. A popup urging to stop adblocking is a pretty mild measure. If it then blocks playback, its mediocre at best. Technologically I think this attempt will fail, as the JS runs client-side and can be manipulated (in FF). Alternative players exist (even mpv or VLC) that just grab the right videostream from YT's APIs. Such battle would continue unless they go into extreme measures like paywalling the whole platform or require logging in and banning accounts that dont adblock and somehow fail to spoof being a legit YT client.

The market share for adblocks for sure wont be <=1%. But I don't think it's more than 30-40% either. Ofcourse it will differ per content category, as I'm sure it would be fairly high for tech YT channels (maybe surpassing 50% there), however its perhaps an all-time low for channels that post cartoons for kids or mainstream music. (Guess which market is bigger) People will put those videos on with their phone, tablet or TV and don't always have the option to install adblockers.

Hypothetically if the overall adblock percentage is say >10% or more, then I'm sure advertisers and shareholders want to see those numbers go down. Probably in a similar fallacy as 1 pirated copy=1 missed sale. That's not how that works as consumer opportunism and platform choice is ignored. For exactly why in this point in time they start.. I don't know.. YT is corporate so somehow higher up must have given a 'GO' sign to roll these measures out.

[tom66]

I think the false DMCA claims are another matter.  It's a simple case of verifying a claim being expensive, with a high consequence (lawsuit for damages) applying if they get a false negative, and a low consequence if they get a false positive (losing out on a little ad revenue).  So their policy is to err more on believing that the DMCA claim is legitimate.  DMCA and copyright law in general needs to be reformed to prevent this.  It's absurd that copyright law could apply for more than 150 years.  It should be more like a patent.  You should be able to remix original Star Wars now; Disney/Lucasfilm/etc have made plenty from it.

[madires]

It becomes even more insane when you realize that you're paying for being bothered by ads. Meanwhile ads have a reversed impact on me. When they bother me too much I'll remember to not buy that product or service.

[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]

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 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.

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.

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: [Select]

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

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.

[ataradov]

He would get his money from Patreons or ads,

So, you are still paying or watching ads. What is the difference to the current situation?

the increased bandwidth shouldn't be that expensive (I guess - could be wrong) and he would be in full control.

You would have to hire people to maintain infrastructure.  Hosting video is not like hosting HTML pages. You will be miserable if the videos you watch in Portugal are hosted on one server in the US.

3) Netflix or a competitor offers his subscribers to upload and share videos! Why doesn't Netflix do that?

Because Netflix infrastructure is very locked down and not designed for frequent updates. They ship (or at least used to ship) sealed server boxes to the local data centers of the local ISPs. Data replication between those servers is not done in real time. This model works perfectly for their use case - low turnout low volume of content. It will not scale at all to user uploaded content.

Plus they would have to deal with DMCA stuff. And they would have to be really strict about it, since their main business relies on good relationship with content owners.

[MK14]

Folks acting like they're entitled to consume Google's resources without giving anything in return is absurd.

I think there is a huge number of ways, they can make money from such users.  A limited number of examples, follow.

• A person, looks for a particular item, e.g. An Oscilloscope, PC, TV or Car, for lots of video reviews, unboxing videos and detailed videos with descriptions of those items.  That would be very valuable information for companies trying to sell those items to consumers and businesses.  They can then send targeted internet adverts (on other platforms), emails or postal adverts, maybe even ring the person up.  Depending on that particular individual or business.
• A so called non-paying person, loves a particular youtube video, so they post links to it, all over the place.  E.g. Bigclive makes this funny thing explode into big flames, a must see!.  Many of the people who see those links, might be subscribers and/or have adverts enabled, so would (indirectly) get payments to YouTube
• By watching YouTube creators, not paying YouTube anything, but paying that creator significant funds, via Patreon, for doing better content in the future.  Which then also gives better content to the paying people, via subscriptions or watching YouTube adverts

In summary, YouTube can indirectly get a lot of payment/money/resources, from the people who don't watch the adverts (e.g. because they block them or ignore them), and who never subscribe to it.

[ataradov]

That's like paying contractors in "exposure".  It does not work. Just pay for the service you use. The amount of mental gymnastics people will do....

[Bicurico]

Dave hosting his own videos to a million of subscribers is a different league than YouTube.
His ads are not intrusive as YouTube ads and hence much better tolerated.

Regarding Netflix, there is no need for speed. I don't care if the latest 8bit Guy video is available for me tomorrow or in two weeks.

If I want real time, I use live TV.

[MK14]

That's like paying contractors in "exposure".  It does not work. Just pay for the service you use. The amount of mental gymnastics people will do....

But it is techniques like that, which allow and pay for Google, to provide a (so far), free search service for everyone.

If they had listened to what you seem to be saying.  Everyone would have had to pay, perhaps $9.99 per month to ever use Google's search system in the first place.

I suspect, that if Google had charged $9.99 or whatever, right from the start for searches, we would have never heard of Google, and they perhaps wouldn't even exist, now.

I use the above as an analogy to YouTube, re this discussion.

[Bicurico]

The thing is: Google results are far from being what they were.
Nowadays the results are highly determined by commercial interest. If whatever you search for can be shown as a commercial result, it will prevail any other results.
This renders many searches almost useless.

[ataradov]

His ads are not intrusive as YouTube ads and hence much better tolerated.

What "his ads" we are talking about? I don't remember any sponsored content apart from equipment donated for reviews. He relies on the YT ads. So, if that goes away, his ads would have to be the same raid shadow legends crap as everyone else does.

[Bicurico]

Even this forum uses ads. Have you noticed? Sometimes I even click on them, mostly by accident, sometimes on purpose.

[ve7xen]

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.

This might work for mid-tier creators who have enough dedicated viewers to drive them to their site. But this is not the way people consume content today, they want a single pane of glass showing them new content, not to have to constantly refresh a dozen websites to wait for something new or sign up to a dozen e-mail lists or RSS feeds. They want a first-class experience on their TV and mobile. Ultimately I think even popular creators would see attrition under such a model with little hope of gaining viewership. I don't think we're going back to that consumption model.

There's also a bit of a scaling problem with no diversity. If a stream is 5mbps, you can only host 200 streams (optimistically) on a typical single server. Maybe the average case is 20 viewers watching your streams, but when you release a new video it peaks up to 1000 (no idea on realistic numbers) and you're well underwater. I don't think these are big numbers, but you're talking about a fairly significant infrastructure investment to satisfy those peak loads. Or you need to start getting into Cloud infrastructure and it stops being so simple and cheap. There are also tons (probably most) of mid-tier channels with very little technical ability.

For creators just starting out, it's a fairly large barrier to entry compared to today, and it is much harder to get discovered and gain viewers if you're not where the viewers are. And you still need to make money somehow, which likely means - you guessed it - ads. At the other end, the huge channels, they can probably afford to pay a SaaS kind of thing for hosting, but they also have the scale to implement the same kind of ads YouTube uses, and likely would need to (or more aggressive 'embedded' spots) to make the funding work, and they'd be a lot less efficient at selling ad space etc. Hosting it themselves at that scale is probably not really viable.

None of this solves the real problem that YouTube solve(d), which is putting all that content in one place and helping you find other stuff you might like.

Ultimately someone has to pay real dollars to at least maintain the infrastructure and pay the creators a living wage, and over the history of video content, that has either been via advertising or pay-to-view.

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.

Technically this is probably viable, and I think it's been tried if something like that isn't actively operating today. There are a few problems - ultimately you need to host 'seed' copies somewhere, which someone needs to pay for somehow, and someone needs to develop and host the discovery / search / community mechanism, which also requires money or dedicated individual effort at least. Even so, it likely won't ever be anywhere close to as good as something like YouTube.

In summary, YouTube can indirectly get a lot of payment/money/resources, from the people who don't watch the adverts (e.g. because they block them or ignore them), and who never subscribe to it.

I'm sure there are other models that might work, but the bottom line is Google needs to get something out of the relationship, and in almost all cases, that means you (or at least some significant fraction of users) are giving something up. It is not quite zero-sum, but there's not much that earns Google money that helps you, outside of very specific targeted advertising, like you describe, which is still advertising. Your #1 for example is way more offensive to me than inline advertising, that is literally 'selling your information' that people always bring up, which is something that Google doesn't currently do. Getting more views from people who also won't see the ads is actively harmful as views cost them money; ultimately they need people to watch them so that they get paid, which isn't likely to increase if they let you just turn them off.

I suspect, that if Google had charged $9.99 or whatever, right from the start for searches, we would have never heard of Google, and they perhaps wouldn't even exist, now.

Of course not, that is the story of so many tech companies. Launch for free, get users, and figure out how to monetize it later. Ultimately that depends on venture funding, which depends on people believing money can be made, or it will eventually collapse under its own weight when people stop believing and stop funding the operation of the service, regardless of how well-loved it is.

Search is funded by, you guessed it, advertising. Being the top Google result for your search term and desired demographic is apparently less offensive to folks than being forced to view an ad, and likely also more valuable to the advertisers paying for that placement, so there's less 'noise' about this, but ultimately this is the same basic model as YouTube and pretty much everything Google does.

It's interesting and maybe enlightening that AFAIK none of the new AI hotness is free.

[ataradov]

Even this forum uses ads.

But the forum ads are not video ads. Do you think it is viable to make a living from the forum ads? The only reason none of this is intrusive is because it is only a part of the income.

Once you have to live off those ads, you will have to start accepting anything and everything.

[MK14]

In summary, YouTube can indirectly get a lot of payment/money/resources, from the people who don't watch the adverts (e.g. because they block them or ignore them), and who never subscribe to it.

I'm sure there are other models that might work, but the bottom line is Google needs to get something out of the relationship, and in almost all cases, that means you (or at least some significant fraction of users) are giving something up. It is not quite zero-sum, but there's not much that earns Google money that helps you, outside of very specific targeted advertising, like you describe, which is still advertising. Your #1 for example is way more offensive to me than inline advertising, that is literally 'selling your information' that people always bring up, which is something that Google doesn't currently do. Getting more views from people who also won't see the ads is actively harmful as views cost them money; ultimately they need people to watch them so that they get paid, which isn't likely to increase if they let you just turn them off.

I (partly painfully) accept, that Google/YouTube, need to transition, from what was mainly a free service, with ad-blocking being (possibly disliked, but accepted), to a much harder stance on either receiving/viewing ads (ad-blocking disallowed), and YouTube subscriptions, being the desired (goal) objective, of Google/YouTube, much more so, than before.

As I (and some others), have previously said.  They seem to be pricing it, significantly too high.  Also, I'd prefer (and perhaps they would get better results), if people got more perceived value from such subscriptions.

E.g. Amazon Prime, can claim things like cheaper/faster/free delivery services, cheaper (prime exclusive) items in some cases, included ad free (may be adding ads, at some point, in the near future or already, unless you get another subscription, country dependent), and a number of other things.

Hence the Amazon prime subscriptions, make sense for some people.

Just spamming horrible, ultra-repetitive, petty / silly (in my perception), adverts in a number of places, with YouTube videos, then trying to sell a partially blackmailed subscription, to avoid those highly annoying adverts, that they are forcing people to watch.

Doesn't seem to put me into the buying mood ("Hey, maybe I should subscribe to that?").

Whereas, other subscriptions, at apparently much better price levels, free trials or month or months, if you take out their subscription services.  Seem much more palatable.

I suspect, that if Google had charged $9.99 or whatever, right from the start for searches, we would have never heard of Google, and they perhaps wouldn't even exist, now.

Of course not, that is the story of so many tech companies. Launch for free, get users, and figure out how to monetize it later. Ultimately that depends on venture funding, which depends on people believing money can be made, or it will eventually collapse under its own weight when people stop believing and stop funding the operation of the service, regardless of how well-loved it is.

Search is funded by, you guessed it, advertising. Being the top Google result for your search term and desired demographic is apparently less offensive to folks than being forced to view an ad, and likely also more valuable to the advertisers paying for that placement, so there's less 'noise' about this, but ultimately this is the same basic model as YouTube and pretty much everything Google does.

It's interesting and maybe enlightening that AFAIK none of the new AI hotness is free.

I think the recent AI things, are considerably more expensive.  Because some of the activities, need big, expensive computing horse power (computers and/or graphics cards).  So they need to pass that cost on to the consumers.

When it costs the company, $0.00001 for a quick search or similar, because of the 0.01 seconds CPU time of one webserver.  It can be easily paid for by advertising and/or other things.

But if you use up a (wild estimated time) couple of minutes (perhaps to draw an AI generated image or complicated and long text thing), of a $250,000 computer, jam-packed with very powerful and expensive, very high end, specialist (AI) graphics cards.  It perhaps is costing them (wild guess) $0.25 a time, for such activities (big difficult things, small or medium things, are probably more like $0.01 or less).

Hence the paid subscriptions, and usage limits, to minimise losses, if someone tries to use it too much.

[ataradov]

Hence the Amazon prime subscriptions, make sense for some people.

I will be dropping Prime subscription when it is a renew time. It became less and less useful over time. Shipping is always late and prime items are just priced higher. This was fine when Prime was cheap, but now it is more expensive.

Just spamming horrible, ultra-repetitive, petty / silly (in my perception), adverts in a number of places, with YouTube videos, then trying to sell a partially blackmailed subscription, to avoid those highly annoying adverts, that they are forcing people to watch.

Ads are ads, they will always be annoying. I'm not sure what you want YT to do here. Ship you some groceries one in a while?

Their other option is to go full Netflix and only offer a subscription, but that's obviously way too disruptive.

At the same time I also subscribe to Nebula and there is some stuff worth watching. But it will never be YouTube. YouTube is good for goofy stuff that is not polished and well produced.

[langwadt]

As I (and some others), have previously said.  They seem to be pricing it, significantly too high.  Also, I'd prefer (and perhaps they would get better results), if people got more perceived value from such subscriptions.

you get to pay creators (and youtube) for their work without wasting time on ads, you can listing to music without having to have the YT app in front, I think just those conveniences are worth much of the price

[MK14]

Ads are ads, they will always be annoying. I'm not sure what you want YT to do here. Ship you some groceries one in a while?

Their other option is to go full Netflix and only offer a subscription, but that's obviously way too disruptive.

Ads are ads, but for me, it is something like a pop something advert (some kind of sweet or similar), which they literally keep on repeating every few minutes, numerous annoying times.  For a product, presumably meant for people, a fraction of my age.

There are various features they could offer, such as:

• YouTube light basic, removes all adverts, only $0.99/month*(*then $1.99 after the first 6 months, new customers only)
• YouTube medium, $3.99*(*$6.99 after 6 months) all of the above and also adds the following features:
• 2 TB of storage for gmail and other google services
• Triple creators payments, and you can choose up to 5 creators per month, who will get a good extra payment
• Up to 10 hours access, to our Netflix like, extra films/movies and other stuff, channels
• YouTube Deluxe $14.99 / Month, features as follows:
• Unlimited time access to the new Netflix like, extras channel
• Ten times creators payments and much bigger amounts for up to 15 creators per month
• Enhanced Google Bard AI features, click here to see list of twelve extra features [***]
• Special advanced deluxe search engine access,  extra options including annonomous searching, which gives 73%** extra improved search vitality {**me poking fun at adverts with relatively meaningless stuff in them**}
• Many other similar features.............

[ataradov]

They are making more than $1.99/mo from ads though, so they will be losing money. And what you are basically describing is the cheap plan you want and then some extras that you (and absolute majority of people) won't ever pay for.

Don't get me wrong, I would totally get that $2 plan, since I don't use any of the mentioned google services. But there is zero incentive for them to do this.

[Bud]

I think MK14 has a point though. Youtube could  benefit from diversification of service options and partnering with other networks, say offer an option with a voucher for $X discount from Amazon purchases. Would not you pay Youtube like $5 a month for free Digikey shipping on your 3 orders per month? Heck, I would be first in the line to sign up.

[ataradov]

How would that free shipping be financed? You are trying to come up with some sketchy schemes instead of clear direct payment for services.

How would it make sense for them to take my $5 and then somehow provide free shipping that normally costs $8?

[Bud]

Obviously that was a conceptual idea, but human brain is wired to use offered discounts. Therefore Youtube vouchers certainly can lead to increased purchases on the partners' network. Think holistically, not from your "ataradov is not planning Digikey orders this month" specific perspective.

[ve7xen]

As I (and some others), have previously said.  They seem to be pricing it, significantly too high.  Also, I'd prefer (and perhaps they would get better results), if people got more perceived value from such subscriptions.

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.

E.g. Amazon Prime, can claim things like cheaper/faster/free delivery services, cheaper (prime exclusive) items in some cases, included ad free (may be adding ads, at some point, in the near future or already, unless you get another subscription, country dependent), and a number of other things.

Hence the Amazon prime subscriptions, make sense for some people.

Just spamming horrible, ultra-repetitive, petty / silly (in my perception), adverts in a number of places, with YouTube videos, then trying to sell a partially blackmailed subscription, to avoid those highly annoying adverts, that they are forcing people to watch.

Doesn't seem to put me into the buying mood ("Hey, maybe I should subscribe to that?").

Whereas, other subscriptions, at apparently much better price levels, free trials or month or months, if you take out their subscription services.  Seem much more palatable.

Spotify charges $10.99/month (CAD), and offers none of that kind of thing, is wildly successful, and people don't seem too upset about the pricing. YT Premium is $13.99/month (CAD) and also includes a similar music streaming service. So basically it is $3/month if you drop your Spotify subscription. Seems like a steal to me. It's not going to make value-sense for everyone, but I don't think it's wildly unreasonable based on other competing and similar services. Ad-free Netflix is $16.49 CAD, for example.

I think the recent AI things, are considerably more expensive.  Because some of the activities, need big, expensive computing horse power (computers and/or graphics cards).  So they need to pass that cost on to the consumers.

When it costs the company, $0.00001 for a quick search or similar, because of the 0.01 seconds CPU time of one webserver.  It can be easily paid for by advertising and/or other things.

But if you use up a (wild estimated time) couple of minutes (perhaps to draw an AI generated image or complicated and long text thing), of a $250,000 computer, jam-packed with very powerful and expensive, very high end, specialist (AI) graphics cards.  It perhaps is costing them (wild guess) $0.25 a time, for such activities (big difficult things, small or medium things, are probably more like $0.01 or less).

Speaking more or less about LLMs here. Diffusion models and other generative AI is a bit of a different category, I think. Though something like Github Copilot definitely straddles the line.

This is true (though I'm not sure how to compares to doing a Google search 25 years ago, it might well be comparable in terms of cost thanks to Moore's law), the point is more that they have decided to figure out the monetization model ahead of time, rather than rely on VC with an unclear monetization strategy, and everyone seems to have chosen a model where the user pays based on their usage. Whether that signals that they don't expect users would put up with a 'watch a 15 second ad to see your result' situation, that they don't think it's viable financially, or they just feel it's unethical because it would incentive them to mess with the LLM, I don't know. I do think it is interesting that none of the big players seem to think ads are a good option. Unclear yet if Google, one of the biggest ad companies in the world, will choose to make theirs ad supported or not once it's out of beta, but I kind of doubt it.

[Nominal Animal]

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.

You forget: even though I block the ads, they're still collecting information of my habits and sites I visit and videos I watch, and my e-mail address, and combining that information to a valuable packet of information advertisers are willing to buy (even if that packet contains the information on ad-blocker use).  It is this information profile that they make their profit on, and their gathering of it and selling to others, that is the price I pay for using their services.

The sale of these profiles along with my email address causes me direct personal harm.  Unsolicited directed email advertising to private customers is illegal in Finland, but because Google et al. collect and sell these, I get so much international spam that I have to spend actual resources to combat that.  I've never gotten spam from Finland or from a Finnish company at all, only in English (and in some Asian languages, as sites like Banggood et al. also do the same), plus recently autotranslated crap.  (One that is flooding now sells 'momentary bidirectional translator', because they cannot even get 'instant/momentary' translation right.)

The fact that you're considering me as "acting like they're entitled to consume Google's resources without giving anything in return", is both idiotic and offensive.  Equating it with piracy puts you in my ignore list, because that shit just gets me angry, and that leads to no useful interaction.

[ataradov]

that is the price I pay for using their services.

And you decided that this is enough of a payment. Google disagrees.

It is like saying "I can steal tomatoes from the store, I'm already paying for bread".

[MK14]

that is the price I pay for using their services.

And you decided that this is enough of a payment. Google disagrees.

It is like saying "I can steal tomatoes from the store, I'm already paying for bread".

Let's say, I go to the store and buy a loaf of bread.
I'm expecting to get a free bag to carry it home in (in the past, they now charge for them, by law in the UK, these days), free/easy parking at the store, free staff access to ask about the bread instore, and checkout staff to process it for me.
Free wi-fi (maybe, while on location), free lighting, heating, air-conditioning in store.
Free basic defence and policing, via their security guards.  E.g. an aggressive drunk is being ejected from the store.
No processing fees on any credit card used.
Free store card voucher points, for exchange for 'free' or heavily discounted items, when enough points have accumulated.
Free music instore.
Toilets and maybe other free facilities, kept clean with running hot-water, free toilet paper.

In some cases, or in the past, you could actually get another loaf of bread, for free (buy-one-get-one-free, special offer).

So maybe steal is the wrong term and/or if you swap those tomatoes for other items, then the things would indeed be 'free'.

[ataradov]

None of this is free, it is included in the price. And by no means you are entitled to any of this. You may not shop there anymore if you don't like the experience, but that's  a different story.
But I don't see how this is related to the topic.

Even if Google wronged you in some other way, it does not mean you can do anything in return. If you think they stole your data and benefited from it - complain to the appropriate authorities.

[MK14]

The fact that you're considering me as "acting like they're entitled to consume Google's resources without giving anything in return", is both idiotic and offensive.  Equating it with piracy puts you in my ignore list, because that shit just gets me angry, and that leads to no useful interaction.

Although, people are free to put anyone or everyone (within forum limits), for any, or even no reason, on their ignore list.

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.

If they were being extremely rude (swear words), repeatedly (apparently on purpose), hence trolling and/or other continuous bad behaviour, then that might be a different issue.

Not everyone has got English as their first language, and for other reasons as well.  It might appear that they are being rude, when in fact, they are just making some points.

[MK14]

None of this is free, it is included in the price. And by no means you are entitled to any of this. You may not shop there anymore if you don't like the experience, but that's  a different story.
But I don't see how this is related to the topic.

What I meant was, that although the extra 'tomatoes' was NOT free, with the purchase of a loaf of bread.
Many other things (such as parking), was free.  Even though, such things can be charged for (e.g. parking), in other places.

As you say, it is not really 'free', as you are expected to make purchases (in some cases you have to, in order to get a current receipt, to avoid parking charges, when exiting the car park).

[MK14]

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.

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]

If you think they stole your data and benefited from it - complain to the appropriate authorities.

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]

that is the price I pay for using their services.

And you decided that this is enough of a payment. Google disagrees.

They never asked my permission to sell information about me.  disagree with that.  Why should Google get their way and me left with nothing?

It is like saying "I can steal tomatoes from the store, I'm already paying for bread".

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.

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.

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!

[MK14]

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.

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!

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]

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.

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]

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.

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).

[ve7xen]

You forget: even though I block the ads, they're still collecting information of my habits and sites I visit and videos I watch, and my e-mail address, and combining that information to a valuable packet of information advertisers are willing to buy (even if that packet contains the information on ad-blocker use).  It is this information profile that they make their profit on, and their gathering of it and selling to others, that is the price I pay for using their services.

Why do you believe that they 'sell' this information? This is oft claimed, but never substantiated, and it doesn't make any sense. Google is primarily an advertising company. They want their clients paying them to distribute ads. They are not interested in selling their competitive advantage at doing that directly to their competition, and indirectly leaking it to the world at large, at the same time burning their mostly-good reputation for protecting their users' data. People love to hate on Google, but I don't believe this is happening at any meaningful scale, it would be monumentally stupid for them to do so.

The fact that you're considering me as "acting like they're entitled to consume Google's resources without giving anything in return", is both idiotic and offensive.  Equating it with piracy puts you in my ignore list, because that shit just gets me angry, and that leads to no useful interaction.

I should have said 'without paying the asking price', but the point is not substantially different. Google does not agree that the value you are providing is sufficient for the services you are consuming, and has started blocking you from consuming those resources in a way contrary to what they intended. I'm not sure why people feel so strongly entitled to doing this; they are Google's resources to offer under the terms they choose so they can operate a business, not given freely for the 'good of the world'. Nothing else in the world works like this, why the Internet?

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.)

Do you condone media piracy when the price is 'too high' in the user's opinion? I don't think Altium is worth the asking price to me, should I just pirate it? Youtube and Google do not agree that what you are 'paying' is an equitable fee, and they have an alternative offer which you believe is too expensive (whether that is ads or the subscription). Unlike with media piracy, using their resources has a direct and quantifiable cost, and it maintains the similar-to-copyright aspect of viewing the material without compensating the creator under the terms they have offered. Subscriptions like this are the future of distribution for copyrighted material, media that can be 'pirated' is dying; if you don't believe similar terms should apply then I am confused why you believe copyright should exist at all.

I don't see how these are ethically substantially different beyond the fact that views actually directly cost the service provider real money, not just 'lost sales', which is not helping your case. In any case, arguing about this is not on topic, so I'll leave it there.

Only that as long as they are collecting information on me to sell, I have the right to exploit their services back.

I don't disagree at all about your right to exploit them, 'back' or not, though I don't think Google is selling your information in the way you believe, nor that this is your decision to unilaterally make, in contract disputes a court is needed to determine this. I don't believe blocking/skipping ads or circumventing technical measures should be illegal or punishable in any way, and I feel the same about copyrighted material, but the right to circumvent is not the same as the right to a service with no technical measures to circumvent, nor does it include the right for them to leave 'exploits' in place indefinitely.

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.)

If Dave has agreed to these terms, then great, you have an agreement that is mutually beneficial, equitable, and importantly agreed upon. If Dave has not agreed, you do not have the right to determine for him what are equitable terms, and that is frankly an absurd suggestion that this is how the world should work, with one party dictating what terms are 'equitable'. Equitable terms are arrived at through negotiation and agreement, not with one party doing what they want and claiming it must be equitable for both parties because it is equitable for them. In a sense, this is exactly what Google is doing to you, using your data in a way they believe is equitable, with you not in agreement. Except that I am quite sure they have been careful to explain exactly what they are and are not doing with your data in their privacy policies and user agreements.

[MK14]

.........[[Very big post, I enjoyed reading it, I've NOT copied it to save room in this thread.  Please click the link to it or see above, if you want to read it]].........

I think in summary, you just said:
"Google are selling (via subscriptions or adverts), a video service.  Which people should really be paying for (via subs or ads), just like any other business, such as can you walk into a car showroom and just drive away with an expensive car for free, if you can't or don't want to pay for it?".

My current feelings, are that in the same way we have Water, Electricity, Gas (in some cases), Telephone, Postal services and perhaps some other things.  Considered, as basic Utilities (sort of human rights to get access to) services, that peoples homes should have.

Maybe more modern things, such as TV, Radio, Broadband (internet), also should be added to that list.

YouTube (as well as internet searches), seem to be becoming a 'standard' way of life, expected feature.  The loss of which, would make things hard, at least for some people.

So, perhaps such things, should be more like basic household services.  Rather than potentially high priced luxury items, which YouTube subscriptions, could become.

I.e. What about all the people who genuinely can neither afford the high (in some peoples opinions), subscription costs, and also can't stand the large number of spammy annoying adverts, at least for some people?

People basically 'need' YouTube, perhaps?

So, having a specific business, dictate most of its rules, control it, and decide how much to charge for it.  Maybe, NOT the way things need to go ahead for the future.

[ve7xen]

.........[[Very big post, I enjoyed reading it, I've NOT copied it to save room in this thread.  Please click the link to it or see above, if you want to read it]].........

I think in summary, you just said:
"Google are selling (via subscriptions or adverts), a video service.  Which people should really be paying for (via subs or ads), just like any other business, such as can you walk into a car showroom and just drive away with an expensive car for free, if you can't or don't want to pay for it?".

My current feelings, are that in the same way we have Water, Electricity, Gas (in some cases), Telephone, Postal services and perhaps some other things.  Considered, as basic (sort of human rights to get access to) services, that peoples homes should have.

Maybe more modern things, such as TV, Radio, Broadband (internet), also should be added to that list.

YouTube (as well as internet searches), seem to be becoming a 'standard' way of life, expected feature.  The loss of which, would make things hard, at least for some people.

So, perhaps such things, should be more like basic household services.  Rather than potentially high priced luxury items, which YouTube subscriptions, could become.

I.e. What about all the people who genuinely can neither afford the high (in some peoples opinions), subscription costs, and also can't stand the large number of spammy annoying adverts, at least for some people?

People basically 'need' YouTube, perhaps?

So, having a specific business, dictate most of its rules, control it, and decide how much to charge for it.  Maybe, NOT the way things need to go ahead for the future.

This is an idea I have thought about in the past as well. As far as the infrastructure part (to deliver Internet service), IMO this is absolutely a no-brainer, but at least in North America I don't see how we arrive at it without the will of the government to act with authority in a way that will cause significant, possibly catastrophic, harm to the existing infrastructure companies, which seems like a tough mountain to climb. This part of the system is a natural monopoly due to the cost of building the infrastructure and the fact that it makes no economic sense to duplicate it. I've been gunning for this for a long time, but at least here in Canada it seems less and less likely as time goes on.

On the services side, I agree that some level of 'social network' kind of services is probably something that should be treated more like a utility, but I have no idea how that would work in practice, since these products rely so much on the network effect and I don't think it'd make sense to 'ban' private efforts, probably the publicly funded option is just not as good on some other axes as some commercial offerings, and has trouble succeeding. Also hard to imagine how this would work in a global economy, with no global jurisdiction to make the rules and pay for it, but at the same time no borders. Maybe you could just ban competing products from having ads altogether, forcing them to rely on subscriptions, driving most users to the publicly funded version? Seems heavy-handed though.

In general we are seeing more and more verticalization and consolidation across many segments of the economy, so stronger consumer monopoly protections, especially surrounding digital platforms, are warranted IMO. This might enable forcing them not to bundle these subscriptions together, more transparency about costs and pricing. Maybe the advertising arms of these companies could be split from the service arms, to change the incentives against collecting data they are not allowed to share for advertising purposes.

Lots of ideas, but none if it sounds all that realistic to me.

[MK14]

Lots of ideas, but none if it sounds all that realistic to me.

It is VERY tricky, indeed.  It is well known, about the problems of publicly run (government/committee) organisations vs privately run businesses.

With something very technically complicated (in real terms), such as YouTube, considering a goverment created and run version, would really worry me!

I'm guess/speculating, but they would form committees, who wouldn't have a clue about YouTube, the internet or technical things, or even real businesses.  They would come up with a set of rules, such as my example below:

• Age restrictions don't work, so everything must be suitable for very young people
• Strictly no copyright violations.  So no music, movie clips, clips from other videos, or any brand identifying things, whatsoever
• No smoke, fire, flames, or showing inside items (sorry BigClive), as it might give children the wrong idea
• Not everyone understands electronics, computers, maths, science.  So that it is all-inclusive and everyone feels safe and happy.  Strictly no technical, electronic, scientific, mathematical etc content allowed
• Each video, before being allowed on the new system.  Has to be verified, by a committee of 12 people, repeated in 95 different countries.  If even 1 person disagrees with that video, the entire video channel is permanently banned, with no options for appeal
• The IT infrastructure, will be run and sorted out by the government
• All videos will be permanently deleted, after 7 days.  Which is plenty of time to give to people to watch them, surely?
• There will be strictly no adverts, whatsoever.  So anyone worried about that, doesn't need to.  All videos, will have a short government safety clip, only 5 or 10 minutes long, unskippable for safety reasons, only at the start, end, middle, and various chapter positions, throughout each video
• There will be no cost for the video creators, at all.  Totally free.  It will be paid for by the new, viewing tax, where each YouTube channel owner, will pay a tax, for each view.  What can be fairer than that?

[thm_w]

SmartTube is still working for me on the TV with no ads and no prompts.
So maybe one solution is faking the browser ID as being a smart TV (as was sort of mentioned above).

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.

True but it will come, if needed. The advantage of existing adblockers was that you saved bandwidth/time by not downloading the ads.

[SiliconWizard]

Yes, most adblockers still work on the principle that they won't download the resources that they detect as blockable, which saves network bandwidth, but which is always detectable by the server one way or another.
If the browser 1/ doesn't disclose anything about its config or extensions and 2/ downloads the blocked items in the background but just throws them away afterwards while never displaying it to the end-user, that will be impossible to detect remotely and quite simple to implement in browsers.

But the major browser vendors (Mozilla, Google, Apple, MS) will never implement that, they'll get too much pressure not to and you know where the money comes from, they gotta eat.

So that'll leave some stripped-down open-source alternatives, that probably less than 1% of users will use, just as it is now.

[NiHaoMike]

Yes, most adblockers still work on the principle that they won't download the resources that they detect as blockable, which saves network bandwidth, but which is always detectable by the server one way or another.
If the browser 1/ doesn't disclose anything about its config or extensions and 2/ downloads the blocked items in the background but just throws them away afterwards while never displaying it to the end-user, that will be impossible to detect remotely and quite simple to implement in browsers.

But the major browser vendors (Mozilla, Google, Apple, MS) will never implement that, they'll get too much pressure not to and you know where the money comes from, they gotta eat.

So that'll leave some stripped-down open-source alternatives, that probably less than 1% of users will use, just as it is now.

I wonder if it might be possible to send TCP ACKs early when it downloads the ads. Some packets can get dropped but you don't care about the content anyways. I suppose there would be the problem of getting too ahead of the server and the scheme getting detected, some adaptive scheme can counter that.

I think stealth adblocking would become a lot more common if there's a good reason to use it.

[tom66]

I wonder if it might be possible to send TCP ACKs early when it downloads the ads. Some packets can get dropped but you don't care about the content anyways. I suppose there would be the problem of getting too ahead of the server and the scheme getting detected, some adaptive scheme can counter that.

I think stealth adblocking would become a lot more common if there's a good reason to use it.

TCP ACKs alone wouldn't work, because TCP packets are max 64KiB each.  The average advertiser video is going to be larger than that, and the length is probably not deterministic (due to how streaming video works).  But on a modern connection downloading that in full won't take much time.  There's a bit of DASH going on in the background as well, managing the max bitrate the client can handle. 

Even if Google enforces the "wait N seconds to get your video" I can see the adblockers winning by just showing a "loading" screen.  That would still be better than watching an ad. 

[madires]

Google pushes QUIC.

[magic]

Even if Google enforces the "wait N seconds to get your video" I can see the adblockers winning by just showing a "loading" screen.  That would still be better than watching an ad.

Yes, but honestly I don't bother with adblocking on YT.

If it's a single ad at the beginning, I simply mute sound and wait it out instead of fighting with whatever YT screwed up this time to break adblockers.
If there are ads in the middle, I watch something else if it's an option or go straight to a video downloader. That's a single "loading" screen and then uinterrupted peace of mind.

[Bicurico]

https://eupolicy.social/@thatprivacyguy/111261130799704016

[PwrElectronics]

This started to affect me a week ago.  I found refreshing the page got me past it.

Then, yesterday it would not.

So, OK lets turn off the adblocker I was using selectively for youtube.  I noticed it was already off!  Hmm.  I clicked the box they put up to allow ads and it basically has instructions on turning off the blocker for them.  Something I had already done.

So, unless there is a hidden blocker I don't recall having 

This is on Firefox BTW.  I am logged in on youtube on that browser since I have my own channel with some stuff on it.

So, went to use edge as a browser where I am not logged in and don't generally use for youtube and even tho that also has a ad blocker on it, it works.   

[madires]

BTW, YouTube ran its ad-blocker detection experiment in Germany last weekend. It's unclear if users were selected randomly or if they share a common feature, e.g. logged in. And it seems that YouTube tried different levels of nagging.

[SiliconWizard]

I wonder if it might be possible to send TCP ACKs early when it downloads the ads. Some packets can get dropped but you don't care about the content anyways. I suppose there would be the problem of getting too ahead of the server and the scheme getting detected, some adaptive scheme can counter that.

I think stealth adblocking would become a lot more common if there's a good reason to use it.

TCP ACKs alone wouldn't work, because TCP packets are max 64KiB each.  The average advertiser video is going to be larger than that, and the length is probably not deterministic (due to how streaming video works).  But on a modern connection downloading that in full won't take much time.  There's a bit of DASH going on in the background as well, managing the max bitrate the client can handle. 

Even if Google enforces the "wait N seconds to get your video" I can see the adblockers winning by just showing a "loading" screen.  That would still be better than watching an ad.

Yeah. It's not hard from the server's pov to ensure that *all data* has been sent to the client. Detecting only partial transfers is not rocket science. And yes, streaming can easily be bound to a max rate, so that the client can't download a streaming video faster than the streamer source intends it to. So yeah, as I said, the only thing always possible will just be for browsers to act exactly as if nothing was blocked at all, but just not display the parts that the user doesn't want to see. (Having to wait for 30s before each video would be annoying though, but if you have no choice...)

The only way that could be prevented would again to have the browsers themselves make it impossible, and of course that's something that could happen with closed-source software, but it's pretty impossible to ensure that with open-source software.

[Ranayna]

BTW, YouTube ran its ad-blocker detection experiment in Germany last weekend. It's unclear if users were selected randomly or if they share a common feature, e.g. logged in. And it seems that YouTube tried different levels of nagging.

Must have been quite random. I am a regular user, one at work, not logged in with a chrome based browser: no change. And at home, logged in and with firefox, also no change.
But on both browsers i have uBlock Origin enabled, from what i heard that can supposedly circumvent the block, so maybe thats why i noticed nothing.

[thm_w]

ublock still not working, even after refreshing the cache, etc. Completely blocked from viewing anything.
Ended up using this app instead: https://freetubeapp.io/

[MT]

What about go the commie way "and nationalize" YT (planetarilizing) tax oligarchs to pay for the servers holding the content and paying content providers. Surely Gates, Musk, Bezoz, Rotschilds, Rockefeller and other trillionary bankster families can afford a free planetary video service.

[David Hess]

ublock still not working, even after refreshing the cache, etc. Completely blocked from viewing anything.

Huh, I use uBlock Origin and have not noticed any problems.  For most YouTube videos, I download them to local storage and watch from there, but I still stream some of them and have not noticed any issues.

Maybe YouTube is staging the rollout?

[SiliconWizard]

What about go the commie way "and nationalize" YT (planetarilizing) tax oligarchs to pay for the servers holding the content and paying content providers. Surely Gates, Musk, Bezoz, Rotschilds, Rockefeller and other trillionary bankster families can afford a free planetary video service.

Beware what you wish for. Nothing ever comes for free.

[NiHaoMike]

Yeah. It's not hard from the server's pov to ensure that *all data* has been sent to the client. Detecting only partial transfers is not rocket science.

The client is effectively lying that it has received a packet that got dropped. Of course, it would be easy to detect if it claimed to have received one that hasn't been sent yet. But so long as that doesn't happen, how would a server know that the client didn't actually receive all the packets that have already been sent?

[thm_w]

ublock still not working, even after refreshing the cache, etc. Completely blocked from viewing anything.

Huh, I use uBlock Origin and have not noticed any problems.  For most YouTube videos, I download them to local storage and watch from there, but I still stream some of them and have not noticed any issues.

Maybe YouTube is staging the rollout?

Its definitely some kind of roll out based on country, account, and maybe device type. I just checked at work and ublock still works there.

[MK14]

I used YouTube earlier today and it tried it on and showed me a 5 second advert, on an android (or similar) like device.  I was furious and wanted to see lots of videos, at that time.
So, I went to Odysee, and was able to find the videos, and watch them ad-free (apart from some fixed advert banners, some of which can be removed with a clickable 'X').

By and large, I enjoyed the experience.  To my surprise, many of the YouTube videos, are already on Odysee.

It was a little bit clonky interface wise, slow at times, especially when starting or performing searches.  It is not anything like as polished, features/interface wise, compared to YouTube.  But does basically work alright.

I'm not really happy with monthly or yearly subscriptions, for any organisation or entity.

[SiliconWizard]

Yes Odysee is not bad. Of course it doesn't have the traction YT has and thus not nearly the amount of videos, and yeah it's a bit sluggish at times. One thing I liked is that it remembers where you stopped in a video when you open it back. YT doesn't. (I've noticed that sometimes, but very occasionally, it does, and haven't found a clear pattern why or why not.)

One thing I like less is that it requires an account (yes even if it's free) for changing any setting apart from the language.

Which makes me point out another issue with subscriptions: they require you to be connected to one account to watch videos. While I have a google account, I'm not always connected to it when watching YT, and I don't want to be forced to.

[MK14]

Which makes me point out another issue with subscriptions: they require you to be connected to one account to watch videos. While I have a google account, I'm not always connected to it when watching YT, and I don't want to be forced to.

Exactly the problem with that, happened to me today, while watching those videos.

Background, I was preparing, a fairly large order, elsewhere (Amazon).  During which time, I spent a long time (Amazon obviously spies on me), putting an extra item or items into my basket/order, and/or looking fairly extensively at a certain item.  But there was an issue with it, on further research, so I stopped buying that item and/or removed it/any from my cart.

So, during my adventures on YouTube, that very item (or a competitors version of the same item), comes up as an advert.  That really annoys me.  Partly because I've decided not to buy it, so that should be that, unless I change my mind, but also on privacy grounds.

Who exactly gets all this, supposedly private data, and what do they do with it? (no need to answer, I can guess, partly).

In the case of Amazon, the information is particularly sensitive.  Because I was signed in, so they know exactly who I am.  Therefore, they should NOT be exploiting my information like that.

They (Amazon), may claim I (and others) signed up for it, when I agreed to their terms and conditions.  But these days, terms and conditions, are often, perhaps a hundred or more pages long, written in horrible, difficult to read or understand legalese and presented (typically) in a smallish rectangle, in a ridiculously tiny font, in a way which is horrible to read from.
Also, it is potentially shown, when you are just excitedly about to buy something for the first time, from somewhere, so just want to give them your details, and get on with the transaction.

I don't know what the solution is.  Except perhaps VPN's or similar, for everyone.  Except that I suspect that a huge majority of the population, don't know about all this data gathering, what its consequence are going to be, or how to prevent it.

Even with VPN's, at various times, it would be necessary to sign in to various things, perhaps with your real details, otherwise various things, e.g. purchases, can't easily take place.

Analogy.  It is as if all the dwellings were made entirely out of glass, so anyone outside, could see in.  With cameras, everywhere, whereby a huge number of people and organisations, can see what you are doing.

Hence Google's YouTube subscriptions, are probably a definite no no, from me.  Purely from the privacy point of view, as there would be no easy way of hiding, ones activities.
I know you can mess around, and create a subscription in another country, under a false name.  But I shouldn't need to go to such extremes, just to keep my 'data' private from google.

Example:
By knowing what YouTube videos I watch, one can tell what my interests are and things like that.  So it should be strictly private information.

Sometimes I've looked up the details on potentially better ISP's, in the UK.  This has resulted in some cases, in my internet service provider (ISP), not long after, writing to me, offering various deals. Hinting at a "please stay with us".

As I see it, it is ridiculous that they (ISP) are spying on my, like that.  They have no right, in my opinion.  In a worst case situation, they have access to all my internet web URL, activities and even the raw data (depending on if it was encrypted or not).  So it is potentially problematic, and who knows what third parties, can get any of it.
E.g. What URL's a person visits, how often and at what times.  Along with their real life contact details (in a worst case scenario).

[Messtechniker]

By knowing what YouTube videos I watch, one can tell what my interests are and things like that. 

I tend to mess their data bases up by "watching" videos of no interest to me.
I now get dog food ads for the dog i don't have. Great. And I apparently have 6 children.

[SiliconWizard]

I don't know what the solution is.  Except perhaps VPN's or similar, for everyone.  Except that I suspect that a huge majority of the population, don't know about all this data gathering, what its consequence are going to be, or how to prevent it.

You will be pleased to know that VPNs have actually gained a certain popularity (even if it's still only a minority of people using them), and that the governments of some countries are already considering banning VPNs for personal use.

[magic]

I wonder if it might be possible to send TCP ACKs early when it downloads the ads. Some packets can get dropped but you don't care about the content anyways. I suppose there would be the problem of getting too ahead of the server and the scheme getting detected, some adaptive scheme can counter that.

Yeah. It's not hard from the server's pov to ensure that *all data* has been sent to the client. Detecting only partial transfers is not rocket science.

The client is effectively lying that it has received a packet that got dropped. Of course, it would be easy to detect if it claimed to have received one that hasn't been sent yet. But so long as that doesn't happen, how would a server know that the client didn't actually receive all the packets that have already been sent?

Bollocks. By the time your browsers drops a packet, it has already been delivered to you and used up all the necessary network resources, so what's the point? You can't stop YT from sending you packets that you request and they could easily stop you from watching videos if you don't download enough ads.

As for ACKing packets which were genuinely lost by the network, yeah, maybe you could, or maybe not if some cryptographic scheme in place renders the whole connection undecipherable afterwards and requests for videos and ads are multiplexed together. If it works, you would maybe reduce bandwidth by single digit percentage or whatever; complete waste of time.

[Ranayna]

Which makes me point out another issue with subscriptions: they require you to be connected to one account to watch videos. While I have a google account, I'm not always connected to it when watching YT, and I don't want to be forced to.

That is indeed a good point.
And Youtube does not even have any kind of profiles.
What i watch differs *heavily* while at work or while at home.

At work, i either watch some product-tutorials (some of these are *excellent*) or have some ambient music running in the background. And i have a company advocated adblocker active. This blocker is active by default and is supposed to save bandwidth and reduce risks. I can disable it, but i am not supposed to. I am not logged in at work.

My viewing habits at home are *very* different. While i do watch the occasional product tutorial, i mostly watch for entertainment and personal interests. Videos that, would they appear in my feed at work, would be frowned upon.

Since YT does not have Profiles to keep these watching habits separate (as far as i am aware of), i would have to pay twice for Premium, which i obviously will not do.

By the way: I actually do not hate the algorithm. Interestingly i do watch a couple of channels that are often complaining about being spurned by the algorithm, but i see each and every new video made by them on the start page. Even witht being subscribed to them.

[MK14]

You will be pleased to know that VPNs have actually gained a certain popularity (even if it's still only a minority of people using them), and that the governments of some countries are already considering banning VPNs for personal use.

I would assume that in the same way, Doctors are allowed access to drugs, via prescriptions (although, in general, they are NOT suppose to write prescriptions, for themselves!).

Computer personnel (because of needing to test websites, using different IP addresses, to their connection, which could be the same IP as the servers), and other reasons.  Presumably/probably would be exempted from such laws.

Otherwise some genuine work, such as testing and developing websites, might get harder.  As multiple IP addresses may be needed, to pretend to be different users, perhaps even in different countries.

But anyway.  I suspect, a significant percentage of the users on this forum, would know how to resolve a new law in their country, that bans VPNs, if they want to.  If that ends up being needed, and if there are (legal) solutions.

[magic]

In general, government is a problem with no legal solution

[Bicurico]

I use VPN to access my private network from the outside.
What is wrong with that?
I doubt they can make laws banning that.
I understand you guys are talking about paid VPN services to obscure your identity and/or country. Again I doubt you can make that illegal.

[Ranayna]

I use VPN to access my private network from the outside.
What is wrong with that?
I doubt they can make laws banning that.
I understand you guys are talking about paid VPN services to obscure your identity and/or country. Again I doubt you can make that illegal.

In quite a few countries VPNs are already decacto illegal. And they are trying their best to actually block them.
And do you think a government that bans VPN cares if you cannot access your home network anymore?

Of course there will always be holes. Even China's "Great Firewall" has holes. But if you use these, you should be very careful to avoid any suspicion, otherwise, should you or your equipment be checked, you are in trouble.

[Bicurico]

My private home network is used for work, too, and my requirements to access it are beyond hobby scope. My IT use is a blur when it comes to distinguishing private from professional use.

VPN is integral part of Windows 1x and in the EU it is nowadays, in the Post-COVID, perfectly common do work in home office. How are you supposed to log into your company network if not by VPN?

Anyway, never heard of VPN being made illegal or banned.

As mentioned, it is supported by Windows, most consumer grade routers, etc.

[Bicurico]

Found this article about the legality of VPN's:

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/are-vpns-legal/

I would say only few failed states are prohibiting the use of VPN.

And even then, I wonder if VPN's inside the country are OK.

The issue with VPN's is that they can be used to obscure the user's identity and/or give access to regional content, which is otherwise inaccessible. This is of course used to download movies not available in your region or to download Torrents, without leaving your IP. I guess the latter is bullshit, as the VPN service providers do keep logs.

[tom66]

VPNs are essential for anyone who has to work remotely on their company's network, banning VPNs would be saying for instance, that sales guy in France cannot access the resources on the shared drive in the UK any more.

It's not going to happen in any sensible country.  Even the UK with their stupid campaign against end to end message encryption.  VPNs are great.

[magic]

I would say only few failed states are prohibiting the use of VPN.

And new failed states may join, if necessary. Yours included.
FYI, your ISP is already mandated to block your access to Russian news, for example.

Of course nobody will ban using VPNs, that would be too economically disruptive.
But connecting to unlicensed VPNs? Abroad?? Man, why would you ever do something shady like that?

[madires]

Those popular services sold as VPN aren't really VPNs. They are NAT services with a VPN connection between client and NAT gateway.Their purpose is to hide your IP address and location while also keeping the traffic between the NAT gateway and you private. So it can be also used to circumvent state sponsered internet filtering measures.

Besides some oppressive regimes, VPNs can't be banned as they are often required by laws or regulations in most countries (transfer of medical images, GDPR protected data or corporate compliance, to name just a few).

[Ranayna]

Those popular services sold as VPN aren't really VPNs. They are NAT services with a VPN connection between client and NAT gateway.Their purpose is to hide your IP address and location while also keeping the traffic between the NAT gateway and you private. So it can be also used to circumvent state sponsered internet filtering measures.

Besides some oppressive regimes, VPNs can't be banned as they are often required by laws or regulations in most countries (transfer of medical images, GDPR protected data or corporate compliance, to name just a few).

For companies, yes, they cannot really be banned. Highly regulated, but an outright ban would be difficult. Even China allows VPN for companies, but only if these play by their strict rules. This can have very heavy penalties though if you misuse it. Authorities have the right for auditing any company to make sure VPN is not misused.

But why could a government not ban private VPN connection to targets abroad? I see a decent chance of that happening. The lobby for that will be strong:

- Content providers do not like VPNs, since these are used to circumvent licensing deals
- Some Porn sites are now blocked in various US states and Germany. Currently VPNs can circumvent these blocks, but there are already calls to ban VPNs by the same people that got the porn banned
- Governments that want more control and insight over what the people are communicating will also have an incentive to ban secure VPNs. Both the EU and UK are at the moment trying to ban secure cryptography

There are actually a lot of interests to control and limit the internet. Banning private use of VPN services can, and quite likely will be, a part of that.

[Bicurico]

My goverment is indeed blockinig part of the internet. I cannot open sites like PirateBay when using the DNS servers of my internet provider. But, I can chose to simply use some other DNS server and yes, I do use Google's DNS server. I accept that in return of being able to have unfiltered access to any domain using Google's DNS, Google gets to know my whole surfing profile, including all the shady sites I visit.

Stil, in this case I prefer Google to know it instead of my local ISP that is monitored by my goverment.

Human kind has managed freedom in a very poor way, giving minorities the freedom to be against freedom. But that is a whole new subject, fully off-topic.

[tom66]

VPNs couldn't be banned technically, once you have encrypted DNS (DNS-over-HTTPS) it's possible to tunnel everything through a VPN and all that can be seen is you are sending encrypted traffic to an IPv6 address, that could be anyone and the IPv6 address can be frequently renewed. 

Encrypted traffic looks similar to compressed video/data, so unless you're doing deep packet inspection it's very difficult to distinguish it from that, and of course there are entirely legitimate non-VPN uses for encryption.

Governments hate encryption being used en-masse by big tech because it makes the NSA's (and national equivalents) job much, much harder.

[Karel]

My goverment is indeed blockinig part of the internet. I cannot open sites like PirateBay when using the DNS servers of my internet provider. But, I can chose to simply use some other DNS server and yes, I do use Google's DNS server. I accept that in return of being able to have unfiltered access to any domain using Google's DNS, Google gets to know my whole surfing profile, including all the shady sites I visit.

Stil, in this case I prefer Google to know it instead of my local ISP that is monitored by my goverment.

Human kind has managed freedom in a very poor way, giving minorities the freedom to be against freedom. But that is a whole new subject, fully off-topic.

I prefer Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1) over google's DNS.
Probably Cloudfare isn't perfect, but I believe that, regarding privacy, google is the worst.

[madires]

Pro tip: run your own DNS resolver with DNSSEC support fully turned on.

[amwales]

I use an adblocker uBlock Origin and have been banned from using this now with youtube. They gave me the 3 video limit and its either watch with ads or register for premium. I thought I would have to give up watching youtube, then I saw post on here with bigclive and the video was embedded and strangely it played without ads. After a little digging I found that simple rewriting the url for the video I want to watch from



to

https://www.youtube.com/embed/v5liq9Tj3aU

This change made the video play, I was able to do this with any video and my adblocker continued to work,
YMMV.

[Ranayna]

VPNs couldn't be banned technically, once you have encrypted DNS (DNS-over-HTTPS) it's possible to tunnel everything through a VPN and all that can be seen is you are sending encrypted traffic to an IPv6 address, that could be anyone and the IPv6 address can be frequently renewed. 

Encrypted traffic looks similar to compressed video/data, so unless you're doing deep packet inspection it's very difficult to distinguish it from that, and of course there are entirely legitimate non-VPN uses for encryption.

Governments hate encryption being used en-masse by big tech because it makes the NSA's (and national equivalents) job much, much harder.

And that is very likely why the EU and UK are looking into mandating backdoors for cryptography.
With a backdor, they can look into whatever you are transmitting, then it is trivial to filter and block.
And if they can't look into the traffic: well, you have circumvented the mandated backdoor, with all the consequences that entails...

[MK14]

I use an adblocker uBlock Origin and have been banned from using this now with youtube. They gave me the 3 video limit and its either watch with ads or register for premium.

That sounds far too aggressive to me, and is a sort of blackmail.  I wonder if the governing bodies, could take them to court over it?

The thing is, companies really can get a terrible image, and it can be damaging.
I think Google/YouTube's, stance, could back-fire big-time in various ways.

For example, some people would refuse to work for Google now, and some advertisers might start backing away from Google, if they are getting a very bad image.  Sales of the Google Pixel Phones, could decline, etc.

[tom66]

And that is very likely why the EU and UK are looking into mandating backdoors for cryptography.
With a backdor, they can look into whatever you are transmitting, then it is trivial to filter and block.
And if they can't look into the traffic: well, you have circumvented the mandated backdoor, with all the consequences that entails...

Yes, the problem is essentially, there is no way to build a back door into something like asymmetrical crypto, that others could not eventually exploit.  Things like hidden keys or secrets that are only available to the government will be leaked.

So what they are asking for is cryptography to be banned, and that's just not feasible.  Too much of modern society depends upon it. 

[madires]

There are actually a lot of interests to control and limit the internet. Banning private use of VPN services can, and quite likely will be, a part of that.

And that is very likely why the EU and UK are looking into mandating backdoors for cryptography.
With a backdor, they can look into whatever you are transmitting, then it is trivial to filter and block.

Cryptography is so pervasive that it can't be simply put back into a government's safe. Weak encryption or backdoors won't work either. We had that already (crypto wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars). Those measures would also violate very elementary rights of citizens in several countries. Additionally, that would break a lot of current technology and create a serious impact on the security of most information and communications systems. Your enforced backdoor can be used by your enemy too. This is not just a theoretical danger, this happened already a few times. For example, Juniper's security incident in 2015 (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-02/juniper-mystery-attacks-traced-to-pentagon-role-and-chinese-hackers).

[ve7xen]

It's always interesting to see privacy sensitive folks advocating for the use of VPN services. These services hide your traffic from your ISP, and maybe your government if you're worried about that, but they also send it all in the clear to some often-shady-seeming company in a foreign country, whose customers are also often shady, or have 'something to hide'. To me that makes them both juicy targets for black hats / intelligence entities, as well as potentially a 'cure worse than the disease' if that company itself decides to leverage the information they have access to (legally or not). I wouldn't be surprised at all if the next Snowden Papers revealed the NSA using these services as 'honeypots'. You'll also frequently get flagged as suspicious when using various services through such a VPN, which is annoying. I think you really need to make an informed decision about this for your own situation, because which is better is going to heavily depend on who you trust (or not) and your own situation. It is absolutely not a panacea.

It does obscure the most trivial way of identifying you for data collection, but what these companies are actually doing to link the data they collect with 'you' is far more sophisticated. Not that it matters much, since most people give up this information 'willingly' by logging in. If you're logging into accounts, using a VPN service thinking it will protect your privacy just seems like a step backwards.

Among the options, I think CloudFlare's Warp is among the better for privacy; it has a pretty strong privacy policy, isn't their primary revenue (or traffic) source, and I think CloudFlare has established itself as a trustworthy company, relative to those VPN services advertising with YouTube creator embeds (ironically...). Operating such a thing yourself, on devices you control, is a different story too of course, but you give up some of the privacy benefits by not mixing your traffic with a bunch of others.

As far as legality, I can see such services whose intended purpose is to obscure identity / geographic location running into legislative difficulties, they do pose some legitimate issues. But crypto is far too pervasive and useful to 'ban' in any wide manner, and there will likely always be foreign jurisdictions that don't ban such services, who you can buy service from by jumping through some hoops. It'd also be a case of legal whack-a-mole, like we have seen with things like The Pirate Bay, and the underground stuff will always find a way to exist. Of course you will always be able operate such a thing yourself, with slightly more effort and slightly less anonymity by purchasing a VM, which is another thing that is not feasible to ban outright.

[Bicurico]

You cannot ban cryptography. Even I could implement known public algorithms and protect my communication. Use WhatsApp and copy&paste encrypted strings. Doesn't need to be the latest method. A simple improved Vigenere algorithm would already keep security agencies busy enough. Even better if you hide the coded message inside normal text.

[ve7xen]

You cannot ban cryptography. Even I could implement known public algorithms and protect my communication. Use WhatsApp and copy&paste encrypted strings. Doesn't need to be the latest method. A simple improved Vigenere algorithm would already keep security agencies busy enough. Even better if you hide the coded message inside normal text.

You can't prevent anyone from using it of course, but you can certainly ban it in the same sense as anything else is banned: limit distribution by applying leverage against companies that might sell it, and exercising violence against people or entities that use it anyway. This is no different than banning anything else, except that doing so with cryptography would be completely impractical, with wide ranging implications, not to mention the basic rights it would violate. I doubt it has/will/would prevent the less reasonable of our world governments from trying it anyway, and using "you used crypto, you are a criminal" as a weapon against people they don't like, particularly the people who need it most, like journalists and whistleblowers. You are not 'safe' if using crypto in any manner is equally punished as whatever it is you're trying to hide.

[SiliconWizard]

Those measures would also violate very elementary rights of citizens in several countries.

Do you think that would really stop them?

[helius]

This change made the video play, I was able to do this with any video and my adblocker continued to work,
YMMV.

I was hesitating to disclose it to the world, but yes, it continues to work (and it has worked for the last handful of years I have hand-edited all youtube URLs in this way). You may not be given the option of full-HD quality on some videos.
Using a DNS proxy with dummy static entries for e.g. "googleadapis.l.google.com" can also prevent the text ad banners.
Actually the subscribe popups and pre/midroll ads simply do not load when using this interface, there is nothing for adblockers to block.

[Karel]

..., but they also send it all in the clear to some often-shady-seeming company in a foreign country, whose customers are also often shady, or have 'something to hide'.

You believe that, for example, Proton VPN which is based in Switzerland, is a shady company?
Switzerland has one of the strongest privacy protection laws and they are not part of the US or the EU.
As long as you don't break Swiss law, you'll be fine when using Proton VPN.

[wilfred]

Using Microsoft Edge on WIN10 and Adblock Plus I got the warnings and then the timeout warning and then they stopped and I was getting a blank screen in the YT window for what I am assuming is the timeout to skip the ads before the video started playing.

I'll take that. I can ignore the blank screen and silence, and wait a bit for the video to start playing.

I did install Ublock Origin into Edge and that just showed a YT you've got 3 more videos before we just stop playing videos. Which is what happened. I went back to Adblock Plus. Maybe that too will stop working soon.

Then I will hopefully watch fewer YT videos along with fewer ads. Maybe I'll buy a subscription. It's not like I don't think I'll get some value from it.

[ve7xen]

You believe that, for example, Proton VPN which is based in Switzerland, is a shady company?
Switzerland has one of the strongest privacy protection laws and they are not part of the US or the EU.
As long as you don't break Swiss law, you'll be fine when using Proton VPN.

I did not name any companies, so no I don't believe that, because I don't know anything about this company or Swiss law. I believe that many of these companies target shady customers, some are registered in 'corporate friendly' jurisdictions with dubious histories, and all of them are juicy targets for black hats, the surveillance apparatus, and user data silos alike. Many or even most of these companies operate servers outside their home jurisdiction as well, which are subject to the laws and surveillance apparatus of the place they operate. And if you as a customer aren't in the same jurisdiction as that company's home, you might not enjoy the same rights as citizens, or likely just have no practical recourse against them should they violate your trust.

I am simply advising careful consideration before you use one, which includes deciding for yourself whether or not your trust the particular VPN provider you choose to use. The point is you are changing who has access to your cleartext, not preventing anyone from having access, as these companies would have you believe.

[PlainName]

I did not name any companies, so no I don't believe that, because I don't know anything about this company or Swiss law.

And yet you are happy to pronounce on other companies that you also don't know anything about. Perhaps you could share the names of the companies you do know about?

I am simply advising careful consideration before you use one

That's fine, but you seemed to be tarring them all with the same brush.

[Karel]

I guess you can't trust whatever VPN provider for 100% but I believe that the "good" ones are better than the average internet service provider.
Specially if you are living in the EU where politicians are heading for chinese style mass surveillance.

[madires]

AFAIK, for each good VPN (NAT) service there are at least 10 shady ones. Free ones usualy like to collect data and install malware. Several were caught lying about not keeping logs. Some use PPTP or L2TP which are insecure by today's standards. And a few already had data breaches.

[madires]

Using Microsoft Edge on WIN10 and Adblock Plus I got the warnings and then the timeout warning and then they stopped and I was getting a blank screen in the YT window for what I am assuming is the timeout to skip the ads before the video started playing.

Don't know if it's related but uBlock has sometimes a similar quirk. When it happens an ad starts playing, but audio only. It's a race condition which can be easily fixed by reloading the page. After the reload I can enjoy the video without any ads.

[NiHaoMike]

AFAIK, for each good VPN (NAT) service there are at least 10 shady ones. Free ones usualy like to collect data and install malware. Several were caught lying about not keeping logs. Some use PPTP or L2TP which are insecure by today's standards. And a few already had data breaches.

For some use cases (e.g. getting around geoblocking nonsense), it doesn't need to be particularly secure. It's also worth noting that one could connect to Tor and then one of those VPNs for torrenting (can't use Tor alone since it doesn't support routing UDP), in that case the logs would not show the user's actual IP.

[Karel]

I agree about the free ones being shady. I would never use them or recommend them.
But I thought that was obvious. Apparently not...

[NiHaoMike]

I agree about the free ones being shady. I would never use them or recommend them.
But I thought that was obvious. Apparently not...

If used as a UDP over Tor gateway, I don't see that as a problem. They never get your actual IP and there's also no payment details that would considerably simplify tracing down. You obviously don't want to give them any personal data (e.g. by logging into one of your accounts through the tunnel) but that's true of any anonymizing service.

[ve7xen]

And yet you are happy to pronounce on other companies that you also don't know anything about.

I'm simply pointing out that (many) shady examples exist and that I think it is foolish to trust any such company by default, which is what you seem to be suggesting by saying 'name the bad ones'. You should be suspicious by default of some random company on the Internet that sells VPN services. At least your local ISP will be a known quantity; they are subject to the same data protection rights you have with any other company you do business with in your country (or possibly more, in some places where common-carrier communications have special protections), they're probably subject to some scrutiny about such matters, you have a legal agreement with them that presumably comes with some legal rights, and you likely have some practical legal recourse if they violate it.

You seem to be missing the point here. When you use one of these services, you are choosing to shovel all kinds of personal data to them willingly. If you care about privacy, you should probably think about what that company might do or want to do with access to that data. You may conclude the answer is 'less than my ISP' or 'less than my government', and that's great, just don't think that shipping your data securely to someone else is automatically going to improve your privacy or security posture, all it does is change who you are trusting with it.

Perhaps you could share the names of the companies you do know about?

The highest profile scandal is probably around Kape Technologies (owners of ExpressVPN, PIA and others, including VPN 'review' sites). See plenty of reporting on them, but basically this company has connections to the UAE intelligence apparatus, previously was heavily invested in developing browser-based private data collection software and spyware, and the owner himself has a pretty shady past. For example https://gizmodo.com/you-should-probably-stop-using-expressvpn-1847739547

SuperVPN (and related companies) has a pretty serious compromise. NordVPN leaked some key back in the day that would've allowed an adversary to spin up a server impersonating them.

Folks need to decide for themselves whether they trust or don't trust these companies, based on their own situation and needs.

[SiliconWizard]

You can't trust any company anyway. Certainly never use a VPN that you don't fully control if you need to fully *trust* it.
After that the question is whether you prefer a random company somewhere in the world to potentially leak your data rather than your ISP directly doing it. It's all a matter of use case and context, there is no single general answer to what people should or should not do.

[Bicurico]

Interestingly I have had no ads, pop-ups or other inconviniences when using Youtube for the last days (week?).

I did not change anything in my browser or habits, all I did was to click the [X] on the pop-up windows. This showed for 2-3 days and then was gone.

I am not sure if this was just a test, if they tried to convert the easily impressable or if they got some pressure for spying without consent on installed plugins, which is illegal in the EU.

Curious to see what is going to happen next.

[tom66]

Indeed, I noticed it has stopped.

I read somewhere that the adblock detection was fooled by being in incognito mode, so an easy enough way to defeat it would be to require Google do not store that kind of information (because you did not consent to it.)   Whether that can be distinguished from normal account data (e.g. being logged in) I don't know.

[PlainName]

If incognito mode trends then Google could easily require a login to enable access, thus tracking and all that via the username rather than cookies/fingerprint/etc. Musk has just shown that requiring login to access a service doesn't have a big downside.

[rdl]

I haven't seen any difference in the last few weeks as compared to the previous many years. I watch YouTube videos regularly and usually a couple or three nights a week I watch for hours at a stretch. No ads ever. I really wouldn't be hugely against paying, say $5 a month, but then I'm pretty sure they'd end up knowing way, way more about me than they do now.

[Karel]

I really wouldn't be hugely against paying, say $5 a month, but then I'm pretty sure they'd end up knowing way, way more about me than they do now.

This.

[hovadmartin]

I'm pretty sure they'd end up knowing way, way more about gemini pet peeves than they do now.

What did you mean by that? That they would collect your personal data (which they do anyway) if you pay a monthly fee? 

[tom66]

I'm pretty sure they'd end up knowing way, way more about me than they do now.

What did you mean by that? That they would collect your personal data (which they do anyway) if you pay a monthly fee?

Well, for one, they'd have a credit/bank card linked to your account.  Which would give them legal name, postal address, and a way to tie your identity up with other purchases and services via companies Google has ownership of.

[Karel]

The Windows Phone returns from grave as an anti-ad-blocker blocker on YouTube

https://www.techspot.com/news/100583-windows-phone-returns-grave-anti-ad-blocker-blocker.html

[wilfred]

I tried installing "user agent switcher" extension into Edge and it worked for me selecting Windows phone. I finally hit a brick wall where it was a choice of allow ads or buy premium. I may eventually buy premium but not just yet. It works on a per Tab basis so it is not disruptive for other tabs.

I have an Android media box with an app (not from the playstore) that allows me to watch on the couch without ads.
For now this agent switch works so I'll let it play out.
And I can download videos if I know I want to watch the whole thing.

I found Windows Phone on WIN10 and Edge will play the video but I get nothing else. No comments, description, subscribed channels nothing. Just the video. So I may tire of the switching back and forth.

I did try switching the user agent to an older firefox string that immediately got a message screen saying that browser version was out of date  and that did give me a more normal looking youtube screen. remember I'm still on Edge browser it is just sending a string telling YT I'm using Firefox, or Windows Phone.

My actual Windows Phone is pretty useless these days for watching YT. And it dies in 7 months when the 3G network dies. Ironically it does show Youtube ads.


I'm still hoping to wean myself off a lot of the YT channels I watch too much of, so some self flagellation is in order.

So there is something to try until you get sick of it and buy a subscription.

[MT]

I found out that if you hover with mouse over "videos containers" and let them start playing in the box for 30 sec or so and then select the video to watch in larger screen format
 there is no anti ad blocking popping up............so far it works for the last week. Im using Vivaldi browser for this experiment.

[Karel]

Privacy advocate challenges YouTube's ad blocking detection scripts under EU law

Last week, privacy advocate Alexander Hanff filed a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC)
decrying YouTube's deployment of JavaScript code to detect the use of ad blocking extensions by website visitors.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/26/privacy_advocate_challenges_youtube/

[CJay]

So the uBlock scripts have now stopped working here and I'm seeing ads again.

Which have revealed yet another reason why YT is evil, adverts for dodgy as hell investment schemes (scams) featuring deepfakes of people like Musk (As if a deepfake ad could trash his reputation further) yet there's no way to report these obvious scams and fakes.

Sick of it, everyone wants to take my money for 'premium' services and yet still monetise my personal info, browsing data etc. and there's no escape from the bullshit.

[madires]

Yep, ad-blockers help to protect you from malicious ads. It's not just about scam ads on YouTube. You'll see them also on websites of well known newspapers, for example. Therefore even the German BSI (federal office for information security) recommends to use an ad-blocker: https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Themen/Verbraucherinnen-und-Verbraucher/Informationen-und-Empfehlungen/Cyber-Sicherheitsempfehlungen/Updates-Browser-Open-Source-Software/Der-Browser/Adblocker-Tracking/adblocker-tracking_node.html. It's self-defence!

[magic]

That's what Google used to be, 15 years ago

[wofritz]

Is the "experiment" still running? I do not get the pop up anymore with ublock active (and no ads). Only thing that may be different now is that some videos stop playing after some seconds and need another click on the play button to resume.

 

[Shonky]

I am still seeing the "permanent block". Initially disabling uBlock Origin got it going again but it's back to being blocked with that disabled and just a pihole running DNS.

[Bicurico]

Today I opened Youtube on my second PC, which has not been used for a few weeks.

Got the Youtube warning in a more agressive form: it said I could only watch 3 videos and there was a timer to close the window. Clicking refresh got rid of it and the video played.

On my main computer, I am not getting any warnings anymore.

[NiHaoMike]

I wonder how difficult it would be to just generate lots (hundreds to thousands per minute) of fake ad views using a script. Would be fun to run that on a CGNAT address, then they can't just filter by IP address without losing legitimate views.

[Shonky]

I wonder how difficult it would be to just generate lots (hundreds to thousands per minute) of fake ad views using a script. Would be fun to run that on a CGNAT address, then they can't just filter by IP address without losing legitimate views.

Sounds like a fun way to get your IMEI banned.

What? IMEI has nothing to do with anything.

[coppercone2]

youtube wants me to get hard in 8 seconds according to the advertisement 

[Shonky]

I wonder how difficult it would be to just generate lots (hundreds to thousands per minute) of fake ad views using a script. Would be fun to run that on a CGNAT address, then they can't just filter by IP address without losing legitimate views.

Sounds like a fun way to get your IMEI banned.

What? IMEI has nothing to do with anything.

• You're rapidly connecting-disconnecting to carrier's network to obtain different IPs - it might get detected as suspicious activity.
• You're rapidly opening a lot of connections to a remote server - it might get detected as DoS attempt or malware-infected device.
• Google might find out and send abuse notice for your ISP to investigate.

Years ago I made that mistake when testing failover code in an IoT embedded system. Luckily this was before SIM cards had to be registered with identity document. Only casualty was $30 Huawei modem which got permabanned from the network. Swapping SIMs didn't help so the most reasonable explaination is it got its IMEI blocked.

None of what you're saying was being suggested.

[NiHaoMike]

I doubt very many would have unlimited mobile data to run it on, probably the most accessible CGNAT that's not mobile or a VPN would be a public hotspot.

[peter-h]

I must have missed this but is there any way to block YT adverts with a VPN terminating somewhere?

YT is now serving absolutely banal brainless crap (like Hero Wars) every four minutes!

[Karel]

One solution is to use a commandline video downloader like yt-dlp:

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

and watch the video locally with your favorite mediaplayer (VLC).

[peter-h]

I did think that should still work. I've used many GUI downloaders over the years.

That also means it could be automated.

[tom66]

uBlock Origin still working with latest update but looks like this cat-and-mouse game will go on for some time.  I guess YT has internal metrics to decide how much programmer resource to throw at it - eventually enough will get PO'd and either stop using it or move to Premium.

[tycz]

I'm running Ublock Origin with lots of different filter lists installed. For the past few months I've found that every week or so I have a few days in a row where Youtube works normally, then a few days when Youtube pops up the message that says an ad blocker has been detected and won't play any videos. I read somewhere that Ublock Origin is only guaranteed to block Youtube ads with the default filter list set. I suspect one of my lists is slow to update and Google is detecting it.

I've also been using some Youtube 'client' software called Freetube that works pretty well. It seems to be Youtube-dl with a GUI that looks similar to the Youtube website. It handles subscriptions, history, playlists, remembers watched videos, etc. locally without needing a Google account. It has no ads and somehow bypasses the age verification that some videos require.

[peter-h]

You are right - it does work!

[Bicurico]

Wow.

Now Youtube blocked my main computer completely.

Not even refresh got around it.

Guess I am staying off Youtube for a while.

[MK14]

"Facebook and Instagram launch ad-free subscription tier in EU".

Apparently related to this thread.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67226394

They seem to be doing it ONLY, in the EU, and because of a huge fine the EU has imposed on them.

[PlainName]

"Facebook and Instagram launch ad-free subscription tier in EU".

They seem to be doing it ONLY, in the EU, and because of a huge fine the EU has imposed on them.

They say:

"The option for people to purchase a subscription for no ads balances the requirements of European regulators while giving users choice and allowing Meta to continue serving all people in the EU, EEA and Switzerland.

Bullshit. Pay the premium, get no ads, but they still scoop up your data and use it to push on users, track users, know who talks to who, etc. The ads thing is just distraction to make them look good, but behind that there will be no change.

[SiliconWizard]

Exactly.

And the subscription-everything for what used to be free online services is a new trend, as I mentioned before. It's going to be the new normal. Both to milk the cow further, and also, arguably, because most online services were just not sustainable businesses (shaky business models), so they need to make a predictable stream of revenue. Subscriptions are a fully predictable revenue, selling ads or data is not (even though it can make a lot of money).

In any case, that won't stop them from still selling your data behind your back as before, as PlainName said.

[aeberbach]

I wonder how difficult it would be to just generate lots (hundreds to thousands per minute) of fake ad views using a script. Would be fun to run that on a CGNAT address, then they can't just filter by IP address without losing legitimate views.

Like this? https://adnauseam.io/

[NiHaoMike]

Like this? https://adnauseam.io/

That doesn't flood them with fake ad views, just generate some when it sees the opportunity. I'm thinking a script that just generates an absurd number of ad "views" as a form of protest.

[wilfred]

For a time before the axe fell and Youtube completely stopped playing the video I had a blank silent view window before the actual video started. So I got to thinking if only the adblocker could just blank and silence the screen for ads up to 30 seconds. Id still be downloading them and they'd still play but I would neither see nor hear them. I'd take that.

I didn't think this was an original idea of mine and it turns out it wasn't.

One place that came up in my search was this one
https://blog.adblockplus.org/blog/whats-happening-with-youtube-ads

Reading that blog I saw this post 

typical user · 2023-10-15 01:26 · #

When I can no longer block youtube ads, I will never view a youtube video again. Very simple. 99.99% of youtube videos are complete waste of time garbage anyway.

And this one looked worth keeping in mind although I haven't yet tried it.

Steven · 2023-10-14 12:34 · #

The anti-ad blocking seems to be related to the user who’s logged in to the YouTube website. By right-clicking on the video you want to play and opening it in a Private session (as a logged-out user), doesn’t seem to activate the anti-ad block script and allows for playing the video without ads (for now).

The first one sounds a bit dogmatic and makes me wonder why they bother to sift through the 99.99% of dross to find the pearls.  But a number of comment shared the way I'm thinking and it might be time to shake of the pandemic induced viewing binge I fell into. I had 121 subscriptions and several more unsubscribed channels I still haven't stopped manually checking periodically. I arbitrarily cut the subscriptions in half and kept those the post very infrequently like Applied Science and Smarter Everyday and Technology Connections.

I even started watching  American news and comment channels explaining the various trials of former President Chump. WTF? I'm not even an American.
I could definitely benefit from reducing screen time.

[MK14]

That doesn't flood them with fake ad views, just generate some when it sees the opportunity. I'm thinking a script that just generates an absurd number of ad "views" as a form of protest.

Well, adverts of some sort or other, have probably been around for centuries, or longer.

There is an imaginary red line in the sand, and if you cross it.  You could be deemed a harmful hacker, and possibly be open to being prosecuted.  If your activities, go too far.

Blocking adverts, or pretending to watch ones (adverts, on videos, you are actually watching) they tried to give you, via software/techniques, is one thing.

But, to specifically on purpose, activate a huge number of adverts, to play a game of poke the (Google) bear.  Could end up with winning unwanted, stupid prizes.  Such as visits, at 4:00 AM, by teams of men, in blue or black uniforms, then having your life turned upside down, and losing access to most things, not only YouTube.

[NiHaoMike]

But, to specifically on purpose, activate a huge number of adverts, to play a game of poke the (Google) bear.  Could end up with winning unwanted, stupid prizes.  Such as visits, at 4:00 AM, by teams of men, in blue or black uniforms, then having your life turned upside down, and losing access to most things, not only YouTube.

Good thing there's not just one country in the world. Do it in one that could care less about it.

[MK14]

Good thing there's not just one country in the world. Do it in one that could care less about it.

Well, it would be a bit like a car driver or motorcyclist, driving at 100+ MPH, zigzagging like crazy through traffic. (I.e. playing a stupid game).  Then on returning to a country that does worry about rules and the law.  Fractionally, hitting a black pick-up truck, and then almost getting run over by the wheels, of a massive 18 wheel (or similar),  presumably weighing many tens of tons, truck.  Then surviving, for people to say, "win stupid prizes".

Yes, you *could* do it.  But it might not be a good idea, and it could go horribly wrong.

[NiHaoMike]

Well, it would be a bit like a car driver or motorcyclist, driving at 100+ MPH, zigzagging like crazy through traffic. (I.e. playing a stupid game).  Then on returning to a country that does worry about rules and the law.  Fractionally, hitting a black pick-up truck, and then almost getting run over by the wheels, of a massive 18 wheel (or similar),  presumably weighing many tens of tons, truck.  Then surviving, for people to say, "win stupid prizes".

Presumably, it would be done by someone who lives in that country. It would be quite uneconomical to travel just to work around a law, even though the statute of limitations could theoretically be used to make it actually work. (Just very impractical.)

[JoeRoy]

I use uBlock Origin and today I got the first Youtube message complaining that it is not allowed to use ad blocker.

I can click the X on the message box (instead of the two buttons, one to switch off ad blocker, the other to subscribe to Youtube Premium) and the video is shown.

But the next video shows the message again...

Screw Youtube, I will significantly reduce my Youtube usage, which mainly consists in using it for playing background music, by listening to online radio or my own playlists for my own music collection.

Anyone using a "better" Ad Blocker, which is not recognized by Youtube?

uBlock Origin is working perfectly, you just need to update it by "Purge all caches", when Youtube blocked it, they fixed it in a few minutes.

[MK14]

Presumably, it would be done by someone who lives in that country. It would be quite uneconomical to travel just to work around a law, even though the statute of limitations could theoretically be used to make it actually work. (Just very impractical.)

Well, to give you an actual example.  In the UK, on public highways (e.g. Motorways), the maximum speed limit, can be up to 70 MPH.

But, if you are happy to holiday or something, in Germany.  You can drive from the UK to Germany (using the channel tunnel or channel crossings), and on their autobahns, go to a much higher speed.
I think it use to have unlimited (no) speed limit, but now it is more limited speed wise, in some places.  But there are still sections, with no speed limits, for some vehicle types.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn

A better solution would just be to use a test track, or just stick to sensible speed limits.  But some people, are really determined, to (legally), drive a lot faster, to see how their vehicle performs.

Back on track (pun intentional), there are probably YouTube videos, showing people doing just that.  But if YouTube insists on showing, horrible (to at least me), adverts every few minutes.  It would spoil the experience of such a video.

[PlainName]

I wonder if this 'experiment' is targetting heavy users? The thinking might be that occasional users aren't wedded to viewing Youtube (otherwise they'd be on there more often) so don't have much to lose and wouldn't put a lot of effort (that is, money) into viewing. Heavy users, on the other hand, are kind of addicted so would feel the loss more and would be much more likely to cough. Hence why some of us are getting the anti-block thing (regular viewers) and some aren't (days between viewing something).

If that's so then using the private feature of Youtube might fool the system into not realising you're a potential target because there is no history. If you're logged in then it's easy to know what your viewing habit is and whether you might be susceptible. And if you have subscriptions then I guess you would need to be logged in to view them.

So, if you're reporting that your viewing has been disrupted, perhaps it would be useful to know if you subscribe to stuff (and/or are usually logged in). For reference, I don't get ads and the only time I log in is to post a video perhaps once a decade. Also not a heavy user - can go days without watching owt, then perhaps might view a hour or so after being led down a rabbit hole.

[Bicurico]

Youtube is working again on my main computer.

Very strange.

[helius]

Exactly.

And the subscription-everything for what used to be free online services is a new trend, as I mentioned before. It's going to be the new normal. Both to milk the cow further, and also, arguably, because most online services were just not sustainable businesses (shaky business models), so they need to make a predictable stream of revenue. Subscriptions are a fully predictable revenue, selling ads or data is not (even though it can make a lot of money).

In any case, that won't stop them from still selling your data behind your back as before, as PlainName said.

I'm seeing some of this trend with domain registrars. It used to be that many of them provided free email services with the price of a domain name. Now (mine) seem to be monetizing the email service separately, for far more than the domain itself cost.
Are others having this experience too?

[PlainName]

Now (mine) seem to be monetizing the email service separately, for far more than the domain itself cost.
Are others having this experience too?

No, because I wouldn't dream of having the domain registra host anything other than the DNS (and even then, the DNS master would be elsewhere so they would be a secondary).

[wilfred]

I wonder if this 'experiment' is targetting heavy users? The thinking might be that occasional users aren't wedded to viewing Youtube (otherwise they'd be on there more often) so don't have much to lose and wouldn't put a lot of effort (that is, money) into viewing. Heavy users, on the other hand, are kind of addicted so would feel the loss more and would be much more likely to cough. Hence why some of us are getting the anti-block thing (regular viewers) and some aren't (days between viewing something).

If that's so then using the private feature of Youtube might fool the system into not realising you're a potential target because there is no history. If you're logged in then it's easy to know what your viewing habit is and whether you might be susceptible. And if you have subscriptions then I guess you would need to be logged in to view them.

So, if you're reporting that your viewing has been disrupted, perhaps it would be useful to know if you subscribe to stuff (and/or are usually logged in). For reference, I don't get ads and the only time I log in is to post a video perhaps once a decade. Also not a heavy user - can go days without watching owt, then perhaps might view a hour or so after being led down a rabbit hole.

I think Youtube would be automating the adblocking detection. They could have some threshold but I would doubt it. Not getting ad revenue for one user missing a thousand ads is the same as a thousand small time viewers missing one ad each.

Better to sell premium to those one thousand lightweight resource demanding users than a single heavy bandwidth user.

I tried the private browser feature (Edge) and got ads regardless of whether logged in or not.

One of my alternative viewing option is my Android media box with an app called Smarttube  which is not available (strangely) on the google play store. Yesterday it got signed out, don't know why. However I couldn't sign back in on Youtube.com/activate with the code it displays. Because it stopped being able to display a code. Did youtube change something inadvertently or deliberately to thwart the app? Also don't know. I downloaded the latest version (i'd been using a several years old one) and it also failed to provide a code but a day later it called for an upgrade which did fix the issue and I am now viewing ad-free again.

I seems risky for youtube to alter the ability to sign on a "smart-tv" since they soon lose the ability to upgrade the viewing apps built in. Smarttube claims to be a smart-tv like experience and reportedly does not work on phones and tablets.

Switching user agents in the browser is still working with Windows phone as the agent but Firefox33 has stopped working. So it seems to me Youtube is still hard at it.

I not sure where i'll end up but I hope to be watching far fewer Youtube videos and therefore unwilling to buy premium but just being irritated by relatively few ads to match the far fewer videos. we'll see.

[tszaboo]

Youtube is working again on my main computer.

Very strange.

It's working on and off. I think it's account related. I just open the video in incognito mode and watch it there. Adblock and sponsorblock still works there, it's just annoying.

[metrologist]

I read in the news that a record hundreds of thousands of users are uninstalling adblockers as a result of YT expanding their experiment. That's disappointing.

[SiliconWizard]

Exactly.

And the subscription-everything for what used to be free online services is a new trend, as I mentioned before. It's going to be the new normal. Both to milk the cow further, and also, arguably, because most online services were just not sustainable businesses (shaky business models), so they need to make a predictable stream of revenue. Subscriptions are a fully predictable revenue, selling ads or data is not (even though it can make a lot of money).

In any case, that won't stop them from still selling your data behind your back as before, as PlainName said.

I'm seeing some of this trend with domain registrars. It used to be that many of them provided free email services with the price of a domain name. Now (mine) seem to be monetizing the email service separately, for far more than the domain itself cost.
Are others having this experience too?

Yep. Mine just did as well. Are you by any chance using Gandi as well?

[nctnico]

I read in the news that a record hundreds of thousands of users are uninstalling adblockers as a result of YT expanding their experiment. That's disappointing.

Maybe they are switching to different ones. But there is a simple workaround: click the 'share' button and then choose 'embed' and there is the video ready to play.

[MT]

Not an single anti-ad for past 7-8 days. uBlock Origin enabled since years past including Vivaldis own inbuilt ad blocker! UA Chrome spoofer plug in works on anti ad crap.

[Karel]

No ads here on Linux with Firefox + uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger + Cookie AutoDelete + CanvasBlocker + Bypass Paywalls Clean.
I don't have a google/youtube account and I have never seen a warning that I must disable the adblocker.

[wilfred]

Thanks to the Youtube suggestions I came across this short video


By following the suggestions to install uBlock Origins https://ublockorigin.com/
and after installing it to open the dashboard in the browser (Edge/Win10 for me) clear the filter cache and then update the filters (two buttons to press)

It didn't work.

So I continued on to the URL in Github for a website to test if it should work. Apparently this test bypasses all local browser config, extensions etc. ie should it work.
https://drhyperion451.github.io/does-uBO-bypass-yt/

Since I was still having problems I clicked on the link to the reddit group and went to this thread
https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/17j6ygs/youtube_antiadblock_and_ads_october_29_2023_mega/

In there I scrolled down to a comment about Edge browser and followed this suggestion for the Youtube Tab
Edge: Click the 🔒 "lock" icon on the left of URL bar -> Turn off Tracking Prevention
And I also disabled other browser extensions I had installed and enabled. Which was Adblock which was my (now former) adblocker and "Print Friendly & PDF" (which I recommend for printing web sites in a neat formated PDF, as well as User Agent Switcher which I installed a week or so back as an attempt to view YT vids.

I don't know which, or if any, had to be disabled but Print friendly is the only one i'd want now anyway.

So that's my experience. I still have other options including YT-DLP to download Youtube videos. YT-DLP is a fork from the old YT-download. Recommended
I also still have an android media box with Smarttube app installed for watching on the couch. Also recommended.
But I'll press on even if it is only out of curiosity to see how the ebb-and-flow of restrictions and countermeasures plays out.

Not a lot of success with watching fewer YT videos as yet but not giving up on that either.

[Bicurico]

At this point, I think Youtube is just randomly experimenting to harrass users to either switch off adblocker or buy a subscription.

I have not changed anything on my main computer and in the last days, I am using Youtube as I always did: without any ads or subscription. I use uBlock Origin. I have not gotten any messages from Youtube.

I think they cannot afford to just close out users who insist in using adblockers, so they annoy them.

The last times that happen on my main computer, I either did a refresh on the page or closed the browser and reopened it. I have not been unable to use Youtube and the annoyance of having to do a refresh or reopening the browser is much less than having to endure the ads.

[Karel]

Youtube’s Anti-adblock and uBlock Origin

https://andadinosaur.com/youtube-s-anti-adblock-and-ublock-origin

[madires]

YouTube's anti ad-blocker campaign has a noticeable impact: YouTube’s Crackdown Spurs Record Uninstalls of Ad Blockers (https://www.wired.com/story/youtubes-ad-blocker-crackdown-spurs-record-uninstalls)

[PlainName]

Read that and below the headline it says there was a record number of installs too. The implication is that users were dumping failing blockers and instead installing other ones. Doesn't say (which the headline implies) that users were succumbing to pay for premium.

But as at Ghostery, installations also surged as others looked for relief, reaching about 60,000 installations on Chrome on October 18 and 27. Subscribers grew as people realized AdGuard’s paid tools remained unaffected by YouTube’s clampdown.

[RoGeorge]

YouTube's anti ad-blocker campaign has a noticeable impact: YouTube’s Crackdown Spurs Record Uninstalls of Ad Blockers (https://www.wired.com/story/youtubes-ad-blocker-crackdown-spurs-record-uninstalls)

I wouldn't trust Wired, they changed.  Nowadays everything mainstream media is propaganda.  That article is a suspiciously TL;DR to be considered good journalism style.  Not to say a tech magazine shouldn't have any political bias in the first place:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/wired-magazine/

[NiHaoMike]

Now let's see how much increased ad revenue, if any, do the content creators report.

[madires]

Video from Louis Rossmann:
 YouTube's adblock war is backfiring in the worst way possible https://odysee.com/@rossmanngroup:a/youtube's-adblock-war-is-backfiring-in:c

[PlainName]

It would backfire much better if Odysee would get around to having captions.

[CJay]

Now let's see how much increased ad revenue, if any, do the content creators report.

I'm gonna guess nada, zero, zilch, nothing.

But I bet Alphagoo post increased profits.

[SiliconWizard]

Subscriptions are key to making a predictable revenue, which shareholders love. They are also key to making users even more captive than they already were. If you pay a subscription, all the more if it's paid yearly / has a yearly commitment, you're more likely to stay on the platform and use it, rather than go see elsewhere.

Whether it's going to "work" for YT, I don't know. We'll see. You'd think it would backfire and drive users away, but "unfortunately", I'm not too sure about that. People are already hooked, and alternatives are few and not quite up to par. A minority will leave, a majority will pay. Probably.

OTOH, if say people buy subscriptions, that allow bypassing all ads, en masse, then it will drastically decrease the ad revenue. And drive advertisers away. Fun shit. So the question is, how can they screw up both sides as much as possible in order to maximize profits? That'll take a few MBAs to figure that out.

[peter-h]

Ublock stopped working tonight. YT detects it.

[SiliconWizard]

Ublock stopped working tonight. YT detects it.

Don't use ublock, use something else. I don't use it and haven't seen any ad nor any change on YT. It looks like most "complaints" about ad blockers being detected revolve around ublock, yet people keep using it?

[ataradov]

This is a perfect example why "works for me" does not apply here at all. You hear the most about uBlock because it is the most popular. YT and adblockers are in a daily battle to fix and break things depending on which side you are looking from. This goes for every adblocker, or at least the most popular ones. And at the same time, YT enforces blocking not for everyone. So, if it works for you, be glad it still does, you or your adblocker may be next.

For popular adblockers, the best thing you can do is wait for a few hours until they fix it again. You can jump between them too, but I doubt it is a good long term solution.

[Ian.M]

uBlock sold out back in 2019:

Code: [Select]

https://web.archive.org/web/20191130155329/https://ublock.org/blog/ublock-incorporates-acceptable-ads/ (this forum breaks Wayback Machine links).
Many users dropped it right then.

uBlock Origin is a fork, pre-sellout, maintained by a small team led by the original developer,  who punch far above their weight in the continuous war against adblocker detection and contravention scripts.

[peter-h]

It was uBlock Origin which I have.

[wilfred]

It was uBlock Origin which I have.

I have Ublock Origin and it is working for me. I'm new to it and I posted a link a few days ago to a website that displays a test to validate it. Just click that link and it will tell you right away if you're current.

I had to do a few other things in Edge/Win10 to get it to work but really easy never-the-less.
Basically disable tracking prevention (in Edge) for Youtube.com by right clicking the lock next to the URL, Disabling other adblockers I had before and purging the filters in UBO and refreshing them. The latter may be needed from time-to-time but I've only ben using UBO less than a week.

[thm_w]

I doubt anyone here is actually using ublock, we are using ublock origin and just call it "ublock". I guess that does cause confusion.

Anyway, please read Karels link above before commenting on why something will or won't work...

[peter-h]

Yes; cleared cache etc, updated it, and it is running again.

[madires]

'Consumers are paying more than ever for streaming TV each month and analysts say there’s no reason for the companies to stop raising prices': https://finance.yahoo.com/news/consumers-paying-more-ever-streaming-181821039.html?guccounter=1

Some observers see another reason for the frequent price hikes: to push subscribers to their breaking point, and compel them to opt for a lower-priced, or even free, ad-supported plan instead.

... because subscriptions are fixed revenue, and ads have no ceiling. I wonder if YouTube is following that strategy.

[metrologist]

uBO is randomly detected. I wanted to listen for a part of a music video to recall if the cover was the original or not. The ad played black screen and audio only - no skipping.

I was more focused on finding if I could skip it that I did not even hear what the product was.

I was talking to the web lady here at work and was searching for some company related content. The first result was a sponsored ad. She tried to stop me just before I clicked it. Don't click the sponsored link; you just costed someone some money, she exclaimed.

Gee, what if there was a script that would automatically play just the ad part of videos, in the background, and everybody in the world had it covertly installed. Oh wait, I think there is already something like that going on, and YT demonetizes videos or channels that have "unusual activity..."

[NiHaoMike]

'Consumers are paying more than ever for streaming TV each month and analysts say there’s no reason for the companies to stop raising prices': https://finance.yahoo.com/news/consumers-paying-more-ever-streaming-181821039.html?guccounter=1

I predict the rise of low cost streaming services like Curiosity Stream. Then in time, those services raise prices until they get undercut by newer services.

Or piracy becomes popular again, in fact many already have VPN services to get around geoblocking nonsense.

Gee, what if there was a script that would automatically play just the ad part of videos, in the background, and everybody in the world had it covertly installed. Oh wait, I think there is already something like that going on, and YT demonetizes videos or channels that have "unusual activity..."

The idea already exists, some testing in the past shows that it really does work.
https://adnauseam.io/

[thermistor-guy]

YouTube's anti ad-blocker campaign has a noticeable impact: YouTube’s Crackdown Spurs Record Uninstalls of Ad Blockers (https://www.wired.com/story/youtubes-ad-blocker-crackdown-spurs-record-uninstalls)

I usually run Firefox. It's locked down with Disconnect, Ghostery, Adblock Plus, Privacy Badger.

When YT stopped working a few days ago, because of all the blocking, I installed Brave browser. It worked fine as is, with no ads showing up.
No doubt YT will block Brave as well, eventually. Firefox is working again.

I am shadow-banned on YT, so bottom-line: Google is banned from my wallet. I will pay for blockers and browsers that circumvent YT's
countermeasures.

[madires]

uBO is randomly detected. I wanted to listen for a part of a music video to recall if the cover was the original or not. The ad played black screen and audio only - no skipping.

If that happens reload the page (known timing glitch).

[mendip_discovery]

Presumably, it would be done by someone who lives in that country. It would be quite uneconomical to travel just to work around a law, even though the statute of limitations could theoretically be used to make it actually work. (Just very impractical.)

Well, to give you an actual example.  In the UK, on public highways (e.g. Motorways), the maximum speed limit, can be up to 70 MPH.

But, if you are happy to holiday or something, in Germany.  You can drive from the UK to Germany (using the channel tunnel or channel crossings), and on their autobahns, go to a much higher speed.
I think it use to have unlimited (no) speed limit, but now it is more limited speed wise, in some places.  But there are still sections, with no speed limits, for some vehicle types.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn

A better solution would just be to use a test track, or just stick to sensible speed limits.  But some people, are really determined, to (legally), drive a lot faster, to see how their vehicle performs.

Why bother with Germany, go the Isle of Man no national speed limit, the police are fair but if you act like a dick they will have you. Last time I was there they had several  fast Jags for mooching about in and even though I was doing 80ish over the mountain they still passed me as if I wasn't there.

Everyone says use track days or go to practice tracks but they are quite often full of psychos. There are a few that are for regular riders that just want to get the stress out of thier system but the psychos are never far away. BTDTGFTS.

[MK14]

Why bother with Germany, go the Isle of Man no national speed limit, the police are fair but if you act like a dick they will have you. Last time I was there they had several  fast Jags for mooching about in and even though I was doing 80ish over the mountain they still passed me as if I wasn't there.

Everyone says use track days or go to practice tracks but they are quite often full of psychos. There are a few that are for regular riders that just want to get the stress out of thier system but the psychos are never far away. BTDTGFTS.

Thanks, that is an interesting idea/option.
I either didn't realize that was an option or had forgotten about it.

Anyway, back on topic.

I think what YouTube/Google are doing, could alienate a significant number of customers.  Which surely is a bad thing?

Unlike certain other things (which could probably have massive barriers, to entering the market.  E.g. PC operating systems, to compete with windows).

An internet video service, doesn't seem that hard of a market to crack (at least to enter, in a small way), if one of the possible competitors, wants to join it.

The difficult bit, would probably be, how to get a significant percentage of the market, to move onto your new video service, along with the content creators and copyright holders.

Edited: Removed off-topic parts

[Ranayna]

Ublock stopped working tonight. YT detects it.

The popup got to me today.
"Purge all caches" followed by "Update all" in uBlock got rid of it

[madires]

Yep, it's about updating the 'uBlock Filters - Quick fixes' (for the cat and mouse game).

[MT]

[CJay]

UBlock Origin has kept the ads at bay for me and is still working fine here.

However, this whole episode has given me pause for thought and I 've decided to try and eradicate Google from my life as far as possible.

[Karel]

However, this whole episode has given me pause for thought and I 've decided to try and eradicate Google from my life as far as possible.

Let's say better late than never...

[CJay]

However, this whole episode has given me pause for thought and I 've decided to try and eradicate Google from my life as far as possible.

Let's say better late than never...

Indeed, I always knew they were evil but they're creeping evil and had wormed their way in with convenience and my laziness.

[MathWizard]

I started getting those pop-up's about adblocker early this Fall, and I kept watching for a bit. Then I went 3-4 weeks and hardly used youtube.

I don't really watch much stuff anyways, for entertainment, I just have it on in the background. But for technical stuff, youtube can be great, with all the repair video's and lectures/etc.

So for 3-4 weeks, I watched some pointless fiction stuff like old Star Trek TNG/DS9/Voyager, and a few movies I have downloaded. I can't keep that up, I've seen it all too many times.

But now I'm back to utube, and I haven't had popups or warnings.

[CJay]

I started getting those pop-up's about adblocker early this Fall, and I kept watching for a bit. Then I went 3-4 weeks and hardly used youtube.

I don't really watch much stuff anyways, for entertainment, I just have it on in the background. But for technical stuff, youtube can be great, with all the repair video's and lectures/etc.

So for 3-4 weeks, I watched some pointless fiction stuff like old Star Trek TNG/DS9/Voyager, and a few movies I have downloaded. I can't keep that up, I've seen it all too many times.

But now I'm back to utube, and I haven't had popups or warnings.

Well this morning I'm being told Ad-Blockers violate T&Cs, so starting today, I'm going without Youtube. 

[mendip_discovery]

I gave up with ad blockers etc years ago as I am aware I am the product.

Though recently I have noted a significant increase in advertising on YT. It will interrupt some live streams and is regularly at the start of anything I watch.

The most recent update to the phone app has advert, 4 large shorts, advert, then a video I might watch then more shorts. I have already given up on most social sides of the internet, wont be long before I also stop the video watching as the shorts are just annoying and constantly pushed in my face the adverts are just becoming an annoying distraction.

Thankfully I have my own website, with my own hosting so I'm in control of my email etc.

[MT]

SAMTIME

https://odysee.com/@samtime:1/youtube-is-sorry-for-banning-adblock:6

[IdahoMan]

I don't use or have anything to do with the Woke/China/Google/Corp junk, but for a long time I have been using Bing to search for and watch videos. No ads just FYI.

OT: If something like a DVD does not allow bypassing the intro/warnings I return it to the store and refuse to watch it. NO excuse for that, will not tolerate.

[NiHaoMike]

https://www.ghacks.net/2023/11/19/ad-accelerator-mutes-and-speeds-up-youtube-ads/

[SiliconWizard]

https://www.ghacks.net/2023/11/19/ad-accelerator-mutes-and-speeds-up-youtube-ads/

Damn!

At some point, YT is going to get into desperation territory and when all technical attempts have failed, they'll have to resort to lobbying politicians to pass laws making ad blocking illegal (with, of course if possible, heavy jail sentences and fines).

[David Hess]

At some point, YT is going to get into desperation territory and when all technical attempts have failed, they'll have to resort to lobbying politicians to pass laws making ad blocking illegal (with, of course if possible, heavy jail sentences and fines).

They already have the Computer Fraud and Abuse act to use if they like, but referring your own customers for prosecution would have dire consequences.

[magic]

You are not their customer if you are only watching videos and skipping ads on top of that.

But it would be fun, that's true


edit
Suing individual visitors in court, after tracking them down by IP addresses would be way too much hassle to be profitable. SiliconWizard is right, they would need to lobby for something new - mandatory automatic enforcement by ISPs, or in browsers, or banning production and distribution of adblocking software, this sort of things.

[langwadt]

At some point, YT is going to get into desperation territory and when all technical attempts have failed, they'll have to resort to lobbying politicians to pass laws making ad blocking illegal (with, of course if possible, heavy jail sentences and fines).

They already have the Computer Fraud and Abuse act to use if they like, but referring your own customers for prosecution would have dire consequences.

like the movie and music industry?

[eutectique]

At some point, YT is going to get into desperation territory and when all technical attempts have failed, they'll have to resort to lobbying politicians to pass laws making ad blocking illegal (with, of course if possible, heavy jail sentences and fines).

And they would not be alone. A "leader in go-to-market security" claims boldly:

But as the internet has grown in scale and sophistication, the quality and authenticity of its traffic has decreased as the web is increasingly flooded with automation tools, bots (good or bad), and users who, for one reason or another, aren’t genuine.

This is known as fake traffic, i.e., web traffic that consists of bots, fake users, and otherwise invalid users that cannot turn into legitimate customers.

... we can conservatively estimate that approximately $35.7 billion of ad spend budget was wasted on fake and fraudulent traffic last year.

And worse, that fake traffic also destroys potential revenue opportunities. ... so businesses potentially missed out on approximately $142B in revenues due to fake traffic.

Author
Jeffrey Edwards
Content Marketing Manager
... He has several years of experience as a trained journalist ...

It's not long before being an invalid user that cannot turn into legitimate customer will become a criminal offence, with the obligation to report to the ISP's list of offenders.


AdNauseam ("clicking ads so you don't have to") in my Firefox reports, as of today:

Since Thursday, 15 June 2023 at 13:16, clicked 1531/1562, total estimated cost = $1576.93

Not bad.

[madires]

... or banning production and distribution of adblocking software, this sort of things.

A large German publisher (Axel Springer) is trying exactly that for years by suing a small company (Eyeo, Adblock Plus) over and over again to no avail.

[Infraviolet]

AdNauseum: Wouldn't something which clicks ads in the background put you at increased risk of it loading one which contains a browser exploit and thereby installing malware on to your system? Better to block all entirely surely?

P.S. IdahoMan, DVD trailers/warnings/anything else "user skipping prohibited at this point"... VLC media player happily lets you skip them all. HDMI/VGA/DVI... from a computer running VLC in to the television's appropriate input.

[langwadt]

P.S. IdahoMan, DVD trailers/warnings/anything else "user skipping prohibited at this point"... VLC media player happily lets you skip them all. HDMI/VGA/DVI... from a computer running VLC in to the television's appropriate input.

and a pirated movie doesn't have any of that nonsense ...

[eutectique]

AdNauseum: Wouldn't something which clicks ads in the background put you at increased risk of it loading one which contains a browser exploit and thereby installing malware on to your system? Better to block all entirely surely?

Here is the answer from the developer's FAQ:

How does AdNauseam "click Ads"?

AdNauseam 'clicks' Ads by issuing an HTTP request to the URL to which they lead. In current versions the is done via an XMLHttpRequest (or AJAX request) issued in a background process. This lightweight request signals a 'click' on the server responsible for the Ad, but does so without opening any additional windows or pages on your computer. Further it allows AdNauseam to safely receive and discard the resulting response data, rather than executing it in the browser, thus preventing a range of potential security problems (ransomware, rogue Javascript or Flash code, XSS-attacks, etc.) caused by malfunctioning or malicious Ads. Although it is completely safe, AdNauseam's clicking behaviour can be de-activated in the settings panel.

[NiHaoMike]

It's also worth noting if if one disables the "fast forward" part of the ad muter and add a function to draw a countdown timer over the ad, it would become a truly stealth adblocker. To Youtube, it would seem as if no adblocker was used at all.

[SiliconWizard]

It's also worth noting if if one disables the "fast forward" part of the ad muter and add a function to draw a countdown timer over the ad, it would become a truly stealth adblocker. To Youtube, it would seem as if no adblocker was used at all.

Yes, it's not hard to make the browsers stream content without showing it to the user. It's dead-simple. But once a major browser does it, YT will go bonkers and will do whatever to have this removed.
This is a war, and not with equal weapons.

[NiHaoMike]

Good luck trying to stop an open source project, try to take it down (if that's even possible, it could be hosted at a place that could care less) and the Streisand Effect will undo your effort almost immediately. What they could do is try to make it hard to tell ads apart from regular content, which one of the most difficult to do would be by checking if the content is seekable. They'll either have to make regular content non seekable (which would really make Youtube less usable in general) or make the ads seekable which would let users easily bypass them manually.

[SiliconWizard]

Maybe you're right, and in any case, this is going to be an interesting time.

[Infraviolet]

" What they could do is try to make it hard to tell ads apart from regular content"
I think content wise this has happened a lot already...

Actually, to be honest adverts which are sponsored parts within videos, timed by the video's creator to appear at a place where they don't break things up too badly, voiced by the same person and at the same sort of volume levels as the main video are a lot less unpleasant than actual pre-video or mid-video ads.

[JPortici]

" What they could do is try to make it hard to tell ads apart from regular content"
I think content wise this has happened a lot already...

Actually, to be honest adverts which are sponsored parts within videos, timed by the video's creator to appear at a place where they don't break things up too badly, voiced by the same person and at the same sort of volume levels as the main video are a lot less unpleasant than actual pre-video or mid-video ads.

though they are still annoying as hell. Especially when you have product X that is being pushed to every single channels about topic Y
And worse, youtube don't get their cut, poor them
But at least some of the more concious channels that use chapters in their videos have the chapter about sponsored content so you can skip right away

[Dave]

There is an addon called SponsorBlock that uses community-sourced information to automatically skip these baked-in ads. Pretty much any bigger YouTube channel is going to have the ad portion in  the video tagged within hours of the release. Should you find a video which has not yet been tagged, you can add the tag yourself and save other viewers some time.
Everything is anonymous (random user IDs, no registration) and you also get stats on how much time you saved in total, and if you tagged videos, how much time you saved for other viewers.

[PlainName]

He turned out to be a pretty decent chap after all.

[tszaboo]

" What they could do is try to make it hard to tell ads apart from regular content"
I think content wise this has happened a lot already...

Actually, to be honest adverts which are sponsored parts within videos, timed by the video's creator to appear at a place where they don't break things up too badly, voiced by the same person and at the same sort of volume levels as the main video are a lot less unpleasant than actual pre-video or mid-video ads.

There is a plugin for that called Sponsorblock. Users report the ads, and the video playback skips it.

I sometimes watch YT on my TV and it became absolutely obnoxious with the latest update. You cannot tell in advance how long the ad is, most are unskippable, and it even happens that it counts back only to start another ad. Sometimes it's more than 40s of ads before a video, and then 5 minute in the video another ad. I'm done with it I think.

[MathWizard]

I've been back on youtube w/o adblocker, and I'm not liking it. People will be mid sentence, and an ad kicks in. Also I'm really hating having to hear music in ads. There's lots of music in video's I already don't like, I don't want ad music in my head either, most of it is not what I like.

And most of the ads aren't about anything I want or care about. And some short video's have way too many ads. IDK how all that gets setup, but I'll back to avoiding youtube. I know bills have to be paid, but youtube is already raking it in.

And for me, I already waste too much time online, I don't like spending the extra time to skip ads either, it's just another interruption.


I'm getting so sick of the same old ST TNG/Voyager/DS9, and few movies I have on my PC. And I don't use my DVD drive anymore, it's way too loud, so I don't watch DVD's anymore. I need to check out some online radio, there's bound be be lot's of fiction and non-fiction/technical channels that can fill the silence.




Can another site or program "watch" a video, and with a time delay, playback the non-ad version of the video ?  And I used to love downloading mp3's of stuff on youtube. Everything from math lectures to movie talk. IDK what happens now if I try that with a video with ads in it.

[Bud]

Get an Android TV (if not have one) or stick and install SmartTube APK. Problem solved. Can't download stuff though.
smarttubenext.com

[rdl]

I can't imagine using YouTube without ad blocking. That would be like a nightmare for me. And there is a lot more there that needs blocking besides the ads.

[David Hess]

I just added ad blocking to Twitter and the experience is much improved.

[wilfred]

Get an Android TV (if not have one) or stick and install SmartTube APK. Problem solved. Can't download stuff though.
smarttubenext.com

I use Yt-dlp to download videos. Also recommended for those who can live without a GUI although someone has probably made a GUI. I also recommend Smarttubenext. As far as I know it doesn't work on PC's. Maybe that has or will change. I actually use the beta version since the whole adblocker thing blew up.

[Andy Chee]

I use Yt-dlp to download videos.

Another vote for yt-dlp here!

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#installation

[Bud]

Get an Android TV (if not have one) or stick and install SmartTube APK. Problem solved. Can't download stuff though.
smarttubenext.com

I use Yt-dlp to download videos. Also recommended for those who can live without a GUI although someone has probably made a GUI. I also recommend Smarttubenext. As far as I know it doesn't work on PC's. Maybe that has or will change. I actually use the beta version since the whole adblocker thing blew up.

I use SmartTube on my Amazon 4K stick. Works like a charm. Should work on other Android sticks as long as installing APK packages is allowed.

[tszaboo]

I just added ad blocking to Twitter and the experience is much improved.

I have a browser plugin to block all the social networks. Those like buttons for facebook on every website? Gone.
Third party tracking? Gone.

[nctnico]

I've been back on youtube w/o adblocker, and I'm not liking it. People will be mid sentence, and an ad kicks in. Also I'm really hating having to hear music in ads. There's lots of music in video's I already don't like, I don't want ad music in my head either, most of it is not what I like.

It seems Youtube has stopped doing add-blocker detection or Adblockplus has adapted. No more screens saying I'm using an add-blocker or ads showing.

[PA0PBZ]

It seems Youtube has stopped doing add-blocker detection or Adblockplus has adapted. No more screens saying I'm using an add-blocker or ads showing.

That is also my experience, some weeks back I had a few nag screens for some days but they are long gone, I never disabled my ad blocker (ABP) and it still works fine in removing all the rubbish.

[David Hess]

YouTube did something in the past couple of days which blocked access from JDownloader2, which relies on my session cookie to use my account, but JDownloader2 was updated and now it works again.

[HalFET]

It seems Youtube has stopped doing add-blocker detection or Adblockplus has adapted. No more screens saying I'm using an add-blocker or ads showing.

That is also my experience, some weeks back I had a few nag screens for some days but they are long gone, I never disabled my ad blocker (ABP) and it still works fine in removing all the rubbish.

ABP is also getting more frequent updates lately though, so maybe they're also actively monitoring and adapting?