Do you feel, as I do, that this adblocker ban by Youtube will harm all of Alphabet's companies? [discussion]

I mean, I dont actually mind ads… within reason. But over the past few years I have watched less and less youtube content due to the ratio of ads to the actual bloody content I wanted to view.

One recent video about a bloke’s guitar amp was great. The ads not so much. I had to view two lots of 30 second unskippable ads before the 9 minute video would start. The guy starts this amazing guitar solo half way through, only to be cut off by TWO MORE bleeding adverts. The solo continues, the guy shreds it out then the video ends… two more adverts, 30 seconds each no skips (I reloaded the browser in the end which seemed to trigger a 2 minute ad at the start of another video).

Use Piped I hear you cry. Great idea. But how long is that going to last? I am certain that youtube and their parent company are feverishly pushing their engineers to find ways through, around, over and under any tool that stops them making money. The real solution is to tell everyone we know to use other platforms as much as possible and avoid Youtube. Tell every creator we love and respect to diversify where their content goes.

I know people here dont like the politics and trolling that happen on other platforms but thats because they’re insulated. With more exposure those platforms will tackle it. Or quarantine it. The other danger is if we dont diversify our viewing and creator hosting then Alphabet will just hold a monopoly and strangle any other real chance.

HKayn,
@HKayn@dormi.zone avatar

I don’t think so. Netflix cracked down on password sharing and it led to an increase in subscriptions.

Everyone here will have to make up their own mind on whether they want to continue using YouTube in this state.

demesisx,
@demesisx@infosec.pub avatar

I HOPE it does.

thelastknowngod,

Who cares.

gian,

The assumpion Google is doing is that people install AdBlockes because they want something free. They seems not to be able to understand that they simply gone too far.

Google had the problem that they must show a ever growing revenue and since they cannot add more eyeball (or data to harvest) they simply need to try to get more from what they had. So as you say, the problem is not the single Ad, or the data harvest or any other single thing they do.
The problem is the sum of all of the things they do. They show multiple Ads, harvest your data, make you pay and still harvest your data and show the Ads.

People simply started to think “since Google want to screw me, then why I should not try to screw them ?”

Use Piped I hear you cry. Great idea. But how long is that going to last? I am certain that youtube and their parent company are feverishly pushing their engineers to find ways through, around, over and under any tool that stops them making money.

It will became the usual armed race, until Google would make their services so disfunctional to even the common user that people will simply stop using them since the value they get from the service is not worth the trouble.

That assuming that in some places (the EU for example) Google would not be hit by some law that force them to stop what they are doing and force them to play by the rules everyone else need to follow.

gravitas_deficiency,

It’s possible this could begin a regulatory shitstorm. They may realize they’re tempting fate with how hard they’re pushing for profit in bullshit, unethical, sketchy ways.

Then again, some quant will probably walk into the room and present a business plan for regulatory capture of the EU and US and the long term profit that would yield, so they’ll definitely go that route.

Sparhawk87,

If YouTube ads were like the ads on Pornhub, 30 seconds long and skippable after 5 seconds, I would be OK with ads these 1min at beginning and same in the middle for a 10min video is just ridiculous.

Monkeyhog,

No, most people really don’t care.

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

It won’t do shit.

Most people will accept Google’s cock up their ass and just deal with the ads. Everyone else will find new services or figure out how to continue using ad blockers.

atrielienz, (edited )

Their adblock blocker doesn’t work in incognito mode. The overlay and whatnot just will not populate if you use an incognito browser window. You have to sign in every time you open a new tab, but this has been working fine for me on Firefox.

mojo,

No. Also AdBlock works again

BassTurd,

I’ve have premium because of YT music (formerly Google Play Music) which imo is the best music streaming service. I have the family plan that is me my wife, and three friends, the friend paying their portion of plan.

I like giving money to Google less and less by the day, but I don’t mind paying for an ad free service that I use extensively. If they start putting ads in the paid service, I will be dropping immediately.

ToeNailClippings,

Netflix and Disney are threatening ads in their paid services, with maybe a higher priced tier to then avoid them. I think this is the model streaming is going for now.

BassTurd,

I do my best to not give money to Disney. They’re like Nestle in that they have their dirty hands in everything, so it’s hard to completely avoid, but I do try.

Odiorne,

Yup, same for me. I had Ublock for youtube on my computer, but couldn’t figure out how to block ads on the tv. Since I was already paying for another music service, it made sense to just drop that and pay essentially the same price for ad free youtube and a good music streaming service.

thanevim,

I've been subscribed to the same family plan, since about 2014ish. I like it, but really don't appreciate that they raised the price for basically fuck all. Only reason I haven't canceled it is that creators I watch on YouTube get far more from me as a Premium user than ad-based viewership

jmp242,

Patreon?

BassTurd,

Yea, the annual/semi annual price increases are getting old, especially with no new features.

Timwi,
Timwi avatar

YouTube should just be government-run. No ads. Content creators can make money from sponsorships and Patreon. Which, incidentally, should also be government-run. And Twitter. These modern technologies should simply be public goods.

ToeNailClippings,

Seeing how badly our UK government runs public services I dont have any hope they’d run it well.

Open_Mike,

Maybe a cached peer to peer system?

Auli,

People who say this have no idea how much storage and bandwidth Youtube takes to run.

roguetrick, (edited )

Too international to be run by a single government and a consortium wouldn't know who to ban. A nonprofit couldn't really afford the infrastructure required to run it. The problem lies in how the Internet works.

Alphabet absolutely needs it's cloud hosting, ad servicing, video hosting and software as a service trust busted though. Same with Amazon's cloud, twitch, video, physical distribution, and marketplace.

antonim,

Hot but correct take.

Auli,

HaHaha which government.

catboss,

Your comment is the most interesting one in this whole thread, in a positive way.

steal_your_face,
@steal_your_face@lemmy.ml avatar

I wish it would but it won’t.

missingno,
missingno avatar

Youtube has a captive audience that isn't going anywhere. The platform is too big to die, and too expensive for any challenger to seriously threaten it. And the only users they stand to lose with this move are the users who are costing them money, they don't care if adblock users leave as long as they keep everyone else.

ToeNailClippings,

Its interesting. You talk to my generation and older and they see the ads as invasive. They grew up with less because of TV. And it wasnt really targetted/personalised like internet ads. Younger people, say mid 20s and under dont realise how many ads those are. I reminds me of the rights people lose over the years because people werent educated on matters.

orion2145,

TV? The platform that basically is one giant ad? This is the most confusing comment.

abhibeckert,

Depends what country you’re from. Here in Australia there are ad free channels, and ad supported channels that have a reasonable amount (for example, watching sports you might see a few ads at half time when the players are resting… but that’s also when I get up to take a break from the TV myself…)

There’s probably TV here that has more ads, but you don’t have to watch those.

orion2145,

Yea makes sense. Network and cable TV in the US is and always has been about 50/50 ads to content. It’s horrendous to watch. And probably explains why some sizable number of Americans will always pay to go ad free if it’s an option.

Edit: and not be too concerned about a 10s bumper ad or two. Altho don’t get wrong they are increasingly obnoxious.

stoy,

Honestly, I would be fine with it, if they slashed the price of YT premium by about 60%.

Right now the cost of an individual YT premium membership is about 150SEK/Month, that is far too high.

I watch a LOT of YT on my commute, and I would be fine with paying 60-70SEK/Month.

In some regions the cost of an individual membership is the equivalent of about 20SEK/Month, so it is profitable even at those prices.

abhibeckert,

Honestly, I would be fine with it, if they slashed the price of YT premium by about 60%.

Here in Australia they just announced they’re about to increase prices by about 60%… new prices is equivalent to 235 SEK / month (that is for a family plan… but the family plan is the best deal - then you can at least share the cost between people).

Max_P,
@Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me avatar

They really should unbundle YouTube Music or make a plan that’s for people that want nothing more than ad-free, and make that tier basically about how much they got from serving you ads.

They’re trying too hard to sell Premium as having all of those perks and extras that not everyone wants.

WigglyTortoise,

They actually had this in Europe and just discontinued it.

stoy,

Yeah, YT music is of no interest to me, so that sounds like a brilliant idea

DV8,

They explicitly slashed that plan before they started going hard against adblocking. They were running tests with premium light which costed about €6 a month. It was basically all I wanted. But they sent a mail this tier was going away at literally the same time I read they started hard locking anyone using uBlock. (Which I still used with Premium Light to block out all the shorts bullshit)

heygooberman,
@heygooberman@lemmy.today avatar

Hmmm…well, their fight against the adblockers is quite concerning, especially if the ads are so intrusive that they disrupt the user experience in viewing content, thus pushing more users to get Premium or go to another platform. It’s not uncommon these days to find people migrating away from Big Tech platforms and going to other platforms that have more reasonable and sustainable services that benefit both the client and the vendor. The challenge is the content, which may not be as numerous as what you would find on YouTube, and along with that, there’s the challenge of convincing creators to go onto those other platforms.

But, I am doubtful that Alphabet will be financially impacted. They might see a loss around YouTube, but that loss could be offset by profits from other products in their portfolio. Furthermore, because they have a paid option, it wouldn’t be surprising to see people going for that option, especially if the cost is reasonable, and they are getting premium services not just for themselves but also their friends and family.

ToeNailClippings,

deleted_by_author

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  • subignition,
    subignition avatar

    Your point is valid. You may want to use "raises the question" going forward though — begging the question has a slightly different meaning and usage.

    xenu,

    I'm in the same boat, but some people really like YouTube.

    heygooberman,
    @heygooberman@lemmy.today avatar

    Perhaps not, but I am not certain if “amateur” is the right word in describing the creator contents on YouTube. Certainly, we’re not talking Disney-level video quality, but most of the creators I follow appear to have some skill in AV recording and video editing. Plus, they do present some things that are of interest to a wide variety of audiences. Therefore, I don’t necessarily see such content as “amateur-created”. Now, that’s not to say there are no amateur-level content on YouTube. I’m sure there are plenty of contents that really are of poor quality and not worth your time and money.

    Please be aware that I am not trying to convince you to jump onboard YouTube Premium. That’s your decision.

    ToeNailClippings,

    Oh I am not saying YTers are unskilled. I am saying the perception is that they are. That will prevent many from paying for those premium subs. Where as with Disney and Amazon, for all their faults people know they’ll get TV and movies written by big teams with big casts.

    heygooberman,
    @heygooberman@lemmy.today avatar

    Ah, I see. In that case, then yes, I would agree that the perception you just described would indeed raise the question of the Premium price, especially when compared to Disney and Amazon.

    Entropywins,
    Entropywins avatar

    Pete Kelly's history time is better than anything Disney's amateur production can imagine...

    DV8,

    Niche hobby content creators have very few other methods of distributing their media content if it’s longer than 60 seconds. Look at Technology connections for example. Maybe now the larger of those niche creators could build a small platform for theiyown, but there’s no way new creators could rise up. And I watch 10 times as much of that type of content than I do of Netflix/Disney and Prime combined.

    jmp242,

    I don’t know the backend but there is Nebula which has a few select bigger creators on it. I don’t know if it’s too much extra work for the pay they get from it, or if people don’t know it exists.

    DV8,

    Yeah, but last time I checked they weren’t looking for new creators, though I’ll admit I know nearly nothing about this platform. But it is the platform I meant with the select few creators that made their own thing.

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