It's not handed to you for free, there's an implicit condition that you watch the content and the ads that are served with it. Too many people don't do that and that's why YouTube is now testing blocking ad-blockers. You reap what you sow.
No, there isn't. The web was designed from the beginning to allow the end user to have control over what content is and is not displayed. It isn't television, radio or magazines, the platform owner doesn't have complete control over the layout and display of the content they serve. There is no condition, implicit or otherwise, that the end user will pretend they're consuming an old media product just because web platforms can't move beyond old media models of revenue.
None of which require viewing, reading or listening to the ads, either. Ads have always been a gentleman's agreement.
>Too many people don't do that and that's why YouTube is now testing blocking ad-blockers. You reap what you sow.
No, Youtube is going to reap what it sowed, because no one is going to turn off their ad blockers. If their platform was worth paying for, everyone would have moved to the paid tier by now. Google bought a free video service and tried and failed to monetize it to the point of nearly ruining it for content creators with their puritanical rules, arbitrary demonitization, opaque to nonexistent support and restrictive algorithm, but no matter how much they squeeze the turnip, it won't bleed enough for them.
That's not our problem. We'll gladly support content creators directly through Patreon or other means, but Google can get fucked.
Serving high bitrate video is not cheap and YouTube is notoriously breaking even at best. Any alternative is going to be even less efficient and more expensive due to the lack of economies of scale that Google has. If that's what you want so long as it doesn't have Google's name in the corner, so be it, that's understandable.
>If their platform was worth paying for, everyone would have moved to the paid tier by now.
I disagree. I think people are inherently cheap and will exhaust other options of getting the same content for free first. We shall see I guess.
Yes, it's an arms race, always has been. But it's more expensive for them to break the ad blockers than it will be for the ad blockers to inevitably update, so if it's a war of attrition, they will still inevitably lose.
The problem isn't that people aren't watching the ads, the problem is Google's business model doesn't work, not for Google, not for the consumer and certainly not for content creators, and the only solution they can come up with is trying to force people to watch ads - which never works.
>Any alternative is going to be even less efficient and more expensive due to the lack of economies of scale that Google has.
I mean, plenty of alternatives already exist, and content creators are starting to lead viewers to those alternatives, because of Youtube's arbitrary censorship and demonetization. Every social media platform hosts video now. There are decentralized platforms like Peertube. We're way past the point where "streaming video" is a hard problem that only Google-scale infrastructure can solve.
They're going to have to innovate or die like any other company, and disabuse themselves of the illusion that the web is a gravy train where the rules of supply and demand don't apply. This isn't innovation, this is desperation.
There is only one viable alternative to Youtube that I'm aware of. I use it whenever I can, but that doesn't change the fact that Youtube holds a monopoly.
You tell me, I was responding to your hypothetical question: "If you were actually worried about YouTube stealing your data, why do you keep giving it to them by using their service?"
>An ad blocker prevents you from seeing ads but it doesn't do anything to prevent resale of the data you volunteer
True. That's why I still volunteer as little data as possible.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/google-says-it-doesnt-...
https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US
> Parties with whom information may be disclosed: Service providers, trusted businesses or persons that process information on Google’s behalf
If I can't watch it without ads, I simply won't watch it. And I certainly won't pay for it if it still includes ads.
Yes, you would be holding up your end of the agreement.
>If I can't watch it without ads, I simply won't watch it. And I certainly won't pay for it if it still includes ads.
Buy YouTube Premium and you won't get any ads and the content creators you watch will get more money than if an ad had played instead. Win-win.
But it's interesting that you'd have no problem with me never buying anything in the ads. What's the purpose of them again?
it's a whole economy unto itself. money changing hands, jobs, all of it. almost no one buys something because they saw an ad for it.
I pay for the content that I think it is worth supporting, and that's it. I do not think youtube is worth supporting, and if quite often the only reason I watch things there instead of somewhere else is due to laziness. Same for many creators I follow probably. If they set adblock restrictions I will just stop watching and that's it.