YouTube Blocks Ad Blockers Amid Declining Ad Revenue | Hacker News Reader

YouTube Blocks Ad Blockers Amid Declining Ad Revenue

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31 pointsneverminder30 comments

I admit to being a bit of a YT addict, but this would be the end of watching YT for me. Whenever I watch YT on the Android app, I'm absolutely appalled at the frequency, duration, and low-quality of the ads. Often, a 30s-1 min video will have up to 20 seconds of unskippable ads. Ads frequently interrupt the content, and they are especially bad for videos that aren't 'demonitized' due to controversial content.

I've actually just closed the Android app instead of waiting to watch the video. Whatever dopamine kick I had from an intriguing thumbnail/title is lost well before the ad can finish.

Maybe I shouldn't complain. It's like how making smoking more difficult actually did result in lower rates of smoking.

For those on Android, there have been app alternatives for a while [0]. Without these, I would have stopped watching content on my phone years ago.

[0] https://github.com/gilbsgilbs/NewPipeSponsorBlock

I'm also a big YT watcher, especially car reviews. I pay and there's no ADs, it's only $13 a month.

I mean, you could pay to remove the ads. 70% of it goes to creators anyway.

Yup, I get more value than Netflix at the same price. Premium is a good product. I can’t stand YouTube without it.

Same here.

My YT recommender algorithm is super-trained and all my recommendations are really good.

I get high value from YouTube and I happily pay the premium.

I use that account for cs/tech/math/deep learning/electronics etc. videos.

Totally worth it.

I cancelled Netflix last year and I am not going back.

Some of the channels are also super high production values. B1M comes to mind.

I mean if you're deriving that much value without actually paying the platform through one of their methods, ads, you should probably consider their other method, premium for $13.

Even better, give that money directly to creators you like instead.

I don’t feel that YouTube’s abusive copyright takedown system needs funding.

Why is it even better? It costs money for Google to develop and maintain Youtube.

I think it's fair that Google gets a cut and the creators get a cut.

You’re consuming for free. Why are you complaining?

Just pay for premium if you don’t like ads.

I agree with you that the ads are frequent and low quality. I’m now paying for premium and it’s worth it.

I don't value anything on youtube enough to pay for it. It's a garbage bin and honestly a waste of my time. I will never give google a cent.

Then don't use Youtube.

I do whatever I want.

It's only a matter of time before adds are embedded directly into the video stream. Then addbock will have to recognize when an add is being played and maybe mute/blackout the video. If lots of people use that kind of addblock (I'm not sure they will), it will lead to an arms race making content and adds blend and mix until there is a continuum from content through product placement to adds.

Content creators already get paid for littering their content with adds. Right now, these portions are usually easy to notice and sponsoring is usually disclosed (except product placement). However, it's not a given this keeps being the case.

I expect the fact that addblock ever worked on YouTube and just skipped adds will seem crazy to people in a decade.

Look for the "sponsorblock" browser extension. The arms race is already well underway.

> It's only a matter of time before adds are embedded directly into the video stream.

The DVR was such a consumer friendly device. I haven't had to watch a commercial on cable in forever.

The endgame of streaming was always going to be loss of control of the video stream, unskippable ads.

Are all technological advances from now on destined to originate from or be acquired by the same tech giants and inevitably used against us after an introductory period of usefulness?

My hope is that paying for the service will absolve one from adds. But it's a very faint hope.

In the long run, we will either have governments regulate adds or be ruled by adds.

That arms race has been here for a few years already. Sponsorblock is a crowdsourced extension that uses community highlights of good and bad parts of a video to auto skip through it. Really useful for cutting through the sponsorships and other useless fluff. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsorblock-for-y...

Nobody wants YouTube “shorts”, it’s a colossal mistake for them to prioritize that. It’s eBay wanting to be Amazon so bad they failed at being ebay.

I've been very happy with YT premium until recently I've found myself misclicking and being trapped in the Shorts, swiping left does not always guarantee exiting from shorts, sometimes it doesn't work.

I've seen enough dark arts and its patterns. This time I find myself shortlisting the creators I watch frequently and find other places I can subscribe to, like CuriousityStream, Nebula, Patron(1$/mo), or even Spotify.

After all I only have two reasons to subscribe to YT Premium: - remove the increasing seconds unskippable ads that r*ping my attention - support the creators

Certainly I can enjoy the same content elsewhere without shorts .

Ad revenue seems to be down hard all over the place - several of the podcasts I listen to are basically begging on air for advertising with some ad spots replaced with "this episode sponsored by our patrons" type segments.

AI is gonna murder ad growth in the mid term. Bots don’t click on ads and GPt4 level reasoning will make it hard to hide ads and continue to stay compliant with California / European regulation

Hallucinating AI spewing random, but believable sentences will not take over the world.

Shitty gradient descent was enough to take over the world already.

But you need to get of the copium that is hallucinations because that is a very short term issue with unlimited context window, embedding storage and the ability to use tools.

Bots click on ads all the time.

They are also beginning to paywall video quality behind YouTube Premium

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/10/23677141/youtube-premium-...

there is higher quality available for premium, doesnt change anything for rest of the user (they'll still get current best quality)

They're testing the waters to see what they can get away with. Last year they ran a trial where 4K playback was completely locked behind Premium for some users, which they walked back due to backlash, but they wanted to do it.

Likewise they want to break adblockers, and they are probably easily capable of doing so, but they're trying to triangulate exactly how much backlash they'll get before committing to it.

I don't think there is anything wrong with blocking ad blockers, backlash is just cause people feel entitled to consume content for free without paying their fair share to creators be it adsense or premium account share.

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