Comment by garciansmith | Hacker News Reader

Comment by garciansmith | Hacker News Reader

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While I agree to an extent, to me the larger issue is that Youtube has become the default video hosting platform with no real competition.

I adblock everything but I am sympathetic to the idea that video hosting costs money. But I watch, on average, less than 1 hour of Youtube videos a month, so paying for Youtube makes no sense. Plus I have issues with privacy (part of the reason I've never created a Youtube account). The videos I do watch on Youtube are short ones for a specific need: e.g., a company showing me how to install their product in an easy way (I'd prefer a write up, but sometimes those are so bad you need to rely on a video), or a simple how-to on changing the battery in X model of car. So when I do need to go to Youtube for something, often its because the video is nowhere else. People don't even think of hosting it elsewhere. I don't watch any long form stuff there, don't listen to music there, etc., so paying for premium makes no sense.

I wish there was a free and open video platform that had a funding model like Wikipedia, where people could upload things that they had no intention of "monetizing".

Especially when youtube's early success was built on piracy. That continued for a long time even after Google's acquisition. Arguably still is a major contributor regardless of Content ID.

Yes, true. Gain traction through piracy to get to an immense size, let everyone use the service for free to grow even larger, introduce ads but only easily blockable ones, then slowly tighten the vise.

From my understanding, this is the exact model Crunchyroll used too to gain a virtual monopoly on anime streaming.

Between Youtube and PirateBay, who do you think has distributed more unauthorized copyrighted works?

I'd say Youtube has distributed unauthorized copyrighted works to FAR more people. Most people have never heard of PirateBay or have any idea what a torrent is.

Pirate Bay websites disappear all the time due to network uptime or just evading copyright cops. Youtube just sits there however, churning out its trove of pirated content and have the gall to throw ads on it.

> But I watch, on average, less than 1 hour of Youtube videos a month, so paying for Youtube makes no sense

What's your issue with having to watch ads if you watch less than 1 hour of video content a month?

> I wish there was a free and open video platform that had a funding model like Wikipedia, where people could upload things that they had no intention of "monetizing"

There's a lot of content on YouTube that people upload that they have no intention of monetizing.

> I wish there was a free and open video platform that had a funding model like Wikipedia

Why don't you or someone else try starting one?

> What's your issue with having to watch ads if you watch less than 1 hour of video content a month?

Moral issues, security issues, etc. These have been discussed in pretty much every thread about adblocking ever, really. I get that you might disagree with them, of course, but no need to rehash the here. I don't even like company logos displayed on my clothing, so you can guess which side of the "how much do you hate ads?" spectrum I'm on.

> There's a lot of content on YouTube that people upload that they have no intention of monetizing.

So on those you never see ads? Hilariously I don't actually know how Youtube works since the only time I've seen ads is when someone who doesn't use an adblocker shows me something (i.e., extremely rarely). Firefox + uBlock Origin (and Adblock Plus before that) has been enough to guard me for as long as I can remember.

> Why don't you or someone else try starting one?

Well, I can't speak for anyone else but I'm a middle-aged historian, so starting a video hosting platform is far beyond my expertise. Though in general asking someone "why don't you just go build it yourself" in response to a complaint about a service, software, or hardware item is a bit trite.

> Moral issues, security issues, etc.

How is blocking ads not a moral issue? Video creators also get hurt by ad blockers, not just YT, which does have costs associated with serving you video.

> So on those you never see ads?

I think they started showing ads on them, just fewer. They do cost storage and bandwidth, so what's wrong with that?

> Well, I can't speak for anyone else but I'm a middle-aged historian, so starting a video hosting platform is far beyond my expertise. Though in general asking someone "why don't you just go build it yourself" in response to a complaint about a service, software, or hardware item is a bit trite

Popular web sites are typically co-founded by non-tech folks. Anyway, what I meant that if you looked into starting one, you'd understand the immense scale of storage and bandwidth costs.

As they said, you aren't breaking new ground by asking these questions. Maybe bring yourself up to the state of the art of this debate etc. and contribute to that discussion wherever it is

Yes but, how are the content creators my problem, especially when Google isn't vetting their ads well enough to keep scam and malvertising people off their and networks. I could raise you to counter that the morally right thing to do is block those ads, at least until Google starts vetting its advertisers well enough to keep scammers out. How do content creators feel, profiting from the scamvertising going on on google's platforms?

Content creators do a lot of scamming from their part as well.

They advertise nordvpn claiming that without using it, all of your traffic is unencrypted for example.

> Video creators also get hurt by ad blockers

I don’t have any kind of business relationship or agreement with content creators. This is their problem and YouTube’s problem.

I only deal with YouTube, which sends video streams to my computer for free, and I’m exercising my right to decide what I want to play on my own computer that I own.

More and more content creators are getting their income through sponsorships and referrals, anyways, as they feel the squeeze of YouTube’s exploitative and predatory behaviour.

There is a moral issue, you're right. Blocking ads is clearly morally permissible. Blocking ads is equivalent to not locking at billboards and skipping ad pages in a magazine (or tearing the pages out). There is no moral issue with any of that. You've bought a PC, you run whatever software you like on it. You have a right to chose how your machine displays content you download from the net. In turn, the maker of a web page can chose to offer whatever they want. If they need more money, then they can transmit the content only if you pay. That's perfectly feasible and reasonable. What they cannot and should be able to decide is how your machine displays their content and what kind of other software you use on your machine.

I believe that - if at all - only tightly controlled government authorities should be allowed to force display messages on end user machines, and if so, only in severe emergencies and for the protection of civilian lives.

People in this debate sometimes argue based on costs and money lost from ad revenue. These are business discussions that have no place in the moral evaluation at all. Not every business model works. So what, find another business model, is the answer.

Blocking ads is not morally permissible. Charging ads by the display is. Any ad should charge the user by ad displayed or attempted to display, not by click or any other way. Just as TV advertisement. If the user goes to make a sandwich, skip it or remove the sound the ad should still be charged to owner of the ad.

Do you have any arguments for this opinion or is it an expression of a personal moral sentiment?

My argument why ad blocking is morally permissible is that it's a matter of the end users personal freedom if and how they display content from remote servers. They should be allowed to use a hex editor, plaintext, braille, TTS, a browser with or without ad ons, etc., and must be allowed to modify the content for their display purposes as they wish as long as they don't redistribute it. That's even a central idea of the HTML specification. There are also plenty of analogies to similar freedoms, for example if I buy a magazine (or get it for free) I can tear out ad pages and use them to fire my stove.

Redistribution is another matter and concerns copyright, but I just can't see any reason why the maker of a web page ought to have a right (or even feel entitled) to control my machine and how the data they voluntarily send to my machine is displayed on it. It's not as if anyone forces them to send the data in the first place.

> Why don't you or someone else try starting one?

https://joinpeertube.org/

There are several instances, but that is not the solution to what the parent comment is pointing out. Videos are being published on YouTube because of network effect; it has become the defacto platform.

> What's your issue with having to watch ads if you watch less than 1 hour of video content a month?

Why should I be forced to watch something I don’t want to watch? Google sends my computer a stream of “[ad][ad][content]”. It’s my own damn choice which parts of that to watch.

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