Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers
standard.co.uk
standard.co.uk
So then we still needed ad-blocking, which broke Google in a way that it tried to show even more ads (ad blocking probably disrupting the ability to track a 'premium' user/client).
So we're back to relying completely on ad-blockers, and have completely cut out any Google or YouTube sourced content for the kids.
They literally created an entire market of content creators. We can't go back to torrents, we're addicted now.
This applies to software, books, video, music and everything else, and has been proven time and again.
Google has just taken advantage of network effects. To say that we wouldn't have it if not for Google is clearly wrong. The first internet content distribution networks (anon FTP and UUCP) were free and cooperative. If Google didn't exist we'd surely distribute video cooperatively too, and likely much more efficiently, they were just more convenient. If they stop ad blocking that's no longer the case.
The free ride is not over, it's never over. All that will happen is that business models will change as the market adapts to people's demands and behaviour. The internet has tipped market power in favour of consumers over corporations.
Assuming you could find it since discoverability would probably be lower. Then if a particular video 'went viral', it could cost them a lot of money in sudden and unexpected hosting and bandwidth costs. They would also now have to spend time on dealing with 'infrastructure' instead of focusing on creating content.
There's a reason why so many people use Youtube and Patreon instead of DIYing it: few folks are interested in re-inventing that entire stack on their own.
P2P exists. People haven't had to pay the full cost of hosting for decades.
The issue, at least to me, is that Google has a sort of monopoly on >99% of content on Youtube. They provide virtually nothing[0] to content creators other than free†⸸ video hosting, and in return they get to gatekeep the content itself. All of the cost is offloaded onto the consumer, and there is little to no incentive (arguably negative* incentive) for the people producing the value (videos) to move off youtube.
"It costs to make and it costs to deliver."
It costs to make, but it's not Google that has to pay. It costs to deliver, but why should Google be the only party who gets to deliver other people's content? If the situation was "watch video on youtube with ads, or watch video on Peertube, or watch video on Odysee" I don't think many people would be complaining about mandatory ads on Youtube, but because it's "watch video on youtube with ads, or don't watch the video", people resent the dilema.
[0] The most tangible, by far, value Youtube provides is the huge audience, but that's just a feedback loop, not due to quality or effort. Actually, it's probably due to the fact that many people who make great content have historically only put it on Youtube, because of the huge... and so on.
Edit: Formatting (hopefully) fixed.
Google pays creators 55% of the ad revenue, so yes Google has to pay for those videos.
> It costs to deliver, but why should Google be the only party who gets to deliver other people's content?
People upload to YouTube because YouTube gives them plenty of ad revenue. They don't upload to sites without a lot of ads since that would reduce their ad revenue.
Google does not have to pay for videos. If a video brings google enough ad revenue, they willingly give some of it to the channel that made the video. They do not pay a fixed or up-front cost, and assume none of the risk/effort in creating videos. To be fully pedantic, Google doesn't pay for videos in any sense, they pay for the resulting attention.
"People upload to YouTube because YouTube gives them plenty of ad revenue. They don't upload to sites without a lot of ads since that would reduce their ad revenue."
The videos people want to watch are only on Youtube -> Viewers only use Youtube -> Content creators only upload to Youtube -> Repeat... Google's centripetal force prevents competitors from competing.
YouTube was not supposed to be about people trying to make money. That's the old thing. The entire point of YouTube was normal people can upload videos and make channels. The money just attracted the same garbage content as TV had before.
They're not? I don't know why you mention this. If the creator of a video decided to only make their video available on YouTube, that's their decision.
YouTube wasn't even profitable until relatively recently (2018?).
Also, I would prefer to pay the content creators directly. Charge me for time spent viewing — give that portion of my subscription to the content creators I was watching.
You say we can’t go back torrents, and maybe you can’t, but I’ll go full Luddite mode before I start watching ads on anything. I haven’t had a television for 20+ years for this very reason.
Torrents and a seed box are about as easy as it gets.
Has there been any good work on solving that challenge? If I just watched a great documentary via Torrent and I want to watch another one in that vein or another one by that creator, how do I do that?
That's the spirit! Ads are cancer for clear thinking and create widespread harm.
It's like you've been shoplifting groceries for years, and are now outraged that the shop hired a guard. "They let me shoplift for years just to drive the competing grocery stores out of business, and now they're abusing their monopoly by demanding payment".
The storage and bandwidth YouTube consumes must be extremely massive, and it probably only survived because Google made up for the loss in other places. Of course it has to pay someday, at latest when other revenue streams are drying up.
Remind me to never invite you over for dinner. "Why should I have to split the check now? You paid for my dinner yesterday!"
Jesus christ. Grow up. Be an adult.
IANAL, but running a service at a loss until you have a monopoly position and then cranking up prices sounds illegal.
> Remind me to never invite you over for dinner. "Why should I have to split the check now? You paid for my dinner yesterday!"
I dunno; if for 18 years you give away free food, not to just to one person, but to an entire town, and then one day when nobody else is left selling food in town decide to start charging, I think it would be quite reasonable for people to be cross with you.
But it was never free. Ads have been on Youtube for years. From a 2011 article entitled "The History of Video Advertising on YouTube":
> In January 2009, YouTube started allowing ads in seven different formats. By October of that year, YouTube was counting more than one billion video views per day.
* https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/infog...
Also:
> The first targeted advertising on the site came in February 2006 in the form of participatory video ads, which were videos in their own right that offered users the opportunity to view exclusive content by clicking on the ad.[29] The first such ad was for the Fox show Prison Break and solely appeared above videos on Paris Hilton's channel.[29][30] At the time, the channel was operated by Warner Bros. Records and was cited as the first brand channel on the platform.[30] Participatory video ads were designed to link specific promotions to specific channels rather than advertising on the entire platform at once. When the ads were introduced, in August 2006, YouTube CEO Chad Hurley rejected the idea of expanding into areas of advertising seen as less user-friendly at the time, saying, "we think there are better ways for people to engage with brands than forcing them to watch a commercial before seeing content. You could ask anyone on the net if they enjoy that experience and they'd probably say no."[30] However, YouTube began running in-video ads in August 2007, with preroll ads introduced in 2008.[31]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_YouTube
Why are people upset about having to watch ads when they've been part of the terms of service and social contract for 'free' content since basically the beginning?
I would have preferred that they made it a sustainable business unit/whatever from the beginning so that we could have had a competitive market. So, that seems like a legitimate thing to be angry about to me.
And before you say "just pay YouTube Premium", no, the moment a majority of people start paying $10 (or whatever it is) for YouTube Premium, Google is going to add ads to it again and make you pay $20 for YouTube Premium For Real(TM) to get rid of the ads (and/or just make the free tier miserable to prevent people from stopping paying). Google has proven that it is not above abusing the user to get money and there's no reason not to abuse the user further once you have them hooked after all.
Ads pay near to nothing compared to a subscription. Why would they jeopardize that. Even someone who buys Premium in a country where it's exceptionally cheap makes them more money than an ad user.
Life is good.
https://www.vg247.com/microsoft-filed-kinect-patent-that-gov...
Only way to do something about this crap.
"McDonalds cracks down on people taking ketchup without ordering anything"
"Then I'll stop taking ketchup from McDonalds, that will show em!"
It is only paying/ad viewers that matters, until they start to lose those they wont care.
They prefer you use youtube ad-free than go take the crowd to another platform.
Microsoft famously said that they prefer people to pirate Windows than to use Linux/Mac.
This leads to an Apple situation where Apple doesn't have the most users but most of the money goes to them since they can extract much more money per user. It isn't a bad situation to be in.
Of course Vimeo would have to fight off adblockers too to compete in money extraction with YouTube but that's not my point, my point is that YouTube now has a monopoly and any actions that threaten that, such as strongarming people into watching 3 preroll unskippable ads, are in my opinion silly and self-defeating.
They're just too greedy. If they made the price of YouTube Premium something reasonable ($1 or $2 a month instead of $14 or whatever it is) they would get a lot more subscribers and probably even get more revenue. $1 or $2 is not worth spending even 10 minutes digging in obfuscated JavaScript to fix an adblocker, so this whole thing would go a lot smoother for them if they charged that. Even if $14 is not a lot people just don't want to pay that much.
Thing is, I'm not going to pay their excessive and ongoing subscription fee under any circumstances. I watch maybe an hour of videos a week, but all of them are just to kill time, and they're not worth double digits a month to me. I was happy to have a transactional relationship with them for paid content, and they likely made a net profit from me even with an ad blocker, but if I can't trust them to provide ongoing access to the content I bought then I won't buy any more.
Instead, they've grown too big, they've grown too frail, they've grown too meaningless. So, time to move on.
I choose to not take the ketchup and not go in McDonald’s. And my life is better for it.
Actually I like a McPlant and an apple pie occasionally but that’s another story…
What?
The analogy is more accurately this: McDonalds giving away ketchup--instead of selling it or providing with the order--but making you watch an ad first.
But you are using an ad-blocker, you don't see google ads. If you aren't using an ad-blocker then this topic isn't about you.