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Comment by JanneVee | Hacker News Reader

As it turns out there is a whole category in YouTubes ad system for Get-Rich-Quick schemes, as detailed out in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkhGJUTW3ag&t=1031s (timestamped at the relevant time).

Just today I saw my elderly father click on a YouTube ad link for a crypto scam copying Swedish televisions web layout he was reading it and I saw it at the corner of my eye. He has adblock installed, he disabled it because of the terms of service popup by YouTube. What is he supposed to do, create a google account and get premium instead? How about having safe ads so he doesn't have to figure out YouTube premium?

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> What is he supposed to do, create a google account and get premium instead?

I just put my parents on my family plan, you should consider it, it's a very low price for the peace of mind, plus they love not having ads

So basically I'm supposed to pay protection money? Yeah, I don't give into extortion...

You can see it as extortion or...

Paying for a product instead of being the product.

Huge quality of life improvement. How is it different from paying for Netflix and similar?

> Paying for a product instead of being the product.

You're still the product. You think they aren't still collecting info on what you watch and associating that with your google account for cross-marketing elsewhere on the web?

You can opt out of that without paying anything

You can opt out of the personalized ads, but you cannot opt out of the data collection, storage and correlation.

To the extent that it is relevant to what I was replying to, you absolutely can opt out of "collecting info on what you watch and associating that with your google account for cross-marketing elsewhere on the web".

https://adssettings.google.com/partnerads

My ad blocker and Pi hole block that page, (un?)ironically.

Does Netflix try to scam you if you don't subscribe to the premium tier?

If it were ads for car insurance and lego, I don't think there would be the same concern.

Because YouTube takes money deliberately from criminals an ad supported version of Netflix would hardly have Get-Rich-Quick schemes advertised which you need to pay to avoid. Make no mistake, I've seen criminal scammer ads on YouTube.

You’re still the product. YouTube screwed up their monetization scheme so badly that any content worth watching still inserts its own non-Google ads directly into the videos. So I would be paying to remove ads and…still see ads.

There are two issues.

On youtube the content was uploaded by creators on the understanding it would be freely accessible to everyone.

Additionally it's a matter of user control and rights. They don't get to tell the user what their user agent does and what content it should fetch or display to the user or what code it should run.

It's their website, but it's my device.

The next step is for youtube to require you to watch the ad and stop playing if you look away.

> On youtube the content was uploaded by creators on the understanding it would be freely accessible to everyone.

A lot of YouTube creators make their content for money. YouTube in this case is the layer between creator and watcher, making sure they get paid. Wether that is by ad money or subscription money. Before that, things were much more difficult for video creators.

> The next step is for youtube to require you to watch the ad and stop playing if you look away.

The next step for YouTube is hopefully to put the entire site behind a login and remove all ads.

Google is an advertising company first and foremost, so I doubt that'll happen.

But, this kind of stuff is a big reason they want remote attestation so badly.

Video creators can also move to other platforms, or make other platforms that are subscribe only. It only takes a very small percentage of channels currently on YouTube to make for a high quality streaming platform that covers the interests and needs of a large part of potential subscribers.

It is also hilarious that the FBI also recommends using ad block. I might be sorry for smaller companies but Google contributed to this scams and now even the FBI is against their scheme.

Why not both?

-Every corporation in the world.

yup, I don't see YouTube as an outlier in this regard

I do really enjoy my ad free YouTube, 8 years and counting, the $20 / month for 5 accounts is very much worth it

I piggyback on a friend's account, for a small fee, so likewise.

I also run pi-hole at home, because while I understand the need for ads, I'm done with 23 ads, 15 flyouts, 1 video that will play in the corner until the end of time even though you obviously scrolled past it with zero intention of viewing it, 4 animated gifs, a pop-up chatbot window, etc. etc. etc.

We’re going to get to the section of this video about ad-free YouTube, but first, a message from our sponsor, VPNOfTheMonth! <insert some scare mongering directly into the video stream that premium doesn’t remove>

At least it's not ANOTHER League of Legends ad.

You can skip past those pretty easily. I let them play for creators I actually like, who also tend to pick less scummy sponsored ads. Some of them even make the sponsored content really funny or personal to them.

You'll find the same quality spectrum. At least I know that the creator is seeing more of the ad dollars.

Sure, but that still makes advertising paid YouTube as “ad-free” a lie and a scam.

that is a rather cynical and unconstructive perspective

1. sponsored ads are only in a minority of videos, so largely the platform is actually ad-free. I'm paying to not have YT ads, I did not expect my subscription to eliminate sponsored ads. Where is the lie?

2. paid YT is categorically a better experience and worth every penny, even with the occasional sponsored ad, which again, can be skipped

3. YMMV, it really depends on the content you chose to consume. I stay away from the most viewed creators, it's typically low quality

4. Direct payments for a product is a much healthier model than the ad supported model, imho.

The difference here is that the ads are not just neutral revenue generators, but they are actively harmful revenue generators.

I mean, you can see it that way, or you can realize that paying the mafia protection money actually is a fantastic way to keep both of your legs in working order.

You are not a shopkeeper being extorted for protection money, you are a (unwelcome) shop customer demanding things you don't want to pay for while being free to go to another place.

You haven't followed my argument, so I'll break it down for you. There are ads on YouTube that prey on vulnerable people as per the original post. I came with a small clip in a larger video that YouTube has these categorized so creators can opt-out of these most likely predatory ads. And on that I had an anecdote of my elderly father having ones these predatory ads presented to him, after he was asked a while ago to turn off ad-blocking by YouTube. I'm not the shop customer here, my elderly father is which he has done what was asked of him. I'm simply unwilling to pay for a service so I can opt-out predatory ads on behalf of my father. YouTube does business with organized criminals and is demanding money not to present to the predatory lies of organized criminals. I refuse to pay and demand that YouTube stops taking the criminals money and presenting them as ads.

Yeah except the real situation is that you have the "choice" of going to the one and only shop that sells <thing> and you are given the "choice" of paying extra, or be forced to sit through a timeshare pitch before you can even pick the thing off the shelf.

Except the timeshare pitch is hyper-personalized specifically for you based on your entire internet history everywhere and is designed to yield the maximum chance of manipulating you into falling for it.

As a consumer you have easy options to block out the sales pitch, except the store who has a monopoly on the thing you want is now trying to scare users into disabling their ad blockers. The users that do this are disproportionately more likely to be less versed in how these things work and are thus more likely to fall for the scam.

Yes, it's a protection racket. It's just got a funny hat on this time.

It is not the only shop in town. Vimeo, Twitch, TikTok, Instagram Stories exist and compete with Youtube where their target audiences intersect. Just because you reeeeealy want to watch that particular video that is only on Youtube and you reeeeealy don't want to pay for Premium doesn't change that fact (same as if you wanted some Amazon Essentials shoes that are only available from Amazon and have a very good price doesn't mean there are no other places where you can buy pair of shoes, albeit with arguably worse price-quality ratio).

Last I checked (at least here in the US) - the family plan requires all family members to be living in the same physical household and there is some sort of geolocation check that enforces that rule. I'm divorced and my son goes back and forth between my and his mother's house so I can't upgrade to the family plan and put him on it.

You are paying Google because they will otherwise allow your parents to be scammed by their adds?

Even with adblock, I've had hijacked channels end up as the top search result. Most recently with the last SpaceX starship launch. Trying to find the livestream, I just searched SpaceX and the top hits were all fake channels with lots of subscribers, hosting the actual livestream, but with a big QR code to a crypto scam overlaid. It happens every time, with the same things, and has been reported many times. There's no way they don't know about it.

Install uBlock Origin on Firefox for him. Educate him not to click ads. Ever. If you emphasize long enough that clicking an ad can lose him his bank account and entire identity, it can sink in. I've spent years on this with my parents. "Yes, Dad, YouTube is out to get you, because they want money from advertisers, and they are happily selling your safety to advertisers."

I'm in my early 60's, I guess when I was young I'd have called me elderly. I however, have been a technologist since I was around 9 years old, got it from my Dad. I'd say most my age even if not into technology aren't averse to it or unaware of it. But, there are definitely some elderly who really don't get technology at all and there are some in their 20's who are the same way. Those individuals need to be protected. The onus should be on the corporation more than the individual; not solely on the individual.

No, the onus should be on the law, because corporations will do nothing "for th greater good" if they're not forced to do so. The onus is on the individual to help other individuals around them that need it, and on the individual to petition their law makers to do what needs to be done.

Putting the onus on the corporations is the one thing that's guaranteed, with a long and storied proven track record, of not working.

> What is he supposed to do, create a google account and get premium instead?

Yes? I've mostly quit watching YouTube (and really a lot of media) because the shear amount of it and the number of predatory dark patterns have just gotten to be too much for me (it's possible that I'm overly sensitive in some way). But if it's important to him, then maybe it's worth paying some money for the experience. Personally I'm trying to get back into reading/audiobooks.

So I should just give up, have a talk about media habits with my parents and if they don't want to change, just hand YouTube the money? You freely admit that it is designed to be this bad and by giving them money actually just rewards their shitty behavior. I gave an example of a video showing how creators on YouTube can select which ads to show. Get-Rich-Quick is a category, YouTube could just take the decision to not carry those ads anymore and enforce violations as harshly as copyright strikes.

Youtube clearly provides a valuable service one that is unique in world (moat or not). If you're concerned about rewarding bad behavior (scammy ads) doesn't it also make sense to factor rewarding good behavior (videos by anyone* on any topic imaginable)?

almost

Wanted to point out that “Just take the decision to not carry those ads” isn’t as easy when you’re at YT scale. Not excusing them but I think we all understand the challenges of content moderation at scale for organic content — now amplify that for paid content where the incentives get even thornier.

Yes YT should invest more in review and policy work — but it’s a forever expanding cost with no silver bullet.

I appreciate there’s a least a price and option for ads-free.

In this case, they've already crowdsourced the review labor to their users, who correctly reported the ad!

The scale of paid content is much smaller than the general youtube scale. And they already have a categorization for it. Of course you could lie about the categorization of what you pay to YouTube to show unsuspecting people, but at least you run the risk of giving YouTube money and not getting shown because you violated their advertising policy. It would change the whole economics of running scams through ads.

Not a valid reason. First, they can just charge the cost of ad review to the advertisers. Second, if they can’t do it without causing problems for innocent third-parties — the viewers — then they just can’t do it. We regulate all kinds of industries, no reason the fuck privacy for profit industry should be exempt.

> So I should just give up

I really do try not to be the perpetual downer here, but Google has nearly unlimited resources including psych PhDs on staff to influence peoples' behavior and I assume executives with black holes where their souls would normally be who are trying to satisfy that void with money, but can never do so.

I guess the best I can say is that it's about picking your battles.

Look I know I'm screaming in the wind here. It is a comment on the state of YouTube ads. It's not that I have an illusion that someone in the hierarchy of Google is going to read my comments and take decisions that improves the situation. It is a thought and opinion on the direction of what Google has become. And personally I'm reducing my reliance on google. Next year I'm starting move subscriptions and other things from my gmail mail account. I've gone back to firefox. Google Search has gotten terrible recently so I'm looking for alternatives. This is my personal choice and I just want to whine on the Internet on my way out.

You have my sympathy at least, and it's a good reminder that I probably need to get off gmail myself.

Famously, this is a place where FAANG employees have some representation, so I suspect that the comments do occasionally get read by people with at least some connection to the products. Increasingly, I wonder how they live with themselves; the older I get, the less any amount of money could get me to use psychological tricks on people in order to scam them.

> What is he supposed to do, create a google account and get premium instead?

Go watch something else, somewhere else, another site, or you know tv or something.

Ad blocker can block that popup...

Yes, but as of the last couple months. YouTube and ad blockers have been in a constant cat and mouse game where YouTube blocks users with an AD blocker from viewing content at all, until your ad blocker updates with new rules to circumvent that blocking. Trivial for you and I maybe, but less so for someone the GP described as “elderly”

> He has adblock installed, he disabled it because of the terms of service popup by YouTube.

Yeah if it is updated chrome plugin which Google of course delayed update on.

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