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Comment by MSFT_Edging | Hacker News Reader

Takes like this amaze me. It's like they've suddenly forgotten what the entire advertisement industry is like. Ads are designed to take advantage, manipulate, and even trick. Then this person comes along and suggests the industry should do the right thing.

In what world would that ever be a possibility? It's like asking a dictator nicely that they relinquish some of their power!

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Regulation is only a policeman. It doesn’t innovate.

Competitive markets do innovate. I watch YouTube live instead of Twitch (many streamers double stream) precisely because the former has skippable ads.

I’m guessing you haven’t taken even one semester of the relevant economics. Isn’t it great to be an internet commenter?

Both YouTube and Twitch have increased the amount of ads they serve over the last 5 years, not decreased. So, I’m not even sure if the “competition” between those two makes ads better for anyone. Imo, the objective of competition in adspace is “who can target better to increase click rate”, not “who can make the experience better for the user”.

Even the technofeudalist lords have to deal with reality: they add more enforced ad time, I reduce Youtube usage. Disney+ puts long unskippable repeated ads, I watch what I want then unsuscribe. They're supposed to play a long-term game, but they're too greedy, and humanity can live without Youtube or Disney+.

You're free to pay for youtube and not see ads. I personally don't know how people use it without paying. It's no different from a streaming service like Apple TV and it's clear Youtube wants to go that direction, but people treat it like it should be entirely free or lightly ad supported only.

Netflix as a streaming provider was paid from the get go and only provides professionally made content. It's closer to the way we normally buy things or something like an internet subscription.

For youtube, different people are going to have different reactions to their business model.

You think one semester of economics entitles you to belittle people like that? What in a libertarian mind is doing that?

There are very real people who major in economics in college and come in with their economic opinions they'd like to confirm, and just argue with the professors.

"Economics" as we talk about it is basically a farce. It's more vulnerable to confirmation bias than any other social science.

> Isn’t it great to be an internet commenter?

Said completely unironically...

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