An alternative will be produced if youtube becomes a hassle to use. 30 years ago people watched television, but the ads became too numerous. Now only boomers watch it at all.
Nebula is trying to bill itself as an alternative, but I am not convinced it will gain the traction it needs to become what we might call a YT alternative. Users have griped about the ads on YT for years now, yet they keep using it, which just affirms that YT can inject as many ads as it wants without risking its user base. By continuing to use a product we complain about, we are giving that product permission to continue doing things we don't like.
I literally don't use the web site, but I pay for it because all the best creators are part of it, and I don't like the parasocial bullcrap that happens in patreon so it's a good alternative to support those creators more directly.
No, I don't want to pretend to be your friend in a discord chat, I want to pay your bills so you can continue pushing out a video occasionally that is incredibly well done.
Right, but what alternative? The people who pay for the production of that alternative will want to make a profit, so if you don't like the way Youtube makes a profit, be careful with assuming anything about a hypothetical future alternative.
There are already alternatives, with alternative models (Vimeo - the creator pays; Nebula - the consumer pays a subscription to watch all the content), yet YouTube remains by far the most popular.
I found out that if you do that enough times, your account will permanently lose the ability to report ads. At least, the option is no longer present on my account.
I set up a PiHole in the cloud and set it up so it requires VPN access so that nothing between my phone and the PiHole can fuck with the DNS packets. I VPN into it on my Android and get ad blocking almost* everwhere. I've also configured it to only tunnel DNS lookups, so I don't get charge egress fees for all my phone's traffic, which, granted isn't a lot, but whatever.
* Sadly, it doesn't block YouTube ads, but I rarely access YouTube on my phone anyways.
I think of it as walking into the store and ignore the person shilling their Walmart rewards card. Some people will stop and chat, others won't. I'm the second category.
For me to have stolen something, there needs to be less of a product in the store between the time I arrived, and the time I left. In this scenario, CVS' inventory stays exactly the same.
You are in "you wouldn't download a car" territory, so nothing I say is likely to convince you. These points have been argued since time immemorial, i.e. 2000, Lars Ulrich v Napster. Youtube isn't any different.
It is not my responsibility to make sure a company is profitable. If COSTCO willingly gives me enough free samples to feed my entire family, it is not my responsibility to then buy a bunch of COSTCO products to pay them back.
Youtube chooses to give away video content for free. If they can't afford to do that because I don't watch their ads, they have every right to stop giving away their content for free. I am not required to support their current revenue strategy.
There’s not really the same thing. The samples you speak of is the equivalent of going to YouTube and seeing previews or thumbnails, not watching videos
I honestly don’t understand your logic. You could say the same about stealing food, or electronics.
Many bars pay licensing fees to television providers to show sports and other content to their patrons. When you watch a game in the bar, you usually spend money for drinks, which pays for the bar and pays for the bar owner to pay the television providers. If I walk into that bar, and watch the game, but don't buy anything, I am not stealing anything. Sure, the owner can kick me out, but they can't take me to court or blame me if nobody buys their drinks while watching the game. It's not my responsibility to make sure the bar profits.
Again your analogy is flawed. YouTube displays ads and you circumvent them in some way and take the product, in this case a video.
Similarly you go to Walmart, the equivalent of YouTube.com, find a product, analogous to finding a video, and take it without paying? Analogous to watching the advertisement.
Your analogy makes more sense for Google search in that you can search and see results and simply choose to not click ads, whereas on YouTube you cannot choose to not watch some of an ad, without paying.
The key part in a metaphor around this is that you must circumvent in your comparison, since that's the main thing being done here. Simply choosing to not do something isn't circumvention unless that's the implicit expectation (e.g. paying for something you took).
Your analogy fails because digital goods are non-rivalrous. Were I to shoplift a video from Walmart, they would no longer possess the video; my gain would be their loss. Obviously this is not true in the digital domain, so moral reasoning about physical stores is unhelpful.
What I receive, when I visit YouTube, is a list of links: invitations to stream certain videos. Google hopes that I will choose to accept all of its offers, since some of the videos are paid advertisements: but it's my computer, and my network connection, and I can do what I wish. Google cannot obligate me to receive any of its videos, any more than I can force Google to supply anything its servers don't want to share; the streaming operation must be mutually agreed.
As it happens, I do not care to spend my time or my bandwidth streaming the ads Google offers me, and I have therefore configured my browser, which runs on my computer, which I own, to act in accordance with my preferences. If Google does not like this arrangement, they are free to change it; nobody is forcing them to supply me with video content.
Again this argument that digital goods are worthless. Google doesn’t hope anything - Google places ads, and people use technology means to get through.
sure - let's have a debate about it. either way you're depriving the creator of revenue. what's your argument? probably something about the fact that since it can be copied for free then it's not worth anything?
> either way you're depriving the creator of revenue.
That may be the case -- but doesn't mean you're stealing. It may mean the creator might want to find a better way of monetizing, though.
> probably something about the fact that since it can be copied for free then it's not worth anything?
Not at all. The ease of duplication has no relevance to the value of a thing.
My argument is simple. It's my machine, and I get to say what bits do and do not get processed.
I should also point out that I don't block YouTube ads, personally. I pay for YouTube Premium instead. I like to reimburse the creators.
However, at least outside of YouTube, advertising is a scummy, spying business. I don't block ads there, either, but I absolutely do block JS and other means of tracking me. That has the side-effect of blocking ads, but if an ad isn't spying, I'll see it. It's telling how few don't, though.
No, that's not my stance. Pirated software is software that was obtained through fraudulent means. YouTube is not streaming bits to me because I tricked it to. It's doing so willingly.
The analogy I would make is that, once I've obtained a piece of software, there is no ethical issue with me deciding to modify my copy of it, perhaps to remove assets I don't want included.
So what is your argument that adblocking is a form of theft?
my argument isn't that adblocking is theft, my argument is specifically that if you're watching a video and circumvent the ad through technology, that is, since it is. clicking skip isn't. not watching it isn't. scrolling down and reading the comments isn't, same with just muting the sound. certainly you're not obligated to engage with the ad.
if circumventing it is not theft, then piracy is not a problem for the same reason.
> The analogy I would make is that, once I've obtained a piece of software, there is no ethical issue with me deciding to modify my copy of it, perhaps to remove assets I don't want included.
your analogy, is also piracy, since by your stance here removing restrictions that might requirement payment is OK even though that too is piracy.
though if you want to be pedantic all adblocking can be considered fraud since you're deceiving the content provider (by blocking ads) for personal gain (not seeing ads).
> my argument is specifically that if you're watching a video and circumvent the ad through technology, that is, since it is
That's your assertion, but what is your reasoning? This is an honest question, because it's not at all clear to me why it should be considered theft.
> your analogy, is also piracy, since by your stance here removing restrictions that might requirement payment is OK even though that too is piracy.
And I have the same question here. Why should that be considered theft?
At worst, it's a violation of terms of service, it seems to me.
> though if you want to be pedantic all adblocking can be considered fraud since you're deceiving the content provider (by blocking ads) for personal gain (not seeing ads).
I disagree that it's fraud, too. I'm not deceiving anybody. And the "personal gain" aspect seems strained to me. "Personal gain" typically means "material gain" -- that is, being materially enriched.
> That's your assertion, but what is your reasoning? This is an honest question, because it's not at all clear to me why it should be considered theft.
it's theft to me because you're taking things - the product of effort, labor, electricity, etc - without any payment when requested, in this case, ads. same reason I think sneaking into a theater or amusement park without paying is also theft.
> I disagree that it's fraud, too. I'm not deceiving anybody. And the "personal gain" aspect seems strained to me. "Personal gain" typically means "material gain" -- that is, being materially enriched.
are you not materially enriched if you get access to sites without paying? if you don't gain anything, then there would be no reason to do it. the preference is the indication that something has been gained.
obviously you can believe whatever you want, but there's really nothing different about avoiding ads and cracking software, aka piracy. and if you're OK with that, fundamentally there's really nothing special about digital goods, including money whose existence for many exists primarily virtually.
there are people who think theft is OK, all land is stolen, etc. that's fine, I guess, I just have a different opinion.
Thank you for at least explaining your position. We certainly disagree, and that's fair. But it helps to at least understand each other.
> obviously you can believe whatever you want, but there's really nothing different about avoiding ads and cracking software, aka piracy. and if you're OK with that, fundamentally there's really nothing special about digital goods, including money whose existence for many exists primarily virtually.
But this makes it clear that I've failed to make myself understood at all. Oh well, such is life.
Copyiright infringement is not and has never been theft.
Blocking ads is also not copyright infringement.
And copyright infringement is also not piracy.
Actual piracy is of course not ok since it generally involves depriving others of something, often their lives.
Or just pay for YouTube Premium. I'd say it's worth it given how much value I get out of it. Take away Youtube, sure I'm sure there would be good alternatives eventually (with the same ads anyway), but it would leave quite a large hole in my life.
I use an extension on firefox that allows me to whitelist channels from the ad blocking (u need to use uBlock origin). However, it puts a limit on the amount of ads and i support directly my favourite creators on other platforms.
Reminds me more of: I’m paying them with my attention. They should be happy I’m watching them at all. I might recommend them to friends. It’s good exposure.
If no one watches ads that would be pointless. It’s like bragging about stealing food and saying don’t worry, I’ll tell me friends about the grocery store and also telling them to take anything they like.
Nitpick: I get your point, the analogy falls apart though.
I need to use YT's infrastructure when viewing any YT content. Targeted advertising is how I pay for access to that infrastructure, and how they cover their costs.
I don't pay to enter a grocery store - I may get an extra discount if I let the business track my purchases, but that's not required. I also definitely don't need a car to pick up my groceries. Most of us do pay taxes for the roads and sidewalks we use to get there, but they're still perfectly free to use if we are unemployed (and those are more analogous to "the internet" than to YT itself).
I simply cannot reconcile it with my conscience to not only indirectly but also directly pay a company that now practically operates according to the motto "be evil".
I don't think Google is particularly evil in the grand scheme of things. If that's the bar then there are very few companies that I can buy goods and services from.
No thanks. I've been on Youtube since 2006, so I intend to watch videos at the same cost as I did then. I'm calling it the "Youtube Legacy" subscription.
Invidious [1] running on your own - or someone else's - server, no ads. Everywhere. You can also 'subscribe' to channels without telling Alphabet about your preferences and without giving them the possibility to 'accidentally' unsubscribe you which seems to be prevalent among some channels [2]. The interface is far lighter than the Youtube uses which makes it possible to watch videos on hardware which chokes out on the rich bouquet of Javascript found in the latter.
While you're at it you may as well add Nitter [3] to make (a read-only version but who wants to write on) Twitter more palatable and, again, light enough to not choke out less endowed hardware. For Reddit there is libreddit [4], again read-only.
These three are written in newish trendy languages and as such can also be used to evaluate their pro's and con's. Invidious is written in Crystal ("compiled Ruby", sort-of), Nitter in Nim (Python-like syntax, compiles/transpiles to C/C++/Javascript), libreddit in Rust (no introduction needed...).
[2] Since I do not have a Youtube/Google/Alphabet account and as such never tried to subscribe to anything I can't prove the veracity of this practice but I keep on hearing people complaining about their subscriptions disappearing
I'm glad he gets the creative expression but he keeps shilling raycons and mediocre VPNs. I get he has to get paid but I wish there was anyone who had the advertising money to spend on sponsorships but wasn't garbage, but I guess having that level of advertising spend kind of precludes you from spending it on product development or high quality components
But from my experience thats basically the only channel that does that. All the other sponsors are just ad-text read by same voice as the rest of the video.
Well I'd imagine youtube's infrastructure is very expensive. I guess they can no longer pretend the service they provide for free doesn't need to be funded. What did people expect?
> even then Youtube has been profitable for many years now
How do you know this?
> It represents 10% of Google revenue.
Revenue != profit. Storing zettabytes of videos across the whole world, with the massive CDNs required to be able to serve that whole world isn't cheap. I can easily see YouTube being among the most costly things Google do.
I wonder if they time limit unskippable ads. I've seen some stupidly long ones, where it seems like someone has just made their hour+ long podcast recording into an ad or something.
> "Imagine wanting to watch a video on how to help one of your loved ones who is choking and you get 10 unskippable ads before you can watch the video."
Someone pop this in a time capsule and label it "peak twitter, early 21st century"
While fortunately I never had to call 911, I'm pretty sure this should be the case.
Whoever answers the phone should be ready to either give you immediate instructions (or transfer you to someone who can do that) until an ambulance/police arrives.
Someone will say to pay for Premium but weird thing Google(and other giants) have very limited payment methods. I do not understand why Steam,Gog, Patreon and small companies you never heard of can offer various payments methods (like PayPal) but the giants are limited to credit cards, maybe they don't want my money or they really want the credit cards? or maybe PayPal is too difficult to handle for a giant but small companies have no choice? Anyone knows?
I support companies not using paypal. paypal is a terrible company with terrible policies and behaviours, and companies not offering paypal is a mark of excellence to me.
I would not disagree with your PayPal opinion, but this does not explain why companies that really want to sell stuff will let me use PayPal but Google and Amazon does not, their lose, I use ad blocker for YouTube and found audiobooks on a different company that wants my money.
So I am curious what Google/Amazon thinks about this (not your personal opinion about PayPal if I should not have the choice to use anything else then VISA/MasterCard)
Folks, just pay for YouTube Premium. In my family, between my kids and myself we watch more YouTube than Netflix/Disney+/Hulu combined so the YouTube family plan is the best value going.
Like the above sites, later on you will need to buy Youtube Premium Pro to actually get ad free youtube experience. Later on the current premium will definitely have ads.
And who would pay for Premium non-Pro? The situation really isn't comparable because YouTube is already available for free with ads. Paying to get less ads isn't a great value add.
> Later on the current premium will definitely have ads.
> And who would pay for Premium non-Pro? The situation really isn't comparable because YouTube is already available for free with ads. Paying to get less ads isn't a great value add.
To get Youtube Original content like Kobra Kai (it moved to netflix in the end)
Or for non-premium user will get 5 ads before start of video whereas Premium user will get 1 ad before videos and get youtube originals, background video playback, download videos, youtube music etc.
And Youtube Premium Pro users will get all other benefits of Premium users with one extra feature of going completely ad-free.
I subscribe to YouTube premium but I've never been tempted to watch any of the original content. None of it is what I go to YouTube for. But I'm a sample size of one.
I would argue that Youtube, while being a video streaming service, is fundamentally different than Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, etc.
Biggest difference is YT does not incur production and distribution costs (ie distribution rights). Creators on YT upload their videos and YT only pays out when they also make money off the ads.
So if a creator made a video and published it on YT and the thing got 10 views and no ad-revenue, the only cost for YT is the infra costs. Contrast that with a company like Netflix where they purchase rights to a film or TV series that flops.
This would imply signing-in. I don't sign in and reset the cookies regularly because I don't want my history tracked and suggestions personalized.
But Okay, I would sign-in and pay, if every video page had a download button and the whole thing would give me an API exposing all the features reliably (so I could use it easily in 3-rd party players with search and suggestions).
> I don't want my history tracked and suggestions personalized.
I am genuinely curious, how do you find videos worth your time without recommendations? 99.9% of what’s on YouTube I have zero interest in, the recommendation engine is how I cull the noise and actually find things to watch.
(I've got a youtube account, but have all history and tracking disabled, and although youtube obviously still tracks me, I never use autoplay or any recommendations)
The same way as one did in the past: 1) search for something interesting, 2) look at the videos, 3) if you like a creator, subscribe to the RSS feed for their channel
> if you like a creator, subscribe to the RSS feed for their channel
I find this a totally unusable model to the point I don't understand who the heck pays for paywalled websites (for me it would be a waste because I would only read some 2.5 articles on the same website a year). I just search for a particular subject (maybe also specify the author) whenever I want/need and have time to watch/read something. Subscribe to someone and watch/read everything they would produce? Impossible, I don't have time for this. I watch many new (whom I have never seen previously and probably won't see in future although I liked them and they go on) creators every week.
The point isn't to watch everything. The point is to have a curated list (or maybe even multiple lists) of content that you know you'll like.
For a simpler example, take webcomics. I created a category in my RSS readers for the webcomics I like. If I feel bored and want to read a webcomic, I just open my reader, click that category, and immediately see the most recent one I haven't read yet. I can instantly get exactly what I want, without any recommendation engine attached. But I don't get any notifications – I only look at it when I feel like it.
The same with youtube creators. If I feel like watching videos of a certain kind, I look at the channels I subscribed to of a certain topic, and see if they’ve got something interesting.
> I am genuinely curious, how do you find videos worth your time without recommendations?
Not without recommendations. I just want the default recommendations directly related to the video I currently watch, ignoring what other videos I watched before.
How do I find? I just search for a particular subject (maybe also specify the author) whenever I want/need and have time to watch/read something.
Indeed, I find YouTube's recommendations are the most relevant and _interesting_ after navigating through a small number of videos within a focused theme in a fresh session. Any watch history, especially in multiple subjects, just seems to make for increasing blandness and disappointingly little connections between topics.
Some prompt crafting-type technique of seeding the recommender with deliberate sequences of videos is probably possible. Youtube's system really is remarkably responsive to this kind of logged-out browsing, unlike most others.
Tangentially, there's a lot of praise for TikTok on HN, but I've never found anything compelling there myself.
In fact I have subscribed to some people also and that's because I've found them genuinely amazing. Nevertheless I only re-visit the channels once in some years - when happen to feel really bored. Even if I sign in I don't care about the feed, I only get to the videos to actually watch through ad-hoc searching and recommendations relevant to the specific video I watch.
I guess google still has an idea of who you are. Since you don’t use the recommendations, you should try an alternative front end, so you don’t get tracked at all.
I do receive youtube's request to purchase premium about each time I go on the site (I am not logged in, use privacy protection) for years now. I am so pissed off by their aggressive marketing and with every click to get away with the banner my decision becomes more solid. I will never be able to pay for it.
If YouTube Premium starts showing ads, I'd stop watching YouTube entirely. Which might not be a terrible thing.
YouTube is the only Google service that I haven't stopped using entirely. Getting rid of it would be good, but there isn't anything else I've found that can really replace it.
That's not true at all. I've been paying for Premium for over a year, and I can say with certainty that I have seen zero ads placed by YouTube. The only ones I've seen are ones creators put in themselves.
So it doesn't cover all ads. Sponsored content is advertising. If youtube premium doesn't result in creators making enough to support themselves then it's feeding youtube for no net gain.
Any "pay for youtube directly" strategy MUST result in a creator 1) not needing to get external revenue from merch, sponsors, patreon, or anything like that. 2) not be so at the mercy of youtube algorithms and unaccountable decision trees that content match them to silence, remove their payment through "demonitization", and provide actual support to the creators so they can focus on creating instead of whipping up public shitstorms just to get basic support, and 3) reward creators for making higher quality content, instead of more addictive or "engaging" content.
Right now Youtube Premium isn't that service. What is that service? Floatplane and nebula are trying to be that service. Nebula specifically has nearly every high quality, "tech, science, invention, discovery, learning etc" content creators and it's like $100 a year. All of my favorite content creators are part of it.
I wish that next to the thumbs up button was a support icon that allowed you to fund the creator a small amount in an easy way. The platform owner would get a percentage.
That's specific to streaming though. For some reason, streaming content has all devolved to just cam sites but without any nudity. The way watchers "interact" and how the streamers are encouraged to "interact" back with whoever swings their dick the biggest because mommy's credit card has a higher limit is gross and massively ruins all streaming for me.
Vinesauce has existed since before twitch, but a while back they moved onto twitch and it's been downhill ever since. It seems like you are required to aim your content more at 12 year olds if you stream, instead of a broad audience, because maybe 12 year olds are more susceptible to the weird mind game that streaming is.
If you've never watched a twitch stream, just say "poggers" to yourself for two straight hours for an accurate experience.
YouTube Premium is easily the best subscription I pay for every month.
Use a VPN, set it to Argentinia, go to youtube.com/premium, sign up with your regular credit card and use without a VPN as usual from now on while paying 2 USD / month.
Interesting. I couldn’t pay for Premium until I was VPN’ed into the country on my credit card. It wouldn’t let me get the plan of the country I was living in.
From my experience watching Youtube on a Samsung TV, the quantity are sometimes spread across an entire video, at intervals set by the creator.
I.e. 8 adverts over a 1 hour video.
This is also no evidence that these adverts are not skippable.
I don't like Youtube's advertising, but this tweet is very low effort.
Unskippable ads before a video have been around for a while (no skip button). It just has been limited to a couple ads. The tweet is claiming this number has increased lately.
My guess is that since unskippable ads could already be a couple minute long, they are testing with shorter ads in that timeframe while still filling up the time block.
This isn’t very interesting without knowing how long the ads run.
I wasn't clear about the skippable ads: the screenshots in this tweet only include the top-left qty and timer, not the bottom right of the screen which might be showing a 'Skip Ad' button.
The UI also looks exactly like Youtube on TVs, which from my experience, does this '3 of 10' for ALL adverts across an extended video.
This tweet has nothing to prove what they're saying, my guess is they're trying to stir up controversy.
edit: it's pretty clear that most here are more interested in sharing their dislike for ads or preferred adblocker solution, rather than even considering the legitimacy of the claims made in the tweet :(
More and more, this model of "free" content that basically fills webpages with ads will fall. Most companies are realizing that ads do not work, which means we will have to start paying (actual money) for good content.
And since users are going to pay from their pockets anyway, I would seriously consider moving content away from youtube and hosting my own stuff. For example, if I am going to take a course, I'd rather take it on the creator's website, where I'll have an LMS with no ads and no thumbnsils with clickbait recommendations tempting me to move away from what I am learning.
Youtube is nice if I want to watch a quick video while I'm running at the gym, but it does not create a protected learning path.
> I would seriously consider moving content away from youtube and hosting my own stuff.
Most people offering courses already do this. So instead of useful information, they post spam videos to Youtube, atop which these ads will presumably run in the future.
>which means we will have to start paying (actual money) for good content.
I think both options will be available as it is now. I personally don't like the idea of paying for every particular thing that I consume. (kind of whats happening with streaming services lately) Not only because it is a hassle but also those single payments quickly add up, ultimately hurting creators.
This assumes that most content creators are paid at all right now. There is still an endless stream of content that was created just for fun and mostly its just the platforms hosting the content profiting from it.
Isn't this what Nebula[0] is targeting? For a low, yearly subscription you can directly support creators without having to rely on Ads. I'm pretty seriously considering subscribing to the Curiosity Stream / Nebula bundle and leaving YouTube behind completely.
Imho, the big question here is, if there's actually a trend.
Was it easier, 10 years ago, to make money from a website, with just one single (non-animated) banner on top, than it is today with a website that's plastered with animated banners, link ads, and other stuff?
Was it easier, 10 years ago, to make money from a video platform, with just one single skip-able ad at the start of each video - than it is today with 10 un-skip-able ads in front of each video?
Was it easier to advertise your business 100 years ago, with a single poster on a street corner - than it is today with a huge ad-campaign consisting of TV-, Radio- and Newspaper-Ads?
The big question to me is: Does advertising become less and less effective the more people are exposed to advertisements?
Advertisers are measuring the actual effectiveness of their ads, and paying for that only. Therefore falling effectiveness means falling prices and you have to increase the quantity of ads, to earn the same money (and achieve the same effect) as before.
But increased quantity means people are exposed to even more ads, which means they become even less effective. Which leads to even lower prices and even higher quantity.
This can't go on forever... at some point the loss of effectiveness is going to be larger than what you can possibly make up for by increasing quantity. And there's an upper limit - you can't push quantity above 60 minutes of ads per hour.
This can only end with all users either signing up for premium, leaving the service all-together, or using ad-blockers. In all three cases, the ad-business looses.
Are we witnessing the slow death of (online) advertising?
- does the overhead cost due to the complexity of advertising (tooling, people, ...) weigh up against the benefits?
- isn't tracking and personalization meant to lead to a decrease in quantity and an increase in quality (in the eyes of the advertiser)? And doesn't that mean that the price of an ad placement should be going up instead of down, because the publisher can offer exactly the audience the advertiser wants?
It can't but all go up in flames one day. Or at least, that's my hope.
There's also the big question, if being exposed to that much advertising as an individual has other (psychological) side-effects as well, rather than just decreasing the effectiveness those ads have on you?
After all, ads are intentionally designed to drive compulsion and to manipulate your (purchase) behavior. And personalized advertising is all about knowing and exploiting everyone's weaknesses for more effective manipulations, isn't it?
Did you ever see Idiocracy? It's become hackneyed to say that we're approaching it, but look at the way they handle advertising. Basically the video you watch is just a window surrounded by scrolling advertisement banners. The trend was clear then.
Look at shows from the past, a "1 hour" program used to consist of what, 52 minutes? I know it's crept from 48 minutes to 42 last I checked.
I even remember reading about online advertising going on 20 years ago - the industry was adding animated or flashing ads - anything to get attention (which saw the rise of ad blockers) and the conventional wisdom was that viewers were like cockroaches; you spray them with a new formula, but eventually they become resistant so you've got to try something else.
No, haven't seen Idiocracy (yet) - but I remember seeing a short clip of the ads you mention.
If I remember correctly, when I went to university 20+ years ago, "animation blindness" was already a coined term. The idea is, that you can't use animated buttons or icons on your website, because people have become condition to completely ignore anything that moves, and consider it NOT part of the website. So if you do have an animated button, you risk that people will miss that, because anything that looks like an ad becomes sorta invisible to most.
I think there was an important facet that the movie missed. The market has driven wages so low that people can’t afford to have kids. That acts as a counter balance to the less intelligent -> more kids feedback cycle the movie is predicated on.
> The market has driven wages so low that people can’t afford to have kids.
Yeah, but they can still afford to have sex, and especially with abortions being made illegal, they're gonna have kids, even if they can't afford it. My tin-foil opinion is that this is part of the plan to keep people from raising their standard of living and maintain a captive work force that has to take whatever shitty jobs/wages offered.
I assume it's different in every country. Governments and industry know about the problem the grandparent post talks about, and yeah, there's a history of dealing with it in traditional media.
Youtube is just another case of "uberization" where a big entity thinks it can skirt regulation just because they're "high-tech" and "disruptive".
Just look at auto insurance industry. A significant portion of your premiums is actually spent on advertising. It doesn’t seem like the stupid gecko commercials will ever die. Great podcast on planet money - https://www.npr.org/2022/06/01/1102496094/the-gecko-effect
I definitely recommend listening to that podcast. They make a really good point that insurance is an industry that benefits hugely from advertising, because the competitor products really aren’t all that differentiated from each other.
Does anyone even remember when YouTube had no pre-roll or mid-roll ads at all, only small banner ads? That used to be the thing I liked about YouTube compared to all the other video sites.
Advertising is immensely wasteful, and its market is already oversaturated, it has to double down each year to get the same returns of last year. Nevertheless, I think we're seeing a cycle, not its death:
few ads -> excessive ads -> ad-free options -> repeat
> Advertisers are measuring the actual effectiveness of their ads, and paying for that only. Therefore falling effectiveness means falling prices and you have to increase the quantity of ads, to earn the same money (and achieve the same effect) as before.
Note there are significant uncertainties in measuring the effectiveness of ads. Measuring click-through rate is comparatively easy, measuring things like brand-recognition doable, measuring how much a specific ad or campaign influences purchasing decisions is quite a hurdle. Predicting it even harder.
There have been success stories, but online, especially "personalized", ads might have been somewhat of a bubble. Appearing better than they are?
It doesn't have to be super accurate or super certain, for advertisers to catch a general trend.
Even if the price adjustments lag significantly behind the actual decrease in effectiveness - the loss of effectiveness will still drive down prices.
As for personalized ads - I think the worst is still to come. Right now, most it is just about looking at a person's profile to decide which ad to show to them. But we are getting close to ML being used to actually create individual ads, optimized for each respective viewer.
I often forget how great uBlock is until I have the displeasure of using a computer with no uBlock installed, but every video I am reminded of usefulness of Sponsor Block
Holy cow how have I not heard of testflight installation method with which yattee is being distributed!
Reading up more on it, seems you need to be an ios developer to use it. Beh.
Thanks for mentioning yatee, as adguard is severely lacking in that ads are rarely blocked.
I don’t think I’ve seen a single ad since I bought AdGuard premium and configured it properly. It feels less capable than uBlock Origin but I find it honestly good enough on iPhone
Latest https://1blocker.com does come with the option to block YouTube ads while using the mobile site. Don’t think it works if you use the app though.
Yeah. I got a Smart TV recently and with the YouTube app started seeing ads again. I think I have to just stream from my laptop instead of using the apps :(. Probably better that way though, typing with the remote is terrible!
have you considered to just pay for youtube? you can add up to 6 people in your family who can also use it and your money goes to the content creators you watch, minus youtube's cut probably. that's what I do.
Interesting... I did not know that you could share your YouTube paid status with other family members. I despise the Ads that YouTube shows me and would do almost anything to remove them from my phone, iPad, and TV. I already use a blocker for Firefox, so at least I have some respite on my computer.
Google funds Mozilla for plausible deniability when regulators come knocking to talk about competition. They lose that if they start dictating functionality to forks and vassals.
What happens when everyone starts using ad block? Is the advertising market just going to collapse? I don’t think even the most willing consumer would sit through 10 ads for a youtube video.
Sure but even there computer viruses have changed a lot since the 90s and 2000s. First they were purely destructive classical viruses and worms, then they shifted to extorting people with fake antiviruses and trojans, and now they are mostly ransomware.
Malware is much more rare but also a lot more dangerous now.
The companies making the ads are capable of hiring orders of mangnitudes more engineers than however many people volunteer to maintain adblockers. Google/youtube is already using their monopoly on the browser to prevent ad blocking via extension changes.
I subscribe to Youtube TV and I feel like they have been doing this in there already. It was a great service and now not only do I have to pay $65 a month for the service but also have to watch 3 3-minute advertisement blocks during a 30-min episode of Family Guy. It's starting to make cable more attractive.
At that point, why not just get a copy of the series on DVD or Blu-ray? You can rip a copy to a NAS (or a flash drive if you have a smart TV with a USB port) if you would rather have a streaming experience. Copies of the show often show up in good condition at second-hand bookstores. You wouldn't have to worry about ads, the show getting rotated in or out of the cable/streaming service, could resell the copies if you don't want them anymore, and would be paying only for the shows that you want to see
I don’t like ads, especially not irrelevant and excessive ones (I pay for YouTube premium), but the amount of people bragging about getting around ads is just sad.
I assume most of us here have jobs. Are we ok with working for free? Many people on YouTube do it full time, with ad revenue and exposure being their primary source of income.
Somehow some people have it in their heads that if the job is entertainment then it’s not worth paying for, but is simultaneously worth consuming.
No, which is why I decided to pursue a career where I'm paid based on a salary, protected by employee rights (even if limited in the US), and not beholden to a single corporation's platofrm to perform my job.
Most of the youtubers I watch aren't making a living off of it, and the few that do are able to do so because they've monetized outside of the YouTube platform.
Nothing you say will make me feel a single twinge of guilt over using ad blockers.
Most YouTubers have sponsors who they mention in the video. If there must be advertising, I prefer that kind, because the creator gets 100% of the revenue.
The issue to me is cost vs benefit to creators. I do back a few of my favorite Youtubers on Patreon (actually, I pay them each more than I would pay YouTube), however, creators actually receive very little from YouTube Premium subscriptions.
>creators actually receive very little from YouTube Premium subscriptions.
They actually receive a lot more cash for per view from YouTube premium viewers compared to free ad-supported users. And it's not even close, we're talking an order of magnitude more money per view when it's youtube premium
No, that would be fine - it’s not really the analogous situation. If the bus were “free” and you paid by spending 30 seconds watching an ad, disabling the device showing you the ad would be bad, not paying attention would be fine.
> I don’t like ads, especially not irrelevant and excessive ones (I pay for YouTube premium), but the amount of people bragging about getting around ads is just sad.
Same. At this point, I'm making $XK/day and to think I can't spend some tiny fraction of that to support the people who create the content... seems morally wrong to me. YouTube made it easy.
> Many people on YouTube do it full time, with ad revenue and exposure being their primary source of income.
As the old saying goes, "your failed business model is not my problem".
Many, many people would like to make a living as performers, or creators generally, but very few succeed. If we want a world with more full-time artists, rather than forcing unwanted ads down our own throats to subsidize youtube video-makers, we'd be better off creating a basic income system.
A lot of junk mail landed in my mailbox when I moved to a new place, until I put a red dot sticker on it. Within a week or two, they disappeared.
We should implement this "red dot sticker" feature in browsers (with optional exceptions), and pages, services and whatnot should respect it, or they will be facing fines. Fines that really hurt.
I'd never heard of that before. I wish it were a thing where I live. But at least in my apartment complex, the recycling bin is right next to the mailboxes, so I can conveniently just move the junk mail straight from my mailbox to the bin.
The interesting thing is that there was a sticker inside the mailbox already, but it didn't work, my mailbox was filled with junk mail, and I put them in the bins too.
I guess the others don't mind the flyers and stuff, because the bins are still pretty full, every time I check my mailbox.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 278 ms ] threadNo, I don't want to pretend to be your friend in a discord chat, I want to pay your bills so you can continue pushing out a video occasionally that is incredibly well done.
The current state of streaming tv is no better than cable in terms of ads
I used to report all ads as offensive, because they are.
If you want adblocking youtube on iOS I recommend using Safari with the vinegar (paid) extension. (And wipr for general adblocking)
ETA: If I remember correctly, Brave Browser also has ad blocking built in. For youtube as well.
I set up a PiHole in the cloud and set it up so it requires VPN access so that nothing between my phone and the PiHole can fuck with the DNS packets. I VPN into it on my Android and get ad blocking almost* everwhere. I've also configured it to only tunnel DNS lookups, so I don't get charge egress fees for all my phone's traffic, which, granted isn't a lot, but whatever.
* Sadly, it doesn't block YouTube ads, but I rarely access YouTube on my phone anyways.
Your suggestion is like buying a record from Walmart to support the artist, instead of buying it directly at a show.
Like any business, Youtube's free to deny me service if what I'm doing is sufficiently detrimental to their business.
You are in "you wouldn't download a car" territory, so nothing I say is likely to convince you. These points have been argued since time immemorial, i.e. 2000, Lars Ulrich v Napster. Youtube isn't any different.
Good thing others think differently or software wouldn’t be a viable business.
Can’t believe I’m arguing with people on here that software and digital goods are worth something.
Youtube chooses to give away video content for free. If they can't afford to do that because I don't watch their ads, they have every right to stop giving away their content for free. I am not required to support their current revenue strategy.
I honestly don’t understand your logic. You could say the same about stealing food, or electronics.
Many bars pay licensing fees to television providers to show sports and other content to their patrons. When you watch a game in the bar, you usually spend money for drinks, which pays for the bar and pays for the bar owner to pay the television providers. If I walk into that bar, and watch the game, but don't buy anything, I am not stealing anything. Sure, the owner can kick me out, but they can't take me to court or blame me if nobody buys their drinks while watching the game. It's not my responsibility to make sure the bar profits.
Similarly you go to Walmart, the equivalent of YouTube.com, find a product, analogous to finding a video, and take it without paying? Analogous to watching the advertisement.
Your analogy makes more sense for Google search in that you can search and see results and simply choose to not click ads, whereas on YouTube you cannot choose to not watch some of an ad, without paying.
The key part in a metaphor around this is that you must circumvent in your comparison, since that's the main thing being done here. Simply choosing to not do something isn't circumvention unless that's the implicit expectation (e.g. paying for something you took).
What I receive, when I visit YouTube, is a list of links: invitations to stream certain videos. Google hopes that I will choose to accept all of its offers, since some of the videos are paid advertisements: but it's my computer, and my network connection, and I can do what I wish. Google cannot obligate me to receive any of its videos, any more than I can force Google to supply anything its servers don't want to share; the streaming operation must be mutually agreed.
As it happens, I do not care to spend my time or my bandwidth streaming the ads Google offers me, and I have therefore configured my browser, which runs on my computer, which I own, to act in accordance with my preferences. If Google does not like this arrangement, they are free to change it; nobody is forcing them to supply me with video content.
> either way you're depriving the creator of revenue.
That may be the case -- but doesn't mean you're stealing. It may mean the creator might want to find a better way of monetizing, though.
> probably something about the fact that since it can be copied for free then it's not worth anything?
Not at all. The ease of duplication has no relevance to the value of a thing.
My argument is simple. It's my machine, and I get to say what bits do and do not get processed.
I should also point out that I don't block YouTube ads, personally. I pay for YouTube Premium instead. I like to reimburse the creators.
However, at least outside of YouTube, advertising is a scummy, spying business. I don't block ads there, either, but I absolutely do block JS and other means of tracking me. That has the side-effect of blocking ads, but if an ad isn't spying, I'll see it. It's telling how few don't, though.
The analogy I would make is that, once I've obtained a piece of software, there is no ethical issue with me deciding to modify my copy of it, perhaps to remove assets I don't want included.
So what is your argument that adblocking is a form of theft?
if circumventing it is not theft, then piracy is not a problem for the same reason.
> The analogy I would make is that, once I've obtained a piece of software, there is no ethical issue with me deciding to modify my copy of it, perhaps to remove assets I don't want included.
your analogy, is also piracy, since by your stance here removing restrictions that might requirement payment is OK even though that too is piracy.
though if you want to be pedantic all adblocking can be considered fraud since you're deceiving the content provider (by blocking ads) for personal gain (not seeing ads).
That's your assertion, but what is your reasoning? This is an honest question, because it's not at all clear to me why it should be considered theft.
> your analogy, is also piracy, since by your stance here removing restrictions that might requirement payment is OK even though that too is piracy.
And I have the same question here. Why should that be considered theft?
At worst, it's a violation of terms of service, it seems to me.
> though if you want to be pedantic all adblocking can be considered fraud since you're deceiving the content provider (by blocking ads) for personal gain (not seeing ads).
I disagree that it's fraud, too. I'm not deceiving anybody. And the "personal gain" aspect seems strained to me. "Personal gain" typically means "material gain" -- that is, being materially enriched.
it's theft to me because you're taking things - the product of effort, labor, electricity, etc - without any payment when requested, in this case, ads. same reason I think sneaking into a theater or amusement park without paying is also theft.
> I disagree that it's fraud, too. I'm not deceiving anybody. And the "personal gain" aspect seems strained to me. "Personal gain" typically means "material gain" -- that is, being materially enriched.
are you not materially enriched if you get access to sites without paying? if you don't gain anything, then there would be no reason to do it. the preference is the indication that something has been gained.
obviously you can believe whatever you want, but there's really nothing different about avoiding ads and cracking software, aka piracy. and if you're OK with that, fundamentally there's really nothing special about digital goods, including money whose existence for many exists primarily virtually.
there are people who think theft is OK, all land is stolen, etc. that's fine, I guess, I just have a different opinion.
> obviously you can believe whatever you want, but there's really nothing different about avoiding ads and cracking software, aka piracy. and if you're OK with that, fundamentally there's really nothing special about digital goods, including money whose existence for many exists primarily virtually.
But this makes it clear that I've failed to make myself understood at all. Oh well, such is life.
I need to use YT's infrastructure when viewing any YT content. Targeted advertising is how I pay for access to that infrastructure, and how they cover their costs.
I don't pay to enter a grocery store - I may get an extra discount if I let the business track my purchases, but that's not required. I also definitely don't need a car to pick up my groceries. Most of us do pay taxes for the roads and sidewalks we use to get there, but they're still perfectly free to use if we are unemployed (and those are more analogous to "the internet" than to YT itself).
Also, creators have pointed out that premium views are worth s lot more to them than ad views.
While you're at it you may as well add Nitter [3] to make (a read-only version but who wants to write on) Twitter more palatable and, again, light enough to not choke out less endowed hardware. For Reddit there is libreddit [4], again read-only.
These three are written in newish trendy languages and as such can also be used to evaluate their pro's and con's. Invidious is written in Crystal ("compiled Ruby", sort-of), Nitter in Nim (Python-like syntax, compiles/transpiles to C/C++/Javascript), libreddit in Rust (no introduction needed...).
[1] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
[2] Since I do not have a Youtube/Google/Alphabet account and as such never tried to subscribe to anything I can't prove the veracity of this practice but I keep on hearing people complaining about their subscriptions disappearing
[3] https://github.com/zedeus/nitter
[4] https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsorblock-for-y...
Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sponsorblock/
*edit - In my opinion
How do you know this?
> It represents 10% of Google revenue.
Revenue != profit. Storing zettabytes of videos across the whole world, with the massive CDNs required to be able to serve that whole world isn't cheap. I can easily see YouTube being among the most costly things Google do.
Profiteering off of their established position.
Youtube PMs have OKRs
Someone pop this in a time capsule and label it "peak twitter, early 21st century"
"Wait, I just found a tutorial! I just need to skip the Intro! And the personal story behind this tutorial! And todays message from their sponsor!"
So I am curious what Google/Amazon thinks about this (not your personal opinion about PayPal if I should not have the choice to use anything else then VISA/MasterCard)
https://www.polygon.com/23300486/disney-plus-subscription-ad...
https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/20/17761760/twitch-prime-tur...
Like the above sites, later on you will need to buy Youtube Premium Pro to actually get ad free youtube experience. Later on the current premium will definitely have ads.
> Later on the current premium will definitely have ads.
I take it you work on the strategy of YouTube?
To get Youtube Original content like Kobra Kai (it moved to netflix in the end)
https://deadline.com/2020/06/cobra-kai-moves-netflix-youtube...
Or for non-premium user will get 5 ads before start of video whereas Premium user will get 1 ad before videos and get youtube originals, background video playback, download videos, youtube music etc. And Youtube Premium Pro users will get all other benefits of Premium users with one extra feature of going completely ad-free.
Do a lot of people want that?
I subscribe to YouTube premium but I've never been tempted to watch any of the original content. None of it is what I go to YouTube for. But I'm a sample size of one.
Biggest difference is YT does not incur production and distribution costs (ie distribution rights). Creators on YT upload their videos and YT only pays out when they also make money off the ads.
So if a creator made a video and published it on YT and the thing got 10 views and no ad-revenue, the only cost for YT is the infra costs. Contrast that with a company like Netflix where they purchase rights to a film or TV series that flops.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6358146?hl=en
It also has youtube gaming where they pay streamers (buy out streamers at once) via contract just like Netflix buys rights for movies and tv shows.
https://www.polygon.com/23053800/sykkuno-youtube-deal-stream...
This would imply signing-in. I don't sign in and reset the cookies regularly because I don't want my history tracked and suggestions personalized.
But Okay, I would sign-in and pay, if every video page had a download button and the whole thing would give me an API exposing all the features reliably (so I could use it easily in 3-rd party players with search and suggestions).
I am genuinely curious, how do you find videos worth your time without recommendations? 99.9% of what’s on YouTube I have zero interest in, the recommendation engine is how I cull the noise and actually find things to watch.
The same way as one did in the past: 1) search for something interesting, 2) look at the videos, 3) if you like a creator, subscribe to the RSS feed for their channel
I find this a totally unusable model to the point I don't understand who the heck pays for paywalled websites (for me it would be a waste because I would only read some 2.5 articles on the same website a year). I just search for a particular subject (maybe also specify the author) whenever I want/need and have time to watch/read something. Subscribe to someone and watch/read everything they would produce? Impossible, I don't have time for this. I watch many new (whom I have never seen previously and probably won't see in future although I liked them and they go on) creators every week.
For a simpler example, take webcomics. I created a category in my RSS readers for the webcomics I like. If I feel bored and want to read a webcomic, I just open my reader, click that category, and immediately see the most recent one I haven't read yet. I can instantly get exactly what I want, without any recommendation engine attached. But I don't get any notifications – I only look at it when I feel like it.
The same with youtube creators. If I feel like watching videos of a certain kind, I look at the channels I subscribed to of a certain topic, and see if they’ve got something interesting.
Not without recommendations. I just want the default recommendations directly related to the video I currently watch, ignoring what other videos I watched before.
How do I find? I just search for a particular subject (maybe also specify the author) whenever I want/need and have time to watch/read something.
Some prompt crafting-type technique of seeding the recommender with deliberate sequences of videos is probably possible. Youtube's system really is remarkably responsive to this kind of logged-out browsing, unlike most others.
Tangentially, there's a lot of praise for TikTok on HN, but I've never found anything compelling there myself.
Everyone should be doing this monthly anyways since YT recommendations along with your viewing trends can eventually get too narrow. Nice to reset it.
1. I search for a topic and pick out a video that seems interesting.
2. I remember the names of the few YouTubers I like, and I look them up once in a while.
I do actually have a YT account and I'm subscribed to some people, but I rarely bother to sign in.
For me, YouTube is a platform for seeking content rather than a platform for being fed content (like HN or Twitter).
Instead, I find videos through talking with friends, as well as when YouTubers I do watch recommend them. It works very well for me.
YouTube is the only Google service that I haven't stopped using entirely. Getting rid of it would be good, but there isn't anything else I've found that can really replace it.
For me, its way overpriced, considering they are not creating any of the content and it doesn't actually cover all ads.
That's not true at all. I've been paying for Premium for over a year, and I can say with certainty that I have seen zero ads placed by YouTube. The only ones I've seen are ones creators put in themselves.
Any "pay for youtube directly" strategy MUST result in a creator 1) not needing to get external revenue from merch, sponsors, patreon, or anything like that. 2) not be so at the mercy of youtube algorithms and unaccountable decision trees that content match them to silence, remove their payment through "demonitization", and provide actual support to the creators so they can focus on creating instead of whipping up public shitstorms just to get basic support, and 3) reward creators for making higher quality content, instead of more addictive or "engaging" content.
Right now Youtube Premium isn't that service. What is that service? Floatplane and nebula are trying to be that service. Nebula specifically has nearly every high quality, "tech, science, invention, discovery, learning etc" content creators and it's like $100 a year. All of my favorite content creators are part of it.
Looks really gauche and cheap, but then again so does most of the 'creator' economy.
Vinesauce has existed since before twitch, but a while back they moved onto twitch and it's been downhill ever since. It seems like you are required to aim your content more at 12 year olds if you stream, instead of a broad audience, because maybe 12 year olds are more susceptible to the weird mind game that streaming is.
If you've never watched a twitch stream, just say "poggers" to yourself for two straight hours for an accurate experience.
newpipe+sponsorblock. you can thank me later.
on desktop, firefox+ublock origin
Use a VPN, set it to Argentinia, go to youtube.com/premium, sign up with your regular credit card and use without a VPN as usual from now on while paying 2 USD / month.
From my experience watching Youtube on a Samsung TV, the quantity are sometimes spread across an entire video, at intervals set by the creator. I.e. 8 adverts over a 1 hour video.
This is also no evidence that these adverts are not skippable.
I don't like Youtube's advertising, but this tweet is very low effort.
My guess is that since unskippable ads could already be a couple minute long, they are testing with shorter ads in that timeframe while still filling up the time block.
This isn’t very interesting without knowing how long the ads run.
The UI also looks exactly like Youtube on TVs, which from my experience, does this '3 of 10' for ALL adverts across an extended video.
This tweet has nothing to prove what they're saying, my guess is they're trying to stir up controversy.
edit: it's pretty clear that most here are more interested in sharing their dislike for ads or preferred adblocker solution, rather than even considering the legitimacy of the claims made in the tweet :(
And since users are going to pay from their pockets anyway, I would seriously consider moving content away from youtube and hosting my own stuff. For example, if I am going to take a course, I'd rather take it on the creator's website, where I'll have an LMS with no ads and no thumbnsils with clickbait recommendations tempting me to move away from what I am learning. Youtube is nice if I want to watch a quick video while I'm running at the gym, but it does not create a protected learning path.
Most people offering courses already do this. So instead of useful information, they post spam videos to Youtube, atop which these ads will presumably run in the future.
I think both options will be available as it is now. I personally don't like the idea of paying for every particular thing that I consume. (kind of whats happening with streaming services lately) Not only because it is a hassle but also those single payments quickly add up, ultimately hurting creators.
[0]https://nebula.app/
Was it easier, 10 years ago, to make money from a website, with just one single (non-animated) banner on top, than it is today with a website that's plastered with animated banners, link ads, and other stuff?
Was it easier, 10 years ago, to make money from a video platform, with just one single skip-able ad at the start of each video - than it is today with 10 un-skip-able ads in front of each video?
Was it easier to advertise your business 100 years ago, with a single poster on a street corner - than it is today with a huge ad-campaign consisting of TV-, Radio- and Newspaper-Ads?
The big question to me is: Does advertising become less and less effective the more people are exposed to advertisements?
Advertisers are measuring the actual effectiveness of their ads, and paying for that only. Therefore falling effectiveness means falling prices and you have to increase the quantity of ads, to earn the same money (and achieve the same effect) as before.
But increased quantity means people are exposed to even more ads, which means they become even less effective. Which leads to even lower prices and even higher quantity.
This can't go on forever... at some point the loss of effectiveness is going to be larger than what you can possibly make up for by increasing quantity. And there's an upper limit - you can't push quantity above 60 minutes of ads per hour.
This can only end with all users either signing up for premium, leaving the service all-together, or using ad-blockers. In all three cases, the ad-business looses.
Are we witnessing the slow death of (online) advertising?
I also wonder:
- does the overhead cost due to the complexity of advertising (tooling, people, ...) weigh up against the benefits?
- isn't tracking and personalization meant to lead to a decrease in quantity and an increase in quality (in the eyes of the advertiser)? And doesn't that mean that the price of an ad placement should be going up instead of down, because the publisher can offer exactly the audience the advertiser wants?
It can't but all go up in flames one day. Or at least, that's my hope.
After all, ads are intentionally designed to drive compulsion and to manipulate your (purchase) behavior. And personalized advertising is all about knowing and exploiting everyone's weaknesses for more effective manipulations, isn't it?
Look at shows from the past, a "1 hour" program used to consist of what, 52 minutes? I know it's crept from 48 minutes to 42 last I checked.
I even remember reading about online advertising going on 20 years ago - the industry was adding animated or flashing ads - anything to get attention (which saw the rise of ad blockers) and the conventional wisdom was that viewers were like cockroaches; you spray them with a new formula, but eventually they become resistant so you've got to try something else.
If I remember correctly, when I went to university 20+ years ago, "animation blindness" was already a coined term. The idea is, that you can't use animated buttons or icons on your website, because people have become condition to completely ignore anything that moves, and consider it NOT part of the website. So if you do have an animated button, you risk that people will miss that, because anything that looks like an ad becomes sorta invisible to most.
That movie messed with my head.
Yeah, but they can still afford to have sex, and especially with abortions being made illegal, they're gonna have kids, even if they can't afford it. My tin-foil opinion is that this is part of the plan to keep people from raising their standard of living and maintain a captive work force that has to take whatever shitty jobs/wages offered.
Youtube will converge to something similar if they want to keep their monopoly status.
Youtube is just another case of "uberization" where a big entity thinks it can skirt regulation just because they're "high-tech" and "disruptive".
I think so. I don't believe it will die completely, but it will crash big time.
few ads -> excessive ads -> ad-free options -> repeat
Note there are significant uncertainties in measuring the effectiveness of ads. Measuring click-through rate is comparatively easy, measuring things like brand-recognition doable, measuring how much a specific ad or campaign influences purchasing decisions is quite a hurdle. Predicting it even harder.
There have been success stories, but online, especially "personalized", ads might have been somewhat of a bubble. Appearing better than they are?
Even if the price adjustments lag significantly behind the actual decrease in effectiveness - the loss of effectiveness will still drive down prices.
As for personalized ads - I think the worst is still to come. Right now, most it is just about looking at a person's profile to decide which ad to show to them. But we are getting close to ML being used to actually create individual ads, optimized for each respective viewer.
Hope springs eternal, but we could also be witnessing the Bladerunner/Transmetropolitanization of advertising.
It needs some work, but it downloads a video locally, bypassing ads and great for offline use.
It feels like I get to watch 1 minute video between adverts now, and YouTube is nearing the point where I just don't give a damn about it anymore.
[1] https://github.com/yattee/yattee [2] https://adguard.com/en/blog/how-to-add-a-shortcut-to-block-y...
Thanks for mentioning yatee, as adguard is severely lacking in that ads are rarely blocked.
But most people who use ublock origin use firefox as it is the most effective browser for ublock.
One will never stop trying to outrun the other. Ever.
Malware is much more rare but also a lot more dangerous now.
Will we see some similar shift in advertising?
History, however, teaches us that the ad companies will find some other sneaky and awful tactic instead.
What happens when every e-mail provider has good spam filtering? Is the spam market going to collapse?
Etc.
There are alternatives like Rumble that I would consider moving to if the difference is that I have to watch 1 ad instead of 5.
I assume most of us here have jobs. Are we ok with working for free? Many people on YouTube do it full time, with ad revenue and exposure being their primary source of income.
Somehow some people have it in their heads that if the job is entertainment then it’s not worth paying for, but is simultaneously worth consuming.
No, which is why I decided to pursue a career where I'm paid based on a salary, protected by employee rights (even if limited in the US), and not beholden to a single corporation's platofrm to perform my job.
Most of the youtubers I watch aren't making a living off of it, and the few that do are able to do so because they've monetized outside of the YouTube platform.
Nothing you say will make me feel a single twinge of guilt over using ad blockers.
They actually receive a lot more cash for per view from YouTube premium viewers compared to free ad-supported users. And it's not even close, we're talking an order of magnitude more money per view when it's youtube premium
Please tell me that I am a horrible human for defrauding the advertisers.
If I could get AR glasses which automatically removes any ad before I see it, I be a bad person too?
However the bus service is, at least in part, subsidised by ads. So, while not free, exactly, it is cheaper.
Same. At this point, I'm making $XK/day and to think I can't spend some tiny fraction of that to support the people who create the content... seems morally wrong to me. YouTube made it easy.
As the old saying goes, "your failed business model is not my problem".
Many, many people would like to make a living as performers, or creators generally, but very few succeed. If we want a world with more full-time artists, rather than forcing unwanted ads down our own throats to subsidize youtube video-makers, we'd be better off creating a basic income system.
A lot of junk mail landed in my mailbox when I moved to a new place, until I put a red dot sticker on it. Within a week or two, they disappeared.
We should implement this "red dot sticker" feature in browsers (with optional exceptions), and pages, services and whatnot should respect it, or they will be facing fines. Fines that really hurt.