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Ask HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube" aggresively

15 points by stefanos82 ↗ HN
6 days ago, I read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37793375 and thought I was doing OK with uBlock Origin.

Today I've got this message in a rather...aggressive way!

I have noticed a weird behavior for more than a week or so, but I didn't suspect they would be working on making such mechanism behave so aggressively to force me turn off my ad blocker, repeatedly.

So...are they doing me a favor to stop using YouTube that much?

Because quite frankly, all I watch is cats and goofy dogs lol!

25 comments

[ 124 ms ] story [ 975 ms ] thread
sp332
I mean if you're not watching the ads, you're only costing them money. I'm not going to call it "theft" or anything but don't be surprised that you're unwelcome.
anigbrowl
Not necessarily true. People who share videos on social media drive traffic to YT, effectively giving them free advertising..much as many users are giving them free content.
sp332
With all the link tracking, I bet they have a good idea of which accounts are good for sharing videos and which aren't.
akomtu
They steal your data, though, and get to create behavioral profiles without paying users a cent.
kazinator
What if you're watching ads, but not clicking on any of them? Are you costing them money or not?

What if you click on ads, but don't ever anything? Costing or not?

slau
I think you a word
hombre_fatal
It’s not a tricky question. Advertisers have long decided they like those odds. That’s why advertising deals aren’t limited to CPA.
kazinator
Gamblers have decided they like their odds. Gambling costs them money, and some ruin themselves that way.

If I don't click on ads and don't buy anything, it's like I'm rigging the slot machine never to pay out.

If everyone does that, then advertisers will catch on to the reality that the ads are not working, and pull out, and so then the advertising platform tanks.

So yes, you are "stealing" by not clicking on ads, and not obeying the ads just as much as if you just block the ads.

People who don't block ads, but take no consumer action in response to ads, are not in any ethically different position compared to those who actively block ads higher up the event chain.

Possibly in a worse one, since those ineffective ads are a waste of resources. It's like leaving the heating on in an empty house.

aosaigh
The ads on YT have made videos unwatchable. I regularly get 5+ ads in the first 5 minutes of longer videos. Instead of considering paying, I’ve just stopped using YT, except for the occasional video here and there.
notjtrig
Oh big time favor, time to backup our Gmail accounts the wardens of the internet gulag are getting desperate.
polka_haunts_us
I'm generally pretty pro "pay for the service you're using", but, I just can't bring myself to pay for youtube. It's so...creepy. I'll be in a small Twitch chat talking about donuts or something, I go over to youtube and my recommendation has at least 1 video about donuts in it. This happened like 3 times in the span of 2 days, so I convinced the chat to artificially talk about camping, a topic I have no time for, for about 15 minutes. Lo and behold: camping videos.

Part of me can somehow still tolerate this if it's at least free, but I have no desire in a world where I'm paying for this. If it means I have to rewire my brain to go for a walk or do pushups or open a book or slam my head into a wall every time I think about going to youtube...so be it frankly.

extasia
That's a demonic level of tracking holy moly.

Not that you asked, but I managed to mostly quit YT by making a bet with a friend about who could go the longest without it. Might work for you too.

crossroadsguy
Unless I am missing something, don't you think that says a whole lot more about Twitch rather? Along with YouTube of course.
dpc050505
It says a lot about how our data is weaponized against our attention span.
polka_haunts_us
I think the argument in the macro sense about who is more at fault between the pervert store owner taping my conversations at their store and the pervert store owner who paid money for the tape because they just had to know what I was saying is a very subjective one. I personally do blame them both equally. The actual micro case of why I'd stop shopping at Store B and not Store A is mostly just related to my personal situation.

I know corpos and governments are passively spying on me either directly or by having others do it, and honestly as long as they maintain an absolute minimum level of social decorum to not let me know about it, I don't REALLY care enough to do anything about it. Google/Youtube just couldn't be bothered to do even that much.

breput
FWIW, I was on the 3rd strike - after a few of the "Ad blockers aren't allowed" dialogs, I started getting an explicit "you have 3 more videos" countdown.

I deleted all of my youtube.com cookies and I don't even get the helpful warning now.

breput
Eh...I got the soft warning dialog again just now. Re-cleared the cookies and I'm good.
the_biot
If you have an Android phone or tablet, try Newpipe. It can even import YouTube subscriptions.
throwaway67743
Interestingly when the thread came up the other day I was seeing it, now I'm not, still a/b testing maybe, or stop harassing when the user just closes the window and doesn't come back
chatmasta
It's not aggressive as long as it still has an "X" in the top right of the modal. I'm sure it won't be much longer before that's gone...

I'm surprised they haven't started embedding ads in the m3u8 playlist like Twitch does.

serf
if you want to see aggressive, block that element.

the next time the function fires it will lock your scroll view and many page elements without a blockable overlay.

breput
You'll get that for awhile, then a time gated X, and finally a "three strikes" warning. Just delete your youtube.com cookies.