YouTube's ad-blocking crackdown goes global

edwardp

Android Authority reports YouTube is making everyone mad.

https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-ad-blocker-crackdown-growing-3380809/

https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/11/youtube-tries-to-kill-ad-blockers-in-push-for-ad-dollars-premium-subs/

Pesala

@edwardp Yes, people are so entitled these days. For decades, they have had everything for free, and now complain about having to skip a few ads, or pay for the Premium service.

Hundreds of thousands of YouTube Content Creators depend on ads or subscriptions to make a living, so ad-blockers are depriving them of income.

I enjoy the free content, and have done for many years, without seeing any ads. Now, I have to use a workaround, or skip a few ads, but I am not complaining. If the workaround stops working, or if the ads annoy me too much, I will just watch content on X or Vimeo, or do something more constructive like create some content of my own.

edwardp

@Pesala said in YouTube's ad-blocking crackdown goes global:

If the workaround stops working, or if the ads annoy me too much, I will just watch content on X or Vimeo, or do something more constructive like create some content of my own.

This is what I think might occur, if YouTube turns off too many users, they will go to other services.

I have watched a couple of videos recently, that had an ad (from a sponsor) in the middle of the video, which an ad-blocker can't stop, but it was possible to skip/fast-forward through it.

LonM

When you think about what YouTube had in mind (and then google bought, took over, and grew) it's quite insane - a free video sharing platform that anyone in the world can use. Serving video, even with the efficiency of scale costs a lot. They need to make enough money to break even on YouTube or they'll just shut it down (Google have done this time and again to other projects, even successful ones), and that would be culturally damaging.

But the amount of control they have over creative output (from over moderation, under moderation, monetisation, presentation) and wider issues (how much of web technology we have now was driven by their needs) is also insane. It would be better if creative output were more evenly distributed over the whole web. The insistence on making advertising dependent on big data is becoming legally untenable, and even people who accept the necessity of advertising don't really enjoy it. If advertising becomes an unsustainable model, that would be a good time for more distributed web video hosting.

I'm not sure what that would look like though. There are other central hosting platforms, there are distributed models like Peer-Tube. If the choice is between spending on a subscription to one site or pooling resources on a more open collective, I would pick the latter. In any case I have no real ties to YouTube, no login, only RSS subscriptions to a few channels, so I'm fascinated to see what happens next.

edwardp

Additional article:

https://www.extremetech.com/internet/google-expands-youtube-ad-blocker-detection

Catweazle

@Pesala, this question is not so simple, it is not about YT putting ads, which it has always done. Previously, content creators could choose if they wanted ads on their videos or not and what type. If they placed ads, YT paid them for the income and received a commission.

But now YT puts ads on the videos, way more as before, whether the author wants it or not and if he didn't want it, he doesn't receive any money for it, leaving YT with all the commission. On many occasions it places also dubious advertisers, as several cases of phishing showed.

This is because Google sees YT as extra income out of necessity after several million-dollar fines in the US and EU, ironically and precisely for these practices.

Before we considered the possibility of allowing ads, disconnecting the adblocker on channels that we wanted to support and not on others. This possibility no longer exists and we have to swallow ads no matter what, even in the most dubious content, or be blocked if we do not pay Premium, so, although we do not see ads, YT still tracks our activity to monetize it.

But as I said before, it will become counterproductive for YT (Cobra effect), by scaring away more and more content creators, who are going to look for other alternatives to upload and monetize the videos and more and more users who begin to use countermeasures, front-ends and adblockers, which before they did not do, which ultimately ends in a drop in income for YT and in poorer quality content.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=gIHi9yH6UB0

Pesala

@Catweazle Yes, Google is evil, but it is their house, so follow their rules. If we had any principles, we would not use YouTube, but the content is extensive. X will take years to catch up, but the video is getting better. It is fine for cute cat videos, etc.

As you say, it will likely harm their revenue. If it does, they will try some other tactic. I would suggest setting Premium to $3 a month, so that most users will pay for it.

My house, my rules. Take off your shoes when you come in, unless you're a cop or doing some work on my flat.

wintercoast

@LonM said in YouTube's ad-blocking crackdown goes global:

They need to make enough money to break even on YouTube or they'll just shut it down

I gather YouTube currently makes zero, hence why they're cracking down!

Catweazle

@Pesala, I agree with you in Google has the right to put its rules, but this isn't the question here to put conditions abusive that harm the content creators themselves, to please shareholders. Right and freedom end where it conflicts with the right and freedoms of others. A company can impose its conditions, but it cannot allow itself to go against its own clientele.

Criticism is the abuse of it's position, which will be self-destructive. There are many other ways to create income with YT, without destroying videos with advertorials in the middle and several unskippable ads, which are no usefull to anyone, least of all the author of the video.

The use of an adblocker is essential today for one's own security with so much garbage, scams and phishing that circulates on the internet, without a minimum of control over advertisers, not even Google can ignore this.

If they want the user to see ads and click on them, it is the company that should pay the user for this, instead of them receiving the profits and the user, apart from stealing the bandwidth they pay for, they leave them with the risk of being cheated.

RiveDroite

@Catweazle I don't see anything wrong with Google enforcing adblockers to be disabled. Video streaming is extremely expensive and the sheer volume of bandwidth necessary to run a site such as YouTube is mindboggling.

You don't think that Google/YouTube should get ad revenue for hosting the video? How would they afford to run the service?

wintercoast

@Catweazle said in YouTube's ad-blocking crackdown goes global:

If they placed ads, YT paid them for the income and received a commission.

But now YT puts ads on the videos, way more as before, whether the author wants it or not and if he didn't want it, he doesn't receive any money for it, leaving YT with all the commission.

It's up to them what they do here, though ideally it ought not be applied retrospectively to existing creators?

Either way what is really nasty and arguably fraudulent is this...

A creator is demonetised by Google for whatever reason meaning they judge that the content (a video or the whole channel) is not suitable for advertising.

But Google still runs the ads and pockets the revenue itself! That happens, although I don't know whether it's short-lived post-monetisation or not.

edwardp

WRT the videos I recently saw that contained sponsor commercials in the middle of them, if I were paying for YT Premium and saw one of those sponsor commercials in a video, it would be the last time I watched a video from that particular creator.

If more and more creators do this, which they currently have the right to do (unless YT eventually tells them they can't), I believe it defeats the purpose of offering a premium service. Whether it's an un-skippable ad placed anywhere in the stream, or a sponsor's commercial placed in the middle of a video, it's an ad that you shouldn't have to pay to see.

Catweazle

@RiveDroite, so far YT has made very good money with its platform (more than $30M net last year), far from having problems with its servers. Naturally, income is necessary for a streaming service, but as I said before, there are other methods to make money than bothering users and content creators, as they are doing now.

There are other streaming platforms that also make money using other policies and can even allow themselves to reward the user for subscribing to channels, as Odysee and others do, there is no need to abuse the income with prices that would embarrass even Netflix.

Look at the prices that YT Video Club requires for renting a movie, they are prices with which I would buy the video in a store.
It is not necessity that drives YT but pure greed, abusing its monopoly position.

No one would be bothered by seeing banners and advertising videos on the page, without having to hammer the videos with multiple ads, many of which are of dubious value. Adding clickbaits in almost all the thumbnails and the annoying habit of pausing the playlists after a certain time, with no option to avoid it, Premium or not, without using corresponding extensions (Clickbait Remover and YouTube non stop)

RiveDroite

@Catweazle I totally get what you're saying, but the costs of running YouTube are drastically higher than those of something like Odysee.

A banner ad doesn't pay enough.
I'm not familiar with YT Video Club though, but the prices for renting a movie, etc are set by the movie companies rather than YouTube is it not?

That being said, I'm no Google/YouTube apologist, just trying to see both sides. I have huge beefs with how YouTube handles demonitization and other topics, but I won't get into those here.

Catweazle

@RiveDroite, just look at Google's revenue to know that no one believes this "we're going to die of hunger when you don't sign up for YT Premium." YT I had income last year in amounts I never had before, but as I said, monopoly leads to abuse. No, it is not out of necessity, the same thing is going to happen with Twitter, after Musk bought it and destroyed it with disastrous administration and unacceptable conditions, which caused a massive flight of users, including journalists, companies and important people.
Well, Mastodon and Fediverse in general appreciated it.

Article in AlternativeTo

Despite efforts to reform its ad strategy, YouTube's decision to increase the price of YouTube Premium and discontinue the cheaper Premium Lite plan could impact its appeal to potential subscribers. Not to mention free alternatives that are gradually gaining more popularity, like PeerTube and NewPipe

As said, Cobra Effect, obviously unknown by current Admins and Accountances in Google. "F... the users and creartors, only the interests of shareholders and investors matter".

wintercoast

@edwardp said in YouTube's ad-blocking crackdown goes global:

WRT the videos I recently saw that contained sponsor commercials in the middle of them, if I were paying for YT Premium and saw one of those sponsor commercials in a video, it would be the last time I watched a video from that particular creator.

The reason you see a lot of them is primarily due to YT's irrational and unpredictable moderation/censorship rules such that no creator who is monetised can count on that always being the case and certainly not for every video they post.

YT's moderation is also another reason why there's no way I would ever pay for YouTube Premium. I'm not going to do that if I can't count on my favourite creators having all their content shown or with the chance that they can be deplatformed without notice.

wintercoast

@Catweazle said in YouTube's ad-blocking crackdown goes global:

No, it is not out of necessity, the same thing is going to happen with Twitter, after Musk bought it and destroyed it with disastrous administration and unacceptable conditions

Musk's decisions have been chaotic, to put it mildly. However, with respect to free speech, Twitter is better than it was under the previous management, and he uncovered illegal US state-laundered censorship via the Twitter Files (though there was mostly ignored evidence of this from almost exactly three years ago).

Azuraia

I run YT on Adblock Browser on mobile, and have an ad block on desktop. Edge. Yes, that Edge.
hides from possible criticism But I only watch silly fiction on it, so it is fine! Poor Explorer.

Pesala

News of X’s death have been greatly exaggerated

People are spending 14% more time on 𝕏, with a 20% increase consuming video
Gen-Z is the largest and fastest growing segment — almost 200 million every month
There's a ton of activity on 𝕏 — with 100 billion impressions every day
A lot of content is created by its users -- with 500 million posts a day on 𝕏
Every single day, 1.5 million people sign up (that's up 4% from last year)
Creators have 10x since June.
𝕏 has paid almost $20 million dollars to creators via its ad rev

Some content providers are making good money from 𝕏 — in a few years, it may be the platform of choice.

Elon’s Interview with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Elon is not the loose cannon that the MMM make him out to be. He is a deep thinker, and an expert in tech. Don’t forget that it was his company x.com that merged with PayPal, before he started Tesla with the profits for the sale of his stake.

He speaks the truth as he sees it, even if it is against his short-term financial interests.

Catweazle

Another nice Desktop client (FOSS), which works very well, no ads and not only for YT (OpenSource)

MotionBox accesses and aggregates videos via the VBML language.
It supports DuckDuckGo, BitTorrent, TMDB, Youtube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Twitch, TikTok, Facebook, Odysee, PeerTube, Last.fm and SoundCloud.
All of this inside multiple tabs and without ever showing an ad.

https://omega.gg/MotionBox/

I installed it and works great and blazing fast