Thoughts on AdBlock

[Rugg]

6 minutes ago, Smurf09 said:

What does FP stand for?

floatplane

[Smurf09]

48 minutes ago, Rugg said:

floatplane

Ok, now I understand.

[Wictorian]

53 minutes ago, Benji said:

Well, in general ad blockers are an excellent option. The issue is, sometimes it tends to break webpages even on a light setting. I used to use ad blockers but stopped due to exactly that, and the fact that I was/still am too lazy to use the whitelists. And I don't really mind the ads because a lot of webpages keep them in check and use non-toxic stuff. But there is specific webpages that overfloat with ads yet cry when you use an adblocker are still there, and they're annoying and not worth visiting anyway in my opinion.

What annoys me though is that YouTube is basically still the only one that really benefits from pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads and the creators don't get anything meaningful from it, yet about a year ago it got so extreme that, on ~10 minute videos, i get more than three mid-roll ads that are (especially in the case of large companies like Apple) ~20 seconds long and unskippable. And there's multiple of them. I know that people complain about TV because of that, but TV doesn't blast advertisement every 2-5 minutes, so in that regard YouTube turned into something much worse. And then there's YouTube Premium, which is probably also just a drop of water on a hot stone for the creators and YouTube is yet again the only one who benefits. And I'm supposed to pay 11.99€ per month just for having no ads without any other benefits for both me and the creators? Yeah, no, thank you.

 

What I find to be absolutely horrible and unacceptable is auto-play in general on websites that aren't media-centric like YouTube. You can disable audio and video autoplay in Firefox and limit it on every other webbrowser, but for some reason it only gets affected right upon webpage loading. Stay there ~5 seconds like you usually do, scroll a bit and you have auto-play videos , sometimes even with audio that still play in spite of the fact that auto-play media are disabled. Something seriously needs to be done about this, that's what eats all my data on the go because there simply isn't an option to actually disable that crap on any webbrowser, and even if there is a setting it seemingly gets ignored. But it doesn't get better as Google completely revoked the possibility to disable it. And in their blogpost concerning that, they were so bold to say "Our users are gonna love this: Videos are auto-play by default, but they're muted!". Who gives a crap and who actually loves this? Whether they're muted or not, they still waste computing resources and data.

With youtube premium you can also download videos. If you don't buy it and use adblock, that's piracy. 

[Wictorian]

9 hours ago, piratemonkey said:

I don't always watch ltt on fp. sometimes on yt. and way to contradict yourself saying your not against adblocking

I am not even against piracy so I guess its not

[piratemonkey]

5 hours ago, Smurf09 said:

What does FP stand for?

Floatplane. I buy it in an attempt to support ltt

 

Edit:I just realized that someone else responsed. Whoops

[Wictorian]

Just now, DriftMan said:

Your points don't make any sense

You are against adblockers, but not against piracy

I don't understand

I am not against adblockers as I said. Its just people are so strict with piracy and its not so different with adblockers. (Especially in youtube's case)

[piratemonkey]

1 minute ago, Wictorian said:

I am not even against piracy so I guess its not

What's the point of this post then? To say adblock is as bad as piracy, but that you're not actually against it?

[Levent]

4 minutes ago, Wictorian said:

With youtube premium you can also download videos. If you don't buy it and use adblock, that's piracy. 

How does that make any sense? You are not required to pay for anything you watch on youtube, then all of a sudden using adblocks to block content you dont want is piracy? Its like saying removing bird shit off my car is piracy because I parked under a tree.

[Moonzy]

11 minutes ago, Wictorian said:

If you don't buy it and use adblock, that's piracy

 

In all seriousness, you might wanna look up what is pirating, because it's very different from blocking ads in my book

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, Benji said:

What annoys me though is that YouTube is basically still the only one that really benefits from pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads and the creators don't get anything meaningful from it, yet about a year ago it got so extreme that, on ~10 minute videos, i get more than three mid-roll ads that are (especially in the case of large companies like Apple) ~20 seconds long and unskippable. And there's multiple of them. I know that people complain about TV because of that, but TV doesn't blast advertisement every 2-5 minutes, so in that regard YouTube turned into something much worse. And then there's YouTube Premium, which is probably also just a drop of water on a hot stone for the creators and YouTube is yet again the only one who benefits. And I'm supposed to pay 11.99€ per month just for having no ads without any other benefits for both me and the creators? Yeah, no, thank you.

Hold on there. You're seriously trying to tell me that YT creators get no benefit from YouTube Premium? That's the complete opposite of the truth - many creators have gone on record after YT Premium (formerly Red) launched, and they had a strong revenue increase due to it.

 

A YT Premium user is worth significantly more to LTT than a regular user who watches ads (let alone one who uses adblock).

 

Consider that the $11,99/mo is split among all your watch hours (plus of course Google's cut) - even if you watch dozens or even hundreds of hours worth of content per month, you're still substantially increasing the revenue per view.

 

A normal ad-supported view is worth something like 10% of a cent, if not far less, depending on the specific ad payouts at the time. A YT Premium view would be worth many times more then that.

 

And yes, $11.99 to skip ads? For many people, that's 100% worth it. For you? Maybe not. But the trade off is that you're supposed to watch the ads instead. Now, as I said earlier in the thread, if you're a FP subscriber or regularly buy merch/donate, then I'll give you a pass for adblock.

 

But the users that watch LTT religiously, with adblock, and don't sub or buy merch frequently? These people are not contributing at all to their favourite creators.

 

[podkall]

On 1/24/2021 at 11:59 PM, Wictorian said:

What are thoughts on Adblock? 
 

I personally find it even worse than piracy ( which I am actually not too strict about)

I use adblock, because I use youtube as my music playlist, and I do not want to hear every 3 minutes instead of songs an ad, let alone 2 ads let alone unskippable ad...

[Dudepeter2]

Here is my take on AdBlock software. While it does help to declutter a lot of websites on the internet and serves as a handy way to get interruption free browsing, at the end of the day you are directly cutting off part of a revenue source for sites that you use. The internet is a free platform (in most countries anyway, I'm looking at you Portugal) and other than the cost of being served a connection, you don't have to pay for searching the web. Some sites have paywalls and that is the way they have decided to make their money. Others want to be free and open access to all and to fund that (web ho0sting a large site is not cheap) they place adverts on the site.

 

I personally do not use AdBlock on my devices as I don't want the internet to turn into a fully pay walled service, which would happen if everyone used AdBlock. If you decide at the end of the day to use it, its your perogative but I personally want my internet to be open and free at the point of use. And if you don't want ads on your sites, then some sites have paid ad free subscriptions that get you extra benefits.