Experimental Youtube "feature" detects and blocks some users of ad blocking browser extensions on Youtube

[SpaceGhostC2C]

14 hours ago, Neroon said:

I get that people dislike or even hate what it has become, but I think people forget that it will always turn out this way. Publicly traded companies have a mandate to maximize profits. No one is gonna run something like YT out of the goodness of their hard. By all means hate capitalism, I know I do, but it won't change a thing.

It has nothing to do with being publicly traded companies or hating capitalism, at all. It has everything to do with market structure and antitrust regulation. It is not a novel situation, it is not anything that hasn't been solved in the past, and it isn't anything that has remained unchecked in other sectors either. If you're interested, I'll leave a brief sketch of the situation at the end of the post.

 

14 hours ago, Neroon said:

In the end, they offer a service,

No, they offer multiple services to multiple parties, and that's at the heart of the problem.

14 hours ago, Neroon said:

the deal to use that service is to either pay a fixed amount per month, or pay with your time through watching ads.

This is the old "the price is ads" ridiculous argument all over again. Now imagine saying "pay with dollars". How many dollars? How often? ".... the price is dollars". 10 dollars a month is a price. "We'll let you know" is not.

Not to mention the forever unanswered question about whether it's actually about watching ads, since people without ad blockers may actually not watch them either. The "price is ads" basically equates going to the bathroom during commercial breaks as piracy (or "breach of contract" if you will).

 

14 hours ago, Neroon said:

If you don't like either, then you can stop using it.

Or use it and don't watch the ads. Or use it and also use an adblocker. Or use it and don't use an adblocker and watch the ads. What you like, what you know to be better, and what you do are separate things. You may not like paying taxes yet comply with tax laws and even vote for governments that plan to increase them because you find it to be the overall better option.

 

14 hours ago, Neroon said:

But keep using it but bitch about them having a business model and need to disappear, makes you a hypocrite. So either keep using it, whether it be with blockers or not, and accept its existence, or stop using it.

I should ignore this but I guess the bear can't avoid the honeypot. No, there's nothing hypocrite about stating a fact about the inefficient and uncompetitive structure of a market. By your definition of hypocrisy, anyone stating that their local ISP is an unnecessary monopoly or that airlines collude to increase airfares should not advocate for proper legislation / enforcement, unless they're unplugged from the internet and never board a plane.

 

14 hours ago, Neroon said:

Ps you might not give a shit about Google making less, but remember you are also taking away from content creators through blocking ads. By all means you can also not give a shit about that either, but don't point a finger at Google for being 'evil', when you are part of the problem you take issue with, exploiting the creators.

Actually, you are taking from the creators by defending a business model that is not designed in their favor. Of course, to see that you would need to stop spewing nonsense about the messenger and actually take the time to understand the message, i.e., how vertical integration, which is not a necessary evil in this market, works against having a competitive environment and efficient allocations.

 

 

Now, for anyone interested in discussing the topic instead of people, here's the gist of it:

 

Spoiler

1. There are multiple agents:
   • Creators. They produce the actual videos. Under current copyright laws, that inherently gives them a degree of market power (they're monopolists of their content), which should grant (some of) them rents. They (could) operate in a similar environment as professional athletes.
   • Viewers: they watch the content.
   • Hosts: they provide the cloud storage for the videos (and the CDN to make streaming operational).
   • Platforms: they provide software to viewers so that they can search, browse, and play the videos. This can take the form of apps or websites.
   • Advertisers: they want people to consume their shit stuff. We're going to simplify and assume that the advertiser has an ad ready to go.
   • Ad brokers: marketing agencies advising advertisers on where to place its ads.
2. There are multiple markets:
   • The platform market: demand by viewers, supply by platforms
   • The content market: demand by viewers, supply by creators
   • The hosting market: demand by creators, supply by hosts
   • The ad market: demand by advertisers, supply by creators
   • The marketing market: demand by advertisers, supply by ad brokers

By now you may find yourself wondering why this doesn't sound like what we have today. The answer is simple: the current model is that a number of vertically integrated companies, most noticeably Google, are simultaneously acting as Host, Platform and Ad brokers. This integration collapses several markets into one, bypassing other agentes along the way, by means of fragmentation. Fragmentation creates artificial economies of network that aren't really there in the non-vertically integrated case: creators need to be where the viewers are and the viewers need to be where the creators are, but only due to vertical integration and lack of interoperability. It's an issue not far removed from the key elements of net neutrality: imagine a world where every browser, or every ISP, had a specific set of websites available, and if a website wanted to be present in several browsers/ISPs it had to clone and reupload itself separately to each of them, while internet users needed multiple browsers/ISP to reach all websites of their interest: that would quickly collapse into a single monopolistic browser/ISP. However, such monopoly would not arise from technological constraints or minimum efficient scale arguments, but purely out of the self-imposed fragmentation.

 

If anyone is actually interested, we could discuss more in depth how it all plays out, but the bottom line is: yes, hosting and distribution is expensive; yes, someone has to pay for it; no, that doesn't equate Google/Youtube, Amazon/Twitch etc. automatically; and yes, we may land in the bad equilibrium without adequate regulation (as we could have landed in so many other examples, and as it still may happen in currently well functioning markets if we don't enshrine net neutrality).

 

[tikker]

12 hours ago, IkeaGnome said:

You don't even have to click "I agree" in some places of the world for "contracts"

Farmer fined $61,000 for using thumbs-up emoji - BBC News

Gotta be careful with the "agree" reaction fo the forum, you'll never know what might happen.

11 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

on the same grounds one could argue that the "tos" is hidden,  because who would expect that to be in a "cookies" notice lol...

You are forced to see the cookie pop up, so in that regard it's not exactly hidden.

11 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

as said,  i just don't see how it's a legally binding contract if all you do is basically say "no"....  this is literally the opposite of what consumer protection laws are for... and youtube also never says "directly" you have to watch ads or something... simply their whole business model is not sustainable and in its current form probably not even legal not to mention "enforceable".

 

ps: i do agree though,  obviously,  these things need better regulations,  in youtubes case that means first and foremost they need to be seen as broadcasters, directly responsible for the content they're broadcasting daily... no lalala land wishy washy we aren't broadcasters nonsense,  i don't see how youtube would not have to adhere to the same standards as conventional tv...

Verbal agreements, click wraps etc. can all be legally binding. The important thing is to create physical and traceable evidence of the agreement to get them to an actual enforceable point. I fully agree that the internet space needs a revision of agreements thought, as indeed all this implicit stuff is just too confusing benefiting only the companies.

[Neroon]

On 10/21/2023 at 2:31 PM, Mark Kaine said:

... but that never was the deal...

 

If you (aka yt) wants this to be a deal you need to make it one, *members only*, not publicly available to none members,  all your issues will vanish at this instant.  But before you do that don't tell me there's a "deal" when there is none. 

 

To have a deal you need to have at least two parties agreeing on terms. look it up!  

That's a severe oversimplication of the law and what a deal is.

 

First of all getting ads or none at all, is not something that just happens, that's a choice.

Second, you are fully aware that ads are the way YT makes money.

Third, not knowing because it wasn't explicitly stated is a poor defense that doesn't hold up a lot of the time.

 

Everywhere you go there are rules, if you enter a store, you agree to their policies or get denied access or worse. Now you may not know all rules when you enter, but when you are made aware, and you choose to stay and don't explicitly reject them, you defacto accept them. In this case of YT there is no wiggle room, no opportunity to discuss the rules, you either accept them defacto by using their platform, or you leave. That's the deal. 

 

Oh and don't try to defend this with 'EU' law, I'm from there myself, it works that way here. Why? Well the biggest issue of a TOS is that they are generally not legally binding here. Reason is because it's unreasonable to assume that people will read pages of legal text to play for example a game. However customers are still expected to have some common sense. Who decides that? A judge.

 

And since again, you know they are not allowed, you are rejecting the deal to visit the site, yet you keep using it. You are not morally right here, nor legally.

Let's call it what it really is. Hypocrisy. 

 

 

[TetraSky]

Earlier today, videos wouldn't even load for me. It would show 0:00 / 0:00 on the timestamps and a black screen.

Disabled ublock. It worked (with ads). Reactivated it, black screen again.

Purged ublock's cache, now it works again (no ads).

It seems to truly be a game of cat and mouse now. Whether youtube can update faster than the adblockers...

[Mark Kaine]

33 minutes ago, Neroon said:

Let's call it what it really is. Nonsense. 

Fixed! 

 

i have explained my standpoint thoroughly and just repeating "what the deal" is, isn't gonna change it, because there's simply *no deal* 

 

i do not have a contract with google and you can't make me.

 

 

additionally i have proposed giving the users a "choice" between ads and upright paying, without explicitly saying it is most likely not a legal way to conduct business.  

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

12 hours ago, tikker said:

Gotta be careful with the "agree" reaction fo the forum, you'll never know what might happen.

You are forced to see the cookie pop up, so in that regard it's not exactly hidden.

Verbal agreements, click wraps etc. can all be legally binding. The important thing is to create physical and traceable evidence of the agreement to get them to an actual enforceable point. I fully agree that the internet space needs a revision of agreements thought, as indeed all this implicit stuff is just too confusing benefiting only the companies.

well, obviously i agree especially with your last statement... and youtube is especially bad with it and people are extremely oblivious apparently,  saying there's some kind of "contract" when all they do is give you a choice of accepting cookies, and a tos that you would need to explicitly look for - and additionally you can just deny both, that's the textbook definition of *no deal*.

 

For the gazillionth time: make it members only,  all these problems will be gone immediately,  you can still have a "free tier" <- but don't call it that, because saying "free" when it really isnt is also illegal in the EU lol.

 

 

[Neroon]

12 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Fixed! 

 

i have explained my standpoint thoroughly and just repeating "what the deal" is, isn't gonna change it, because there's simply *no deal* 

 

i do not have a contract with google and you can't make me.

 

 

additionally i have proposed giving the users a "choice" between ads and upright paying, without explicitly saying it is most likely not a legal way to conduct business.  

 

 

You keep saying it's not legal, no one is agreeing, no one is sueing Google or any other website with a similar approach. Same with stores who maintain their own rules.

 

Maybe, just maybe, it's you, and not the rest of the world that is wrong. 

 

But stay strong, keep complaining how YT treats their creators, while you actively leech from both.

[tikker]

18 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

you can just deny both

Except you cannot. There is no "I reject the ToS" button that grants you access and that is part of the problem. A one-sided contract is still a contract.

18 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

but don't call it that, because saying "free" when it really isnt is also illegal in the EU lol.

Why not? You'd have to check the legal definition of free. Does it mean no monetary compensation? no explicit compensation agreed upon in the contract? Which law about "free" is YouTube violating currently by letting you sign up and use the service without having to pay anything for it? Does showing ads on services make it not free anymore? I don't know. Not to my knowledge, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

 

In that light. it would be good if the "EU says it's illegal" can come with references to the relevant parts of the laws from this point on as we're getting stuck in opinions about what constitutes a contract or what should and shouldn't be legal. The fact that they are discussing it/looking into it totally highlights that these things could be seen as unfair practises, but until they explicitely say it is illegal (I'd be happy to be linked to it) or someone successfully sues them such that we have legal precendent, these things are not.

[dalekphalm]

On 10/20/2023 at 10:49 AM, Dracarris said:

I don't know where you're reading that I was ever talking about a YT Music subscription. I compared the price for YT Premium, which includes YT Music, with the price for other music-only subscriptions to work out the difference, aka the surcharge for the Youtube video premium subscription, aka everything everyone actually cares about that already has Spotify - Just as you did, too. Now, I arrived at 3$ difference, you at 2$.

You said YT Music in your post, which is why I assumed you were talking about YT Music. Based on this reply, I'm going to assume you mistyped YT Music and meant to say YT Premium.

 

This is the quote I replied to:

Quote

Lets assume YT Music and Spotify are equally valuable. The former costs 14$ a month, the latter 11$. So that makes 3$ difference, and this is exactly what YT Premium should cost IMHO. This is the price I'd pay Google to run a CDN for me, which is essentially what they do.

Emphasis mine. Apologies for the miscommunication but this reads like you're talking about YT Music and not YT Premium.

 

The cost difference between YT Music and Premium likely varies based on the exact currency in question - mine being CAD. I assume yours is USD but it could be any number of currencies. Regional pricing isn't always 1:1 when converting across currencies and regions.

On 10/20/2023 at 10:49 AM, Dracarris said:

Except that people are on Spotify Duo/family plans, so leaving those would incur higher cost for the others. And for several reasons, not everyone wants to leave their favorite music streaming service (existing playlists, available content and so on) just because Google can't offer a sensible video-only Premium subscription. They bundle things together that should not be bundled to make more money, bcs probably only a tiny fraction of YT Premium subscribers actually makes any use of the YT Music part.

Family/Duo plans are a whole-nother question unto themselves.

 

I'm not saying that users need to ditch Spotify, or whatever their preferred streaming platform in, but if you're a new subscriber, the difference between the big music streaming platforms isn't generally very big anymore.

 

I also fully agree that YT should offer a cheaper YT-only subscription, without Music. Whether it should be $2-3 month like we calculated above, or more, is a market question. I would honestly say if they had a plan $7/mo or less with no YT Music, a lot of people would sign up for that. I would pay $6/mo for YT no-ads, for example.

On 10/20/2023 at 10:49 AM, Dracarris said:

True, but never at the same time for a given user:

- For regular users, YT gets x $ of ad revenue and splits it between themselves and the creators

- For Premium users, YT gets y $ of sub fee and splits it between themselves and the creators

 

On 10/20/2023 at 10:49 AM, Dracarris said:

Now, following the calculation above y is 3$ per Premium user and month.

Given how they don't give a super detailed breakdown of the Premium fee, I don't think we can say that only $3 from the sub goes to YT creators, but I do understand where you're coming from.

On 10/20/2023 at 10:49 AM, Dracarris said:

Is x more than 3$ per month, for the average user? Most probably not, as has been pointed out time and time again that ad revenue is rather small.

Based on everything that creators talked about from when YT Red (and eventually Premium) got rolled out, Ad revenue for a user is a fraction of what the subscription revenue would be for a comparable user. Frankly even if the sub was $3/mo (which I would not expect - I'd expect at least $5/mo if not more), they're probably still making more money than from ads.

On 10/20/2023 at 10:49 AM, Dracarris said:

With their current model and (probably) so few subscribers actually using YT Music, the available y share can be assumed to be around 10$. So by mandatorily bundling the music services that nobody asked for they've effectively increased the cost/revenue for video Premium substantially, and that sneaky strategy pisses me off.

I understand that - and I agree, hence why I believe there should be a non-Music subscription for Premium.

On 10/20/2023 at 10:49 AM, Dracarris said:

So if YT offered a 3$ premium subscription or heck, lets say a 5$ one, they'd probably already make much more money than with the current model since sub-5$ subscriptions are probably a no-brainer for a vast amount of people.

I agree. Even if they increased the fee to say $6 or $7, they'd capture a much larger market share than with the current Premium fee.

On 10/20/2023 at 10:49 AM, Dracarris said:

It should not be locked behind any paywall whatsoever. It's the most BS product segmentation imaginable and only increases resource costs for everyone. Google, Carriers/ISPs, and end user.

*shrugs*, most software delineations between free vs paywall are ultimately arbitrary. If this is a feature they want to lock behind a paywall, let them. Of course, if there were more actual YT competitors, this would be less of an issue. There are things like Nebula, but those are strictly paid services and I don't believe they offer a free tier.

 

I respect that you have the opinion you have and you think it shouldn't be locked behind the subscription. Personally I just don't care about the feature.

On 10/20/2023 at 10:49 AM, Dracarris said:

That's true, and I'd be jolly fine if the 3-5$ tier only included the higher-bitrate 1080p and/or the 1440p quality setting.

Personally I do not want YT to get into the business of locking quality settings behind subscription tiers, but as long as the non-Music tier had access to full quality, they could absolutely include an even cheaper tier that had lower quality only.

On 10/20/2023 at 10:49 AM, Dracarris said:

As for managing/financing the vast amount of data uploaded to YT every minute: Well yeah, that should be sustainable with 0 Premium users. And quite frankly it's not the users task to take care of that.

I do not agree with this statement. How YT monetizes and how they make it work is ultimately up to them and their shareholders, assuming the end user finds a particular available method that they're okay with.

 

YT is probably not sustainable as a purely ad-driven experience. Especially with the rise of ad-blockers becoming more and more popular.

 

I am absolutely okay with YT being sustainable but only with some users subscripting to Premium. Doubly so if YT gets off their asses and introduces a cheaper non-Music tier.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Especially with the rise of ad-blockers becoming more and more popular.

Well if Google didnt sell ad space to people peddling scams and malware they wouldn't have that issue. But ever since I had an ad try to give me malware I will use ad block. Fuck them and their sustainability.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

Well if Google didnt sell ad space to people peddling scams and malware they wouldn't have that issue. But ever since I had an ad try to give me malware I will use ad block. Fuck them and their sustainability.

To be honest, there's only one solution to this, and it's exactly why ads on TV are far more consistent. And yes, a lot of people are not going to like my answer:

Regulate ads over the internet.

 

There need to be strict requirements on ads for things like YouTube and other ad-supported services. Including things like whether the ad is skippable (how long until you can skip), total max length of the ad, the ad content, etc.

 

If we want ads to not-suck, we have to force ad-serving companies to make them not-suck.

[jagdtigger]

The plot thickens:

 

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

The plot thickens:

 

What do you mean "the plot thickens"? 

[Lightwreather]

4 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

The plot thickens:

 

I uhhh, I have to ask… Did ya read that correctly?

[CarlBar]

4 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

The plot thickens:

 

 

Oh boy, that is not gonna go over well.

[suicidalfranco]

5 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

The plot thickens:

 

think of the poor corporation who never lie and needs the cash from both ads and subs to keep the lights on at youtube

[jagdtigger]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

What do you mean "the plot thickens"? 

Pay for no ads but still get them?

7 hours ago, Lightwreather JfromN said:

I uhhh, I have to ask… Did ya read that correctly?

Yes. Pays for premium and still gets ads. The whole point of premium IMO is to not get ads (and i dont care about the method and/or form).

[Taf the Ghost]

The "addressable inventory" pull will always be too much for ad-free tiers to remain. Companies are eventually going to have the Ad-Free and "better, but still with Ads" tiers be 3-4x price differences just to push you into the watching Ads model.

[LAwLz]

11 hours ago, CarlBar said:

Oh boy, that is not gonna go over well.

11 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

think of the poor corporation who never lie and needs the cash from both ads and subs to keep the lights on at youtube

4 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Pay for no ads but still get them?

Yes. Pays for premium and still gets ads. The whole point of premium IMO is to not get ads (and i dont care about the method and/or form).

You are not reading the tweet correctly.

What Dave is trying is saying is this:

"I have Youtube Premium so I don't get ads. I tried Youtube without Premium recently and noticed this annoying type of ad. For how long has this type of ad existed?".

 

He is not saying "I am now starting to see ads even though I use Youtube Premium". I can see how you could read his tweet that way, but clearly, there are two ways of interpreting it and one doesn't really make much sense sense. What he meant was the way I rephrased it first. It wouldn't make any sense for Youtube to push ads to Premium subscribers. They are trying to get people to subscribe to Premium, and it would greatly devalue the service if they started putting ads in it.

 

Dave is saying "Youtube without premium has some awful ads". He is not saying "Youtube with Premium now get awful ads".

[Blademaster91]

4 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Yes. Pays for premium and still gets ads. The whole point of premium IMO is to not get ads (and i dont care about the method and/or form).

I'm reading it as they have YT premium but still get an ad below the video anyway, I don't see how people are reading that otherwise except wanting to defend youtube/google.

So not only do you pay and google still takes your data, now you get an annoying ad below the video.

It wouldn't surprise me if youtube is testing a paid with ads tier by throwing in ads even if you pay.

[jagdtigger]

20 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

You are not reading the tweet correctly.

An ad is an ad, period. Not you nor youtube will weasel their way out by saing "oh its not an ad because of placement, format, naming, etc".

[LAwLz]

26 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I'm reading it as they have YT premium but still get an ad below the video anyway, I don't see how people are reading that otherwise except wanting to defend youtube/google.

So not only do you pay and google still takes your data, now you get an annoying ad below the video.

It wouldn't surprise me if youtube is testing a paid with ads tier by throwing in ads even if you pay.

Then you are also reading it wrong. Stop being close-minded.

No, you do not pay and still get annoying ads. That is not what the tweet says. Reread my post if you still don't understand what the tweet is trying to say.

 

Just because you're wrong and I am telling you the facts of reality does not mean I am someone who just "want to defend Youtube/Google".

Hell, if I wanted to defend Youtube then I did a pretty shitty job because I called their ads terrible.

 

 

14 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

An ad is an ad, period. Not you nor youtube will weasel their way out by saing "oh its not an ad because of placement, format, naming, etc".

I never said those things in the picture weren't ads.

What I am saying is that you misunderstood his tweet and jumped to conclusions. I recommend you stop and think things through before reacting to them the next time.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

An ad is an ad, period. Not you nor youtube will weasel their way out by saing "oh its not an ad because of placement, format, naming, etc".

An advertisement is a visual or text fragment that features something else that is not part of the content. Period. All those recommended videos? Are also ads.

 

Easy way to tell, if you cut the "ad" out, is the content compromised?

 

There are other kinds of content, like the sponsor segments in LTT videos, which you could straight up edit right before Linus says "about our sponsor" and cut directly to after the sponsored ad, and the integrity of the video is maintained. Most ad reads are like this.  

 

Contrast that with licensed content (eg music) where cutting it out of a video or a game actually compromises the content and makes it incomplete.  There are entire television shows that were broadcast with licensed music, but when they were put on DVD the music was replaced with covers, or even the same generic 8-note riff over and over. All because the producer of the DVD's was unwilling to pay to license the music again, or more likely, too much money was asked for, when ultimately the DVD is a niche interest. 1m people might see it on TV, but maybe only 1000 people will buy the disc.

 

Most websites, do not integrate advertisements particularly well, and straight up blocking the domain the ad javascript is served from, or even just blocking the CDN the jquery library is pulled from is enough to make the site work without displaying any ads, any requests to subscribe, any intercept ads, any video ads, and cookie nag screens.

 

Advertisements are something of a house of cards for the vast majority of websites. You can straight up block one library script, usually served on it's own domain and all the ads are blocked, no ad blocker needed. This is pretty much how "pihole" works. Client-sided ad blocking software is detectable because both use javascript and how the blocker changes the website can be detected by the client-sided javascript.

 

It's also super easy to break that kind of ad blocking. Just toss a few random css names that the ad blocker will block blindly into the body tag, and poof, the the site is only broken because the visitor is blocking the ads. Which again, if you block the javascript, suddenly the site works fine. Most people can not be bothered to take this scalpel approach to blocking ads, and instead just block everything, and then cry when the site doesn't work properly.

[Spotty]

6 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Pay for no ads but still get them?

Yes. Pays for premium and still gets ads. The whole point of premium IMO is to not get ads (and i dont care about the method and/or form).

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

I'm reading it as they have YT premium but still get an ad below the video anyway, I don't see how people are reading that otherwise except wanting to defend youtube/google.

In the screenshot that is included with the tweet it shows that he is not signed in to a Youtube account. You need to be signed in to access Youtube Premium features, including the removal of ads. While I agree the way the tweet was written was ambiguous it does appear he is referring to ads shown on Youtube without Premium. If somebody was seeing ads with a Premium account it would make sense for them to show that the ad is displaying while they are logged in to their premium account, and very little sense for them to do it while logged out.

[CarlBar]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

In the screenshot that is included with the tweet it shows that he is not signed in to a Youtube account. You need to be signed in to access Youtube Premium features, including the removal of ads. While I agree the way the tweet was written was ambiguous it does appear he is referring to ads shown on Youtube without Premium. If somebody was seeing ads with a Premium account it would make sense for them to show that the ad is displaying while they are logged in to their premium account, and very little sense for them to do it while logged out.

 

Good catch, completely missed that.