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

[Vishera]

2 hours ago, starsmine said:

2 hours ago, Arika S said:

i decided to turn adblock off for a day a few months ago, 3rd video i got a porn ad on youtube....went straight back on.

bulllllshit

It's real, I have examples but they are too graphic for the forums.

[Curufinwe_wins]

42 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Nope, it's the objective truth, that is exactly what adblock was made to do. And then adblock tried to monetize it.

 

Just to be clear. This is stuff that even the most basic research would have told you.

 

First adblocking extention available, Internet Fast Forward was created and administered by a company selling privacy software to other companies to help prevent government spying amongst other things. This is from the one of the founders:

 

Quote

At PGP, [Internet Fast Forward] was part of the privacy suite. We still continued to ship it and make it a piece, but it was fun to watch it go open source. It really was, I think, the right thing for it to become something that multiple vendors had and that, you know, it's kind of core to your experience. I mean, ultimately I think the web would be a far worse place if it weren't for ad blockers. That's the only thing that keeps the worst of ad marketers' intentions in check.

The Register: How have things changed since then? Do you think about ad blocking differently now?

Hoffman: No, not really. It was always about individual empowerment. It wasn't about saying that ads are bad necessarily. I ended up owning and running Rollingstone.com and Emusic and selling ads, right?

 

But it was making sure people got to choose, especially back in the day when you were on a 56k modem. I mean the ad content back then was getting disgusting. And we saw an echo of that – there was this period, I guess, eight-ish years ago where the mobile networks hadn't really caught up with the amount of ads that your mobile browser was getting. It solved itself to some extent but that caused another major kind of wave of adoption of ad blockers because it was like, "Look, you know, I can't even read the content because there're so many ads coming down my 3G connection."

https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/08/interview_gene_hoffman/

 

And for Adblock itself (ADP is the one that is pushing the edge of extortion there): 

https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-the-inventor-of-the-ad-blocker-henrik-aasted-srensen-2015-7

 

Quote

"I suppose some people expect Adblock to have been created in a fit of anti-capitalist rage, or as an idealistic effort to return the internet to its less commercial roots," Sørensen said. "What actually happened is I was supposed to be cramming for an upcoming exam at university [in Copenhagen, where he studied internet technology and computer science.] As a procrastination project, I decided to try out the relatively new possibility of creating extensions for the Phoenix browser — which is the browser that eventually got renamed Firefox. The idea was primarily to try out a new development environment and move a bit out of my development comfort zone."

 

An existing extension to remove ads already did exist, but it was based on image size. Sørensen figured that a more efficient approach would be to filter ads based on the address of the image, since ads tend to be centralized at specific addresses. The original version of Adblock didn't actually prevent the ads from being downloaded, but just hid them from the page, according to the filters you defined. Unlike modern ad blockers, it also required the user to maintain their own filter lists.

 

------

 

Some other older reputable discussion points (since I have noted that I think the problem is actually less severe today than 10-20 years ago), from cisco itself

https://www.pcmag.com/news/online-advertising-more-likely-to-spread-malware-than-porn

Quote

Cisco's 2013 Annual Security Report (ASR) revealed that the highest concentration of online security threats are found not among pornography, pharmaceutical, or gambling sites, but instead on major search engines, retail pages, and social media outlets.

 

According to the ASR, online shopping sites are 21 times more likely and search engines 27 times more likely to deliver a malicious package to your PC as a counterfeit software site. But neither compare to online advertisements, which are the riskiest of all—ads are 182 times more likely to gift you a virus as scouring the Net for porn, according to Cisco.

 

[Vishera]

5 hours ago, Kisai said:

It's fine to disagree, but it doesn't change the point that adblocking is always done as a spiteful thing first

54 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Nope, it's the objective truth, that is exactly what adblock was made to do. And then adblock tried to monetize it.

 

Spiteful?, Objective truth? and Ignoring the points i made when it's convenient?!

More like your subjective opinion.

 

The truth is that there are legitimate reasons to block ads outside the "ads are annoying",

Security and privacy are legitimate reasons to block ads and i have tons of evidence to back that up which some if it i already presented.

But you?, You ignore that and brush it to the sidelines failing to disprove it.

[Curufinwe_wins]

On 5/11/2023 at 10:34 AM, Vishera said:

Spiteful?, Objective truth? and Ignoring the points i made when it's convenient?!

More like your subjective opinion.

 

The truth is that there are legitimate reasons to block ads outside the "ads are annoying",

Security and privacy are legitimate reasons to block ads and i have tons of evidence to back that up which some if it i already presented.

But you?, You ignore that and brush it to the sidelines failing to disprove it.

Hi, Vishera, I think you misunderstood or misquoted my comment. I'll go back and edit it. I was additionally pointing out the ridiculous stupidity < removed >

 

I fully agree with you.

Edited May 14, 2023 by SansVarnic
Removed content.

[Vishera]

Just now, Curufinwe_wins said:

Hi, Vishera, I think you misunderstood my comment. I'll go back and edit it. I was additionally pointing out the ridiculous stupidity of the comment from Kisai.

 

I fully agree with you.

It's a bug in the quoting system, i quoted Kisai, you never said what i quoted yet it says you said that.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Just now, Vishera said:

It's a bug in the quoting system, i quoted Kisai, you never said what i quoted yet it says you said that.

All good

[Vishera]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

There have also been cases where actual harmful code have been executed through ads. Maybe not on YouTube but on fairly large and trusted websites.

It happened on YouTube, In one case of that happening a crypto miner script was embedded into a YouTube ad.

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I think it even happened on this forum at one point but I might be misremembering. 

I did happen, It was actually me who reported this.

The Amazon ads on the forums had trackers embedded into them that collect data about your browsing habits inside the LTT forums and send that data to Amazon, spying on you.

And that contradicts the privacy policy of the LTT forums.

 

In the end it was removed and all is good now.

[GhostRoadieBL]

11 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

They should have every right to deny people service if they don't purchase for ad-free or are using an ad-blocker.

My perspective on this is the same as a company changing the components of a product after it has been sold for a while in order to make more profit.

 

Normalizing the 'free' video platform (which was never free when your Metadata holds more value to these companies than any ad view) then changing the quality of the service, changing the 'free' aspect of the platform while still extracting profits higher than ever each year?

 

If the company wasn't increasing profits each year and just 'needing more ads to sustain the platform', I have no issues keeping the platform functional. This is not the case, 46% year over year revenue increases while not reinvesting into the creators of content, reducing the number of ads or easing back on the metadata collection?

None of that sounds like a business struggling to make a better product, it's 100% a company who found a monopoly and is now extracting every penny before being regulated to be better.

[HenrySalayne]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I mean, of course it's artificially limited. Youtube without ads is also an "artificial limit" they impose on non-premium users. I don't really think it's bad of them to limit some things to their premium users.

I meant "premium lite" and premium should be distinguished by YT music, not basic functionality like background play. IMHO this would incentivise adblock users to switch to a subscription, while premium lite currently offers no benefit to adblock users.

Convenience is a big factor in adoption rates.

[Brooksie359]

14 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

YouTube rn with ADs for a video that's longer than 5 minutes is almost unwatchable.

 

Premium is £12 per month. I would hardly call that cheap when it costs only £7 (£2 extra) to remove ADs from Netflix.

 

Also a lot of the ADs on YT are creepy AF.

I mean yeah if you don't watch much youtube then premium doesn't make much sense but tbh I watch more youtube than I do Netflix so premium makes sense. Also its not like youtube can realistically not run ads as they need to both cover the cost of the website and their employees but also give a good chunk of the ad revenue to the creators which youtube is actually much better at giving its creators a good portion of the ad revenue vs twitch for example. Honestly I don't see any problem with this so long as it's mostly youtube. I don't like it when my ad block starts to not work on other sites especially when pop-ups are involved. 

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

I meant "premium lite" and premium should be distinguished by YT music, not basic functionality like background play. IMHO this would incentivise adblock users to switch to a subscription, while premium lite currently offers no benefit to adblock users.

Convenience is a big factor in adoption rates.

The biggest reason why I have premium is for mobile and just to support creators more rather than running adblock and feeling like I am taking away from creators. For twich I use turbo and subscribe to the streamers that I watch often. Then again most of my video watching is on those two platforms so I don't need to pay for other streaming services really. 

[BondiBlue]

14 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I have from time to time considered paying for YouTube premium since I watch quite a lot of it. But since every video nowadays is full of ads that don't go away with premium (in-video ads) I feel like I'd still have to use extensions or third party clients to block those, and at that point I might as well block all ads to begin with. 

I've been a YouTube Premium user for years now (since YouTube Red), and I feel it's worth it. I just skip ads baked into videos manually, and they don't usually annoy me too bad (the channels I watch aren't super pushy with ads), so I don't use any other extensions or third party clients. 

 

In my opinion it's nice to just be able to log into YouTube on whatever device I'm on with the official client and not have to do anything extra to block ads. No ads when I'm watching on a TV, my phone, a computer, etc. 

[Arika]

8 hours ago, Kisai said:

Nope, it's the objective truth, that is exactly what adblock was made to do.

So how do you resolve your "objective truth" (it's not objective) with the fact that if you hit "skip ad" on youtube, then the creator doesn't get paid for that partial ad?

 

i block ads because i hate them, maybe that is spite, but it's spite against ads, i've never seen an ad in my lifetime where i've thought "i must now go get that thing!" or "i have to x for that!", so if i don't block them, now advertisers have to pay for my view with exactly a 0% chance of a return. that hurts the advertiser. or are we only caring about creators getting their money and not advertisers?

 

If youtube was smart, then they would offer a "pre-paid" option. if my views are only worth 0.1c then let me throw $10 worth of credit at google and i'm good for 10,000 videos, that would certainly last me a while and more financially responsible than $15 a month for a whole bunch of extra crap i wont use and wouldn't even get close to 15,000 videos a month.

[AlTech]

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

I mean yeah if you don't watch much youtube then premium doesn't make much sense

Or if you don't feel like getting bombarded with ADs.

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

but tbh I watch more youtube than I do Netflix so premium makes sense.

 

Also its not like youtube can realistically not run ads as they need to both cover the cost of the website and their employees but also give a good chunk of the ad revenue to the creators which youtube is actually much better at giving its creators a good portion of the ad revenue vs twitch for example.

Citation needed.

 

Also comparing YT to Twitch in this way is like saying getting robbed by a man in a suit who has a baseball bat is better than getting robbed by a bad guy wearing balaclava and holding a gun; yes it's better but not getting robbed would be preferable.

 

YT's 45% is miserable. Non video platforms pay out at least 70% if not higher.

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly I don't see any problem with this so long as it's mostly youtube. I don't like it when my ad block starts to not work on other sites especially when pop-ups are involved. 

What makes YouTube different?

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, Arika S said:

So how do you resolve your "objective truth" (it's not objective) with the fact that if you hit "skip ad" on youtube, then the creator doesn't get paid for that partial ad?

If you were using youtube you'd realize you can't skip ads shorter than 15 seconds and every video now has like two unskippable ads.

 

3 hours ago, Arika S said:

i block ads because i hate them, maybe that is spite, but it's spite against ads, i've never seen an ad in my lifetime where i've thought "i must now go get that thing!" or "i have to x for that!", so if i don't block them, now advertisers have to pay for my view with exactly a 0% chance of a return. that hurts the advertiser. or are we only caring about creators getting their money and not advertisers?

 

If youtube was smart, then they would offer a "pre-paid" option. if my views are only worth 0.1c then let me throw $10 worth of credit at google and i'm good for 10,000 videos, that would certainly last me a while and more financially responsible than $15 a month for a whole bunch of extra crap i wont use and wouldn't even get close to 15,000 videos a month.

No it's spite against the platform and the creator. If you use youtube, and you don't want the ads, they offer you the ad-free service right there called Premium. You not paying for premium, and instead choosing the block the ads, is exactly the same as pirating any other digital content. The content has a price tag, and you just chose to ignore it and take it anyway.

 

That is being spiteful against the creator. If the creator wanted their video to be available for free without ads, they'd just create a torrent for it and not give a care who downloads it, but you know what happens then? Someone ELSE takes the video and sticks it on youtube. Ever wonder how Youtube became succssful in the first place? People stealing videos off newgrounds and niconicodouga. Because videos of that content didn't exist. So you can go back a decade and see a lot of "hypercam" or "fraps" unregistered watermarks on that old stuff.

 

People are more than willing to steal digital content when there is nothing in their way of doing so. They do not see digital content as having any value. If LTT decided to just one day stop putting videos on youtube and keep everything exclusive to floatplane, what would happen is people would reupload the videos to youtube anyway, and LTT wouldn't benefit at all from those.

 

If you are a creator, putting your videos and music on youtube is a necessary evil, because if you don't someone else will and they will get paid for it instead.

 

Less you think channels that are aggregations of tiktoks actually asked permission to make their "daily" videos for youtube.

 

[Brooksie359]

32 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Or if you don't feel like getting bombarded with ADs.

Citation needed.

 

Also comparing YT to Twitch in this way is like saying getting robbed by a man in a suit who has a baseball bat is better than getting robbed by a bad guy wearing balaclava and holding a gun; yes it's better but not getting robbed would be preferable.

 

YT's 45% is miserable. Non video platforms pay out at least 70% if not higher.

What makes YouTube different?

I can't remember the specific video because there are alof of videos that cover this topic. Typically youtube has better ad rates in general due to better analytics one users meaning targeted ads which case better rates than twitch that has very little analytics on users and just sells ads to be played to all users. Also youtube does ad revenue percentages rather than twitch that does flat fees for ads which typically end up being alot less than what you would get through youtube. If I had to reference anything it would be Devin Nash who does alot of videos on these types of topics for fun and is real job is related to marketing. Basically working with companies to work with content creators for sponsorship deals. Also what makes youtube ads different is they are way less intrusive and aren't so obnoxious and also just for security reasons I would rather that my adblock work on other websites. 

[Arika]

6 minutes ago, Kisai said:

The content has a price tag, and you just chose to ignore it and take it anyway.

the price tag is 0.1c for an ad. that does not equate to $15 a month. Youtube's monetisation is fucked. If it was cheaper and actually inline with how i use it, then yes, i would pay. for the price they are asking; it's not. (see my pre-paid suggestion).

 

So again, based on everything you are saying, you only care about the creator getting paid, not the advertiser who is paying for their ad to be viewed and to be 100% ignored with 0 return. you seem to perfectly fine with them getting screwed.

 

There has been a large number of creators that i have subscribed to for a single month, either through YT or through a patreon (or equivalent) to support them, and that money i guarantee is more than my entire watch history with them if i kept ads on.

 

[hishnash]

17 minutes ago, Arika S said:

 

So again, based on everything you are saying, you only care about the creator getting paid, not the advertiser who is paying for their ad to be viewed and to be 100% ignored with 0 return. you seem to perfectly fine with them getting screwed.

Most video adverts are not done with the expectation of direct return, they are market awareness ads, the idea is that it gets your brain falmilar to the brand, icon, colors, names etc so when you see it again in 6 months you have a vague memory about that brand and that leads to trust. You're not 100% sure were you head about it but the fact you herd about it and you don't have a negative memory is perfect this exactly want they want. 

[GhostRoadieBL]

Here's a wild idea, might not work but maybe it could.

YouTube acts as a sponsor link between companies and creators, still takes the same cut as ads but the creators get to do the ad reads and have the ability to not work with/show ads for brands they don't like.

YouTube goes on selling metadata for huge profits from user data, channels gain more control over the ads which helps balance new creators' access to sponsors while established channels move onto their own deals and paying YouTube a hosting fee once they start making outside deals worth more than the balanced sposorship profits would bring in.

YouTube still gets revenue from ads, meta-data sales, premium 4k video/downloads/music/movies etc, viewers don't have to sit through cringe ads because the creator does the sponsor read and has some creative license, ad companies still push products, and the overall system works better for funding small to mid-size creators who need sponsorship to grow while not taking from large channels who work their own deals outside of YouTube anyway.

[Kisai]

30 minutes ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

Here's a wild idea, might not work but maybe it could.

YouTube acts as a sponsor link between companies and creators, still takes the same cut as ads but the creators get to do the ad reads and have the ability to not work with/show ads for brands they don't like.

YouTube goes on selling metadata for huge profits from user data, channels gain more control over the ads which helps balance new creators' access to sponsors while established channels move onto their own deals and paying YouTube a hosting fee once they start making outside deals worth more than the balanced sposorship profits would bring in.

YouTube still gets revenue from ads, meta-data sales, premium 4k video/downloads/music/movies etc, viewers don't have to sit through cringe ads because the creator does the sponsor read and has some creative license, ad companies still push products, and the overall system works better for funding small to mid-size creators who need sponsorship to grow while not taking from large channels who work their own deals outside of YouTube anyway.

You can already do that with StreamElements. You basically get asked to play raid shadow legends and other gambling/lootbox-oriented games or nothing but hello-fresh.

 

I'd be perfectly fine with doing/having the sponsorships, if I would use it myself, and that's one of the reasons why I'd never accept most sponsorships. They are almost entirely US-oriented, I can't use/play it with a straight face, or the conditions to actually get the sponsorship money is a joke.

Cool, nearly $2000... now what's the catch?

So really it's only $35. In order to get that maximum value, you need to convince at least two viewers to play to level 12, and you need to complete to level 25. AND you need to spend $30 in the game. You could maybe compel me to play the game at least once, but I know the viewers I have will not. I typically will not play these games, and I would have a hard time restraining my disdain for gacha mechanics.

 

But what about HelloFresh. Something you've certainly seen LTT have as a sponsor. $1500. I don't have a present offer for it. But the keyword in the offer is "HelloFresh US",

 

But surely you can get two people to play a game right? Wrong. Of the people I know who have done sponsorships, getting the payout is usually not possible because the criteria has been rigged against you. Unless you have hundreds of concurrent viewers during a live stream, where you might actually luck out and get a few people to actually play the game with you, chances are you'll get that minimum $35 payout and nothing close to the maximum. Now look at the amount of time you need to play it. 2 hours. That is $17.50/hr . How much is your time actually worth? Mine is $200/hr and that's how much I ask to do any work for any client without a contract.

 

If a sponsorship is going to be permanently part of a video, then clearly it should be reflect how evergreen that content will be. Would you watch someone play a game for 2 hours that they are at best lukewarm on? No. But, some people enjoy playing anything put in front of them. I'm not one of them.  Generally when someone has played a game as a sponsorship most haven't been that enthusiastic about it, and as soon as the time is up the game is dropped like a hot potato.

 

What should a game sponsorship look like? Well first and foremost, don't make it depend on the viewership doing anything, because that just turns it into a affiliate commission structure, which if it's going to be a commission structure, there should be no time limit on it, and any affiliate of any size should be offered the same amount. Every time one of these game offers have popped up, the dollar value has increased by 10% but the minimum has not.

 

[LAwLz]

10 hours ago, BondiBlue said:

I've been a YouTube Premium user for years now (since YouTube Red), and I feel it's worth it. I just skip ads baked into videos manually, and they don't usually annoy me too bad (the channels I watch aren't super pushy with ads), so I don't use any other extensions or third party clients. 

 

In my opinion it's nice to just be able to log into YouTube on whatever device I'm on with the official client and not have to do anything extra to block ads. No ads when I'm watching on a TV, my phone, a computer, etc. 

To me, the baked-in ads are just as annoying if not more annoying than the Youtube ads, because at least the Youtube ads have a function to skip them (sometimes) and they show up on the timeline so I know when to expect them, and they have a counter so I know how long they will be.

 

My logic is that without third-party extensions, I will have to constantly be ready to skip ads regardless of whether or not I am a Premium subscriber. I will have to skip fewer ads if I am a Premium subscriber, but I still have to see/hear and be ready to skip ads in the videos.

So I am pushed to using third-party tools to begin with, and when I am already using those tools the reason for using that first-party stuff goes away. I would love to get the YouTube Vanced (RIP) experience from the stock app. Being able to use the stock app would give me some peace of mind and, as you said, I could just sign in on any device and it would just work. But since I don't think the Youtube experience is good, even with Premium (because of baked-in ads) I have to "do the work" of getting a third-party client anyway. 

 

I just felt like explaining my rationale. I feel like any reply to this will just be some form of "I am okay with in-video ads" and since I am not okay with them I feel like further conversations are futile.

If you are okay with in-video ads then go ahead and watch them, or fast forward through them, or whatever. I am not so I will block them. I won't pay 12 dollars a month just to get slightly fewer ads and then manually skip the remaining ads. I want all ads gone and I have found a solution that works for me.

[BondiBlue]

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

To me, the baked-in ads are just as annoying if not more annoying than the Youtube ads, because at least the Youtube ads have a function to skip them (sometimes) and they show up on the timeline so I know when to expect them, and they have a counter so I know how long they will be.

 

My logic is that without third-party extensions, I will have to constantly be ready to skip ads regardless of whether or not I am a Premium subscriber. I will have to skip fewer ads if I am a Premium subscriber, but I still have to see/hear and be ready to skip ads in the videos.

So I am pushed to using third-party tools to begin with, and when I am already using those tools the reason for using that first-party stuff goes away. I would love to get the YouTube Vanced (RIP) experience from the stock app. Being able to use the stock app would give me some peace of mind and, as you said, I could just sign in on any device and it would just work. But since I don't think the Youtube experience is good, even with Premium (because of baked-in ads) I have to "do the work" of getting a third-party client anyway. 

 

I just felt like explaining my rationale. I feel like any reply to this will just be some form of "I am okay with in-video ads" and since I am not okay with them I feel like further conversations are futile.

If you are okay with in-video ads then go ahead and watch them, or fast forward through them, or whatever. I am not so I will block them. I won't pay 12 dollars a month just to get slightly fewer ads and then manually skip the remaining ads. I want all ads gone and I have found a solution that works for me.

Oh no, I totally understand your point of view. I was just offering my experience, and since the channels I watch regularly don't have very intrusive baked-in ads I'm more willing to just deal with the ones I come across. For this same reason I find the regular YouTube ads far more annoying, so I'd rather not deal with those at all. But I completely get where you're coming from, and I'm glad you've found a solution that works. 

[Rym]

In my opinion instead of wasting money on irrelevant features such as adblock detectors that will ironically get blocked they could invest in making youtube premium worth it.

[Quackers101]

24 minutes ago, Rym said:

In my opinion instead of wasting money on irrelevant features such as adblock detectors that will ironically get blocked they could invest in making youtube premium worth it.

or as steam and others do, have enough options so there is no other better options than what is provided by them.

[Fred Castellum]

Wish youtube would work on improving the platform itself over trying to stop adblockers. 

Regardless there will be ways to circumvent this, and I won't miss chrome one bit if I have to switch to another browser.