this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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  • YouTube is intensifying efforts to combat adblockers, including blocking video playback and warning users of potential account suspension.
  • Increased ads on YouTube have driven many users to adblockers, hurting both YouTube’s ad revenue and content creators reliant on ad-based income.
  • Despite these measures, many users are leaving YouTube or finding workarounds, leading creators to seek alternative revenue streams off-platform.
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[–] [email protected] 371 points 4 months ago (11 children)

Imagine being on the YouTube ad team...that has to be the most depressing team in tech history. Your whole existence revolves around peddling ads before people can watch the ads they want.

[–] [email protected] 203 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Even better, you work for one of the wealthiest corporations in the world with virtually unlimited resources at your disposal, and you still get your asses handed to you by a handful of people with laptops.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 4 months ago (2 children)

If they didn’t have to support the web, and various legacy platforms, the could lock it all down with drm more easily.

[–] [email protected] 138 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Hence Google's proposal to DRM the web

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And people's response has shown its not easy or even working.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

in tech*. most people don't even know or care about it

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That’s far less true now that they’re breaking the functionality of tons of adblockers that it was a few years ago.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

most normies i know don't care about it.

i have no idea how they use the internet without them, but here we are.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yep, most of my non-tech friends just say "Ads? Oh yeah, I don't even notice them anymore, I got so used to them." whenever that topic pops up in a conversation.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

All the eggs in one basket? Computer nerds would never allow that.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 4 months ago (1 children)

At least you can tell your boss "I'm working on it!", sit on your ass, and every 6 months add one more little UI or formula change which "finally stops adblockers" but is defeated within 3 days.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Yeah I don't believe they really put their hearts in it. If they truly wanted to force you into watching ads, they'd manage. Their team is just not that interested.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Their team is probably using adBlockers more than the rest of us. They understand the depth of the surveillance baked into those ads.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

And because they have to test the ads.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (8 children)

Your whole existence revolves around peddling ads before people can watch the ads they want.

Ah, what. Who wants or likes to watch ads at all?

[–] [email protected] 75 points 4 months ago (11 children)

A lot of creators have just turned into corporate shills. I stopped watching ETA Prime's channel about tech reviews because it was becoming pretty clear that mostly everything he got was paid for by the company. Also, most creators are putting their own ads into their content.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

Welcome to Youtube. It's ads all the way down. Unless:

Firefox browser, Ublock Origin extension, Sponsorblock extension

Save 40% of your viewing time for actual content and send tips through creator's Paypal or whatever.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

YouTube is just on demand TV with extra steps these days. I've stopped watching videos, I have an LLM transcribe and summarize for me now. 99% of the content of a 10-15 minute video can be summarized into 1 or 2 pages and read in under 2 minutes.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I have an LLM transcribe and summarize for me now.

Only a matter of time before LLMs start injecting their own ads into these responses.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Nah, local LLMs are easily in the range of transcribe/summarize. I bet you could do that nicely with llama 8B without even needing a gpu.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Local and open source

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

By that point I'm pretty sure we'll have an effective compact model that can run locally and transcribe downloaded videos on reasonable hardware. Or you can just sic a paid model like chatgpt on the task. The corporate Internet is entirely focused on subscription service models now, unless you run the model yourself on local hardware you're going to end up paying someone somewhere a service fee.

Edit: y'all need to learn about minified models designed to run on edge hardware, they're a thing and often work shockingly well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think I need this, finally a real use for 'ai'.

The amount of how to videos you have to watch through, when all you want is one little piece of info you should be able to search or scan for has been a problem since before the internet figured out how to increase clicks by making a web page in to slides.

Can you link me a how-to video on how to get startedt and send me a summary from your working setup?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I hope nobody lets them know that Firefox on Linux has never shown ads for any of their content.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Don't worry. Linux is only 4% of the total computer market. They aren't bothered with you because Linux isn't worth it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

That's fine, we're happy to keep the better choice to ourselves. 😆

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Oh well, sucks to be us! /s

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

SmartTube for Android TV is a must as well

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

I don’t follow those creators!

The best part of YouTube is the small creators who are just making videos as a hobby. Once they get so big they start shilling products they wouldn’t use themselves I drop them like a hot potato. For the most part that doesn’t happen though because I prefer niche topics and creators that don’t have “sellout” personalities.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

I've clicked in to see a movie trailer, which is basically an ad, and had to watch an ad before I could watch the ad

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm sure they make enough money to not care. Being in the part of the company that brings in the dough is generally a pretty good position to be in as well.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It’s the only consumer product they haven’t canceled.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Gmail would like a word

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

All corporate IT jobs are depressing, because working in a corporation isn’t something that a thinking person is equipped to do.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

and it's potentially an existential threat.

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