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Inside the 'arms race' between YouTube and ad blockers / Against all odds, open source hackers keep outfoxing one of the wealthiest companies. (www.engadget.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Inside the 'arms race' between YouTube and ad blockers / Against all odds, open source hackers keep outfoxing one of the wealthiest companies.::YouTube's dramatic content gatekeeping decisions of late have a long history behind them, and there's an equally long history of these defenses being bypassed.

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[–] [email protected] 109 points 11 months ago (26 children)

Ads are effective, sadly. And why so much money is poured into them. I believe there are a few effects at play but the direct, see and ad and want to go buy it now is only one ofbhem that mostly only affects some people, or a lot of people occasionally.

I think a bigger effect is familiarity. You are far more likely to pick a product you are familiar with or have seen before over something younjave never heard of. Even if you have only ever seen it on advets and completely forgotten that you have ever seen ads for it. So even if you don't think they work on you they likely do without you realizing, at least enough of the time on enough people that make them worth while running.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 11 months ago (15 children)

I think a bigger effect is familiarity.

Bingo. It's not about making you buy something right now, it's about brand recognition and such.

To wit, if you listen to podcasts, do a little thought experiment. Name a VPN company.

Was it "Nord VPN"? Ads work.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (14 children)

Just because I have heard of NordVPN doesn't mean I'll necessarily use it (in fact I use ~~arch~~ mullvad, btw.)
Let's see some numbers that ads work. You can't just calculate how life would be without ads, but I wonder what would happen if ad expenses for all companies would be capped somehow. When cigarette companies were severely limited in terms of advertising they saved a ton of money. Of course people already knew their brands, but still.

I think ad space sellers wildly overestimate the effectiveness of ads and google has made it far worse with targeted ads. People have gotten used to saying things like "ads work" and "brand recognition" but does anyone know the numbers? Or is this just repeating some phrases you've heard?

I don't know the numbers myself, but I'm quite skeptical.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

There used to be a business joke you’d hear in the ‘60s, often attributed to John Wanamaker, a pioneer in marketing:

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half!”

The joke highlights the dilemma many businesses face in evaluating the effectiveness of their advertising spend. It’s remained relevant in the advertising and marketing industries, reflecting the challenges in measuring the impact of advertising efforts.

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