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YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

(iter.ca)
990 points smitop | 10 comments | 20 Jun 25 17:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.859s | source | bottom
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ysavir ◴[20 Jun 25 18:01 UTC] No.44330236[source]▶
I've been getting these buffer loading times recently, and ironically, I don't mind them all that much. The annoyance of ads isn't primarily in the time it takes up, but in having the audio play and a video feed run that isn't the video I clicked on.

If an actual ad played, I'd be irritated beyond belief. But when there's a 12 second buffer, I have enough patience training for slow load times that I instinctively just quickly check my email or spend a brief moment lost in thought. Especially when it's every video. If it was one in every 5 videos, I'd notice it and be bothered. When it's every video, it's part of the experience and my brain just cuts it out automatically.

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MathMonkeyMan ◴[20 Jun 25 23:22 UTC] No.44333050[source]▶
Yeah I've been getting the initial delay with the popup "find out why playback is slow." No thanks, I already know, and it's not so bad.
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Toritori12 ◴[20 Jun 25 23:57 UTC] No.44333259[source]▶
Out of curiosity I clicked the link and it is funny how they try to blame the extension when is them actually causing the problem.
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HDThoreaun ◴[21 Jun 25 00:33 UTC] No.44333450[source]▶
The extension is stealing from them. I get stealing a zero marginal cost good is minor but the agreement you make with YouTube is that you watch an ad in exchange for the video. Why should they serve you the video if you refuse your part of the agreement?
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1. mcphage ◴[21 Jun 25 01:01 UTC] No.44333604[source]▶
How are you making an agreement? You can’t say “I’ll watch this video in exchange for X minutes of ads” because YouTube will never tell you how many minutes they’re going to show you, and because they have zero interest in committing to some number of minutes of ads. It’s constantly getting worse, and this process will continue until it kills the service.
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2. HDThoreaun ◴[21 Jun 25 01:05 UTC] No.44333625[source]▶
The agreement is you watch the ads YouTube serves you. Why would that agreement have to include the amount of ads served? If you are unhappy with their business model you can always pay for premium or stop using it. Or you can steal from them, that’s what I do. I’m just not afraid to admit it.
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3. mcphage ◴[21 Jun 25 02:12 UTC] No.44333913[source]▶
That’s not an agreement, that’s just YouTube doing whatever they want. Which they can—but then—I can just do whatever I want, too. You don’t need to imagine some sort of covenant being involved.

> Or you can steal from them, that’s what I do. I’m just not afraid to admit it.

I don’t even do that, I just watch it as-is. I just don’t need to imagine that YouTube and I have agreed to anything.

4. nradov ◴[21 Jun 25 02:21 UTC] No.44333965[source]▶
It won't kill the service. The media executives who run YouTube are well aware of how advertising volume affects viewership so they'll titrate up or down as needed to maximize profit.

But don't worry, something else will eventually kill YouTube. Most likely they'll miss some sort of disruptive innovation. Like maybe in 30 years everyone will have content beamed directly into their neutral implants and only a few old people will still watch online videos.

replies(1): >>44338920 #
5. asadotzler ◴[21 Jun 25 05:08 UTC] No.44334696[source]▶
There is no agreement. TOS is a notice not a contract. It's not stealing because it's public content, publicly accessible to anyone with the technology to do so.

If Google wants to make YouTube a service with actually binding contracts and not TOS notices no one reads or respects, it can put the whole thing behind a login and end un-authed public web traffic. They're free to do that but they won't because they know that would kill the site dead, and quickly so.

6. rwmj ◴[21 Jun 25 06:37 UTC] No.44335106[source]▶
I think you need to read about contract law before continuing to double down. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract#Common_law_contracts is as good a place as any to start). A notice you put up on a website does not form a contract.
replies(1): >>44350091 #
7. mcphage ◴[21 Jun 25 16:46 UTC] No.44338920[source]▶
The time line for these sorts of things seems to be: they’ll slowly make YouTube worse and worse, but just not bad enough to kill it. And then something else will come along, and people will be so dissatisfied with the quality of YouTube that people dump it en masse.
8. anticensor ◴[22 Jun 25 20:35 UTC] No.44350077[source]▶
Couldn't they fix at 1:1 ad:content ratio and codify it into the charter so that they couldn't give a better or worse deal to the parties even if they wanted?
replies(1): >>44351078 #
9. anticensor ◴[22 Jun 25 20:38 UTC] No.44350091{3}[source]▶
Contracts of adhesion are still contracts, just that they have less enforceability and narrower legal scope.
10. mcphage ◴[22 Jun 25 23:15 UTC] No.44351078[source]▶
They could commit to any number of things, but they don’t want to.