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YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

(iter.ca)
990 points smitop | 2 comments | 20 Jun 25 17:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.408s | source
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lcnPylGDnU4H9OF ◴[21 Jun 25 04:54 UTC] No.44334626[source]▶
The primary thing that makes advertisements disagreeable is their irrelevance. That’s not to say whether or not the advertisement is for a product or service for which the viewer is interested in purchasing but how it relates to the context in which it is viewed.

People complain about billboards next to a countryside highway because it is entirely irrelevant to driving through the countryside. Actual complaints may be about how the billboards block a scenic view but that also seems like another way of complaining about the irrelevance. Similarly, if I am watching a Youtube video, I am never thinking that a disruptive message from a commercial business is relevant to my current activities (uh, passivities?). No advertisement is relevant, not even in-video direct sponsorships, hence SponsorBlock.

If I go to Costco and see an advertisement for tires... well, I’m at Costco, where I buy stuff. Things are sold at Costco and people go there to have things sold to them. I might need tires and realize I can get that taken care of while I’m at Costco. Nearly every advertisement I see at Costco is relevant because it’s selling something I can buy in the same building, indeed usually something juxtaposed close to the advertisement.

I don’t complain about advertisements at Costco because that would be insane. I complain about the advertisements on Youtube because they’re irrelevant and weird but somehow normalized.

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scoofy ◴[21 Jun 25 05:06 UTC] No.44334685[source]▶
You can also pay for YouTube. I do. It’s nice, not crazy expensive. No ads. Creators get paid. Everyone wins.
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1. mrob ◴[21 Jun 25 08:22 UTC] No.44335720[source]▶
I think paying for Youtube will increase the chances of my Google account getting banned. I've never heard of Google banning somebody for rejecting adverts. But if I pay them money, there's a chance there will be a problem with the payments, and that risks triggering false positives on automatic fraud detection. If that happens I assume I would be banned with no recourse and no human intervention. The safest thing to do is never change how you interact with Google in any way unless you absolutely have to.

I don't like depending on Google in this way but I've had a Gmail account for a very long time and changing to a different email address would be a major inconvenience.

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2. cesarb ◴[21 Jun 25 10:28 UTC] No.44336328[source]▶
> I think paying for Youtube will increase the chances of my Google account getting banned. [...] The safest thing to do is never change how you interact with Google in any way unless you absolutely have to. I don't like depending on Google in this way but I've had a Gmail account for a very long time and changing to a different email address would be a major inconvenience.

I recall that even logging into Youtube with your Google account could have that danger: if for some reason Google decided that your name isn't your real name, under its "real names" policy your whole account could get banned, even from other services like Gmail and Google Talk. It's for that reason that I've been very careful to never log into Youtube with my Gmail account, even though that account always used my real name, and even though Google+'s deep integration with YouTube is AFAIK no longer relevant.