YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

Here’s something many people probably don’t know.

I live in a west-Eu country with several well-defined language borders. Each time we cross a border (on holiday), the youtube ads change language. When I’m logged in. I don’t have a driver’s license, yet the most common ad I get is for second hand cars. I’m in a relationship, yet I regularly get ads for dating sites. I have a job, get ads for jobhunting advice. And the other day I got an add specifically for people born before my birth-year minus one.

YouTube’s ads are on the same level as Spotify’s nagging for their subscription: it’s meant to annoy users into buying their ad-free plan. They use real ads as a thin veneer.

Well, it works. Unfortunately it doesn’t remove sponsored content in the videos. I’m paying for an ad free experience, but I’m still hearing about AC1. Annoying.

First it was "I hate how much ad companies track me and build profiles on me."

Now it is "I hate how ads are irrelevant."

People need to understand that ads will never be 100% perfect, otherwise you would buy something every time you saw an ad. 99.99% of the ads will miss the target, and that is normal. It would be insane if it worked any other way.

For what it is worth Google has a page where you can customize what sort of ads are relevant to you. https://support.google.com/My-Ad-Center-Help/answer/12155451...

My kids are watching some kid stuff and ads about sanitary napkins show up. At least google degrades the experience and helps me fight the screen time war.

> First it was "I hate how much ad companies track me and build profiles on me."

> Now it is "I hate how ads are irrelevant."

This is an HN echo-chamber complaint, made by people who work for advertisers trying to come up with a way to make their ads seem less awful.

The fact is, relevant ads aren't better. They're still ads, and ads are still inherently bad.

If I'm looking for a used car, I do not want to hear ads from Bob's Lemon Shop about why they're the best place to buy cars. If Bob's Lemon Shop is the best place to buy cars, I'll find that out from independent reviewers who have shopped their before. An ad from Bob's Lemon Shop is relevant to my interest, but that makes it worse because now I'm susceptible to manipulation by the company that paid the most for ads instead of making a more rational decision based on true information from unbiased sources. Having more relevant ads is not good for me, it's good for advertisers.

You’re turning things around.

When the largest ad company in the world, which also has the largest fingerprint silo in the world, spews out ads that are 100% irrelevant …

And it's hard to believe with all the data they collect that the system is really that dumb…

You should check SponsorBlock out: https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock.

Ads of that kind tell me they need ads, which tells me they’re probably not doing too well, so I’ll avoid them

Ralf Schumacher?

Well done Sherlock