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YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

(iter.ca)
990 points smitop | 8 comments | 20 Jun 25 17:01 UTC | HN request time: 1.348s | source | bottom
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dkga ◴[21 Jun 25 09:45 UTC] No.44336118[source]▶
Dear YouTube,

It’s not so much that I don’t want to see ads - nobody does, but very very often the ad breaks the vibe of what I am watching and it displeases me to the point I will invest my soul and energy to block ads. Some real-life examples:

- watching a video about coding where the creator has a monotonic, calm voice that keeps me engaged, and VS Code in dark mode which is easy on my eyes in my dark room at 2am, then suddenly comes an ad with bright lights, incredibly high sound and a high-energy backtrack.

- watching a meditation video, the exact same ad appears.

You get the idea.

At the very least, please ensure the ad is in the same volume as the original video. That alone wouldn’t be too hard. In addition, please at least try to match the background overall brightness or color, and the vibe. All this would create value because people would actually watch much more ads.

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1. a2128 ◴[21 Jun 25 10:52 UTC] No.44336437[source]▶
And videos like this one really shouldn't ever have ads, they shouldn't try to block playback for having an adblocker installed, and they shouldn't tell you to "sign in to confirm you're not a bot"[0], and it feels like YouTube should be liable for negligent manslaughter when they do all of the above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtYSTrjKonU

[0] https://i.imgur.com/8SDKRkZ.png

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2. malfist ◴[21 Jun 25 11:58 UTC] No.44336856[source]▶
I'm anti ads as much as the next person, but negligent manslaughter for showing ads? That isn't reasonable.
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3. adamgordonbell ◴[21 Jun 25 13:04 UTC] No.44337283[source]▶
WebMD decided to put ads on that video. Every uploader has that option, to monetize or not.

YouTube is the most creator friendly social media platform that exists now. Creators choose when to include ads and receive a large amount of the revenue.

4. a2128 ◴[21 Jun 25 13:06 UTC] No.44337311[source]▶
They've captured the online video provider market by price dumping in a way nobody but Google could afford, and have become THE video website. Now they're implementing restrictive measures in a negligent manner that affect first-aid videos that people have come to rely on.

Google clearly has the AI know-how to label when videos are important medical videos. They could skip ads and skip forced sign-in, but they don't care enough. There was a viral tweet once about somebody's grandma choking on a fishbone where YouTube responded telling them to buy YouTube Premium, so they're probably aware, but don't care enough. And they're implementing more measures like the forced sign-in for scraping prevention that happen to disproportionately affect public networks at restaurants and hotels. That's negligence.

Why's it so unreasonable?

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5. adamgordonbell ◴[21 Jun 25 15:34 UTC] No.44338343{3}[source]▶
Uploader choose to monetize vid, not Google. It's a per video option.
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6. a2128 ◴[21 Jun 25 16:13 UTC] No.44338649{4}[source]▶
That's no longer true as of around 5 years ago. They'll show ads on any video they like.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2475463?hl=en "YouTube may also place ads on videos in channels not in the YouTube Partner Program."

If you become eligible and join the YouTube partner program I believe there may be a toggle then, but for non partners it's completely up to YouTube.

And the forced sign-in of course never was controllable by creators.

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7. malfist ◴[21 Jun 25 17:16 UTC] No.44339124{3}[source]▶
There's a big difference between being a monopoly and negligent manslaughter.
8. adamgordonbell ◴[22 Jun 25 19:39 UTC] No.44349679{5}[source]▶
Okay, but not really, right? once you upload a couple videos you become eligible to join the partner partner program. You just click yes that you've joined it and then you get the ability to select yes or or no for monetization. Certainly, WebMD is part of the partner program and is monetizing these videos on purpose, the same way that they have ads on the WebMD site. Having to sign in to use YouTube is not really that big of a bar. WebMD is making these choices, not YouTube.