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Youtube Adblock Reckoning as a service problem? (startrek.website)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/technology

72 comments fedilink hide all child comments

At the end of the day, its pretty clear to me that Youtube is going to lose the war on adblocking. Either by hook or by crook those that want to use Adblockers are going to keep doing it no matter what.

And to be clear, I am not trying to equate Adblocking to video piracy. To me, the fact that I choose to go to the bathroom during a commercial of a tv show doesn't constitute piracy and Adblocks just automate that process for me on Youtube. I would also never click on an ad purposefully, no matter what it is for.

With all that being said, I am a hopeless cause and I don't think that anything will convince me to buy YouTube premium, but I also used to think that about MP3s.

My real question to anyone reading this is, as the devil's advocate, what could YouTube do with ads or otherwise that would solve the "service problem" of "YouTube piracy"? And furthermore, is there any situaton where you would do anything other than block all Youtube Ads immdediately and with extreme prejudice?

This is an old article but this is Gabe Newell describing video game piracy as a service problem and why he believes that in case anyone is unfamiliar with it.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In podcasts, where I can't block ads effectively, I will instantly skip any canned ads and even avoid podcasts that have too many canned ads. On the other hand, when podcast hosts do their own ad reads, it doesn't bother me too much. In the best cases, they are funny enough that I feel like I'm missing out with the ad-free premium feeds (I subscribe to some podcast Patreons).

I also don't really mind sponsored segments from YouTube hosts, though it's highly dependent on the content. Most of the channels I follow have ad reads that are reasonably well aligned with the content and tone. In some cases, they are actually useful. I still run SponsorBlock, but I do often read through the video descriptions of my favorite channels to see what they're hocking.

There is no imaginable scenario where I would tolerate hypercheerful actors talking about insurance or cars. Get outta town.

[–] Dasnap 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm surprised there isn't a SponsorBlock equivalent for podcasts yet. I mean, I'm sure it works if I watch a video podcast on YouTube, but I'd prefer a hook in Pocket Casts or something.

[–] ilinamorato 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The dynamic insertion of arbitrary-length ads into podcast files at download time makes SponsorBlock tricky (probably not impossible?) in podcasts that also have non-dynamic sponsor reads.

If someone chapters a podcast, noting an ad (dynamically inserted) for an online casino at 4:33-4:54 and a sponsor break read by the host (baked in to the original file) at 10:12-11:43, those times are mostly invalidated when someone else downloads the file and hears an ad for a business credit card at 4:33-5:21. Now the sponsor break section is going to cut the actual content early and come back before the read is over.

Multiply that problem by 3-4, depending on the episode, and you can start to see the issue.

This is a similar problem to that of Twitch. They bake the ad into the main video stream, meaning you can't block it without also blocking the content. If YouTube ever does it, it's game over; but I have a feeling they can't for some technical or scaling reason, or they would've done so first.

[–] Dasnap 1 points 1 year ago

Hmm I guess I don't listen to any podcasts with 'automatically inserted' ads, they're all sponsor reads by the hosts.

Also, Twitch ad blocking is totally possible. I do it on my desktop, phone, and TV fairly easily. No content lost.