Another great article from 404 Media highlighting the power that the tech giants have amassed over how how we use the internet.
This brings me, I think, to the elephant in the room, which is the fact that Google has its hands on quite literally every aspect of this entire saga as a vertically integrated adtech giant.
This extreme power over the adtech and online advertising ecosystem is one of the subjects of an FTC antitrust suit against Google.
Ya I’ll never stop using ad blockers, the internet is essentially unusable without them. Mine still work on youtube but if the day comes that they don’t I’ll just stop using it. We need some competition here, things have gotten increasingly anticonsumer and the companies have gotten too comfortable doing and charging whatever they want
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I prefer to call it the stormwater drain of the information superhighway
Hahahaha, dammit this should be top comment
I’ve used adblockers for like 15 years and I genuinely get disgusted when watching YouTube without it. There’s no way I’ll go back. I even do sponsorblock to remove in-video ads.
The unfortunate thing is that I’m willing to pay a reasonable price for a lot of content creators, just not via Google/YouTube.
A dollar per channel? I follow 104 content creators om YouTube through RSS. And many more if we count all the other platforms. I can’t afford that.
It’s a difficult situation for viewers, creators and providers. I don’t have an answer, but a stop-gap solution I’d be happy to see is like 480p max for adblockers, pay for HD+. That’s reasonable based on how much ad-dodgers impact YouTube from what I’ve gathered.
I cannot watch a video from start to finish anymore. Thanks youtube. Almost every video is filled with bs fluff to reach the 8 minute mark. It annoys me greatly. Maybe also because I am in the industry and I learned in school to not use meaningless shit in my videos.
I’ve not thought about them time markers in a long time. One that was kinda funny and bearable was Dave509’s twist.
"I need to reach a certain time limit on my videos, so for a few more minutes I’ll just sit here, nod and say “I agree” and “I understand”. Feel free to share whatever with me…
Sits in absolute silence for 30 seconds while staring at the camera
Yes, I agree."
But I have noticed I’ve gravitated to longer form videos, 30m+, for the last few years. I guess it has a lot to do with the fluff.
We shall from now on call such content creators “fluffers”.
i’ve gravitated to long form interviews, 8+ hours has nothing on me. i listen to them when i go to sleep or watch art videos.
The thing that gets me is how little creators actually get per individual ad view. Now, collectively, with tens of thousands and millions of views, they get a good bag. But my watchtimes of that minute worth of ads per video? Literally nothing. A fraction of a cent so small it doesn’t exist. I could watch a creator semi-regularly for like 2 years and my contribution to their income by watching ads would be in the single digits. I give them two bucks over Patreon or something just once and that’s worth as much as me giving up hours upon hours of my life watching ads. Now, I can’t afford to give literally everyone I watch more than once a dollar or two. But I give some money here and there to a couple I watch a lot. To make up for my using an adblocker.
Honestly, I’d probably get YouTube Premium if it wasn’t fucking Google behind it.
i also have always used adblockers, but once i had to put in effort circumventing YT ads earlier this year, i discovered sponsorblock and added it. kind of funny that had it not been for YT being an ass, i would have been fine with other kind of ads.
Now that’s a solution.
Detecting adblock: 480/576p
Watching with ads: 720p/1080p/1440p Watching with Premium: 4K and high bitrate 1080p (and maybe 1440p?)
I guess if you don’t use ad blockers you somehow get used to it. It’s like someone whose job is 100% outdoors vs. someone who works indoors and then has to do a day working outside. The person who is used to cold, wind, rain, scorching sun, etc. stops noticing, even though it takes a toll on them too.
Every once in a while I end up using a browser without ad blockers enabled and it’s incredible to me that some people live like that. It really is almost unusable. Things jump around as ads load in. Ads / videos pop over the content you’re trying to use. The useful part of a page might be 60% ads: ads along the sides and breaking up the text. And then there’s the bottom area of the page which is an endless scroll of “related content” ads.
That’s not a good analogy. It’s more like saying that whenever you go outdoors for a walk on the park or do grocery shopping, you have to give up 15 minutes of your time to “donate” blood to the rich.Edit: I just finished reading your whole comment. Sorry friend. We’re on the same page.
No analogy is perfect. Yours gets at the reason for the ads – they want something from you and you have no chance to bargain or say no. Mine is more about how people can become accustomed to something that’s really unpleasant and after a while not really notice it.
My point is that to me (someone who blocks ads), trying to use the web without an ad blocker is extremely painful, and I find websites almost unusable. But, to someone who has never used an ad blocker, they’re used to the crap, and have developed some ‘immunity’ to the distracting images and work-arounds for the broken thing.
Anyhow, we’re on the same page. I just felt like explaining a bit better what I was getting at.
I was quite content with tolerating banner ads. Then they became animated and it went downhill after that.
I’m fine with a variety of ads, but I really hate distracting animation. The current trend seems to be that every ad is animated, so every ad is blocked.
There never will be a YouTube competitor, it requires continuous investment from a multibillion dollar company.
Nebula isn’t too bad, I like a lot of those informative creators and they collaorated and made a startup video hosting site, its essentially everything i want youtube to be. If more creators decided to do this it’s be great.
Download newpipe and never use YouTube again.
Can’t be used on desktop
https://freetubeapp.io/
It somewhat can
Age restricted videos are a problem otherwise it’s great. I have it on an android TV box.
For static ads there will eventually be visual adblockers which detect ads not from their source but because they look like ads. (The mandated paid advertisement notice helps).
There is the utility that journalists use to capture YouTube video. A version that captured video content and then filtered ads visually would be unblockable.
AI will be good for that. For once it will benefit the people.