YouTube intensifies fight against ad blockers showing pop-ups, and users are frustrated | Blocking ad-block users::undefined

  • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Why are so many of you alergic to paying creators to make videos? I get doing it on most sites, but buy premium of the sites like nexus mods or YouTube where people make content so they aren’t making shit you enjoy for free.

    • pelotron@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      The insinuation that website users somehow have a responsibility to watch ads so that the website’s 3rd party content creators can make money reads like a case of Stockholm Syndrome. YouTube are the ones paying the creators, not me, and can change the terms by which they calculate creator payments at any time. If YT decides that now, ads viewed during the hours of 7pm to 10pm result in higher creator payments, where is my role in that? Am I now obligated to prefer viewing ads during that time?

      Plenty of content is uploaded to YT by people who don’t and never will get creator payments. Do I have to watch those ads?

      My contract with YT is that I control what data is downloaded by and presented on my PC, not them. That Silicon Valley has decided that everything is free, but with ads, is unfortunate. If they’re unable to fund their business or their content if I use an ad blocker, then it seems to me like they’re pretty fucking bad at business.

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Are you new to the internet? Every website, every single one of them, costs money to maintain and keep running. If you don’t pay to keep it online, someone else has to. Ads are a way for everyone to contribute a super small amount to keep the thing you’re on, online. When one or two people block them, it’s not a big issue. When most people do, it becomes one.

        How do you pay to keep the servers up when most users are free booting? What do you do about high traffic when most of it isn’t paying for the servers you need to keep it running smoothly?

        It’s the fucking apex of entitlement to think you should be able to slink through every website without paying a cent either through your data, your attention, or your wallet. You’re on lemmy, you should have a basic understanding of how this shit works and it baffles me you don’t. The instance you’re using is up because of volunteers, paying the electric bill and for the hardware so you can type shit this stupid. Maybe we’re just finally getting normies with how big the site is growing. Maybe this is a good thing. I take it back, welcome to the internet.

        • pelotron@midwest.social
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          1 year ago

          Come on man, I’ve been on the internet since the beginning. Back in the day I paid $10 to join the Something Awful forums. We used to host our own game servers, back when games would let you. We rented our own Ventrilo server for over a decade.

          There are ways to pay for things besides making the user experience godawful.

          • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Then you’ve been there. You’ve seen what I’ve seen. The banner ads, the pop-ups, the sound-on ads that you can’t find because your browser won’t tell you what tab it’s on. The user experience of just ten years ago was so abhorrent that today, even having the ability to go fully dark on ads is a heaven we take for granted. It comes at a cost to companies that need that revenue.

            I’m not throating Youtube for the sake of it, but what are their options? What advertisement company is going to pay decent for a streamlined ad you can ignore? When you ‘skip ad’ I believe it doesn’t even count as a ‘served ad’ so they pay nothing on those. I’m genuinely asking - what ways are there to pay for the behemoth Youtube has become beyond the methods available?

        • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Ads are a way for everyone to contribute a super small amount to keep the thing you’re on, online.

          In 2022 Google grossed around $280 billion, and only around 10% of that from Youtube. Before tax they profited around $73 billion, and after tax around $60 billion. They’re doing fine selling ads.

          And we paid all of that $280 billion, even those of us with adblockers, because companies charge us more to cover their marketing costs. I pay for google every time I pull out my credit card.

          I don’t feel like watching ads to convince even more companies to pay google to advertise to me and buy my data. They’re all making enough money already, and every year they spend less of it on wages or tax for society to function. Their money goes to stock buybacks, payouts to their major shareholders, executive bonuses, and think tanks to push policies and social trends that hurt all of us.

          • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            They profited $73 billion

            Revenue is not profit. Profit is what you have after expenses. So let’s do a quick logic exercise. $13 billion after taxes, minus bandwidth costs worldwide, minus hundreds of server centers worldwide, minus tens of thousands of TB storage per server, minus redundant storage just in case a server blows, minus what they pay creators, minus what they pay employees.

            Boy howdy, not so sure about this one. Especially when we know in 2015 they lost 470 million from operating the platform. They took losses from keeping Youtube alive. Hmmm. Seems like a narrow fuckin margin if that’s possible. Haven’t heard of Netflix losing money from a year of keeping their platform up.

            “I don’t feel like watching ads” so buy premium. “I pay for google every time I pull out my credit card” that… what? “They’re making enough money” 470 million in losses. “They own the entire fucking planet” They aren’t even one of the five companies that own everything. You’re thinking Blackrock. “Every year they pay lower wages” That’s every corporation. Yes, eat the rich. This is not eating the rich. We do not get higher wages from you using adblocker.

            • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              I gave you both revenue and profit. Their revenue was $280 billion, not $73 billion. $73 billion was their profit before tax, and $60 billion was profit after tax. $13 billion, the difference, was their income tax.

              they took $470 million in losses

              According to the Credit Suisse report, which also massively contradicted Google’s own earnings reports, lowballing YouTube’s revenue by a factor of ten iirc.

              that…what?

              Advertising costs money. To cover that cost, companies charge us more for their goods and services. I don’t know what is baffling to you about this.

            • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Also, when I said “they own the entire fucking planet” in my original unedited comment — which I edited for tone before I saw your near-immediate response — I was referring both google and the companies that advertise through google, which is why I said “they all make enough money already.” All is plural. Google sells enough ads, and their client companies buy enough ads.

              Also, Blackrock is an asset management company that handles other people’s money. Google earns 16 times more revenue than them.

    • MikuNPC@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Some of us pay for premium but still use Revanced and Freetube because they are simply better youtube clients. Sponsorblock, OLED themes, customizable UI, better performance, etc. The adblocking is just icing on the cake

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Wasn’t aware any of them had baked in Sponsorblock or OLED themes. I might look into those platforms if that’s the case. But yes, Youtube does need to keep up on features instead of paygating the ones that already exist (like queue).

    • Something Burger 🍔@jlai.lu
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      1 year ago

      I’m okay with paying for YouTube but I don’t want a Google account. If Google ever reinstates having separate YT accounts then I will consider paying.

      • deur@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        In the EU they are doing exactly that! You will be able to have individual accounts.

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I mean I can respect that choice to an extent but I personally don’t find too much of an issue with the account itself. I’m comfortable with it having the data it collects as it’s mostly nonpersonal but I refuse to use their search engine.