I know the topic of whether adblock is piracy is debated, but I am guessing there are a lot of adblock users here and I was wondering if anyone has seen the youtube adblock warning message in the wild. I use ublock origin and still haven’t seen it once.
Youtube’s ad policy is abusive, and online ads are not always safe. Regardless of whether adblocking is legal or fair to Youtube, not doing so puts you at greater risk of malware insertion so is a necessary safety precaution.
As YouTube profits from your engagement through more than ads, YouTube still benefits even when you watch videos without ads.
Edit: downvoted with 0 counter-arguments. Classic.
Personally, I don’t see how YouTube can be abusive. It is their platform and they can do whatever they want with it. It is your choice if you use it or not. If you think the ads are out of control, you can pay for their subscription or use free services.
If content creators are uploading their videos there, it is because YouTube can pay them more than other platforms… Thanks to the ads. So it’s not like there aren’t other options out there, it’s just that YouTube pays content creators more. Free market.
You’re getting an endless amount of information backed by amazing engineers that designed a service that never goes down and loads 4K videos at incredible speeds worldwide for millions of users concurrently… At the price of a few minutes of your life per day. Seems fair. They are not denying you the access to the information. They are using that money to pay content creators fairly so they are incentiviced to create more content that you can enjoy.
YouTube is a high quality service. Why is it bad to give them something back for the high quality service you’re receiving? It’s not like this is a mediocre click bait article with 50 ads attacking your screen. Plus, you’re also giving back to the content creators. If you didn’t like the content, you can downvote them or report them to tweak the algorithm.
I disagree with the “it’s their platform” argument, but I definitely agree with you that people should stop complaining about YouTube ads so much.
They give you an option to both remove the ads and support the creators you watch. They support billions of hours worth of content watching each year and millions of hours of content storage, across the world, for free if you so choose. Seems quite generous.
I’d bet most people watch YouTube almost as much as Netflix or Hulu, again for free, and still complain about YouTube serving ads. The solution is to just pay for premium. They even give you music streaming with it anyway.
I don’t see how YouTube can be abusive
Do you also not see how a Tyrant boss that screams and belittles their employees is being abusive? The employees are free to quit and find work elsewhere right? Oh wait, freedom to avoid abusive behaviour doesn’t make that behaviour non-abusive!
I’ll also add that Youtube’s ads aren’t the only way you ‘pay’ for the service. They gobble up all the data they can glean from your interactions with them. So much data most people don’t even really understand how much they’re giving away. This data is sold sure, but it is also used to inform the algorithm on how to make the service more addictive to the users. That is to say, some of the abuse is insidious. Are drug dealers paragons of virtue when they offer free samples?
No other service advertises as obtrusively as Youtube does. Twitch comes close. The reasons they get away with this are:
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the service is designed to be addictive, and
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they have an effective monopoly. No other free service (and paid for that matter) comes close.
Both easily defined as abusive.
Just because you think making you watch ads make it abusive doesn’t mean it is.
Why do you hold the voice of truth? I just told you, I don’t think it is abusive because that is giving more money to content creators. If you think it is abusive, stop using the service. Also, you knew about the data they are mining and you’re still using the service. Do you think others are blind to the fact Google collects data? They just don’t care, like you.
Personally, I don’t see how YouTube can be abusive. It is their platform and they can do whatever they want with it. It is your choice if you use it or not. If you think the ads are out of control, you can pay for their subscription or use free services.
Personally, I don’t see how people using adblockers can be abusive. It is their computer and they can display whatever content they want with it. It is their choice whether an ad plays on it or not. If YouTube thinks the adblockers are out of control, they can start paying people money to watch content on YouTube’s computers.
It’s abusive because a 2min video will have 30sec of ads its absolute bullshit and worse than even cable fuckery.
And I’m really, REALLY sick if seeing this idiotic argument of company X can do anything they want, because free market.
This isn’t even youtube specific but I absolutely disagree with that line of reasoning. That same argument is used by people whenever a company does shady shit.
No company just materialized out of thin air pulling themselves out of the ether, they all exist and thrive because of the community WE all created! Our public infrastructure, education, tax codes and million other things WE contributed allows any corporation to exist at all.
So no, corporations don’t get to just do whatever the fuck they want, because “market”.
I personally would pay for YouTube for a reasonable price and 10$/month ain’t it. I don’t want youtube music or whatever shit they are bundling with it.
Yes, corporations get to do whatever they want with their property. If you don’t like it, you can choose other services, nobody is forcing you to stay there.
Well, if it is abusive or not will be determined by the majority of people. If their numbers start going down because of this, they’ll act on it. If not, it means the majority of people are willing to see the ads to get to the content. People also complained when YouTube implemented ads in the beginning, very short ones. Clearly, the majority of people were fine with it. Free market, supply & demand.
Personally, I run away from ads so I don’t use YouTube that much. I watch Veritasiun and 3Blue1Brown mostly and every time I see an ad come up, I like it because I know I’m giving money to the dudes giving me great content. It’s my way of giving back.
Yeha and pirates say that content should be free and accessible, and that’s why piracy is ethical. YouTube is providing a way to keep content available for everyone while keeping a business running for millions of people around the globe.
Just look at all the posts in this community saying that piracy is THE ethical way.
So, they fucking hate it when content is paywalled and say that this is awful because content should be free for poor people. But they also hate it when content is free and they have to watch ads. They just hate every sustainable business model. Wtf.
This is just communism in disguise. They want private effort for free and hassle free anytime, anywhere. Probably looking at it on their Iphones or Samsung phones. Thst they were able to purchase because they were paid for their work.
Also an unpopular opinion but I actually don’t mind paying for YouTube Premium to avoid the ads. Content creators get a bigger cut from my watching habits and it comes with a music streaming platform.
We are in piracy community though so it makes sense people are against paying for content that once upon a time was completely free.
But despite paying still remain the product since Google is still data mining users instead of opting paid users out. And doesn’t have options like sponsorblock built in, dislikes returned, or ability to combine subscriptions into custom groups.
I feel you could get the annual cost and divide it among channels you want to give the money and that’d be more money for them. Like I don’t see the official YouTube app being a better app than third parties personally.
Even YouTube front ends I’ve found better than the official YouTube site, since they can bypass region blocks.
Totally agree with you, but they need to make an Ad free only subscription. YouTube Premium is more of a package deal (Ad Free/ YT Music/High bitrate).
Spotify used to have a tier called Spotify Unlimited which basically was essentially ad free Spotify with no other premium features. Half the price £5 per month.
