YouTube's plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers

ijeff@lemdro.id to Technology@lemmy.world – 2016 points – YouTube's plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers
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cross-posted from: https://lemdro.id/post/2883134 (!android@lemdro.id)

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Controversial take but:

  • YouTube are fully within their rights to crack down on adblockers, as they have done in the past. Content delivery is not free, and they are not a charity.
  • YouTube provides two ways to "pay" for your content: with ads, or by paying for premium.
  • Tech companies have an unhealthy habit of making things free or cheap to gain a userbase, then increasing the price. The biggest problem with this imo is that it sets expectations with users that these things should be free
  • I am not going to get into an argument about what price is "fair" or whether Google can "afford it". All I know is that for now, they continue to run YouTube, but nothing stops them from shutting it all down tomorrow if they decide it's not profitable enough.

As for myself personally, I watched YouTube with ads for the last 2 or 3 years, and more recently I decided to start paying for YouTube Premium.

YouTube Premium made sense for me because:

  • I was spending more than 3 hours a day on YouTube (in the background or as the thing I'm actively watching.
  • I could afford it now that my financial situation had improved
  • Creators get significantly more money from YouTube Premium watchers (or so I've heard)

Before all of that, I used to use YouTube Vanced (RIP) and NewPipe, both great though not entirely legit ways of bypassing ads and downloading videos. I still use the latter to archive the really good content I come across.

If you're ok to pay for YouTube, but it's too expensive for the value you get out of it, there are alternative approaches. You can spoof your location and buy YouTube Premium in another country, like Turkey or India, and get it for as low as $2 a month. Google doesn't crack down on this much at the time of writing.

YouTube provides two ways to "pay" for your content: with ads, or by paying for premium.

Not quite, unfortunately. You can pay by watching ads in addition to being surveiled, or by paying for premium and being surveiled potentially even harder (because you have to have an account with personal and payment information). Google does not stop tracking you and selling your profile just because you pay for Premium, so it's not an option for me.

I hadn't thought of it from a privacy perspective.

I couldn't imagine using YouTube not signed in because of the dogs**t recommendations you get then. I imagine if you're signed in the privacy loss is not significantly less than if you paid for Premium too.

I also use GMail so I'm already f***ed from that. I've basically given up on privacy at any other time than when I want to do private things, and I use a VPN and private browser.

I honestly have more than enough content on Youtube to watch without having to rely on recommendations, and I intentionally do not use Google accounts in any other capacity either. So yeah, for me Youtube Premium is just not an option even though I would be open to pay for the content. Hell, I even do donate to some individual creators through other platforms already. If Google wants my money they shouldn't have killed the separate Youtube account and shouldn't have forced everything into their surveillance-ad business.

I can understand your point of view. I was grandfathered in at $16 a month for the family plan for years since I was around from the beginning. Then I got an email telling me it's going up to $22 a month. I used premium for music and ad free only. I don't care about movies or anything else. I would still happily be paying for premium today at the understandable $16 dollars but they got greedy so now I use Revanced and pay nothing. I am also trying out Grayjay since it combines a lot of platforms.

Oh wow that really is expensive. Americans do make more money on average than Europeans, but goddamn does your stuff cost a lot of money sometimes.

I think it's €15 here?

EDIT:

Ah, for the family plan. Just reread. Not sure what that is here.

They're absolutely within their rights to try and block ad-blockers. And users are fully within their rights to circumvent the blocks in order to protect their privacy and the security of their machines and the data on them, as Google has proven repeatedly to be either uncaring or incompetent when it comes to ensuring the ads they serve aren't spreading malware.