YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to Technology@lemmy.world – 1670 points –
YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users
404media.co

Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."

402

You are viewing a single comment

Given that Google's been talking about switching Chrome to a new plugin format that would limit the ability of adblockers to function on Chrome, and given that Google owns Youtube and profits from the ads Youtube displays...

Nope, I'm not connecting the dots. Not sure why Google would be wanting people switch from Firefox to Chrome at this time.

It's more obvious than that even; their SEC paperwork states that adblockers are a risk to their profits. That's more than enough info to assume they're going to go to war in the near future (now) with them.

They've always been at war with ad blockers. It's just most major multinationals have matured or diversified to a point where they are functional monopolies, and no longer gain any value in competition or service improvement.

At this stage of the merger and consolidation phase of global capitalism, with captured governments that won't dare break them up or fine them more than a meek virtue signal, the most cost effective way to satiate the infinite growth of capitalism is to increase the exploitation and value extraction of their existing user base as much as possible (aka enshittification).

their SEC paperwork states that adblockers are a risk to their profits.

Concluding implicitly: "... and therefore a threat to all your computers' security" :-)

It’s more obvious than that even; their SEC paperwork states that adblockers are a risk to their profits.

Sounds like the single best reason to use one.

Dear God, won't anyone think of the shareholders?

Just for clarity, they already switched protocols (Manifest v3), they just have continued to support the old format (v2) that allows unlock origin to work. They are discontinuing support for v2 next year.

What really pisses me off is that mv3 is becoming a standard that Vivaldi, Firefox, Opera, Edge, etc. will use.

Mind you that Firefox will adjust it to be able to fully support ad blocker.

3 more...