YouTube looks to be testing server-side ad injection to counter ad blockers

AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to Technology@lemmy.world – 615 points – YouTube looks to be testing server-side ad injection to counter ad blockers
9to5google.com
  • YouTube is testing server-side ad injection to counter ad blockers, integrating ads directly into videos to make them indistinguishable from the main content.
  • This new method complicates ad blocking, including tools like SponsorBlock, which now face challenges in accurately identifying and skipping sponsored segments.
  • The feature is currently in testing and not widely rolled out, with YouTube encouraging users to subscribe to YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience.
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Next up: all web pages are full resolution bitmap files.

Here's an image viewer example with 0 exposed HTML elements (all UI rendered through a single canvas) and 0 human readable code (all client side code compiled to webassembly bytecode). Trying to block unwanted content in this kind of site would be closer to cracking a video game or patching an android app.

Nah, computer vision for standalone image processing (I mean, not batch processing dozens to thousands of files at the same time) today is pretty lightweight and can be done easily on consumer laptops and smartphones. It is just a different technique and takes people with different skills to do it, but completely doable. Gor example, even face detection AI models can run on your laptop, if AI can learn to classify faces, objects and animals it can learn to classify ads.

I'm surprised DRM'd webpages haven't been a thing until now.

They're trying. Give them some time. Users will lap it up like idiots instead of just saying no.

Google was working on a feature that would do just that, but I can't recall the name of it.

They backed down for now due to public outcry, but I expect they're just biding their time.