News YouTube is expanding its ad-blocking powers — closes loopholes that allowed some users to bypass restrictions

[Admin]

YouTube just expanded its ad-blocking capabilities, closing down a few loopholes that Firefox and other ad-blockers used to stop ads.

YouTube is expanding its ad-blocking powers — closes loopholes that allowed some users to bypass restrictions : Read more

 

[bit_user]

YouTube is expanding its ad-blocking powers — closes loopholes that allowed some users to bypass restrictions

YouTube has recently expanded its ad-blocking measures, closing the loopholes that browsers and other third-party extensions with ad-blocking capabilities used to remove ads from YouTube videos. ...

I think "countermeasures" is a word that eluded the author. The headline and article would've been much clearer, were it used judiciously. Does anyone use thesauruses, any more?

some users who previously bypassed ads reported they can no longer play YouTube videos unless they add the video hosting site to their adblocker's allowlist

This is something I've often wondered about. Why don't content providers use ad networks to serve their content? Then, it would be extremely difficult to block one and not the other.

It even went to the point that a privacy consultant in the EU filed a criminal complaint against the company for “unlawful surveillance.”

If they went so far as to force me to allow cross-site tracking cookies and other technologies, I would indeed consider that an unacceptable requirement and I can see how it might be in violation of privacy laws, in certain jurisdictions.

 

[vanadiel007]

Nobody likes ads. If they insist in preventing ad blockers from working, people will simply switch to another platform and Google will incur enough losses that they will enable ad blockers again.

 

[Unolocogringo]

The problem is simple.
I will watch their ads, but I block all tracking cookies that their ads try to place on my computer.
So I get the pop up stating that I am using an add blocker because my computer will not accept their tracking cookie.
So get your story straight.
I hate adds like everyone else.
But I hate tracking cookies even more.

 

[bit_user]

I will watch their ads, but I block all tracking cookies that their ads try to place on my computer.
So I get the pop up stating that I am using an add blocker because my computer will not accept their tracking cookie.
So get your story straight.
I hate adds like everyone else.
But I hate tracking cookies even more.

100% agree.

The problem is that ad networks bid for your eyeballs and they won't pay if they don't know who you are, so that they can serve you a properly-targeted ad. So, that's why tracker-blocking tends to cut way down on ads and why they incorrectly equate such privacy-protections with ad-blocking.

 

[bit_user]

If they insist in preventing ad blockers from working, people will simply switch to another platform and Google will incur enough losses that they will enable ad blockers again.

Do you not see the flaw in this logic? Google is already losing money when people view content but not ads. It's actually to their benefit to kick the "deadbeats" off their platform!

 

[Li Ken-un]

It's actually to their benefit to kick the "deadbeats" off their platform!

On the surface, that’s true. But perhaps there is a more complex dynamic. (I’m spitballing here.)

Suppose these deadbeats went elsewhere. (To where, I wouldn’t know. But I would love to know. 😃) The content creators now have a decision to make: spread their content to the other platforms or risk reduced viewership. And Google watches helplessly as YouTube’s dominance is eroded away. Where content creators once had a no-brainer choice between hosting on YouTube or not, they now make their content more widely available on other platforms. Given a choice between a platform where ad blocking is not possible and where it is, one could see users migrating to the latter. And that endangers Google, because the competitors will have some critical mass of content and users to begin offering competing subscriptions, driving prices down. If this logic is sound, then Google does have an incentive to bear some of the freeloaders as it also suppresses the emergence of viable competition, making its ad space/time more valuable for those who still watch ads and preventing the emergence of more choices in the market competing for paid subscriptions.

 

[Notton]

I noticed a bit of whack-a-mole between Youtube and uBlock origin over the past couple of days.
uBlock won btw.

If you are on Linux, Vacuumtube is also great alternative.

I would turn on ads, but the moment I did, I kept getting blasted by hateful and untruthful political ads, or scam ads like the swamp cooler being sold as the "revolutionary airconditioner".
At which point I turned on uBlock again. No thanks.

 

[Li Ken-un]

I would turn on ads, but the moment I did, I kept getting blasted by hateful and untruthful political ads, or scam ads like the swamp cooler being sold as the "revolutionary airconditioner".

Thank you for sparing us the “find out.” 🙂

The content creators now have a decision to make: spread their content to the other platforms or risk reduced viewership.

I’m not a content creator, so I do not have any informed opinions from such a perspective. But as a content consumer, I’ve noticed many creators already have their own ads for their sponsors built permanently into the video stream. Some are also on alternative paid platforms where zero ads are present. This tells me that whatever incentive exists to monetize videos using YouTube ad viewership, it certainly isn’t powerful.

 

[TheyStoppedit]

YouTube is going to lose the war, because eventually the ad blockers will break every measure YouTube creates to the point where the only way for YouTube to stop it will fall afoul of privacy laws in many jurisdictions. The ad blocker devs won't back down. The message to YouTube is simple. Either you remove the ads, or we will remove the ads. You can decide how the ads are removed

 

[Dementoss]

If you want to continue using YT with ads blocked, it may help to use one of the more niche browsers. Of the ones I use most often, Opera is by far the most popular with a markets share of around 2.74% in April this year.

With adblocking enabled Opera has been having issues in recent days. Vivaldi, my favoured browser and DuckDuckGo both have very much less users and, they still work seamlessly with adblocking on.

 

[Math Geek]

i don't even think they have to 100% remove ads from youtube. start the video with one, and then let me enjoy whatever it is i clicked on. i'll go with that and let it play.

but to start with 3, cut in with another few every 10 minutes, start more if i pause the video and then end with many more is too much to deal with.

so adblocker it is. it's that simple for me.

 

[Giroro]

Even if you remove the ads, it doesn't remove the mid-video ad breaks burned into the videos by the creators.
Even if you sponsor block the ad breaks, it doesn't change the fact that the video is, in itself, an infomercial.

The whole creator economy is deep in a death spiral on Youtube. YouTube wants you to think making videos for them is "a job" but statistically, YouTube is paying ad revenue to 0.00% of it's video producers - and 0.0000% are making minimum wage.
Only a fool would put thousands of dollars worth of labor into playing those odds. The number of people who can making a loving off their work is to smaller than a rounding error. If you haven't personally had YouTube reach out to your agent to sign you or your company into a production contract, then you aren't going to succeed there. It's that simple.
The pros are literally professionals, and everybody else is the fodder. They sell the idea you can become a creator, because desperate wannabe creators doing "research" are verifiably human, which generates more ad revenue for the platform.
You're literally more likely to make a profit playing the lottery than by posting to YouTube.

Anybody wanting to put more than 5 minutes of work into a video should avoid the platform like the plague. YouTube gives creators no choice but to make unwatchable videos, and makes even decent videos unwatchable through a great wall of ads. I believe that nearly no real people are consuming YouTube right now. It's bots, unoccupied screens, and people who are asleep.

So don't bother making content for humans — keep making it for algorithms.
Just keep flooding their servers with as much unwatchable AI generated slop as possible. Alphabet can either learn to stop giving people the tools to ruin their own ecosystem, throw away the trash, or keep choking on their own hubris.
Just don't go to YouTube expecting to watch a video. That era is over.

 

[bit_user]

Suppose these deadbeats went elsewhere. (To where, I wouldn’t know. But I would love to know. 😃) The content creators now have a decision to make: spread their content to the other platforms or risk reduced viewership.

It's not the deadbeats they're chasing, and I can say with reasonable certainty that Tik Tok's popularity isn't simply due to Youtube's ads.

Sure, if you have fewer people using Youtube (or maybe they watch fewer videos, because they can't stand having to watch all the ads they now must let through), then creators' videos will have lower view counts and I guess their payment is simply a function of views? But, everyone would have lower view counts and if creators leaving were a real problem, then Google could just nudge up to the pay scale so that people got roughly the same compensation as before when the countermeasures went into effect.

TBH, I really don't see much of a downside for Google. Also, if lots of the deadbeats are driven to some competing platform, their costs will increase but their revenues won't. That deprives them of profits they could use to improve their service or use as payment to attract and retain better content. So, it's a double-win for Google.

 

[bit_user]

Even if you remove the ads, it doesn't remove the mid-video ad breaks burned into the videos by the creators.
Even if you sponsor block the ad breaks, it doesn't change the fact that the video is, in itself, an infomercial.

If the creator puts their own little ad into the video, you can skip those without having to wait. If the entire thing is an infomercial, then you have only yourself to blame for being suckered into watching such drivel.

The whole creator economy is deep in a death spiral on Youtube. ... Only a fool would put thousands of dollars worth of labor into playing those odds.

I'm sure Tik Tok isn't that different. It's not uncommon to hear stories about people posting videos for years, in obscurity. Then, one of their videos goes viral and they ride some huge wave of success. Why'd it go viral? Who knows? A lot of times, there wasn't anything so special about that particular video, but the algorithm just happened to roll the dice in their favor. It's a lottery system, and there's a good reason why lotteries are often regarded as a "dumb tax".

Anybody wanting to put more than 5 minutes of work into a video should avoid the platform like the plague.

It's not just youtube. For the better part of the past two decades, like a billion people have been vying for stardom on these platforms. Your chance of success on these platforms is now little better than it was in the old broadcast and cable TV world.

Just don't go to YouTube expecting to watch a video. That era is over.

I only go there to watch something specific, and then I promptly close my window. I make a point of never following their recommendations or getting lured into wasting time on their platform, in any other way.

 

[Math Geek]

Even if you remove the ads, it doesn't remove the mid-video ad breaks burned into the videos by the creators.
Even if you sponsor block the ad breaks, it doesn't change the fact that the video is, in itself, an infomercial.

the creator putting in their own ads is not google. as you noted, google does not actually pay very many very much at all. so the creators are getting paid through their own sponsorship deals.

i watch a handful of podcasts that are usually 1.5-2 hours long. these folks sell an ad free stream if you don't want the sponsorship ads included. the "ad free" version usually is 2-3 minutes shorter. so 2-3 mins of them reading ads over 2 hours i can handle as well. so i don't bother paying to remove them.

google breaks that mark before the video starts usually and then hits it again and again as the podcast plays.

i can accept the minimal ad reads so long as they stay minimal.

at one point i had an ad in the middle of a podcast that was a 30 minute episode of something new kevin hart was doing. i had left the room and came back 15 minutes into the "ad" since i wasn't there to click skip.

yah adblock for the win. lol

 

[bit_user]

at one point i had an ad in the middle of a podcast that was a 30 minute episode of something new kevin hart was doing. i had left the room and came back 15 minutes into the "ad" since i wasn't there to click skip.

Oh, for sure this happens to me. I look at the time remaining, when deciding whether or not to hit the "skip" button, and sometimes I'm shocked at how long these ads are! Like, infomercials way longer than the video I was even watching. I'll bet they're banking on some people just falling asleep or being away from their screen, when those ads play.

 

[JellyPeanutCrunch]

This is a shockingly badly-written article.

First, learn the word "countermeasures" like another poster said. Currently it reads as though Google entered the adblocking business.

Second, the phrasing "Firefox and other ad-blockers" lmao. Firefox is a browser. Are you trying to say Firefox itself is blocking YT ads, or is it just that Google is targeting ad-blockers that only work on Firefox now that the Googlopoly has removed them from Chrome?

Google's whole approach to this issue violates the basic principle that a browser is supposed to act as an agent for the user, not the website owner. Would be nice if the Toms article clarified this instead of muddying the waters.

 

[Johnpombrio]

They can try...

 

[baboma]

>First, learn the word "countermeasures" like another poster said.

No. "Countermeasure" denotes a counteracting effect (eg antivirus is a countermeasure against malware); it does not mean blocking or restricting. If you're going to be a word-Nazi, at least get it right.

Yes, the piece is awkwardly worded. That's par with most every filler pieces here, along with prominent typos that aren't corrected even when pointed out, and just basically low-quality, low-effort overall. That, and the increasingly annoying advertorial pop-ups. But nobody complained about it because of "free." Same for YouTube.

>Google's whole approach to this issue violates the basic principle that a browser is supposed to act as an agent for the user, not the website owner.

The basic principle is that you get what you pay for. Google is entirely within its right to block adblockers. And it knows very well when adblockers are used, because adblock use is not hidden.

But when you're serving an audience size of hundreds of millions, any change has to be gradual--because even freeloaders have their worth in eyeballs. It's a balancing act, between not upsetting too many freeloaders who think they're entitled to free services, and monetizing their eyeballs. But to be sure, there is no constitutional right to getting free stuff on the Internet.

 

[Robbertson]

If only there were a terrific solution, let's say it'd be called smart tube? Someone look into that!

Related story. Around 20 years, Sam's Club let you have 5 other people on your membership card, and they didn't even care if they were related to or lived with you. A management genius decided that those 5 people would definitely buy their own membership so they quit allowing that. Causing not only those 5 to not buy memberships, the one that WAS paying started to cancel since the value wasn't there any longer. The plus was everyone getting access and buying things. Good for both worlds.

Lets say that Google had stuck with the original value proposition of "Knowing what you'll watch makes giving you video for free in exchange for seeing those interests because then ad sales value goes way up". Or even "we're going to stick you with a skippable ad up front and that's it"?

People only started leaning on ad blockers when it was "thanks for your viewing info, we loved making 2-3x on ads served to you. And now that ad is unskippable and so are 5-6 of its friends in a 5 minute video. And we want you to pay $15/mo now. Also, forget about ad blockers."

Technically smart folks who have no idea how people work or why they use things. Or how to craft a product strategy or corporate strategy.

 

[Robbertson]

If they went so far as to force me to allow cross-site tracking cookies and other technologies, I would indeed consider that an unacceptable requirement and I can see how it might be in violation of privacy laws, in certain jurisdictions.

At no point, ever, did I authorize any app or web site to scrutinize my software configuration of my personal device.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

I think most people wouldn't have a problem with Youtube ads for non-premium members if they were just pre-roll and pause ads with a duration that scaled with the video length (short vids get 5 second ads, hour long vids get 30 second-1 minute ads, for example), instead of ads that interrupted videos, and especially if they were just banner ads below the video as well.

And of course they could always do the thing people have been begging for for years: roll Ad-Free Youtube in with Google One subscritpions...

 

[baboma]

>They can try...

I have YT on continuously as background music for my mom. I use Firefox w/ uBlock Origin as default. In recent days, I did notice occasional "no adblocker allowed" pop-ups, but only after several hours of use, and only when starting a new (music) video. The pop-ups can be clicked away. In short, it's very mild nagware, at least for my particular region.

I presume Goog will gradually tighten the screws, with popups with increasing frequency and to the point when you can't click away. Then I'll have to white-list YT, and use other YT-specific *countermeasures* to mitigate or obviate the ads.

Yes, it's a cat-and-mouse game. But there's no moral high ground to be claimed here. We just want stuff for free with no ads. It's a want, not a right.


>At no point, ever, did I authorize any app or web site to scrutinize my software configuration of my personal device.

This is just ignorant. All websites require access to device information as part of their functionality. Any additional info scraped from your device is spelled out in the user agreement you never bothered to read. Your continued use implies consent. This is the Internet economy in action. You pay with your privacy in return for free services.


>This is frustrating as a subscriber as I don't want all the tracking tied to me, part of why I pay for AdBlock Premium.

Your frustration lies with AdBlock Premium. Google has no obligation to be compatible with any adblock service.

 

[emike09]

As a paying YT Premium subscriber, I was surprised when I went to use YT and none of the videos were loading. Couldn't click anything, just kind of a dead page. Down detector didn't really indicate an issue, so I turned off all my extensions and it worked. Figuring it was AdBlock Premium, I re-enabled everything except for AdBlock and it still worked. Enabled ABP, back to broken again.
This is frustrating as a subscriber as I don't want all the tracking tied to me, part of why I pay for AdBlock Premium.