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ecshafer 5 days ago

I am not sure why this is a bug? Youtube is tracking people, this blocks them tracking people. A side effect of a view not being counted on Youtube, is 100% Youtube's problem, and doesn't effect the user in any way.

cluckindan 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Sounds like YT is trying to mobilize creators and influencers against adblocking.

reddalo 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> against adblocking

And extensions such as SponsorBlock [1], which help user skipping sponsored sections or useless intros in videos.

[1] https://sponsor.ajay.app/

MattBearman 5 days ago | parent [-]

YouTube premium actually has its own version of sponsorblock called skip ahead, it works really well, so they’re not ideologically opposed to skipping sponsored segments

xgulfie 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I guess it makes sense, they have no financial incentive to keep people from skipping sponsors, they don't make YouTube any money

humpty-d 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That doesn't just target sponsor segments. It's for stuff commonly skipped. Like annoying parts of videos. Some video game guy I occasionally watching thinks he needs to sing for some reason, very useful for skipping those sections.

gloxkiqcza 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’m surprised they allow ads (sponsor segments) they get no cut from at all.

Sanzig 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Sponsorships are the primary way YouTube creators make money. There aren't many things that could knock YouTube off its near-monopoly market position, but banning sponsorships is definitely one. Creators would revolt.

izacus 5 days ago | parent [-]

They pretty surely would not.

xmprt 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Creators are already starting to build their own platforms for hosting videos and many of these are quite successful unlike prior iterations from 10 years ago.

sebastiennight 5 days ago | parent [-]

Do you have some examples? I am still a bit sore from my adventures as a creator on Viddler and Dailymotion.

pyth0 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I would point to platforms like Curiosity Stream and Nebula, which are creator driven. Though I would not exactly call them Youtube replacements, as they are more just platforms designed for supporting specific creators more directly (akin to Patreon). These platforms are often advertised as in-video sponsorships, so going back to the original point, I do think creators would be very vocal if such ads were banned.

weberer 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Kick is one that's been poaching big names lately. I've also seen people starting to stream on X and Rumble.

realusername 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

They wouldn't have a choice, your average big youtube channel earns 95% of their revenue from sponsorship.

It would either be trying a revolt or stop youtube.

anon1395 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Why would they not allow them?

SoftTalker 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, I discovered this recently and it's nice. I presume they are not opposed to it because it's not costing them any lost revenue.

disiplus 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Where ? Like I have sponsor block on a desktop but on my pixel I don't have it and would like to have the option. Have the yt premium but don't see the option to skip sponsors.

Andrex 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

If you double tap to skip 10 seconds during an ad read, it should appear as a button in the bottom right. It does not pop up proactively. It's algorithmically-based on which parts of the video get skipped most often by viewers.

celsoazevedo 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Firefox for Android supports desktop extensions, including Sponsor Block and uBlock Origin.

There's also Tubular, a YouTube client and fork of NewPipe with Sponsor Block built-in. If you don't mind installing apks from outside the Play Store: https://github.com/polymorphicshade/Tubular

reddalo 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

There's a famous mod for the YouTube app called Re-Vanced. It adds support for SponsorBlock, removes Shorts, etc.

delecti 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've got Youtube premium and have never noticed that popping up. Is this platform or browser dependent? Is it only on some videos?

Wohlf 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

It isn't automatic for me unless I try to skip a sponsored segment myself, then it will kick in and skip me to the end of that segment with a popup above the scroll bar saying they did so.

bogtog 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Might just be the channels you're viewing. This video should have a "Jump ahead" appear around 0:19: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs5PfanIkC0&t=1s

SchemaLoad 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

On the TV app, if you hit the forward button it instantly skips over the entire "commonly skipped section".

whatevertrevor 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's a feature that learns commonly skipped over sections, ads or otherwise.

paxys 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Plus it works on mobile and TVs.

brokenmachine 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, they really dgaf about the creators.

Another example of that is their ridiculous strike system. Look at what happened to Gamersnexus recently.

wombarly 4 days ago | parent [-]

How is this in a way related to that or not gaf about creators?

I pay €14/mo to not have ads on YouTube. It's good they have the skip feature for those sponsor segments, since they're just embedded ads.

Creators still benefit as my view has a higher $. Well... not anymore I suppose with the view attribution endpoint being blocked by my adblock.

brokenmachine 4 days ago | parent [-]

Creators get way more money out of their in-video sponsors than from youtube ads.

avian 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think YouTube needed to do anything. The change influenced creators' bottom line so they are motivated on their own to mobilize their viewers against this change.

cluckindan 5 days ago | parent [-]

It was YT that changed the ad delivery mechanism to prevent view counting, not adblockers.

kllrnohj 5 days ago | parent [-]

It was an easylist change (so adblockers) that caused the issue: https://github.com/easylist/easylist/commit/2d39de407dc96904...

Whether or not you consider that an issue shrug but it's not directly YT's fault.

marcosscriven 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This was my exact thought when I read about it. YouTube clearly has a record of what I’ve watched, because it’s in my watch history.

What they are missing is proof I’ve watched the ads - which I haven’t.

natebc 5 days ago | parent [-]

They may in fact not know what you watched. I was having an issue with my youtube recommendations becoming generic to the point of irrelevance, when i went and looked at my watch history and it hadn't been updated in MONTHS despite me watching youtube daily.

Turns out that pi-hole was blocking the endpoint that records the watch history! IIRC allowing queries for something like s.youtube.com made my watch history start working.

I agree that they should know w/o all this client based nonsense but :shrug:. They don't, somehow!

tomrod 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Morally indefensible. Adblockers are used as a response to Google externalizing/ignoring the cost of proper ad platform curation.

mustyoshi 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ads are how they get paid until they're big enough for alternative revenue generation.

zelphirkalt 5 days ago | parent [-]

This actually hints at a way out of the YouTube monopoly. Make creators' business model no longer work on YouTube, by blocking the tracking. Make it so that creators are forced to go to other, paid video platforms, instead of them feeding the YouTube monopoly.

This might temporarily lead to a collapse in video creator business, but in the long run might result in more viable businesses for creators, without them having to push shit onto their viewers. Make videos and enjoy them being seen, or make paid content and have people pay for that, but don't try to shoehorn it into viewing videos that are accessible for anyone running a Youtube search.

alkonaut 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Sounds fair? Both creators and YouTube have the same goal of having people watch ads (or pay not to).

swiftcoder 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It seems like a YouTube bug, that they are performing view tracking on the client, when they own the whole server backend and could just as well track them server side (which wouldn't be blockable in the first place)

nonameiguess 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

It seems like server-side would suffer from issues due to buffering lookahead and autoplay. A client can request a video that is skipped within seconds, but if buffering causes it to request five minutes worth, the server only sees five minutes were requested, whereas the client can clearly tell how much of that was actually watched.

paxys 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Server-side tracking would be the easiest thing in the world to spoof.

swiftcoder 5 days ago | parent [-]

How is it any easier to spoof than client-side tracking?

In the server-side case I can certainly increase views by fetching the video multiple times, but in the client side case I can hit the analytics endpoint directly just as easily

paxys 5 days ago | parent [-]

Bot detection systems all work client side. What browser are you using, what cookies do you have, how is your mouse moving, how much time are you taking between clicks, how many captchas have you solved. All this and more is collected and passed to the server, which can then determine if the view was valid or not. Plus you can do this multiple times during a watch session rather than just in the beginning when the video is requested. If the adblocker is blocking this data then the server has nothing to go on.

slightwinder 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a problem for the Creators. Their stats are lower than they should be, which could have negative effects on their business, like YouTubes recommendation-system not working as efficient as it should be. Similar, would they have a weaker selling-point for companies advertising on their channel.

It should be noted that YouTube income is unaffected by this, as Ads are still shown and counted to people without AdBlockers. So this is only harmful to the creators, and not YouTube.

ecshafer 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

But why would I, as a user of Easy Privacy, care about this? It is protecting my own privacy. Someone trying to get more money on the internet isn't really my concern.

Wololooo 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

While I agree with you, not every channel is big and some of the smaller ones might rely partially on this in order to get materials/sponsorship in order to be able to have the parts to do some projects they make videos on because it is more a passion project and they might barely break even or even make losses on doing it.

The context that I am thinking about is, for example, a small hobbyist that might rely on the added value for making some odd things, requiring exotic hardware, quantities of materials that could be prohibitively expensive or the lend of access to said hardware might be blocked behind viewership metrics, and there this might make some difference, and I personally enjoy those little odd channels and this is why I, as a viewer, might care about it. But again, I totally see where you are coming from.

0xbadcafebee 5 days ago | parent [-]

For every one hobbyist making some kind of interesting video that they couldn't have made without ad money, there are 1,000 moronic influencers making the same video about the same thing, grasping at ad money or free products to shill. YouTube is 99% dreck now. Hooray for the hobbyist, poor us having to wade through the influencer swamp.

groby_b 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because you might have a perfectly selfish stance in the short term, but it turns out that creators not making enough money leads to creators not making content.

Someone you care to watch not making enough money to make the things you like to watch is your concern, because making equivalent content yourself is out of your reach.

Workaccount2 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

It's worse than creators not making content, they move their content to be lower rung click bait garbage to maximize ad-views.

If "smart" people use ad-block, then all the content gravitates towards those who don't.

ndriscoll 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The videos for smart people are things like:

* University lectures

* Conference talks

* Random clips of homeowners doing some DIY repair

i.e. things that were being done anyway, and someone decided to post it online because it's free and they wanted to be helpful. "Content creators" are already almost never making videos with high value information. The entire idea of "creating content" rather than "sharing information" is a bad framing to start from. When we recognize that "sharing information" is the high-value action, we're better able to see that it not only can be done by someone who isn't a full-time "creator", but may actually be done better by people who aren't devoted to it since their occupation is to be a practitioner of the field they're sharing information about. i.e. they are better informed.

pseudalopex 5 days ago | parent [-]

Smart people enjoy many different things.

ndriscoll 5 days ago | parent [-]

What I listed encompasses many things. You can find lectures on philosophy, biology, anatomy, psychology, physics, Russian literature, religion, history, or whatever topic you're interested in. It's more about depth of information and level of expertise of the presenter vs. "lower rung click bait garbage". Information that demands your full attention for an extended period of time and expects you'll put in effort to engage with it instead of just throwing gimmicks at you to hold a piece of your attention before you click away.

Or if you want to enjoy some slop, then apparently we'll all get plenty of that if the smart people block malware, so no problem.

Generally speaking, something with wide appeal is going to be trash anyway because most people aren't going to want to (or will be unable to) engage with any given topic at more than a superficial level. e.g. compare Andrew Ng's Coursera MOOC to problem sets you can find from his real class at Stanford. It is obvious that he watered down the information hard for Coursera. Almost every class on those MOOC sites is of the "X for non-X majors" variety at best (and that's for people who are motivated enough to self-learn!), which IMO is why it could never truly be disruptive. The "creators" people are talking about are generally this except even more targeted at mass audiences.

Even for people who are interested in "smart" stuff, 100x more people will watch some 10 minute video of surface level discussion with doodles about algebraic geometry[0] and then move onto another 10 minute video vs. putting in the work to engage with 15+ hours of lectures on the subject from a Fields Medalist[1]. World-class researchers provide graduate level educational materials for free (which is awesome), but they could never succeed as "content creators" because any given video will only get ~1k views after years of being up.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MflpyJwhMhQ

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8yHsr3EFj53j51FG6wCb...

kentm 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> It's worse than creators not making content, they move their content to be lower rung click bait garbage to maximize ad-views.

They will do this whether or not people use ad-blockers. We've seen this happen before; someone will claim that they are an ethical ad company and don't do shady things, people allow-list in ad blockers, then they start ramping up.

I remember back in the day where Google was a "good advertiser" because they had simple textual ads and didn't do shady things. IIRC plenty of ad blockers just allow-listed Google at that time. And then they acquired Doubleclick.

romanovcode 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> creators not making enough money leads to creators not making content.

As a consumer this does not concern me in the slightest. The big creators who are focusing on revenue are so sterile they are barely watchable at this point.

mbirth 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I remember a time where people actually had to pay money to publish their videos (on their own server, using their own storage). And they still did it if they wanted to get something out into the world.

slightwinder 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You don't have to care about it. But this is not about privacy, as this API likely does not impact your privacy. YouTube can track what you watch anyway.

And if you watch videos, there is a chance you also enjoy them, so it would be in your own interest to support creators in making more of them. But that's a bit more complicated.

gkbrk 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> YouTube can track what you watch anyway.

If YouTube could track what you watch anyway, they would have no trouble incrementing their view counter. But apparently that's an unsolved problem of computer science, so they were using something ad blockers and privacy extensions could block.

anon1395 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If i am correct, YouTube is trying to say "If you don't watch the ads, you are harming the poor, small content creators!"

slightwinder 5 days ago | parent [-]

Maybe, but that doesn't matter for this case. This is specifically about the view count, not whether you see the ads. But I've seen this was in the meanwhile merged with another thread, which is about the statement(?) from YouTube.

stefan_ 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Requests that have no benefit for the user need to be blocked on that premise alone. Do your tracking whatever nonsense on your own computing, thanks very much.

Workaccount2 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The correct approach is to not use these services. Ad-blocking and using the service just sends the message that you are leeching, not that the service is bad.

autoexec 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Ad blocking and using the service only sends the message that the service with ads is bad, but the service without ads is acceptable.

Often this means "the way you've implemented ads is terrible enough that I went out of my way to block them" and sometimes it means "any and all ads are terrible and I don't want them"

There's nothing at all wrong with ad blocking. Someone who puts their content on the public internet has zero right to require me to view that content, or to control how much of it I see or how I choose to view it. If I want to block ads, or only watch the last 20 seconds, or watch the whole thing played backwards that's my business. This is equally true for websites where I'm free to decide what to download and how to display it in my browser.

SoftTalker 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No more than going to the bathroom or getting a drink during a TV commercial break is leeching. Watching ads is not and has never been obligatory for the viewer.

Workaccount2 5 days ago | parent [-]

You are free to go to the bathroom or get a drink when a youtube ad is playing.

Telaneo 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'm also free to automatically skip ads on both TV and youtube.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Broadcasting_Co._v._Dish_N...

pessimizer 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

And also free to block it. What was your point again?

baseballdork 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Correct by what metric? Why do I care if I send the message that I'm leeching?

mhuffman 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It seems to be sending the same message either way, no? Either not watching them or the ad-blocking reducing their count seems to be the same in the end.

Workaccount2 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

If you had a lemonade stand, and I came and drank one, told you it was bad and didn't pay, that's one thing. I'd probably not come back.

If I kept coming everyday, multiple times a day, and never paid "because its bad", it's extremely unlikely that I don't like the lemonade, and extremely likely that I just like that it's free as long as I complain.

mhuffman 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I am not sure that this example really works. Youtube is happy to give you all the "free lemonade" you want (from videos that aren't really monetizable) but the ones that are, they make onerous to use. I get 20+ ads per day right now from an Internet service that I already use, and get untold ads from products that I would never use. Some of the ads are up to 1 hour in duration. Granted, they mercifully offer a skip button, but it seems to me that the ad is being forced on you, not offered to you. That is the big difference. A funny, engaging ad is not a problem for nearly anyone.

Workaccount2 5 days ago | parent [-]

No, the ad is not being forced on you.

It's your choice to go to youtube and watch the video. No one is forcing that on you. Youtube is a service that is offered. If you don't like youtube or the ads, you can not use the service. Just like no one is forcing you to go to the lemonade stand.

NewsaHackO 5 days ago | parent [-]

Or he can just use it and block ads :)

5 days ago | parent [-]
[deleted]
autoexec 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's more like a lemonade stand which advertises a free glass of lemonade to anyone who asks for one, but every time someone comes up and asks for a glass the guy handing out cups gives a long-winded highly insulting sermon about how the person drinking should live their life.

Then the lemonade stand guy feels entitled to bitch about it when more and more people start showing up wearing headphones because they don't want to hear his bullshit even though literally nobody came for his abuse, what they came for was just the free lemonade.

The people still show up though because clearly people like the lemonade, they just hate the annoying guy who won't shut up about his rude opinions nobody asked for.

Workaccount2 5 days ago | parent [-]

If you go to the side table of the stand, you can purchase a lemonade, no hassle, no sermon. But people are incredibly opposed to this because they genuinely believe that they are entitled to this lemonade at no cost.

autoexec 5 days ago | parent [-]

> If you go to the side table of the stand, you can purchase a lemonade, no hassle, no sermon. But people are incredibly opposed to this because they genuinely believe that they are entitled to this lemonade at no cost.

How dare people genuinely believe they are entitled to this lemonade at no cost, when it's got a huge sign that says "FREE LEMONADE"!

Youtube has every right to take down the free lemonade sign and paywall off their service, but they wont because they know they make far more money luring in the people who come for the free videos, sucking up their personal data, and then increasingly abusing them until some number of suckers cave and start paying into their protection racket scheme.

A racket is exactly what youtube premium is too. Never pay someone for protection against the very harms they're causing you. There's nothing to stop them from demanding increasing amounts of protection money whenever they feel like it, which is exactly what Google has done. Repeatedly. Most recently sticking their oldest suckers with a 62% hike in protection fees. (https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1jqzu4g/et_tu_yout...)

Don't encourage or try to justify that kind of shit. Just put on a pair a headphones and enjoy the sweet lemonade Google chooses to offer for "free". Don't forget that even with those headphones, Google is still collecting every scrap of data they can get from you and your device while you're using their service and that they'll happily leverage all of that data against you in any way they can think of, any time they feel it might benefit them. That price is itself high enough, but for me still worth what I'm getting from the content I view.

Workaccount2 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't see where YouTube has a sign saying its free. It's openly ad supported.

It's also an optional website/app. No need to get heated, you can use another service.

Telaneo 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If I drink your lemonade, you no longer have it. If I watch your video, you still have it.

Workaccount2 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The cost to youtube is the overhead. Youtube doesn't even pay for the videos, but the infrastructure, delivery network, and service is very expensive.

It's a very naive view to think that serving videos is a zero-cost endeavor because the video isn't consumed.

Telaneo 5 days ago | parent [-]

If they don't want people to watch without paying, they can put up a paywall.

whatevertrevor 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Ah yes the infinitely reproducible digital content fallacy. If you watch a movie at the cinema, they still have the movie, do you expect that to be free too?

Products have more than just marginal production costs, especially true for digital ones.

Telaneo 5 days ago | parent [-]

> do you expect that to be free too?

The seating and good screen and audio? No.

The digital file? I don't expect Disney to provide that free of charge, or at all for that matter, but I do believe it should be free. Copyright has gone way too far of one end of the scale, and I'd like to pull it as far as possible to the other side, then hopefully we can meet in the middle in a position we can both respect. The current position taken by Society™ is one I don't respect.

whatevertrevor 5 days ago | parent [-]

I agree copyright goes too far, but that doesn't mean we should just delete everything. Creative content producers still need food to eat. We still need mechanisms to pay them for it, the more direct the better.

The value of digital content comes from more than just the final sequence of bytes.

Telaneo 5 days ago | parent [-]

> but that doesn't mean we should just delete everything.

Where did this come from? This has nothing to do with anything.

> We still need mechanisms to pay them for it, the more direct the better.

Patreon is a good option, although I wish we had better ones. It's not like Youtube's paying any significant amount to any content creator other than maybe the top 0.01%. Anyone who's tried that has discovered that Youtube's payout is some extra pocket change rather than anything you can actually sustain a business with; hence why everybody who's on Youtube and does it as a business also has a Patreon or does sponsorships, or something else, as that's the only way to make ends meet.

> The value of digital content comes from more than just the final sequence of bytes.

I fail to see what else I would derive value from. I just want the damn file in most cases, with minimal interference., but Youtube seems to always want plop their schlong inbetween the content creator and their audience, to everyone's displeasure.

Workaccount2 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

YouTube gives creators 55% of ad revenue once they get over 1k subscribers, it's pretty generous.

Telaneo 4 days ago | parent [-]

55% of basically nothing is still basically nothing. It's something stupid low like 0.001 cents per ad viewed, all depending on audience. Hence the need to not be reliant on youtube. If you donate $1 to any given creator, you've given them more than Youtube will probably ever give them for all your views ever.

Workaccount2 4 days ago | parent [-]

The numbers are readily available, you don't need to make them up other than to prop up a bad argument.

Youtube pays $5-$15 per 1000 views. Youtube premium gives a 55% cut of the monthly fee to creators. It's split among them based on who you watch and how long you watch them. If you watch one creator only, they will get the full 55% of your subscription cost. Creators readily acknowledge that yt premium viewers are by far the most valuable.

Generally less than 5% of viewers ever donate, and less than 1% ever give more then $5. It's not a viable income method.

I suggest following pitchfork mobs less, they are usually blind with rage and detached from reality, with a few kernels of truth in the middle.

Telaneo 4 days ago | parent [-]

Given the reality of number of channels who prop up their Paterons and merch stores, and the slim to zero number of channels at any actual scale relying on Youtube, as well as and the constant cuts in ad revenue (how many Adpocalypses are we at now?), not to mention Youtube's hostility towards me as a user, I have no intention to throw Youtube even the smallest bone until they walk back most of the hostile changes they've made over the years.

If Youtube was a platform that clearly cared about its creators, than a 55% split would be pretty fair. Youtube doesn't give a shit about most of them, and if they're just going to be a stupid bytepipe to the viewer, a hostile one at that, then them taking 45% is absurd.

whatevertrevor 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> > but that doesn't mean we should just delete everything.

> Where did this come from? This has nothing to do with anything.

Poor wording on my part, because I was typing on my phone. "Everything" refers to everything related to copyright law. Your original comment implied that we should just burn it all down (going "as far as possible to the other side"), and I don't agree with that.

Copyright has been weaponized of course, but there are considerations worth keeping in mind about why it exists in the first place. The intent is to create mechanisms that incentivize creation of art, and allow creatives to distribute said art without other people getting automatic ownership of the fruits of their labor, just by virtue of having the file.

In a world where distribution of media is (relatively) cheap and easy, we need to think more about how we incentivize the creative process, instead of making it a wild west where anyone is allowed to distribute if they have the bits on them. In a world where everyone pirates, very little worth pirating remains.

EDIT: Forgot to respond to the rest.

I agree about patreon, but also:

> Youtube's paying any significant amount to any content creator other than maybe the top 0.01%.

That's not accurate. Of course if you have a couple hundred subscribers you get nothing from youtube, but neither does a random busker on the subway. Arts are just brutally competitive, and there's way more art being produced than people want to consume.

Youtube's partner programs are quite generous as other people have pointed out in sister comments. In addition, a good chunk of your premium subscription goes directly to the creators you're subscribed to.

> I fail to see what else I would derive value from. I just want the damn file in most cases, with minimal interference., but Youtube seems to always want plop their schlong inbetween the content creator and their audience, to everyone's displeasure.

This misses my point, but illustrates the weird thought process people go through when assigning value to digital media. When trying to value a desk we're willing to go through the whole shebang: cost of materials, quality of materials, quality of the craftsmanship and how much labour it would have required, the estimated cost of all the manufacturing processes involved, finishing labor costs etc.

But when the conversation is about paying for digital content we only focus on the direct value it provides to us, the consumer. The entire conversation about input value just gets lost.

Now input value is not always perfectly correlated with the output value (it's shaped differently for each customer), but the fact that the conversation simply shifts away as if creators and people building the platforms don't exist outside of the stream of bytes feels disingenuous.

Telaneo 4 days ago | parent [-]

> In a world where distribution of media is (relatively) cheap and easy, we need to think more about how we incentivize the creative process, instead of making it a wild west where anyone is allowed to distribute if they have the bits on them. In a world where everyone pirates, very little worth pirating remains.

China seems to be doing that just fine when it comes to manufacturing. Everybody who's doing engineering or design work on products are talking to each other to figure out what works and does when making stuff, and nobody cares about keeping secrets about these things, since it isn't properly enforced anyway, and if you keep one secret and sit on it, without going out there to continue improving, you'll be outclassed by everybody else in a month or a year. Meanwhile, American companies are sitting on 80 years of IP and are unwilling to even consider sharing their hoard even if half of it is functionally useless, just because it might have some value.

People are creative by nature. Nowadays they have a whole internet to take inspiration from, but most of it is locked behind bars for no good reason. If we want to incentivise creative work, then copyright is wholly counter-productive in a world where information can freely and rapidly flow. I'd rather see it burn and see what comes from the ashes than let it rot into nothingness.

> That's not accurate. Of course if you have a couple hundred subscribers you get nothing from youtube, but neither does a random busker on the subway. Arts are just brutally competitive, and there's way more art being produced than people want to consume.

Go ask anyone between 100k and 10m subs. I'm not talking about people who have anything less than that.

> Youtube's partner programs are quite generous as other people have pointed out in sister comments. In addition, a good chunk of your premium subscription goes directly to the creators you're subscribed to.

And I'd have to give more money to a platform that's hostile to me as a user. No thanks.

> This misses my point, but illustrates the weird thought process people go through when assigning value to digital media. When trying to value a desk we're willing to go through the whole shebang: cost of materials, quality of materials, quality of the craftsmanship and how much labour it would have required, the estimated cost of all the manufacturing processes involved, finishing labor costs etc.

When if you hollow out a tree to make a boat, it's value goes up. If you then add a hole to it, it's value goes down again. Work or value you put into a product is not directly correlated with the final value on the other side. I couldn't give a shit about how much money a video takes to make. That sounds like a them problem, not a me problem. If you're spending too much money to make something than you can make back on it, then don't do that. Do something else.

philipallstar 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It's not about sending a message. It's about making sure you use a service in the way it's being offered, or not using it at all.

mhuffman 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Well that is not a law, and even bringing it up on a site called "Hacker News" makes me almost think you are making a joke that is going over my head.

nemomarx 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

YouTube is free to only serve videos to paying users if they don't like ad blockers. it would destroy the site, but they're technically able to do it.

whatevertrevor 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

It would be really tough. I do think YouTube provides a lot of value by making its videos accessible to everyone.

Plenty of closed ecosystem streaming services exist and they continue to be niche things where creators who had no audience before YouTube are trying to keep going. I'm not sure how long the likes of Nebula and Floatplane are going to last honestly, because they have fundamental discovery issues in both directions:

The creators need a constant influx of new viewers to replace people growing out of their content, and the viewers need a platform where they can experiment with new content without a big paywall upfront.

philipallstar 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> YouTube is free to only serve videos to paying users if they don't like ad blockers. it would destroy the site, but they're technically able to do it.

This is why enshittification exists.

paxys 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

YouTube and every other site on the internet can trivially block all users with an ad blocker but choose not to. Why is that?

whatevertrevor 5 days ago | parent [-]

Well they want you to pay obviously, they don't want you to disappear. Setting an expectation that things should be free on the internet is what killed the internet. We all want good things until we have to pay up.

paxys 5 days ago | parent [-]

> Setting an expectation that things should be free on the internet is what killed the internet

You must be very young if you actually think that. In reality the internet was infinitely better when there was no commercialization at all.

Workaccount2 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The Internet was infinitely more fun but also infinitely less useful.

I have the rosey glasses too. The reality is that it was just a bunch of edgy kids messing around with no adults in the room.

barnabee 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’d love to go back to a completely non-commercial internet that only contains things people put there with no expectation or possibility of profit.

whatevertrevor 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I may or may not be younger than you, that is of no relevance other than a vague appeal to defer to your experience about it.

I find plenty of valuable things on the current internet that wouldn't exist without commercialization, the possibility of a career as an individual YouTuber or streamer, for example.

And I'd like to see them continue and be actually paid for their efforts in a sustainable way instead of pining for a return to "all content is just passion side projects".

Because absolutely nothing about the current internet stops people from posting passionately as a side project.

rapind 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> So this is only harmful to the creators, and not YouTube.

Pretty sure this is harmful to youtube as well as it lowers the value (less personalization data) for advertisers. Also the knock-on effect of impacting creators, meaning less investment in creating content.

That being said, I've always hated this business model. It's created so many other problems in our society. Resulting in a shift to authoritarian leadership in many countries.

DoctorOW 5 days ago | parent [-]

Adblock users already have no value for advertisers.

awaythrow999 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Aren't many channels funded by the companies they pretend to get sponsorship from? If you look at the OSINT and Natsec adjacent topics there are many who have had the same sponsor for years: ground.news ... many pretend that they are indie content creators when they are just the marketing / growth hacking arm of the sponsor.

Examples: Caspian report, Warfronts, Geopolitics decoded, ...

Many of them (the content creator) are even located in the same city.

slightwinder 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> many pretend that they are indie content creators when they are just the marketing / growth hacking arm of the sponsor.

Just curious, but can't they be both?

I don't know those channels. The one I regularly see are very diverse in their partners, and usually the content is unrelated to the promotions. But overall those promotions are negotiated based on viewer counts, and at a certain size, they are more valuable than earnings from ads.

awaythrow999 5 days ago | parent [-]

Absolutely can be both. And often they make it clear: like cappello army does. But then there are the more shady ones where it's less transparent

humpty-d 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Any credible evidence that they get enough money from the sponsorships to be considered fully funded by them? Or that ground news uses influence over these channels?

I can throw a dart and hit a random podcast that has been sponsored by blue chew for years, but that doesn't mean said podcast is funded by them or bends to their whims.

IMO your comment is pure conspiracy theory.

awaythrow999 5 days ago | parent [-]

Why would thet be a conspiracy theory. The public facing guy who is behind Warfronts has 4 other channels that peddle content unrelated to natsec/warfare. If you follow "cappy army" and the drama he went through at "task and purpose" his former employer it becomes pretty clear that there are entire media companies behind what looks like "a single hobbyist content creator expat living in Prague" ...

actionfromafar 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Eventually the whole system will rebalance. TV ads were shown to people even though you couldn't if any single person was watching or not.

Where does line go? If a future "Adblocker 3000" don't let advertisers capture you eyemovements in realtime 30 times per second, would that be sad?

Seems the ball is with Youtube. They can compensete and pay out more. Or not.

izzydata 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That still isn't an issue for the end-user. It is Youtube's problem to keep their content creators happy and not mine.

Personally I would even prefer anything that allows for a Youtube alternative to do better.

thomastjeffery 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's a rule defined by YouTube and/or advertisers in their relationship with content creators. By defining that rule, YouTube and/or advertisers have chosen to drag my participation into that relationship. My participation does not belong in their relationship. The only thing I can do to communicate my opinion on the matter is to do precisely what this "bug" entails.

xhkkffbf 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Isn't it likely that Google charges the advertisers for each time an ad is shown? So lower view counts mean lower ad views which means lower revenues for both Google and the content creators. (And, if the advertisers are counting on the views to drive their own business, it could mean lower revenues for them to go with the smaller ad bills.)

slightwinder 5 days ago | parent [-]

The ads are not shown anyway. This is about the video where the ad would be embedded. Those are two different view counts.

fleeting900 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why do YouTube creators deserve special treatment compared to any other entity whose analytics are impacted by adblockers?

Every publisher on the internet has been bleating for years about how adblockers negatively impact their business and their ability to provide [some value] to customers.

If your ability to generate value is hitched to surveillance capitalism then that’s a choice, whether you’re a folksy mom and pop YouTube creator or a multinational publisher.

whatevertrevor 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't think the parent implies that. Advertising has destroyed a lot of value, YouTube or otherwise. But you can either push the equilibrium in a (imo) productive direction by paying your creators (via subscriptions) or continue to attack the symptom of the problem (ads) while everything shittifies further around you. That's the choice.

falcor84 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Oh, really, are you sure? They still charge advertisers the full amount? My understanding was that they're only charged if there is evidence of an "ad impression" which there shouldn't be if the request was blocked

slightwinder 5 days ago | parent [-]

Why would they charge for an ad which was not shown? This is not about the view count of the ad.

andrewmcwatters 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A lot of people clearly didn’t like Yuki’s response, but he’s entirely right.

ecshafer 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The thumbs downs on Yuki's responses are baffling. It is a privacy filter, improving privacy. There is a strong para-social relationship with many younger internet users, so maybe people really do feel strongly about affecting their favorite youtube star's view count? Or it could be youtube creators who are worried. I can't think of any other reasons a user would be on the side of youtube here.

philipallstar 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Picking sides is silly. Just don't use YouTube, or pay for it with money or ad time and data.

zelphirkalt 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think, if that was YouTube's goal, they should close their platform tomorrow, and put everything behind a paid login. That would be the honest move. Instead they are trying to sneakily profit from viewers, by sneaking in ads in whatever way possible. They are employing dark pattern after pattern and are extorting "consent". It is entirely reasonable to block their dark patterns and just watch videos without ads. If it bothers them, go ahead, hide everything behind paid access. See how quickly their monopoly will evaporate then.

lupusreal 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'll use it and I'll not pay.

barnabee 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I’d rather actively hurt their business model, thanks

NewsaHackO 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> There is a strong para-social relationship with many younger internet users, so maybe people really do feel strongly about affecting their favorite youtube star's view count?

100% this. They were even threatening him with facing the ire of social media if he didn't reopen the issue.

Avamander 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This actually makes me feel more confident that it's actually blocking tracking and not caving in to vanity needs.

Bigsy 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Right or wrong you don't think it was unduly combative right off the bat? Manners cost nothing.

andrewmcwatters 5 days ago | parent [-]

It’s not how I would have responded either, but people are entitled to their own ways of communicating.

marklubi 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Might be a problem with Adblock, but also, Firefox just released an update that blocks social networks.

I run a couple different privacy add-ons for various different levels of blocking things, but the Firefox update has seriously broken a lot of stuff

paxys 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It doesn't really affect YouTube either, it affects creators who rely on view counts to monetize their channels.

5 days ago | parent | prev [-]
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