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austin-cheney 3 days ago

> Not a great regulatory move, in my opinion.

Why?

simplicio 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Think the best argument against it is that it makes advertising less valuable, which in turn limits the how many "paid for with advertising" services will be available and how good those services will be.

Especially in a developing country where consumers ability to pay for such things is going to be limited, that will presumably deprive some margin of the population of media/services that are currently ad supported.

austin-cheney 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I am fine with advertising becoming less valuable. I fully appreciate there is a lot of media I take for granted due to advertising. Yet, ever since I was a small child the goal of advertising was to influence consumer behavior more than selling products or brand identity, which is extremely toxic. Once consumer gullibility wears off the dollars poured into advertising always find a way into political lobbying and policy influence campaigns, which is really just more of the same.

thinkingtoilet 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Funny, I would say making advertising less valuable is big win.

pixl97 3 days ago | parent [-]

Heh, advertizing, individually has become less valuable because there are so many ads everywhere on every surface to the point that people mentally adblock half their day away.

63stack 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One of those mythical "win win win" scenarios

hdgvhicv 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Why would I an advertiser pay $1 to show an advert to someone that doesn’t have $1 to spend on my product.

If they do have a dollar to spend then why wouldn’t they spend it on what they wanted to watch in the first place rather than spend it with me, the advertiser.

echelon 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Second order effects.

Many advertisers may avoid advertising or lower their ad budgets. This means the tech platform makes less revenue. This means the platform and the video creator both make less revenue. This means less videos get created.

All of these happen at the population level.

I hate ads, but regulations that are for things that aren't public health (including mental health), anti-monopolization, etc. are probably bad for innovation and growth.

You have to balance regulation and over-regulation.

keerthiko 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I would argue that limiting the amount of unrequested product evangelism shoved into users' eyeballs is a valuable public and mental health initiative. I wish we could have seen the alternate reality where ad-revenue was not the most lucrative business model for the internet.

echelon 2 days ago | parent [-]

Regulation is always too slow and too stupid. By doing this, you'll chase the ads into embedding themselves into the content itself. And that's just the start. Creators are already doing this, and now we're seeing tooling emerge to support it. Wait until the platforms get in on the game.

I say this as a proponent of antitrust regulation against tech giants and a privacy advocate against tracking, storing, and correlating user activity.

Everything needs to be kept in balance. Regulation is a blunt instrument and is better used to punish active rule breaking rather than trying to predict how markets should work.

Break up Google. Don't tell content marketplaces how to run ads. They know their customers far better than old politicians do.

If ads become onerous, alternatives emerge. Different channels, platforms, ad blocking. It's a healthier ecosystem that doesn't grow ossified with decades old legalese. Regulations that actively stymie the creation of new competition.

Now every new video and social startup in Vietnam has to check a bunch of boxes.

keerthiko 2 days ago | parent [-]

> By doing this, you'll chase the ads into

IMO regulation never was or is going to force this shift: it's already happening in unregulated ad markets, and is going to keep evolving in that direction because it's simply more effective/lucrative than ads done other ways.

> Break up Google. Don't tell content marketplaces how to run ads.

I'm all for breaking up megacorps, but there's no way a government like Vietnam can effectively accomplish that. The entire regulatory weight of the EU (90% of the non-US first-world consumer base) can't break up Google, so inflicting a series of wristslaps that hurt Google more than any small startup is the best way.

I'm no expert on the region, but I can't imagine a small video/social startup in Vietnam will be hurt more than Google by being forced to show a skip button after 5s on their ads — and generally speaking ads as a business model generally doesn't work all that well or mean much for small startups (<1M MAU), their survival and scalability hinges more on VC money and product-market fit than ad arbitrage.

vitorfblima 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't see how less video time for people would harm innovation.

If you, like me and most people I know, hate ads, why would it be a bad thing to limit it?

What are we expecting to actually accomplish with all this platform growth thing?

hdgvhicv 2 days ago | parent [-]

Most people don’t hate adverts, at least not enough to do something about them (subscribe to YouTube premium, install an adblocker, install a pi hole)

anigbrowl 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If your revenue comes from parasitical strategies it's negative sum and the economy is better off without it.

echelon 2 days ago | parent [-]

Are you seriously trying to argue the world is better off without YouTube?

I derive incredible value from YouTube. It wasn't always great, but it is recently full of extremely good educational content, tech talks, independent journalism, how-tos, independent film and animation, and so much more.

I'd wager that you use and benefit from a lot of services that are paid for via advertising. Even public transit is subsidized by advertising.

ranguna 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Parasitic strategies != ads

The regulation was about unskippable ads, not ads in general.

I agree with the op and I don't agree that we are better off without YouTube. It's not hard at all to understand the op, so I'm not sure why you misread them and jumped to conclusions that all ads are parasitic and asked if we're better off without YouTube. Was that rage bate or did you really think the op was talking about all ads?

hdgvhicv 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In London public transport accounts for about 10% of the ticket price. For 20p I’m bombarded with flashing moving images as I travel around. It’s sickening and shouldn’t be allowed in public spaces.

There was a fight back at Euston station recently

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2987kvp3no

I never get a taxi in New York thanks to the adverts. Sadly the general population thinks their time and attention is worthless and accept adverts. People actually watch commercial tv, which steals 20 minutes of your time every hour to brainwash you.

anigbrowl a day ago | parent | prev [-]

You know perfectly well that's not what I wrote. Putting words in others' mouths is a form of lying, and not conducive to discussion.

GuinansEyebrows 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Many advertisers may avoid advertising or lower their ad budgets. This means the tech platform makes less revenue. This means the platform and the video creator both make less revenue. This means less videos get created.

this all sounds great. ideal, even.

ApolloFortyNine 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Too many people think removing ads means they'll still continue to get content for free, they just won't have to watch ads.

At best, it's as you said, the platform and creator make less money (Youtube gives 55% of ad revenue to the creator). This would naturally lead to less content eventually.

At worst, video content becomes unsustainable without a subscription.

BigTTYGothGF 3 days ago | parent [-]

> This would naturally lead to less content eventually

I, personally, am drowning in "content".

echelon 2 days ago | parent [-]

> I, personally, am drowning in "content".

Until the content is utterly captivating and speaks to your soul in a way even your closest friends and partners can't, we haven't hit peak content.

You know that one movie you see every decade or so that you can't get out of your head? The one that left you flabbergasted, that you've watched at least half a dozen times, and that you frequently and fondly remember? It touched your mind and soul and fit your tastes like a glove.

THAT is peak content, and until we are swimming in it, we're not there yet. Most of what we have today is utterly disposable and ephemeral - transient dopamine activation instead of philosophically world shattering indelible experiences.

We have a long way to go.

anigbrowl 2 days ago | parent [-]

Why would you ever expect or even want us to be 'swimming' in such emotionally activating content? The reality is that people will just get desensitized and there will be the same proportion of dreck and the same discoverability problems as ever. Your argument is dopamine junkie logic, sitting around waiting for a dealer to bring you something stronger instead of putting effort into searching out or making things that satisfy you.

echelon 2 days ago | parent [-]

Because I want to.

I don't care what you want. I know what I want.

thfuran 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>Many advertisers may avoid advertising or lower their ad budgets.

Great. Once that happens, we can work on regulation to kill even more advertising.

cm2012 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Its market distortionary and makes global advertisers have to customize for the local audience, some might not bother

pbasista 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> market distortionary

I am unsure what you are trying to say here. But if you mean to refer to "market distortion", I cannot see how that can be happening.

The reason is that these rules are supposed to be applicable universally to every company in the same way. And as such, they do not create any market distortion in one way or the other. Because everyone has to play by the same rules. Those are as fair market conditions as one can get, in my opinion.

> some might not bother

Why should that be a problem? If someone does not like the regulation in a particular jurisdiction, it is fine. No one is forcing them to operate there.

The main point is the following: If they want to operate, they have to play by the local rules. Just like everyone else.

mjamesaustin 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ad skipping should be handled at the platform level and not left to individual advertisers to control. Regulations like this make such an outcome more likely.

Mobile ads in the US are heinous. Each one has a different mechanism for skipping, the skip buttons are micro sized and impossible to tap, some of them don't even work.

Standardization should have been up to the platforms selling ads, but they haven't done it. It's past time for local authorities to step in and protect consumers from predatory behavior.

einpoklum 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Markets are not a natural phenomenon and are themselves the result of complex social arrangements, involving coercion. So, the market is the result of "distortions" before and after various regulatory measures.

oompydoompy74 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Good?

iknowstuff 3 days ago | parent [-]

Not as good when you just end up having to pay more for services right

mc32 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The incentives are better aligned though, so long as they are not undermined (by moving the target) Ala cable tv.

oompydoompy74 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Nope still good

BigTTYGothGF 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> market distortionary

So what if it is?

> makes global advertisers have to customize for the local audience

My understanding of advertising is that there is already substantial customization for local audiences.

MichaelZuo 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Isn’t that presumably the point of the Vietnamese government whenever they set new requirements?

To make it harder for people who dont care about Vietnam to do business.

themaninthedark 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would assume that the global advertisers are already having to customize for the local audience since the spoken language is Vietnamese.

bobro 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can you spell out more what’s wrong with distorting a market or customizing for local audiences?

hasperdi 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

why is it a bad thing if global advertisers have to customize? If they're global, they should have the resources. Anyhow none of our concerns

mystraline 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Simply put, fuck the "market" (aka: uber-rich people). The market should serve us humans, not the other way around.

Ive heard this garbage excuse since Reagan took a wrecking ball to regulations. Not making effective regulations is ALSO a market distorting thing, that encourages the absolute worst behaviors. And now with Citizens United, its $1 = 1 vote.

But no, "marrrrrkeeeeetttttt"

catapart 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Just a hip-shot, not a considered position. When I hear "regulation", I think "threat". Either of violence (any physical touch), or financial garnishment. So, to me, ads that last longer than five seconds do not rise to the level of threatening anyone.

But assuming that they did, the situation seems like one where there could be any number or ways of following the letter or the law, while flouting the spirit of it. I don't dare imagine the creative ways these people will come up with to make entertainment even worse than it already is. So for areas that seem to require miles and miles of caveats and very specific rule-making, my gut reaction is that the regulatory path isn't the right one until we can break down the scope into something that simple regulations can accommodate without loophole. Put more simply: if it seems like people will just find ways around the problem, my assumption is just that we're not targeting the right problem yet and we need to break it down further, if regulation is the right solution at all.

But that is pretty assumptive, so - again - it's just a first feeling. Doesn't pass my vibe check.

miki123211 3 days ago | parent [-]

I personally like descriptive regulation over prescriptive regulation.

Instead of prescribing exactly what you should do, describe the outcomes you want, and let case law fill in the rest of the owl. That's the only way to prevent violations like this.

To be fair, the main disadvantage of this approach is that law is much harder to understand. You can't just read the law as it is written, you also have to familiarize yourself with all the rulings that tell you how that law should actually be interpreted.

dnqthao 3 days ago | parent [-]

Vietnam does not follow common law (i.e. case law) , it follows civil law (same as other Europe and Asia countries)