| ▲ | aduty 9 hours ago |
| You forgot the part where they charge you to get rid of the ads but then the ads come back anyway so you're paying to be the product. |
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| ▲ | matheusmoreira 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Paying to get rid of ads is paying for the privilege of doing their market segmentation for them. It's paying to segment oneself into the upper echelons of the market. People who pay to avoid ads have a lot of disposable income, the value of their attention increases. I wish uBlock Origin would incorporate AI features too. It could automatically detect brand names and product placement and blank it all out. Works on images and video. Augmented reality glasses with uBlock Origin would be life changing. |
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| ▲ | marssaxman 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I wish we could use AI to solve captchas for us. Perhaps I should "vibe-code" such a browser plugin. | | |
| ▲ | plasticchris 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | It’s funny because captchas are meant to be hard for bots but easy for people and it might be the opposite now. | | |
| ▲ | wlesieutre 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Some of the newer ones I've seen with random symbols scattered and rotated on a random background are really awful. As a person with all my mental faculties and mostly correctable vision I have to solve them carefully. Never would have imagine that "sit in a chair and browse the internet" would become an activity limited to the able bodied. |
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| ▲ | delaminator 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I wish uBlock Origin would incorporate AI features too. It could automatically detect brand names and product placement and blank it all out. that is a pretty good idea back in the day I had an adblocker which replaced the banners with your own pictures. | |
| ▲ | Scoundreller 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Paying to get rid of ads is paying for the privilege of doing their market segmentation for them. My local newspaper used to be wide-open. I happily subscribed but never logged in. Then they launched a paywall, so I unsubscribed. I didn't want to be a part of their logged-in paid premium user dragnet. The phone-call to cancel was a bit confusing for the CSR. "May I ask why are you cancelling?" Me: "Oh, because of the paywall" CSR: "Oh, that's just a technical issue, we can help you with that" Me: "Nono, you don't understand, I'm cancelling because there is _a_ paywall" I doubt my "reason for cancelling" got coded correctly. |
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| ▲ | smilespray 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| YouTube Premium Lite! You know, with ads. That you pay to watch. |
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| ▲ | sidewndr46 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Amazon prime! A paid service with advertisements for the original content no one wants to watch. | | |
| ▲ | technothrasher 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You know something went wrong when I've got an Amazon Prime account, but I still pirate any of their video content that I want to watch. | | |
| ▲ | evrenesat 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | I do exactly same, even uninstalled their shitty tv app which managed to be stay slower than other streaming apps for many years, even on fire tv stick. |
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| ▲ | apparent 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah, I basically never watch it anymore on account of the ads. Perhaps that was their goal: to reduce content licensing costs. |
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| ▲ | 1over137 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I never understood this with cable TV either. You could use an antenna and watch TV over the air (with ads) or you could pay for cable and still watch ads! | | |
| ▲ | SoftTalker 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Before streaming, if you didn't live in a large metro area, cable got you a good clear picture and more than one or two channels. That was the selling point for it when I was a kid. With OTA reception we would have had two channels with a clear picture and maybe two or three more with a lot of static/snow. Cable just carried regular broadcast channels back then. The value you paid for was more channels and better picture, not avoiding ads. HBO was the first premium add-on, and it didn't have ads. Some people set up a big dish antenna in their yard so they could get content directly off the satellite backhaul. This might not have had ads but it was a fairly big investment and you had to be sort of an AV geek to use it. | |
| ▲ | computomatic 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Cable at least made sense on paper (if not obvious to the consumer). The channels were independent companies, they pay for the rights to content and get paid by ads. But they had the problem of how to actually get their feed into your home (over the air broadcast was the only D2C option). The cable provider was just a delivery mechanism. So you pay them to deliver the feeds. But they didn’t get any revenue from the content providers (or their ads). In other words, two different companies, two different services (content vs delivery), and two different revenue models. |
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| ▲ | riddley 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | No Lite! about it. I've twice unsubbed from YTP because they started showing me ads. Never again. | | |
| ▲ | SoftTalker 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | I've never seen an ad logged in to Premium. Content creators do sometimes insert sponsor segments directly into the video, but YTP offers a skip feature that works fairly well. | | |
| ▲ | golem14 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | They do sneak it in when a blog etc plays an embedded YT video. It treats that as non-signed-in, you have to stop playing and continue on YT to avoid ads in that scenario. |
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| ▲ | nickk81 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This will happen!
(difficult to show in a quick demo that you view for like 10 seconds) |
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| ▲ | neves 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Also forgot the part where they start to disguise that an ad is really an ad. The ad is just melted in the content. |
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| ▲ | api 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I cancel when things do this. Paid, or ads. Paid with ads -> cancel immediately. |
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| ▲ | SecretDreams 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yes, this is the silicon valley special. They get us to pay for a sub. Then they get us to pay for an ad free sub. Then the ads come anywho lol. |
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| ▲ | WarmWash 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| This take is prevalent but not really true. You can subsidize the cost of a full subscription by having ads. I know that society at large is mostly hopeless, but here on HN we generally have the mental firepower to comprehend "It's a sliding payment scale from no ads to all ads" Edit: You guys are welcome to be upset by this, but if you think it's wrong, please correct me. Ideally without using the one counter example of cable TV in the 90's. Monopolies bring bad behaviors. |
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| ▲ | smallmancontrov 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, if a company gets enough leverage the top plan will demand both payment and ads. We've seen it before and we'll see it again. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Examples would be the best way to prove me wrong. Most (all?) streaming services offer an ad-free plan, and those are the most popular hybrid payment services by far. | | |
| ▲ | cgriswald 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don’t know what you consider to be an advertisement but just off the top of my head: Many (most?) streaming services advertise their own shows and other content ahead of other content you elect to watch even on ad free subs. Hulu’s ad free subs have some shows that show unambiguous ads. Prime and others muddy their interfaces with others’ “channels” and content that you can subscribe to through their service. They also show other content you can purchase or rent through them that aren’t part of your package. These things are included in search, viewing UI lists, and banner ads. | |
| ▲ | kevin_thibedeau 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Cable TV in the 80s started out ad free. Then they realized they could only grow revenues at the rate they wanted with ads. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Ideally without using the one counter example of cable TV in the 90's. Monopolies bring bad behaviors. | |
| ▲ | vel0city 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Cable TV in the 80s started out ad free. This is untrue in the US. There were ad supported cable TV channels before 1980. Most of the first cable TV channels were ad supported from the start or adopted advertising within the first few years of going on-air. For example, TBS, ESPN, and USA had ads from day one, with those launching in 1976, 1980, and 1977 respectively. Nickelodeon was ad-free at its launch in 1979 but adopted advertising in 1984. And this also ignores that for decades before "cable" was just all the broadcast stations piped over coax as a paid service. That had ads, since those broadcast stations had ads. And even when cable channels did start appearing, most of the channels on the dial we're still these broadcast channels. So most content you were paying for had ads since day one. There were ads from the start. | | |
| ▲ | DANmode 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Starting with the Soap Operas, whose mid-day ad blocks (or product placements) sold…you guessed it…soap…to captive housewives. |
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| ▲ | dqv 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Hulu: Disney+, Hulu Bundle Premium: For $19.99/month, eligible subscribers get Disney+ (No Ads)* and Hulu (No Ads)*. *Ads will be served in select live and linear content I won't be engaging in any mental gymnastics where there is some redefinition of "no ads" to mean "some ads". | |
| ▲ | moron4hire 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Easy: YouTube. You cannot purchase a completely ad free experience on YouTube. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Creators including ads in their videos are not part of youtube. Youtube does not get a cut from those ads or play any role in making them. I know it's confusing, but those ads are part of the creator's videos that the creators put there themselves with deals they brokered outside of youtube. Youtube likely tolerates it because even with a 60% revenue share going go creators, often half of viewers pay nothing (no ad views or subscription), so sponsored segments can fill the gap for the creators. Note that Youtube premium does include the ability to skip sponsored segments though. | | |
| ▲ | jorvi 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | YouTube Premium still has """promotional""" content (read: ads). Ad cards, ad footers, etc. https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/s/8CHWGReiQt | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | And your evidence is a screenshot in a reddit post from 2 years ago? Rather than
"Open the app and check", which I did, and there a no ads. Nor have I ever seen that promo from the screenshot, or any of those other things you mention. I'm guessing you are complaining about something that you don't even have? | | |
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| ▲ | moron4hire 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | YouTube has control of their platform. They have enough control to detect and demonetize people when they say such "harmful" and "dangerous" words as "kill" and "sex". This is further evidenced by the fact that they provide the sponsored segment skip feature that you reference[0]. They know this is going on and they allow it, despite it ruining the service that members pay for. If content creators can't live off of the ad revenue that YouTube offers, then that is another thing to lump the blame of at the feet of YouTube. They not only turn a blind eye to content creators ruining the service I pay for, YouTube is the one themselves who has created the conditions in which the content creator feels the need to pursue external advertising. There is obvioulsy enough advertising money in the world to support both YouTube and content creators, because that is exactly what is happening right now: advertisers are paying either YouTube or the content creator directly. For some reason, a lot of content creators can't make it by just working with YouTube, despite there being enough advertiser demand for it. That tells me that YouTube is being stingy. [0] Which, BTW, many content creators are not properly marking up their videos to allow for the skip feature to work. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | First off the content creators don't mark up where sponsored segments are, the algo builds on statistics of where people skip. So if a video is fresh, it might not work. Second, you are capable of building a coherent argument, but left out that almost half of viewers don't pay. When you are a child, paying for things is frustrating and annoying, so the ones taking the money are bad. When you grow up, you realize that everything costs money to everyone, and taking money isn't really nefarious, and paying for what you consume is just honest. If you don't like the cost of something, you don't buy it. If you like the cost, you pay and it's yours. Obviously you have passed that threshold of reasoning, so it might be worthwhile to rebalance your argument around the fact that almost half (30-50%) of viewers still feel entitled to free viewing of content. They don't boycott it, they still consume it, but they don't compensate. That leaves the honest ones to bear the cost of their consumption. | | |
| ▲ | rdiddly 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | "You pay and it's yours." Which is exactly why, having paid for an ad-free service, people are miffed when ads appear anyway. I'm not going to take on the responsibility of educating you as to the examples that exist, because that's your own responsibility. Not only because we have to educate ourselves, but because you made the unsupported claim in the first place that the phenomenon doesn't exist. Proving a negative is very difficult, as we with all this glorious mental firepower know. In a world this large, it's a poor bet on a statistical basis alone. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | No one will ever be able to help the people who have an aneurysm when a Toyota logo is visible on the steering wheel of the protagonists car. | | |
| ▲ | ndriscoll 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | What is your point here? Yes, if I were to pay for a movie or show, I would find it unacceptable if it were to contain paid product placement. Do you think prominent logos in media are an accident? And youtube could easily ban third party sponsors in their ToS, have all advertising on their platform go through them, and completely remove it for paying customers. Just like Netflix can refuse to host any shows with product placement. It's entirely their own product decision to allow ads in their "ad free" offering. |
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| ▲ | moron4hire 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I can do without the condescending attitude. I caught it the first time but tried to give you the benefit of doubt. I didn't do anything to you. |
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