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YouTube's next move might make it virtually impossible to block ads (www.androidpolice.com)

submitted 6 months ago by boem@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] Eggyhead@kbin.run 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Ad-revenue is literally how content creators get paid

Great. If YouTube removes viewers’ abilities to block ads, resulting in more ads watched, will content creators get an increase in pay?

Again, I doubt it.

I hate ads just as much as the next guy but this mentality of expecting to get content for free is ridiculous. That's unbelieveably narrow sighted and self-centered thinking

You’ve missed the whole point. Ads exist to encourage people to spend money on products, therefore companies profit from paying for advertisements.

Where does the profit come from if someone who doesn’t deal with ads is forced to watch an ad? Do you think that person is just going to decide to spend money?

Secondly, if a creator adds a 1-2m sequence in their video to talk about a sponsor, no one is tracked, no one knows any better if uninterested viewers skip past it, and it’s usually very relevant to that creator’s target audience. I have zero qualms with such a system, and sometimes it’s actually really entertaining.

Morals or not, this is Google scraping at the bottom of the barrel to invent value where there is VERY little to be had. Data-invasive, targeted advertising is superfluous and needs to die.

[–] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 0 points 6 months ago

Where does the profit come from if someone who doesn’t deal with ads is forced to watch an ad?

The creator gets paid for people watching the ads, not for buying the product. For the most part the point of ads is to increase brand recognition which in turn increases sales. Ads work wether you think they do or not. It's among the most studied economic fields. There's a good reason companies spend a ton of money on advertising. More people seeing ads = more sales. I too like to tell myself a story about how I'm immune to ads but I know I'm not.

Data-invasive, targeted advertising is superfluous and needs to die.

I agree. The alternative is paying for the service eg. subscribtion based business model.

Targeted or not - I'm not going to watch ads. If it's a bad service like Instagram I'm just going to stop using it but in the case of YouTube if they manage to make adblocking sufficiently difficult and inconvenient then I'm going to buy premium. I can't blame them for wanting to get rid of freeriders. If I was them I would probably want to too. Blocking ads is like piracy; I participate in it but it cannot be morally justified. I'm effectively stealing.