Inside the ‘arms race’ between YouTube and ad blockers / Against all odds, open source hackers keep outfoxing one of the wealthiest companies.::YouTube’s dramatic content gatekeeping decisions of late have a long history behind them, and there’s an equally long history of these defenses being bypassed.

  • tutus@links.hackliberty.org
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    1 year ago

    YouTube can’t win this race when they don’t control the platform you’re viewing it on. You can always install ‘something’ to get around it.

    The solution to that is to control the platform using Chrome, Android etc.

    • Igloojoe@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Twitch has increased their ad blocking techniques for the last 3 years or so. Twitch has been a lot more advanced and aggressive with their method. Yet, there are still ways to subvert the ads on twitch. If I didnt read lemmy, i wouldnt even know youtube was doing anything. I have just basic adblocking ublock

      Although every once in a while, twitch will release a new technique and it might take 24 hours to solve.

      • Sowhatever@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        You would be surprised how many people will just uninstall the ad blocker the third time YouTube isn’t working for 24 hours.

        Every time YouTube or twitch make a change, a certain percentage of users give up, which means more revenue.

        • Kedly@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          The reverse of this is every time I watch youtube without an ad blocker, their ads are SO obtrusive I go right back to “Nah fuck this, FUCK their ability to make money if this is how they go about it”

        • Igloojoe@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I have changed my programs because twitch won against its methods. I used to use alt twitch player to get around the ad system. The app creator didnt care to update anymore and twitch’s update broke the system.

          All that did though was make me find alternative ways to ad block. If it came to it, if i was unable to block ads. I’d just never watch. Ads are usually full volume screaming at you, so its like an assault on you.

          Either way, i think having more viewers is more important than getting an ad to EVERY watcher. IMO Youtube and twitch both lose money on offering their services to everyone. Some people will upload/stream to 0 viewers and i think that its like 50% of their creators. Thats a ton of wasted bandwidth and storage.

          IMHO i think twitch could charge something like 3-5$ a month to broadcast a stream. Youtube could charge something like 10c an upload or something.

          I get users needing to create content to grow viewerbase, but charge something extremely minimal to get back a little something.

          • systemglitch@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I think you would see significantly less streamers if you did that and they need streamers equally as much as they need viewers.

            I bet a lot of the current top streamers would have never given it a chance if they had to pay first.

            • Igloojoe@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              More content creators are always good, but theres also people on there just wasting resources that will never be successful. Always stream to 0-2 people.

              Idk, it’s a tough choice. Which is why they most likely would never use a pay to create style.

    • Dempf@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      I think that’s a big part of why Google doesn’t fight (and in fact helps) the banking and streaming companies that want to lock down Android more. It’s harder to block ads if you can’t block them in the browser and can’t block them system wide via hosts file. (Yes you can use VPN + DNS, but it’s a lot more battery intensive.)