YouTube's crackdown on tools that block advertising continues with server-side ad injection. The developer of...
  • YouTube is testing server-side ad injection to counter ad blockers, integrating ads directly into videos to make them indistinguishable from the main content.
  • This new method complicates ad blocking, including tools like SponsorBlock, which now face challenges in accurately identifying and skipping sponsored segments.
  • The feature is currently in testing and not widely rolled out, with YouTube encouraging users to subscribe to YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience.
  • untilyouarrived@lemm.eeEnglish
    182·
    2 years ago

    I pay for YouTube Premium. I get a lot of value from it, and streaming video isn’t cheap. I don’t think it’s reasonable for anyone to think they should provide it for free.

    • MudMan@fedia.io
      18·
      2 years ago

      Yeeeah, but my issue with that is they generated the expectation that it’d be free by using their investment money to muscle out smaller competitors. There was a time where Youtube was the biggest of a set of UGC video sites and some of the others were competitive. Now it’s the only real alternative.

      So from that perspective they made their bed, now they sleep in it.

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Yeeeah, but my issue with that is they generated the expectation that it’d be free by using their investment money to muscle out smaller competitors.

        All of YouTube’s competitors were doing the same thing, use ads to subsidize free video hosting. It just happened to be that YouTube was the survivor. If there was competition, it would likely have the same business model that YouTube has. Spotify may be building a YouTube competitor based on the same model.

    • CobblerScholar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Oh sure servers do cost money but Google wants to have their cake and eat it to with the creators that make people actually want to use the site despite all their bullshit. Changing standards of what is and isn’t not acceptable coming from the top has made every creator dance and squirm to escape the very real eventuality of having weeks of work mean nothing. Google doesn’t respect the people making the product they are selling so I refuse to respect the bill they try to send me

    • deweydecibel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      I don’t give a shit if it’s reasonable anymore.

      Google has done enough shit over the years, ruined enough services, some of them paid services, and continually harmed content creators with their trash algorithm, all the while hosting hate on their platform, that I don’t give a damn what’s fair to them anymore.

      They won’t get a penny from me ever again. I’ll continue to find every way of accessing any content on that platform that I choose, without ads, and without paying them, and it has absolutely nothing to do with ethics or reason. It is entirely, 100%, because fuck Google.

      • Prison Mike@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        If you’re not actively blocking connections to their servers (by any number of means) it doesn’t matter whether you consciously give them money or not.

        There is so much third party tracking in apps and websites that it’s really got to be at the network level. They make bank by tracking you and selling that data for profit.

        I’ve been Google-free for months now and so far the only inconvenience has been ReCAPTCHAs not loading, but that’s limited to just a handful of websites that I don’t care enough to use in the first place.