YouTube tests disabling videos for people using ad blockers

I have started to see the same message too on YouTube saying that ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube. I just close it and play the video.

The reason they are being so aggressive is monopoly. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc... they all know that there is no good option for people to turn to, otherwise they would switch. But, since they have monopoly, they keep pushing our limits.

EU treats such companies well, taking them to task for even a small mistake.... serves them right.

Facebook and Instagram push their ads and sponsored posts so well, that sometimes I get confused if these posts are from ones I follow. I have to be very careful to see what I like. I have stopped using Facebook and rarely login.

Till their monopoly doesnt go away, these companies will keep doing stuff like this, and we will have to put up with it.

Agreed, the amount of ads feels like spam now from YouTube, and also, I noticed, earlier, they showed ad text below the video and above the description and you could close it, but now if you close it, it just opens above the video... there is no way you can get rid of the ad.
 
6pack said:
ublock origin on chrome also blocks these "Stop using adblocker, youtube runs on ads" messages. I only saw that message 1-2 times and after purging ublock cache it never came back. So message text could be different too.
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I don't trust Google Chrome to keep playing nice for long. After all, Google is an ad company.
 
Mr.J said:
I don't trust Google Chrome to keep playing nice for long.
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Since Google owns Chrome, they can easily disable add-ons that don't help them. This was the reason they wanted to implement DRM - so that they have complete control over what you see. They can plaster ads everywhere and you wouldn't be able to do a thing.

I use Chrome only to sign in to Google services though, other browser for everything else. Remember they were tracking your incognito windows as well. You should not be using Chrome at all

Mr.J said:
After all, Google is an ad company.
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The whole reason they made Android free is to be able to harvest your personal data every single minute and show targetted ads
 
There is a Google vs US Anti-Trust case going on and Google fought to remove exhibits for the case from public domain. But there are some copies which were saved:

People should read it.

A TL;DR version:
It's a discussion between two people, Jerry and Anil. Anil seems to be representing the Chrome team, and Jerry the Ads team and/or sales.

7 months prior, some feature related to Chrome's omnibox (url/search box) was rolled out, leading to reduced searches ("SQV"). Jerry is asking for this feature to be rolled back (undone) to restore lost revenue. Anil is trying to keep the feature by finding other ways to make up the lost revenue.

Anil is opposed to rolling back the feature because it is a user-visible change that was approved by all parties and launched months ago, so it will be frustrating to users to lose the feature and to developers to see their work canned.

Anil accelerates the launch of some other features to improve revenue, but Jerry is not satisfied. After some back and forth he sends the final email laying out his case: the revenue impact is too severe, sales is going to miss quota, quarterly earnings will be below forecast, stock price will decline, employees will lose out on stock-based compensation. This last email is cc'ed widely so I think Jerry was trying to build more pressure on Anil/Chrome team
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To me it seems like we are entering a capitalist dystopia. Everyone and their moms promoted unlimited free service and now chickens have come home to roost, thanks to the rising interest rates. Even then the first thought isn't a fixed fee rather the "recurring revenue" of the sweet subscription money. And in some cases the services still run ads or ask for extra "platform fees" on top of the subscription revenue.

It seems like every company thinks people have infinite money to spend or that people addicted to their service so they will put up with this bullshit. Just look at the sheer number of OTT companies which have popped up over the past 5 years. Now YT is also joining the queue. I can bet that 5 years later, most of these OTT platforms will be gone -- due to consolidation and YT will most probably roll back this no ad blocker stance.
 
enthusiast29 said:
Ublock origin is actively updating the filters to counter the anti-adblock message.
Expect a cat and mouse game now.
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With Manifest v3, an extension is expected to have all the rules defined within the extension itself and cannot be updated independently. Expect adblocking on Chromium browsers to become increasingly difficult once v2 is deprecated.

At least Firefox is the only one playing by its own rules and refusing to give in to Google with its modified implementation of Manifest v3. About high time that those who understand what's happening switch to Firefox from all the Chromium browsers.
 
I never liked Chrome, and it being from Google, disliked it even more. Chrome was to be supposedly the ever secure browser because of the sandbox and all, but even it isn't secure from different vulnerabilities, most importantly, zero-day ones which keep surfacing up.

Have always been a Firefox user.

I am not seeing that message on YouTube anymore. Maybe ublock Origin took care of it.

I also started seeing similar messages on Rediff.com, which kept coming up in every page, that we rely on ad blockers and please disable it. Not seeing that today... again maybe ublock Origin took care of it.. don't know.
 
The amount time and energy wasted to fight with ads using the cheeky methods is not worth it IMO in this case. Anyone who is accessing this forum on regular bases can probably spare 129 for the youtube premium and fix it for once and for all.
 
The problem isn't people NOT being able to afford 129/month. The problem is every single business wants to show increasing profits every quarter/year. This kind of cancerous growth can only collapse in on itself.

Please pay a one time fee of 50 to read the read of this post, or watch ads for 1 hour, or buy our Mega Premium Pro Plus plan for just 200 per month (if paid in advance for 50 years).

Let's say in 2 years everyone in the world buys premium. Then there's no further increase in profits.
But when a market is saturated, the only way to increase profit is to increase price. But not everyone wants to pay more than 129/m. How much can YOU spare: 250? 500? 1000?

Let's say it's 500/m.

After some time a new Big Dog calling the shots comes up with a wonderful idea: let's put short 5-10 sec ads before and after each video. Not intrusive at all, so customers won't mind and no price hike for them either. All fine for that quarter, since profits rise a bit from paid ads.

But what about next quarter? Can't tell the board there's no increase in profits, he'll be fired! So Big Dog says make it 1 short ad at begining and one medium (10-15 sec) ad in the middle of the video. More revenue for them.

And then the next quarter comes. Big Dog is not an idiot, he knows showing any more ads on a paid subscription is the surest way to lose customers. So he announces subscription tiers.
  • Pay 1k/month for ad free experience. 0 ads guaranteed.
  • Continue to pay 500/month for ad supported program.
And the funny thing is someone like you will come along, scoff and ask if people can't spare 1k/month?

TLDR: The root problem is corporate greed. Netflix, Prime Video, your "cable" TV channels, etc are already doing this, and putting some content behind a second paywall. As long as advertisers are ready to pay, all media is at risk for being spammed with ads. It doesn't matter if you're already spending your entire salary for an ad-free sub: sooner or later they will start showing ads and you will have to pay more to escape. Heck even multiplexes are showing so many ads before the movie or during intermission, even after paying more for tickets compared to single screen + buying their over-priced snacks/drinks. And there isn't even an option to opt-out. This is the boring dystopia we're headed towards.

And the worst part is you need so many different streaming services since there's no single OTT that can cater to all your needs. Streaming platforms have become the very thing they set out to destroy. Because it's profitable to screw the viewer

And here's why it's bad to let businesses try to do whatever they want to make more $$
 
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n1r0 said:
The problem isn't people NOT being able to afford 129/month. The problem is every single business wants to show increasing profits every quarter/year. This kind of cancerous growth can only collapse in on itself.

Please pay a one time fee of 50 to read the read of this post, or watch ads for 1 hour, or buy our Mega Premium Pro Plus plan for just 200 per month (if paid in advance for 50 years).

Let's say in 2 years everyone in the world buys premium. Then there's no further increase in profits.
But when a market is saturated, the only way to increase profit is to increase price. But not everyone wants to pay more than 129/m. How much can YOU spare: 250? 500? 1000?

Let's say it's 500/m.

After some time a new Big Dog calling the shots comes up with a wonderful idea: let's put short 5-10 sec ads before and after each video. Not intrusive at all, so customers won't mind and no price hike for them either. All fine for that quarter, since profits rise a bit from paid ads.

But what about next quarter? Can't tell the board there's no increase in profits, he'll be fired! So Big Dog says make it 1 short ad at begining and one medium (10-15 sec) ad in the middle of the video. More revenue for them.

And then the next quarter comes. Big Dog is not an idiot, he knows showing any more ads on a paid subscription is the surest way to lose customers. So he announces subscription tiers.
  • Pay 1k/month for ad free experience. 0 ads guaranteed.
  • Continue to pay 500/month for ad supported program.
And the funny thing is someone like you will come along, scoff and ask if people can't spare 1k/month?

TLDR: The root problem is corporate greed. Netflix, Prime Video, your "cable" TV channels, etc are already doing this, and putting some content behind a second paywall. As long as advertisers are ready to pay, all media is at risk for being spammed with ads. It doesn't matter if you're already spending your entire salary for an ad-free sub: sooner or later they will start showing ads and you will have to pay more to escape. Heck even multiplexes are showing so many ads before the movie or during intermission, even after paying more for tickets compared to single screen + buying their over-priced snacks/drinks. And there isn't even an option to opt-out. This is the boring dystopia we're headed towards.

And the worst part is you need so many different streaming services since there's no single OTT that can cater to all your needs. Streaming platforms have become the very thing they set out to destroy. Because it's profitable to screw the viewer

And here's why it's bad to let businesses try to do whatever they want to make more $$
Click to expand...

I don't care about ads so not posting about that but the problem is not corporate greed but human greed, and it is age old, applies to pretty much everyone and it will exist for as long as humans exist.
 
Screenshot 2023-10-18 at 8.09.08 PM.png


What the actual hell? Screw these guys. On Edge with uBlock Origin?
Decadent_Spectre said:
I don't care about ads so not posting about that but the problem is not corporate greed but human greed, and it is age old, applies to pretty much everyone and it will exist for as long as humans exist.
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Cyberpunk 2077 in a World of Ads - YouTube

Cyberpunk 2077 is a great example of this... bloody ads.
 
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You also have an alternative front end alternative to YT:

Invidious

Invidious is an open source alternative front-end to YouTube.
invidious.io invidious.io

The other and maybe better option is to use this extension on Firefox:

LibRedirect - privacy-friendly Redirector

A web extension that redirects YouTube, Twitter, Instagram... requests to alternative privacy friendly frontends and backends
libredirect.github.io libredirect.github.io
They will redirect to a public and working front end and you can do this for many sites. I particular dislike Twitter and Medium so I redirect those often.
 
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