Youtube's Anti-adblock is illegal in the EU

It's like they think the only way to make money is to drown us in ads based off the telemetry they scoop up and we're entitled brats for wanting to have a say in how our data is harvested/used against us.

That's their business model. Drowning us in ads is literally how they make money. They aren't a tech company. They're an ad aggregation company. They collect data via having users use freemium services. They use that data to create anonymized profiles of millions or billions of people. They break those profiles down into subsets. And then they let ad companies buy the ability for Google to target those users with ads based on things they're likely to buy based on the data that Google has collected. It's a much more effective way of marketing ads than just playing ad spots on tv or on radio. Better than billboards and magazine spreads etc. That's literally what Google (and Apple, and Amazon even) do. It's what Facebook does. It's what most social media does. Their tech? Just a way to get you to buy into an ecosystem so you continue to feed the profile and the algorithm and see the ads.
- I’m sorry but with all do respect I do not need you to lecture me about how big data dovetails with digital marketing or the B2B side of it for google, thanks.
  
  You don't like the fact that they make money by showing you ads? Take your business somewhere else. You're the one who agreed to the terms of service.
  At the point where you're using an adblocker I'd say you're capable of researching other means to avoid ads on any platform where you don't want them, paid or free. There's work-arounds for this problem. Multiple of them. Including using another extension to play just the video in a frame by itself where the adblocker still works, using piped or revanced or any of the other services that offer YouTube experiences without ads (floatplane, grayjay etc), or paying for the service.
  As it stands the posts I see about solutions get basically no interaction while rage posts like this get thousands of comments and upvotes and bring with them a bunch of random misinformation. I feel like there's just too many of these posts full stop.
  
  You don’t like the fact that they make money by showing you ads? Take your business somewhere else.
  YouTube has been profitable for years before they implemented these anti-adblock measures.
  
  Where do their profits come from?
  Stop and think for a second. Nothing I said is defending this move towards aggressively combating ad locking. I don't think YouTube is the good guy in this scenario.
  But on the other hand I am tired of people who don't want solutions they just want to bitch. There's almost a dozen of these posts on Lemmy alone about YouTube and their draconian new adblock punishing tactics. I don't care if you're upset. I care that you're actively upvoting and sharing solutions for the people who want them.
  I gave this person other options besides just "pay for it or quit YouTube". That was on purpose.
  Good day.
  
  Where do their profits come from?
  The rubes who don't use adblockers and those who subscribe.
  The point is that YouTube was profitable before implementing these anti-adblocking measures.
  Nothing I said is defending this move towards aggressively combating ad locking.
  You don’t like the fact that they make money by showing you ads? Take your business somewhere else.
  Anyways man, have a good day. Gonna block you now.
  
  Just for the sake of posterity and in case anyone is actually looking for solutions: using an app to open YouTube in a new frame on Firefox absolutely will work to block ads and leave your adblockers of choice intact with no effect to your ability to watch YouTube or use your Google account if you have one.
  The person above me didn't read or didn't understand. YouTube makes most of their profit from displaying ads and this is the business model that made them profitable. Trying to slide around the question so you can feel good about yourself is garbage. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21121370/youtube-advertising-revenue-creators-demonetization-earnings-google
  https://lemmy.world/post/7113206 https://lemmy.world/post/7108200 https://lemmy.ml/post/6779163 https://iusearchlinux.fyi/post/1660371 https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/6385210 https://lemmy.world/post/6766273 https://lemm.ee/post/11383162 https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/6089078 https://jemmy.jeena.net/post/217455 https://lemmy.world/post/6255013
I mean, no matter what, you do have a say. You can just not use YouTube. Pretty easy, actually.
- That won't prevent Google from scraping my data from every other website I use.
  
  I'm not sure what that has to do with YouTube detecting ad blockers.
There's a paid service though.
Like I get the sentiment, and I use YouTube with uBlock Origin to avoid paying, but if you're not willing to pay and you're not willing to watch ads what are you proposing?
- This is a distinction that some defenders miss. A lot of people who use ad-blockers would be fine with ads if they were restrained and not too obtrusive. But the amount and frequency of ads only seem to increase. Something that would be difficult to justify, because time does not suffer inflation.
  We went from 1 skippable 5 second ad per video to multiple ads every 10 minutes or so, sometimes even unskippable 15+ second ads or even more ads in a row. When is it going to be enough? Are we supposed to take them on their word that this is necessary, simply assuming that they need it because they don't even share financial numbers? Is our only other option to pay up, once again, the amount that they decided is a fair compensation and also keep increasing?
  Seems that at the very least some way for the users to negotiate what they believe is fair is lacking in this matter. On the lack of that, no wonder some people just decide they refuse to be squeezed forever.
  
  And let's be honest about who this is paying: Alphabet's 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
  Adversarial tech, like adblockers, is good. We should use it. If people want users to not want to use it, they should change the product so that we don't want to use it.
  It's not illegal for me to use an ad blocker and it should never become illegal.
  
  But the amount and frequency of ads only seem to increase. Something that would be difficult to justify, because time does not suffer inflation.
  I mean time doesn't, but cost of ads can be cheaper due to competition and then because lots of people use adblockers they need to push more ads on those who don't block it, really not hard to justify, plus they are a publicly owned company which means they will always suffer from the same problems every other publicly traded company does under capitalism, having to keep growing forever with ever increasing quarterly profits.
  Seems that at the very least some way for the users to negotiate what they believe is fair is lacking in this matter. On the lack of that, no wonder some people just decide they refuse to be squeezed forever.
  I mean, you can literally just not use the platform, that's your negotiating power, but you don't want that, nor ads, nor paying for it, you want it for free, I mean, I don't blame you for it, I want shit for free too, who doesn't, just not how the world works at the moment.
  
  If you want to be this cynical about it I can only tell you one thing: the world does work like that, because people can get away with it and they do.
  Yeah corporations can decide to sell our time, eyeballs and data for smaller and smaller fractions of a penny without asking us. Because clearly it isn't about what is fair and equitable, it's not about making sure every party gets what they deserve, it's about what they can get away with.
  Considering how much tech companies get away with, if anyone wants to moralize over not giving them what they demand, I can only laugh.
  
  I mean they asked you, they told you the exact amount they won't do that for, you don't want to pay it, so they engaged you in a weapons race of adblockers vs adblocker detectors.
  the world works like that because that's how the world works currently, because that's the point of evolution we are at, we haven't yet moved past the capitalist system.
  Because clearly it isn't about what is fair and equitable, it's not about making sure every party gets what they deserve, it's about what they can get away with.
  are we still talking about fucking youtube videos or did the conversation somehow changed to be about access to drinking water? damn bro, it's youtube, a time-sink platform, you don't need it to live
  
  You are the one who are trying to make a big deal over what people ought to do and how the world works over ads. If you don't think that's not worth arguing about, then I dunno why you're still at it.
  I definitely don't think using an ad blocker is a moral battleground, I'm more baffled by the idea that Google needs defending over this.
  
  I just dislike people making arguments that are really about their entitlement and try to pass it off as something else.
  you could make some fair points, that youtube is essentially a monopoly and that locking some educational content behind a pay/adwall is unfairly disadvantageous to people with less money, but nope, your problem is that:
  Is our only other option to pay up, once again, the amount that they decided is a fair compensation and also keep increasing?
  Seems that at the very least some way for the users to negotiate what they believe is fair is lacking in this matter.
  "How dare they ask us for money, why don't they ask us how much we want to pay? it's so unfair, why don't they just run their service for free??"
  it's a bit whingy, innit?
  , then I dunno why you’re still at it.
  I have covid so I have some free time to tire my brain out calling out whingy shit.
  
  Sounding like you do want to argue about this. If you don't think this is a big deal then maybe stop nagging people over petty stuff.
  
  Wow this is the dumbest argument for a monopoly I’ve ever read
  
  How is YouTube a monopoly? You can use other platforms, YouTube is just the most popular. There aren't many because it's wildly unprofitable and people refuse to pay for it.
  
  Read the room pal. Nobody agrees with you. It’s time to stop.
  
  They themselves are creating ZERO content. It's the users who are creating content.
  
  and then because lots of people use adblockers
  It's an arms race they are fueling. They add more, longer, unskippable ads. Folks respond by learning how to run adblockers. They then add more ads, costing them more views again.
  Stop increasing ad frequency/duration and they will see fewer people arming themselves with adblockers and VPN's. 5 years ago people treated me like a tinfoil hat-wearer for having a VPN on and ublock origin. Now my boomer dad is asking questions for how to better obfuscate his telemetry and how to reduce the number of ads he sees. He uses YT to teach himself piano and had zero issue with it until the last few months. He says he can't even use it properly as a result. So much waiting around, so many interruptions.
- I paid for paid for premium for a while. Then it showed me an ad for paramount + anyways. So I said fuck you google and installed an ad blocker.
  Point being I was willing and did pay for the premium service. But even “ad free with premium” still wasn’t ad free. It was “ad reduced”
  
  I've had Premium since whenever it was first introduced (a decade at this point?) and I've never seen a youtube-provided ad during that time, assuming I'm logged into the appropriate account.
  
  I had it for a long time too and never did until maybe… idk 2 months ago? And they only show up on specific videos that have shows/movies associated with it.
  So in this case, I was watching game grumps play peppa pig (would recommend lol) and it showed me this right under the vid.
  
  Huh. 98% of my youtube consumption is on either TV or phone apps at this point, though, so they really wouldn't have a place to put something like that. Or maybe they would and I just haven't watched anything that would have it. Who knows.
  Paramount Plus definitely likes shoving a 30 second ad before your show even on the ad-free plan, though...
- There are stil ads with the paid service as i understand it.
  
  Well, there are no YouTube-served ads but a lot of vloggers are using sponsored segments to better monetize their channels. So that's where sponsor block comes in.
  
  there are not
  
  I've never seen an ad and I've had yt premium for 6+ years
- The existence of the paid offering doesn't invalidate use of the free offering, regardless of whether people are permitting ads on the latter. Any given Youtube page is just a collection of web elements and a call to a video server: these things get loaded or blocked at my sole discretion. My hardware, my web browser, my internet bandwidth, my opsec, my time.
  If I put household items out on the nature strip, I have no expectation that passers-by will have a cup of tea with me first, then take every item as an indivisible lot. So my proposal to Google is: take those items off the nature strip, put them back inside the house and lock the door. Until they do that, no issue exists, despite the company's efforts to fabricate one.
- I cannot get ad-free experience with YT Premium. I can only get ad-free videos bundled with a whole bunch of other useless shit I will never use like YT Music. And the simple reason why I cannot get only ad-free videos is because then I would pay them less, so they don't give me the option.
- I've recently been downvoted to oblivion for writing this exact thing, talking about online newspapers.
  People don't want ads and they don't want to pay. They just expect to get stuff for free and I can't decide if that's because Lemmy is either filled with spoiled brats, or people who genuinely do not know how the world works, or both.
  In their partial defence, I must say that the way companies have used the Internet up until a few years ago may have led them to believe that free content is a thing.
  And, before someone comes along and tries to tear me a new one, YES, I do use uBlock on sites that harvest too many data (e.g. anything by Google) or sites that are too aggressive with ads. But at least I know that I'm either a freeloader or, in the best case scenario, a protester. And I know that, if everyone did the same, so much of the internet would just shut down or go behind paywalls.
  
  I provide financial support to the services I believe in, Washington Post, NYT, Nebula, previously HBO, a few others.
  But it's absolutely on my terms. If I were a broke college student. I'd have no issues pirating literally everything. As it is, I'll find ways to get the stuff from companies that get too greedy. "Public secrets for sale" isn't a thing, and that's all data of any form really is. The difference between someone telling you the basic plot of a movie and telling you every pixel of the movie isn't all that far apart, just the amount of data they're repeating.
  
  Nah, it's neither.
  It's that while I do enjoy whatever it is, if it were to disappear because I'm ad blocking and won't sub then .. ohh well?
  There are a select few groups I actually care about and I donate to them (like PBS).
  Anything else will either find a way or die but I don't care which.
  
  that's my take too, everyone wants free youtube, well the servers aren't free, the content creators don't do it for free, youtube is as big as it is and has as varied content it has is because they provide a platform, but then people want to watch it both for free and without ads.
  
  Yes, thank you! I've been downvoted previously in a topic similar to this one. I know change can be hard for some people but we always knew this would come sooner or later. A huge company wants to make money off their service and people here act as if it's their right to find a way around it. It's not. You were just lucky that there was one. Either find other entertainment or accept that you will get ads.
- lol you got downvoted for a perfectly reasonable question, it's like Reddit all over again

In the second quarter of 2023, Google's revenue amounted to over 74.3 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 69.1 billion U.S. dollars registered in the same quarter a year prior.

But man if we don't pay for youtube premium how will they survive?

The amount of money they made is entirely meaningless without knowing their spending.
Revenue isn't profit?
that's google not youtube though, is it? i think youtube is running at a loss still + in a normal country that shit should have been blasted apart already way too many shit is under google.
- I think they have pretty recently finally become profitable thanks to the increased amount of ads. Although you could always make the argument before that the data YouTube provides to Google that allowed their ad and data empire to thrive is invaluable whether YouTube directly profits or not.
  
  why would it be invaluable? I am guessing it's valuable amd is valued at a very close estimate at least.
  
  Invaluable
  adjective
  beyond calculable or appraisable value; of inestimable worth; priceless:
- Why are people down voting you? Damn there's an infestation of corp simps here
- the richest country in the world is a normal country regardless of your xenophobia

I'll say it again: Google pays 5-year-old "influencers" millions of dollars. They have always harvested your data to provide these free services - selling ads was just icing. They still harvest your data and sell ads and they still make the same money they've always made - only now they are insisting that everyone watch ads or pay for it as well. And of course, eventually YouTube will insist that you watch ads and pay for it. This is the equivalent of "network decay" for streaming services. This is unreasonable and while there are exceptions to the rule, most people have the same reaction to what Google is doing here: surprise, and dismay, if not outright anger and disgust.

Yet every single thread about it on the Internet is utterly overflowing with people lecturing us about how we shouldn't expect something for nothing, as if we aren't fully aware that this is the most transparent of straw men. These people insist that we are the problem for daring to block ads - and further - that we should be thrilled to pay Google for this content, as they are. And they are! They just can't get enough of paying Google for YouTube! It's morally upright, it's the best experience available and money flows so freely for everyone these days, we should all be so lucky to be able to enjoy paying Google the way they do. And of course it's all so organic, these comments.

Suggest that Google pays people to engage this narrative, however, and you will be derided and downvoted into oblivion as if you were a tin-foil-hat wearing maniac. This comment itself is virtually guaranteed to be responded to with a patronizing sarcastic and 100% organic comment about how lol bruh everyone who disagrees with you must be a shill.

selling ads was just icing
You're talking about these as if they're separate things. Literally no company in existence harvests your data for any reason other than to serve better ads or to drive business decisions internally. Nobody gives a shit about your data otherwise. Ads are literally the only reason.
as if you were a tin-foil-hat wearing maniac
I mean... If the shoe fits, man.
Ok, I'll bite. Let's assume Youtube follows your advice, and stops showing ads on YouTube. Data collection is the only source of revenue. How does YouTube make money on that data? Be specific please. Who is buying the data, and what is the buyer going to do the data besides show you a targeted ad?
Suggest that Google pays people to engage this narrative, however, and you will be derided and downvoted into oblivion as if you were a tin-foil-hat wearing maniac. This comment itself is virtually guaranteed to be responded to with a patronizing sarcastic and 100% organic comment about how lol bruh everyone who disagrees with you must be a shill.
Oh hey you put this part in before being downvoted this time lmao. If you think it's worth googles time to be astroturfing on fucking lemmy, you have a couple screws loose lmfao.
- While I agree, you shouldn't underestimate just how fucking cheap astroturfing services are, and how much easier it is to generate astroturfing posts using the plethora of LLMs out in the wild.
  I still think it's silly to think they're doing that here, but it should be considered.
  
  True, but it doesn't make sense to astroturf on a site with the tiniest fraction of users, most of which are already critical of mainstream centralized social media. Why worry about doing it here when a single comment on reddit can reach millions of people when lemmy doesn't even have as many users combined as some of the subs over on reddit.
  This guy is a clown, regardless. I had an interaction with him on another thread where he edited his comment to make himself look like he predicted my response lmao. He also refuses to elaborate on some of the good faith response comments from other users because he knows his viewpoint is indefensible.
did you just tey to pre-emptively suggest that anyone who disagrees with you is a google paid shill?
Because if so I would like to know where I can apply for my payment from Google.
I think any reasonable person knows by now that if you don't "pay for a product you sre the product", everyone knows youtube collects data and sells it and your eyes to advertisers that's their business model, guess what those servers youtube runs on? aren't free, as you yourself said, content creators aren't free, the engineers working on YouTube aren't free, so your suggestion is that despite this, youtube should still be free and ad/data collection free.
well do tell me, how long do you think youtube will last with your business model?

I've blocked maybe eight people in thirty minutes who are implicitly demanding that corporations create the law.

And one of them immediately down voted you. I wonder why they're here on Lemmy instead of continuing to support Reddit? They clearly like to be bottoms to corpos.

We must trust our corporate overlords who will use AI to guide us in their right direction.

Everyone I don't agree with == bootlicker 🙄

- Are you arguing people should only try to be correct when it benefits a poor person? When being correct benefits a rich person we should just lie about the truth?
- Then stop making stupid arguments, it only serves to make you look stupid
  
  How very mature

I honestly don't really care if people adblock or not but I think people need to acknowledge that adblock is essentially piracy. That doesn't make it inherently bad or good but it has the same impacts as piracy at the end of the day. It's a useful tool to use when companies start to get unreasonable but especially in the case of YouTube it impacts the amount of money the people who make the content earn.

But piracy has no impact at all. Pirates never wanted to buy your stuff.
- Honestly, there is plenty of stuff I'd pay for but I pirate if it's difficult to access.
- I don't know, I probably would have paid for at least half the things I pirate if I had to (especially books).
- that only applies to p2p torrents where there aren't infrastructure costs, youtube has infrastructure costs.
  grabbing a torrent from the net and downloading it doesn't cost anyone anything, it's all volunteers providing their bandwidth for it.
  youtube's bandwidth isn't free.
  
  Another thing: footage provided em by content creators trains their LLM and it's poorly paid, everybody seems to have a Patreon these days, every creator that wouldn't be there if there was no money to be made (via said method and those live donations). So the apparent loss of money is more than compensated by the data usefulness. Then ads came. And they were few and it was fine. Then ads became insufferable. My presence there already guarantees creators output content that Google exploits for their AI. What else do I have to pay?
  
  Let's say I provide them with useful data with what I watch then. They know my age cos I log in and all my other info from Google services. That's prolly why unblocked ads on the phone or tablet are always on point.
I honestly don’t really care if people adblock or not but I think people need to acknowledge that adblock is essentially piracy.
The same way it is piracy to go to the bathroom during the commercials...
Look, the problem at hand is not if people use adblocker or not, the problem here is how Google check if you are using adblocker or not, which seems to be illegal.
Well, the full "check for adblocker" things seems to be illegal in EU, whatever way it is used, given a sentence from 2016
I don't think it's piracy exactly but I fully realize there would not be a huge video site like YouTube without ads or limiting it to paid subscribers.