YouTube runs experiment addressing users with ad blocker

[ataradov]

that is the price I pay for using their services.

And you decided that this is enough of a payment. Google disagrees.

It is like saying "I can steal tomatoes from the store, I'm already paying for bread".

[MK14]

that is the price I pay for using their services.

And you decided that this is enough of a payment. Google disagrees.

It is like saying "I can steal tomatoes from the store, I'm already paying for bread".

Let's say, I go to the store and buy a loaf of bread.
I'm expecting to get a free bag to carry it home in (in the past, they now charge for them, by law in the UK, these days), free/easy parking at the store, free staff access to ask about the bread instore, and checkout staff to process it for me.
Free wi-fi (maybe, while on location), free lighting, heating, air-conditioning in store.
Free basic defence and policing, via their security guards.  E.g. an aggressive drunk is being ejected from the store.
No processing fees on any credit card used.
Free store card voucher points, for exchange for 'free' or heavily discounted items, when enough points have accumulated.
Free music instore.
Toilets and maybe other free facilities, kept clean with running hot-water, free toilet paper.

In some cases, or in the past, you could actually get another loaf of bread, for free (buy-one-get-one-free, special offer).

So maybe steal is the wrong term and/or if you swap those tomatoes for other items, then the things would indeed be 'free'.

[ataradov]

None of this is free, it is included in the price. And by no means you are entitled to any of this. You may not shop there anymore if you don't like the experience, but that's  a different story.
But I don't see how this is related to the topic.

Even if Google wronged you in some other way, it does not mean you can do anything in return. If you think they stole your data and benefited from it - complain to the appropriate authorities.

[MK14]

The fact that you're considering me as "acting like they're entitled to consume Google's resources without giving anything in return", is both idiotic and offensive.  Equating it with piracy puts you in my ignore list, because that shit just gets me angry, and that leads to no useful interaction.

Although, people are free to put anyone or everyone (within forum limits), for any, or even no reason, on their ignore list.

We are, in general, all trying to have a free and open discussion here.  So just expressing a persons current feelings about the current topic of discussion, shouldn't result in them going on other peoples ignore list.

If they were being extremely rude (swear words), repeatedly (apparently on purpose), hence trolling and/or other continuous bad behaviour, then that might be a different issue.

Not everyone has got English as their first language, and for other reasons as well.  It might appear that they are being rude, when in fact, they are just making some points.

[MK14]

None of this is free, it is included in the price. And by no means you are entitled to any of this. You may not shop there anymore if you don't like the experience, but that's  a different story.
But I don't see how this is related to the topic.

What I meant was, that although the extra 'tomatoes' was NOT free, with the purchase of a loaf of bread.
Many other things (such as parking), was free.  Even though, such things can be charged for (e.g. parking), in other places.

As you say, it is not really 'free', as you are expected to make purchases (in some cases you have to, in order to get a current receipt, to avoid parking charges, when exiting the car park).

[MK14]

It may very well be the case that there's a value disconnect between what Google needs to get to make the ad-free service viable, and what many users are willing to pay to not see ads. Whether that means they don't use YouTube, pay and grumble about the price, or just put up with the ads is up to them I guess, but apparently Google is interested in forcing them to make that decision.

I suspect that YouTube is a lot more expensive to operate per user than your posts suggest, and that even at the obnoxious level of ads, they aren't making a lot of money. Also do keep in mind that the content creators do have some control over the type and volume of ads presented on their content. This is not solely Google's decision; many creators are also willing to stuff their streams full of ads to the maximum extent to maximize their own revenue.

I agree.  I think that is very possible.
On top of that, the shareholders, might be wanting or insisting on pretty decently sized profit margins, on the whole thing, as well.

We seem to have had 'free lunches', from this relatively recent internet boom thing, in all sorts of ways.  It was fairly obvious, to some at least.  That sooner or later, many of these 'free' services, would either disappear, become horribly full of adverts and other annoyances, or have to charge subscriptions for the services.

Once investors dry up, who invest lots of money into internet companies, in the hope they become genuinely profitable and hence valuable companies, in their own right, in the possibly distant future.  Then the (usually) massive funds, needed to keep these massive internet companies running smoothly, will need to get money from real sources.
Such as subscriptions from their user base.

[MK14]

Maybe the solution, is for there to be tiered subscriptions, which if the specified usage amount/budget is exceeded in any given month.  The user either has to bump up the subscription amount for that month to go back to normal operation, put up with adverts for the remainder of that month or just not use YouTube, until the new month kicks in.

E.g. Very light use $2.99 / Month, max 10 hours total.
Medium use, $5.99 / Month, max 25 hours total.
Heavy use, $8.99 / Month, max 60 hours total.
Unlimited use, $12.99 / Month, unlimited hours.

A bit like some of the mobile phone deals, that are available in the UK, and I suspect in many other countries of the world.

[ataradov]

I use phone service from Google (Google Fi) and it is structured exactly like that. There is base rate $25/mo or so, then you pay for traffic $10/GB but after 6 GB traffic is free. There may be some limit if you consume A LOT more, no idea. So, the maximum bill is limited by a known value.

But this is not going to work for them in case of YouTube. This will make people limit watching in order to lower the bill. Even if this happens subconsciously, it will happen. And YT is not interested in you watching less. They want you to watch more with all the addictive algorithms and stuff.

[PlainName]

If you think they stole your data and benefited from it - complain to the appropriate authorities.

Which would be who? And what's the expectation that anything at all will happen, even if many similar people complain? We already know the answer to that - it takes some bloody-minded person years of effort to even get noticed. And in the end what will happen? "Oh, sorry, a rogue engineer made a mistake. Fixed. Won't do it again." (and yet sucking up AP SSIDs and locations is now 'normal').

[Nominal Animal]

that is the price I pay for using their services.

And you decided that this is enough of a payment. Google disagrees.

They never asked my permission to sell information about me.  disagree with that.  Why should Google get their way and me left with nothing?

It is like saying "I can steal tomatoes from the store, I'm already paying for bread".

That's like saying hitting a mugger is unsolicited violence, and worse offense than the mugging would have been.  Makes absolutely no sense, especially in this context.

We are, in general, all trying to have a free and open discussion here.  So just expressing a persons current feelings about the current topic of discussion, shouldn't result in them going on other peoples ignore list.

Equating things with criminal activity goes over the edge for me, far far more than using swear words.  I don't put people to my ignore list because I want to silence them, I only put them there because I know that for now, I cannot engage them in any mutually beneficial way.  In this particular case, the reason is my anger at the idiotic assumption of a behaviour corresponds to a crime, piracy, just because they feel like it does.

Confusing the two –– a behaviour that is legal but reduces the profit of a company that is exploiting their users as the commodity they make their profit off of, and an utterly illegal behaviour that harms the creators those same companies also exploit –– is exactly what those who make their massive profits by exploiting behavioural information of individuals would love you to do, too.

There is exactly one case where I condone media piracy: when the rights-owner does not want to sell the media to you at all.
(The reasons for this go deep into the roots of copyright, and the necessary interplay between culture and media, requiring a finite duration for copyright protection.)
Today, that is not the case anymore.

It is my opinion that Youtube and Google in general (as well as Meta and all other social media companies) already get an equitable "fee" out of users by collecting their information, packaging it, and selling it and making a profit out of it.  (Note that advertisements are only a part of the entire equation: market analysis, focus group information, also involves a LOT of money, and these companies are making a tidy profit out of all this.)
Google is fighting against adblockers, because it has decided it wants the additional profits from ad sales, and that the information they gather from humans to sell is no longer sufficient "payment".  I disagree, and I claim I have that right, because I never agreed to any of their practices in the first place, and I have no way of forcing them to use me as a commercial commodity they can exploit at zero cost.

I am NOT claiming I or anyone has any right to use their services, either.  Only that as long as they are collecting information on me to sell, I have the right to exploit their services back.  Tit for tat.  Now that Google is insisting the collected information is irrelevant and we also need to watch the advertisers they are pushing, I'm telling fuck that: only if they also stop collecting information on me and packaging and selling it.

In most legal jurisdictions only equitable contracts are legal between a private person and a company.  What Google and others are insisting by trying to block the use of (and indeed even the existence of, via their efforts of trying to establish a "trust chain" down to the software the users are using), is not equitable.  They already exploit me by collecting my information: what do I get in return?

Nothing?  Is that really your position that the humans these companies exploit for profit are entitled to nothing in return?  Fuck that, I say.


Being mutually beneficial, i.e. equitable relationships in the commercial sense, is extremely important to me.  I refuse to exploit others – even Google –, but I also refuse to be exploited if I can do anything about it.  If you do a search here, you'll even find posts where I explain that I have to block ads even here because they make it impossible for me to participate; but to compensate, I'm trying to be useful enough so that the cost to Dave is offset.
(To understand exactly how such offsetting works in real life, you need to understand why libraries increase rather than decrease author profits.)

What Google and others are doing, is like Dave collecting profiles and using the information gathered but not publicly shown, to create profile packages to sell for specialist recruiting companies and test equipment manufacturers/advertisers.  And then, while admitting doing that, claiming that users who also block ads are pirates stealing content from Dave.

Perhaps it is easier to accept such behaviour in cultures where even waiters are supposed to work on gratuities instead of getting a proper wage for the work they do for the company?  I think some members here are in dire need for some reflection on their own core values, before pointing fingers at others and shouting pirate!

[MK14]

We are, in general, all trying to have a free and open discussion here.  So just expressing a persons current feelings about the current topic of discussion, shouldn't result in them going on other peoples ignore list.

Equating things with criminal activity goes over the edge for me, far far more than using swear words.  I don't put people to my ignore list because I want to silence them, I only put them there because I know that for now, I cannot engage them in any mutually beneficial way.  In this particular case, the reason is my anger at the idiotic assumption of a behaviour corresponds to a crime, piracy, just because they feel like it does.

Confusing the two –– a behaviour that is legal but reduces the profit of a company that is exploiting their users as the commodity they make their profit off of, and an utterly illegal behaviour that harms the creators those same companies also exploit –– is exactly what those who make their massive profits by exploiting behavioural information of individuals would love you to do, too.

There is exactly one case where I condone media piracy: when the rights-owner does not want to sell the media to you at all.
(The reasons for this go deep into the roots of copyright, and the necessary interplay between culture and media, requiring a finite duration for copyright protection.)
Today, that is not the case anymore.

It is my opinion that Youtube and Google in general (as well as Meta and all other social media companies) already get an equitable "fee" out of users by collecting their information, packaging it, and selling it and making a profit out of it.  (Note that advertisements are only a part of the entire equation: market analysis, focus group information, also involves a LOT of money, and these companies are making a tidy profit out of all this.)
Google is fighting against adblockers, because it has decided it wants the additional profits from ad sales, and that the information they gather from humans to sell is no longer sufficient "payment".  I disagree, and I claim I have that right, because I never agreed to any of their practices in the first place, and I have no way of forcing them to use me as a commercial commodity they can exploit at zero cost.

I am NOT claiming I or anyone has any right to use their services, either.  Only that as long as they are collecting information on me to sell, I have the right to exploit their services back.  Tit for tat.  Now that Google is insisting the collected information is irrelevant and we also need to watch the advertisers they are pushing, I'm telling fuck that: only if they also stop collecting information on me and packaging and selling it.

In most legal jurisdictions only equitable contracts are legal between a private person and a company.  What Google and others are insisting by trying to block the use of (and indeed even the existence of, via their efforts of trying to establish a "trust chain" down to the software the users are using), is not equitable.  They already exploit me by collecting my information: what do I get in return?

Nothing?  Is that really your position that the humans these companies exploit for profit are entitled to nothing in return?  Fuck that, I say.


Being mutually beneficial, i.e. equitable relationships in the commercial sense, is extremely important to me.  I refuse to exploit others – even Google –, but I also refuse to be exploited if I can do anything about it.  If you do a search here, you'll even find posts where I explain that I have to block ads even here because they make it impossible for me to participate; but to compensate, I'm trying to be useful enough so that the cost to Dave is offset.
(To understand exactly how such offsetting works in real life, you need to understand why libraries increase rather than decrease author profits.)

What Google and others are doing, is like Dave collecting profiles and using the information gathered but not publicly shown, to create profile packages to sell for specialist recruiting companies and test equipment manufacturers/advertisers.  And then, while admitting doing that, claiming that users who also block ads are pirates stealing content from Dave.

Perhaps it is easier to accept such behaviour in cultures where even waiters are supposed to work on gratuities instead of getting a proper wage for the work they do for the company?  I think some members here are in dire need for some reflection on their own core values, before pointing fingers at others and shouting pirate!

I agree with you, on at least both the main points, you have answered.

Firstly, yes, ignoring a person, manually (humanly) or automatically (ignore list), makes sense, in the context you described.  I understand, and agree.  It had not occurred to me, as a possible explanation, at the time of making my comment(s).

As regards me, and the other point(s), i.e. NOT wanting to give google data about oneself, while using the internet, for a huge number of reasons.

I also, have my own reasons.  Let me give just one hypothetical (but I think it really can and does happen, with me).

(N.B. Made up story, but from a typical point of view it CAN be true).

My TV (or monitor etc), suddenly blows up and unexpectedly breaks and is a write off.  It was many years old, and needed to be upgraded anyway, for higher resolutions and more HDMI sockets, etc.

I need to order one in the next couple of days, so have to choose now.

I've spent a few hours reading/watching reviews, unboxing videos, checked the prices on my short list, via various shopping options, in my price range.

I've narrowed it down to two or three models, and I will literally buy one of them, within the next 48 hours.

I now want to quietly chew over those options in my mind, and wait until I focus on a top option, possibly after a nights sleep.  So I DON'T want to see or hear anything about TVs for sale, for the rest of the evening, while I quietly make up my mind.

Yet currently (typically), almost everywhere I go, while surfing the internet.  Will show me adverts (admittedly fixed ones), offering various TVs for sale, and ones on the top of google searches, etc.  I can find this very annoying, as I want to make the RIGHT unbiased decision, not buy e.g. a Samsung TV, because it was the most advertised one, while I innocently surfed the internet.

So to get to the point.  I DON'T WANT to have to sign in to youtube, let alone sign in to a subscription.  As I might not want the details of what I'm doing, be known to these various algorithms and advertising entities etc.

Ebay are so bad in this regards.  That if I'm signed in, and look at certain items, especially for too long, so it looks like I want to buy it.  I suddenly get these offers from the seller, via ebay, to buy those items, at a reduced price.

Despite trying to turn off all such options in ebay notifications settings.
As in the past, I would look at something, e.g. a PC.  Then a couple of days later, get email(s) from ebay saying something like, "we noticed you were looking at that PC, which has now sold.  We did a search, and these are some similar PCs, which are still for sale".

So in summary, I also have difficulties (annoyances), with all the somewhat forced, secretive data-sharing that seems to take place.

[peter-h]

What surprises me is that you can make a browser which strips off the adverts without the server being able to detect it, but nobody has done it.

It would render the page onto a hidden pane and then implement an adblocker on a second, visible, pane.

[madires]

So to get to the point.  I DON'T WANT to have to sign in to youtube, let alone sign in to a subscription.  As I might not want the details of what I'm doing, be known to these various algorithms and advertising entities etc.

That's exactly the same issue I have with YouTube. If you're logged in (with or without paid subscription) you'll be the product. You'll be also tracked when not logged in, but it's easier to counter that. Of course, content creators should earn money (if they wish to, there are also some altruistic creators) and the streaming platform too. However, I don't like to support a streaming platform which treats creators and users so badly.

[PlainName]

What surprises me is that you can make a browser which strips off the adverts without the server being able to detect it, but nobody has done it.

It would render the page onto a hidden pane and then implement an adblocker on a second, visible, pane.

Perhaps because there is no need for such just yet.

But... the server would be able to detect the skipped advert unless you download the entire video (at real time speed) before removing the adverts and then watch it. Most people want to click, watch rather than click, wait, bored, watch something else.

[peter-h]

Not sure blocking YT ads works thus. With Adblock you don't see YT ads at all, and it doesn't achieve it by downloading the whole video. I don't know how it does it. Just recently YT stopped Adblock working.

BTW you can download YT videos very fast. Look at various YT downloaders... I have used many and it runs very fast. So that would be one way.

Habits vary, but personally I don't spend my life on YT the way so many people do. I tend to watch specific videos, short ones like 5 mins, each day (updates from Ukraine actually). Technically one could set up a script and download these and watch them in one go. This has been possible with web pages since for ever (grab a complete set of pages from say a forum and present only those you have not read since last time).

[ve7xen]

You forget: even though I block the ads, they're still collecting information of my habits and sites I visit and videos I watch, and my e-mail address, and combining that information to a valuable packet of information advertisers are willing to buy (even if that packet contains the information on ad-blocker use).  It is this information profile that they make their profit on, and their gathering of it and selling to others, that is the price I pay for using their services.

Why do you believe that they 'sell' this information? This is oft claimed, but never substantiated, and it doesn't make any sense. Google is primarily an advertising company. They want their clients paying them to distribute ads. They are not interested in selling their competitive advantage at doing that directly to their competition, and indirectly leaking it to the world at large, at the same time burning their mostly-good reputation for protecting their users' data. People love to hate on Google, but I don't believe this is happening at any meaningful scale, it would be monumentally stupid for them to do so.

The fact that you're considering me as "acting like they're entitled to consume Google's resources without giving anything in return", is both idiotic and offensive.  Equating it with piracy puts you in my ignore list, because that shit just gets me angry, and that leads to no useful interaction.

I should have said 'without paying the asking price', but the point is not substantially different. Google does not agree that the value you are providing is sufficient for the services you are consuming, and has started blocking you from consuming those resources in a way contrary to what they intended. I'm not sure why people feel so strongly entitled to doing this; they are Google's resources to offer under the terms they choose so they can operate a business, not given freely for the 'good of the world'. Nothing else in the world works like this, why the Internet?

There is exactly one case where I condone media piracy: when the rights-owner does not want to sell the media to you at all.
(The reasons for this go deep into the roots of copyright, and the necessary interplay between culture and media, requiring a finite duration for copyright protection.)
Today, that is not the case anymore.

It is my opinion that Youtube and Google in general (as well as Meta and all other social media companies) already get an equitable "fee" out of users by collecting their information, packaging it, and selling it and making a profit out of it.  (Note that advertisements are only a part of the entire equation: market analysis, focus group information, also involves a LOT of money, and these companies are making a tidy profit out of all this.)

Do you condone media piracy when the price is 'too high' in the user's opinion? I don't think Altium is worth the asking price to me, should I just pirate it? Youtube and Google do not agree that what you are 'paying' is an equitable fee, and they have an alternative offer which you believe is too expensive (whether that is ads or the subscription). Unlike with media piracy, using their resources has a direct and quantifiable cost, and it maintains the similar-to-copyright aspect of viewing the material without compensating the creator under the terms they have offered. Subscriptions like this are the future of distribution for copyrighted material, media that can be 'pirated' is dying; if you don't believe similar terms should apply then I am confused why you believe copyright should exist at all.

I don't see how these are ethically substantially different beyond the fact that views actually directly cost the service provider real money, not just 'lost sales', which is not helping your case. In any case, arguing about this is not on topic, so I'll leave it there.

Only that as long as they are collecting information on me to sell, I have the right to exploit their services back.

I don't disagree at all about your right to exploit them, 'back' or not, though I don't think Google is selling your information in the way you believe, nor that this is your decision to unilaterally make, in contract disputes a court is needed to determine this. I don't believe blocking/skipping ads or circumventing technical measures should be illegal or punishable in any way, and I feel the same about copyrighted material, but the right to circumvent is not the same as the right to a service with no technical measures to circumvent, nor does it include the right for them to leave 'exploits' in place indefinitely.

Being mutually beneficial, i.e. equitable relationships in the commercial sense, is extremely important to me.  I refuse to exploit others – even Google –, but I also refuse to be exploited if I can do anything about it.  If you do a search here, you'll even find posts where I explain that I have to block ads even here because they make it impossible for me to participate; but to compensate, I'm trying to be useful enough so that the cost to Dave is offset.
(To understand exactly how such offsetting works in real life, you need to understand why libraries increase rather than decrease author profits.)

If Dave has agreed to these terms, then great, you have an agreement that is mutually beneficial, equitable, and importantly agreed upon. If Dave has not agreed, you do not have the right to determine for him what are equitable terms, and that is frankly an absurd suggestion that this is how the world should work, with one party dictating what terms are 'equitable'. Equitable terms are arrived at through negotiation and agreement, not with one party doing what they want and claiming it must be equitable for both parties because it is equitable for them. In a sense, this is exactly what Google is doing to you, using your data in a way they believe is equitable, with you not in agreement. Except that I am quite sure they have been careful to explain exactly what they are and are not doing with your data in their privacy policies and user agreements.

[MK14]

.........[[Very big post, I enjoyed reading it, I've NOT copied it to save room in this thread.  Please click the link to it or see above, if you want to read it]].........

I think in summary, you just said:
"Google are selling (via subscriptions or adverts), a video service.  Which people should really be paying for (via subs or ads), just like any other business, such as can you walk into a car showroom and just drive away with an expensive car for free, if you can't or don't want to pay for it?".

My current feelings, are that in the same way we have Water, Electricity, Gas (in some cases), Telephone, Postal services and perhaps some other things.  Considered, as basic Utilities (sort of human rights to get access to) services, that peoples homes should have.

Maybe more modern things, such as TV, Radio, Broadband (internet), also should be added to that list.

YouTube (as well as internet searches), seem to be becoming a 'standard' way of life, expected feature.  The loss of which, would make things hard, at least for some people.

So, perhaps such things, should be more like basic household services.  Rather than potentially high priced luxury items, which YouTube subscriptions, could become.

I.e. What about all the people who genuinely can neither afford the high (in some peoples opinions), subscription costs, and also can't stand the large number of spammy annoying adverts, at least for some people?

People basically 'need' YouTube, perhaps?

So, having a specific business, dictate most of its rules, control it, and decide how much to charge for it.  Maybe, NOT the way things need to go ahead for the future.

[ve7xen]

.........[[Very big post, I enjoyed reading it, I've NOT copied it to save room in this thread.  Please click the link to it or see above, if you want to read it]].........

I think in summary, you just said:
"Google are selling (via subscriptions or adverts), a video service.  Which people should really be paying for (via subs or ads), just like any other business, such as can you walk into a car showroom and just drive away with an expensive car for free, if you can't or don't want to pay for it?".

My current feelings, are that in the same way we have Water, Electricity, Gas (in some cases), Telephone, Postal services and perhaps some other things.  Considered, as basic (sort of human rights to get access to) services, that peoples homes should have.

Maybe more modern things, such as TV, Radio, Broadband (internet), also should be added to that list.

YouTube (as well as internet searches), seem to be becoming a 'standard' way of life, expected feature.  The loss of which, would make things hard, at least for some people.

So, perhaps such things, should be more like basic household services.  Rather than potentially high priced luxury items, which YouTube subscriptions, could become.

I.e. What about all the people who genuinely can neither afford the high (in some peoples opinions), subscription costs, and also can't stand the large number of spammy annoying adverts, at least for some people?

People basically 'need' YouTube, perhaps?

So, having a specific business, dictate most of its rules, control it, and decide how much to charge for it.  Maybe, NOT the way things need to go ahead for the future.

This is an idea I have thought about in the past as well. As far as the infrastructure part (to deliver Internet service), IMO this is absolutely a no-brainer, but at least in North America I don't see how we arrive at it without the will of the government to act with authority in a way that will cause significant, possibly catastrophic, harm to the existing infrastructure companies, which seems like a tough mountain to climb. This part of the system is a natural monopoly due to the cost of building the infrastructure and the fact that it makes no economic sense to duplicate it. I've been gunning for this for a long time, but at least here in Canada it seems less and less likely as time goes on.

On the services side, I agree that some level of 'social network' kind of services is probably something that should be treated more like a utility, but I have no idea how that would work in practice, since these products rely so much on the network effect and I don't think it'd make sense to 'ban' private efforts, probably the publicly funded option is just not as good on some other axes as some commercial offerings, and has trouble succeeding. Also hard to imagine how this would work in a global economy, with no global jurisdiction to make the rules and pay for it, but at the same time no borders. Maybe you could just ban competing products from having ads altogether, forcing them to rely on subscriptions, driving most users to the publicly funded version? Seems heavy-handed though.

In general we are seeing more and more verticalization and consolidation across many segments of the economy, so stronger consumer monopoly protections, especially surrounding digital platforms, are warranted IMO. This might enable forcing them not to bundle these subscriptions together, more transparency about costs and pricing. Maybe the advertising arms of these companies could be split from the service arms, to change the incentives against collecting data they are not allowed to share for advertising purposes.

Lots of ideas, but none if it sounds all that realistic to me.

[MK14]

Lots of ideas, but none if it sounds all that realistic to me.

It is VERY tricky, indeed.  It is well known, about the problems of publicly run (government/committee) organisations vs privately run businesses.

With something very technically complicated (in real terms), such as YouTube, considering a goverment created and run version, would really worry me!

I'm guess/speculating, but they would form committees, who wouldn't have a clue about YouTube, the internet or technical things, or even real businesses.  They would come up with a set of rules, such as my example below:

• Age restrictions don't work, so everything must be suitable for very young people
• Strictly no copyright violations.  So no music, movie clips, clips from other videos, or any brand identifying things, whatsoever
• No smoke, fire, flames, or showing inside items (sorry BigClive), as it might give children the wrong idea
• Not everyone understands electronics, computers, maths, science.  So that it is all-inclusive and everyone feels safe and happy.  Strictly no technical, electronic, scientific, mathematical etc content allowed
• Each video, before being allowed on the new system.  Has to be verified, by a committee of 12 people, repeated in 95 different countries.  If even 1 person disagrees with that video, the entire video channel is permanently banned, with no options for appeal
• The IT infrastructure, will be run and sorted out by the government
• All videos will be permanently deleted, after 7 days.  Which is plenty of time to give to people to watch them, surely?
• There will be strictly no adverts, whatsoever.  So anyone worried about that, doesn't need to.  All videos, will have a short government safety clip, only 5 or 10 minutes long, unskippable for safety reasons, only at the start, end, middle, and various chapter positions, throughout each video
• There will be no cost for the video creators, at all.  Totally free.  It will be paid for by the new, viewing tax, where each YouTube channel owner, will pay a tax, for each view.  What can be fairer than that?

[thm_w]

SmartTube is still working for me on the TV with no ads and no prompts.
So maybe one solution is faking the browser ID as being a smart TV (as was sort of mentioned above).

What surprises me is that you can make a browser which strips off the adverts without the server being able to detect it, but nobody has done it.

It would render the page onto a hidden pane and then implement an adblocker on a second, visible, pane.

True but it will come, if needed. The advantage of existing adblockers was that you saved bandwidth/time by not downloading the ads.

[SiliconWizard]

Yes, most adblockers still work on the principle that they won't download the resources that they detect as blockable, which saves network bandwidth, but which is always detectable by the server one way or another.
If the browser 1/ doesn't disclose anything about its config or extensions and 2/ downloads the blocked items in the background but just throws them away afterwards while never displaying it to the end-user, that will be impossible to detect remotely and quite simple to implement in browsers.

But the major browser vendors (Mozilla, Google, Apple, MS) will never implement that, they'll get too much pressure not to and you know where the money comes from, they gotta eat.

So that'll leave some stripped-down open-source alternatives, that probably less than 1% of users will use, just as it is now.

[NiHaoMike]

Yes, most adblockers still work on the principle that they won't download the resources that they detect as blockable, which saves network bandwidth, but which is always detectable by the server one way or another.
If the browser 1/ doesn't disclose anything about its config or extensions and 2/ downloads the blocked items in the background but just throws them away afterwards while never displaying it to the end-user, that will be impossible to detect remotely and quite simple to implement in browsers.

But the major browser vendors (Mozilla, Google, Apple, MS) will never implement that, they'll get too much pressure not to and you know where the money comes from, they gotta eat.

So that'll leave some stripped-down open-source alternatives, that probably less than 1% of users will use, just as it is now.

I wonder if it might be possible to send TCP ACKs early when it downloads the ads. Some packets can get dropped but you don't care about the content anyways. I suppose there would be the problem of getting too ahead of the server and the scheme getting detected, some adaptive scheme can counter that.

I think stealth adblocking would become a lot more common if there's a good reason to use it.

[tom66]

I wonder if it might be possible to send TCP ACKs early when it downloads the ads. Some packets can get dropped but you don't care about the content anyways. I suppose there would be the problem of getting too ahead of the server and the scheme getting detected, some adaptive scheme can counter that.

I think stealth adblocking would become a lot more common if there's a good reason to use it.

TCP ACKs alone wouldn't work, because TCP packets are max 64KiB each.  The average advertiser video is going to be larger than that, and the length is probably not deterministic (due to how streaming video works).  But on a modern connection downloading that in full won't take much time.  There's a bit of DASH going on in the background as well, managing the max bitrate the client can handle. 

Even if Google enforces the "wait N seconds to get your video" I can see the adblockers winning by just showing a "loading" screen.  That would still be better than watching an ad. 

[madires]

Google pushes QUIC.

[magic]

Even if Google enforces the "wait N seconds to get your video" I can see the adblockers winning by just showing a "loading" screen.  That would still be better than watching an ad.

Yes, but honestly I don't bother with adblocking on YT.

If it's a single ad at the beginning, I simply mute sound and wait it out instead of fighting with whatever YT screwed up this time to break adblockers.
If there are ads in the middle, I watch something else if it's an option or go straight to a video downloader. That's a single "loading" screen and then uinterrupted peace of mind.