Comment on YouTube's plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers
Kodemystic@lemmy.kodemystic.dev 7 months ago
What prevents them from going in video adds? Technically difficult? Or what?
In video ads, even those by the content creators themselves, can generally be dealt with using SponsorBlock. This is community driven, users mark the segment of the video that’s just sponsor filler or credits or whatever.
You can even get a NewPipe fork that includes SponsorBlock.
jesus christ dude
I think doing that with programmatic ads would be difficult. Maybe hard coding a specific creative would be feasible.
UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee 7 months ago
In video ads = no relevant ads based on the user. Less relevant ads = less revenue generated for people paying YouTube for hosting those ads. Thus, people would pay less to YouTube to host ads. Thus, less profits for YouTube.
Plus as another dude said: Sponsorblock.
Kodemystic@lemmy.kodemystic.dev 7 months ago
I think it wouldn’t be that dificult to figure out what is interesting for people watching the video since channels themselves already usually have a target audience. If I am watching a video from a dude who focus on video games or tech odds are I’d be more interested in tech adds. But if Google REALLY wants to know what we need/want then yeah maybe you’re right. Shit it happened so many times me just saying the word pizza or shoes/snickersnwoyld set off a pizza ad later in my phone. These mfers want to inject ads on our souls.
UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Not rlly. Your point would be relevant for niche YouTube videos. What about generic videos tho? Say something like music videos. Kinda everyone watches them. In fact, music videos get the highest amount of views. Ads inserted in such videos based purely on the content of these videos would be too generic, thus of lower average relevancy to the viewer, thus ultimately translating to less revenue.
youngGoku@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I don’t get targeted ads anymore but it took a lot of work to get here and I don’t have a lot of the conveniences as other folks who use google play, oauth, etc.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
There’s no reason they can’t mix relevant ads in the video stream itself. It’s just technically more expensive and complex.
UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee 7 months ago
U could still easily evade this. Here’s why:
Ad is inserted into stream. Either one of two things happens depending upon the way it is implemented:
The length of the video stream increases as the ad is inserted suddenly. The ad blocker can simply calculate the difference and skip the difference worth of time, thus skipping the ad.
The length of the video doesn’t increase to prevent this. Thus, you get the ad stream overlapping in front of the actual video stream. This would thus kinda be on the frontend, which could easily be blocked.
The ad is inserted in the beginning itself at some random time in the video. Hence, the length of the video doesn’t change suddenly like in scenario one. However, remember that regulations require you to visually indicate that a given piece of media is an ad or not. This is why YouTube ads have “Ad” in a yellow box. This could thus very easily be detected by an adblocker that analyses every frame that the box is present in, and skips that frame. This however, would be a little heavier for the user using the adblocker.
Trust me lol. There is literally no way you can prevent ad blockers.
Kodemystic@lemmy.kodemystic.dev 7 months ago
if the platform decides which and where the ads will run during the video on load I dont see how this could be blocked.
Hangglide@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Why can’t YouTube just render the video on the fly with the relevant add?
UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee 7 months ago
That IS how YouTube works. Let’s say you are watching a YT video. What your YouTube app/ website does, is that it downloads a certain portion of the video from the server. This small part is called a “buffer”. That’s where the word “buffering” comes from. Now, for the ad to be displayed within the video stream itself, it would need to be downloaded in this buffer somehow. Therefore, while there is a buffer in place, all of my above points would apply.
Completely eliminate the buffer you say (ie., stream the video bit by bit by reducing the buffering size dramatically) ? Well, then you would need an ultra stable internet connection to YouTube’s servers, without any ping difference. Good luck with that. Especially, good luck with doing that in developing countries, whose populations make up the majority of the world.
Hangglide@lemmy.world 7 months ago
If that is true, then how is it possible for software to determine the difference between a commercial and content? They are streamed from a different source. I’m suggesting that YouTube could encode the commercial in the same stream as content, and as far as the player is concerned, there would be no difference.
ytg@feddit.ch 7 months ago
Not sure if they have that kind of processing power. Also, couldn’t you modify the player to skip them?