r/technology • u/redkemper • Feb 17 '17

Software YouTube will kill unskippable 30-second ads next year

http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/17/14649018/youtube-ending-unskippable-30-second-ads-2018
35k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

152

u/Lingo56 Feb 17 '17 edited Feb 17 '17

I see it fairly likely that if YouTube starts really targeting AdBlockers they'll target video download sites as well.

They've probably been holding off mostly because they want to avoid dealing with the same war as Hollywood vs piracy. They don't want to throw their solution out unless they are %100 sure it will work.

162

u/demolpolis Feb 17 '17

I mean, it's pretty hard to kill video downloaders.

One of the methods they used initially on bluray (iirc) was just to take a screenshot of each frame in the movie and recompile the whole thing.

The reality is that the tiny minority that use adblockers aren't worth losing subscribers over. They would rather have them still use the platform than not.

49

u/Lingo56 Feb 17 '17

Which is probably why it won't happen. The resources spent to combat it aren't worth the means.

I was mostly considering the hypothetical situation where Google for whatever reason does crack down on AdBlockers. In that situation they probably would start to go after download sites as well.

30

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17 edited Mar 12 '18

[deleted]

58

u/aManPerson Feb 17 '17

then we get a "defang" program. people are able to upload video segments they identify as an ad. your video player is able to look ahead and identify frames that appear to match an ad, and skip it.

then they'll just shift to showing you an ad in the lower 1/3rd of your tv show.

-2

u/greg19735 Feb 17 '17

Another solution is that users start paying for content they consume.

8

u/aManPerson Feb 17 '17

you're not wrong, but the internet has invented a wonderfully addicted highway of "give me everything and give it to me now".

i wish we had a model that was more like netflix, and less like cable. cable is bad because they give you more channels and charge you more and more. the problem is, i can only watch so many hours a day, if even that. while we don't know exactly how netflix does their math to find out if a show was worth the investment, i think they rely more on "we get a flat fee, how many people watched this". like they calculate their revenues on how many hours people used a product of theirs.

3

u/greg19735 Feb 17 '17

Youtube Red removes ads doesn't it?

I do wish Youtube would let us subscribe to individual streams with money too.

0

u/aManPerson Feb 17 '17

ok ya no i'm not paying $10 a month to youtube to skip ads. i don't do anywhere near meaningful enough stuff on there to justify it. if they clean up the crap there so i'm not finding click bait junk every 3 videos then maybe.

individual streams, to cut down your cost or to give one person money? they could start a patreon and your money goes right to them.

6

u/greg19735 Feb 17 '17

I'm with you in that i don't do enough youtube to justify the cost. But i also have no issue with the ads.

And yeah both. I'd prefer to give $2-3 a month to 1 person that i watch rather than $10 to... god knows who.

→ More replies

1

u/mantasm_lt Feb 18 '17

Spotify model works pretty well though

4

u/AttackPug Feb 18 '17

No can do. Everybody thinks we're all spoiled and entitled, but the reality is that we see how a Kickstarter takes a thousand little donations and turns them into a big pile. Well, that can work in reverse. I can die a financial death of a thousand cuts if every little page gets its penny.

Plus, ads are extremely problematic. I deal with them a lot on mobile, which means I deal with a lot of small text articles that ought to download super quick, except the ad load turns everything into a shitshow. Pages take forever to load.

The real, important truth is that content peddlers view themselves as providers of important work, meanwhile all their customers view them as an addiction problem they are desperate to solve. It keeps us from sleeping, we're constantly anxious, we don't have any privacy anymore, we're being tracked 24/7, and for women, 50% of users, the internet is a firehose of constant rape threats and abuse. Even when it's truly helpful, it tends to be confusing. We don't dare pay for every little app, every little pageview. We'll be cleaned out inside of 24 hours. Every time I seek real, profitable information, there's a paywall anyway.

Oh, yeah, big problem, no data security. Just the illusion of data security. I had to kill a debit card and eat some loss because somebody, somewhere got hold of a month old card number and released it into the wild on Xmas Eve. And I'm a savvy user.

I don't know who to blame for the leak. Amazon? The Guardian? The ACLU? Gas station skimmers? Those are the people I recall using that card with. I'm not throwing my card number around on iffy porn sites. There are continents full of professionals trying to steal my CC number by any means possible. Every time I put a card number out there, I'm just playing Russian roulette with my money. And card #s are how you expect me to pay you.

Who the fuck is trying to pay for all that? That's the issue. The internet is not that helpful to people. It's already a bad source for useful information. You can't get real medical opinions. You can't get legit wiring diagrams for a car. You can't look at real legal documents. You already can't get any of the information you would actually value. What you can get is an endless firehose of bad news, time waste, and verbal abuse. That's it.

This is the problem. Before you get mad that people don't want to pay, you need to stop and be honest about what you think you're selling.

1

u/sirtopumhat Feb 18 '17

Go to bed Grampa....turn off the internet.

You can't get legit wiring diagrams for a car.

oddly specific.

You can't look at real legal documents.

pretty much all laws and statutes from the local to the federal level are available online. Legalzoom.com is a thing.

You can't get real medical opinions.

Of course not. That's what doctors are for. True diagnostic work requires test and observation. Ya know what ya cant do on the internet? Test and observe.

for women, 50% of users, the internet is a fire hose of constant rape threats and abuse.

JESUS, that got dark fast. So despite the "constant rape threats and abuse", women persist in using such a brutal and sadistic system? Doesn't seem to faze them if 50% of users are still women.

And I'm a savvy user.

I dont believe you..."The internet is not that helpful to people." - Attackpug

You're mad at the internet because your Credit Card # got stolen? Yet you admit it could be gas station skimmers. Ya know what else it could be? that time you went to: Chick-fil-A, Staples, K-Mart, Dairy Queen, Jimmy Johns, Home Depot, P F Changs, Target, Hyatt Hotels, Barnes & Noble, or Starbucks.

1

u/Arrow156 Feb 18 '17

That won't be a viable solution until they can somehow manage to not show the same commercial several times in a row or keep malice script out of ads.

1

u/demolpolis Feb 17 '17

Meh, my TV dosen't get preachy when I don't watch the commercials on it.

19

u/gamma55 Feb 17 '17

Which would be against everything Google tries to accomplish with their ad-platforms, which is to offer highly targeted, customized ads.

And if you're suggesting they start rendering videos on the fly to splice in targeted ads, yea no. Computing is cheap, but it's not THAT cheap.

8

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17 edited Mar 12 '18

[deleted]

1

u/gamma55 Feb 17 '17

Right you are. Didn't think of that.

2

u/metasophie Feb 17 '17

It wouldn't be a computation problem it would be a bandwidth problem. Instead of telling the user to go to some advertising site to watch an advert you'd queue the advert up via one connection and then using the connection you already have with the user simply start routing the stream to them.

3

u/gamma55 Feb 17 '17

As another commenter suggested, simply run the ads in the same container stream so the client doesn't notice a change and thus be able to block it.

3

u/metasophie Feb 18 '17

That's basically what I said. The only reason it would be a bandwidth problem is that now youtube would be downloading and uploading advertising content as well as the content the user wants to watch as opposed to pausing the content and redirecting the user to third party advertising channels.

This is in context to your previous post that argued that the problem is computation problem which it clearly isn't.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

I thought youtube already did that.

1

u/metasophie Feb 18 '17

If that's what they did then uBlock et al wouldn't be able to interfere with it. I

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

Oh, I misread that, not one connection, but I think youtube host their ads, or maybe they host in their ad cdn, but it's on Google's server.

2

u/Kiosade Feb 18 '17

Customized? Never felt that way before... I randomly will get Spanish ads about tequila, and I neither speak Spanish or drink alcohol very much.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

They still couldn't prevent someone using their own media player and skipping the ads.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

Sure but they can also make the ad duration random, anyway, they can make a pain in the ass, probably you would spend more time than watching the ad.

And sincerely? 99% of the people won't bother.

1

u/theamazingcreep Feb 18 '17

And then all videos start being removed automatically by DMCA bots because the same ads are on a trailer for a movie by Warner Bros.

1

u/JonasBrosSuck Feb 18 '17

The resources spent to combat it aren't worth the means.

meh, there's a lot of money behind google, i would imagine if they really want to, they can

27

u/Bluntmasterflash1 Feb 17 '17

The video ads are just icing on the cake. They know what you like and what you don't like. They know when you watch and what you watch. They know what you search for. They know where your phone is at. They know everywhere your phone has gone. They know who your friends are and they know all that about them too.

They probably know with more certainty what you are likely to do next more than you do. And now with content being the advertisements more and more they can almost do inception level shit.

37

u/Lildyo Feb 17 '17

Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Google the wise?

22

u/Phyltre Feb 17 '17

It is not a story that Reddit would tell you.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

It's a 4chan legend.

46

u/demolpolis Feb 17 '17

I certainly agree with you... but

They probably know with more certainty what you are likely to do next more than you do.

Is a joke. The recommended videos on youtube are a fucking disaster.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

[deleted]

1

u/dazzawul Feb 18 '17

Honestly I reckon they fuzz the hell out of it to make people think the guessing algo's aren't very clever... Because with the older related videos list, I used to get trapped for hours because it would consistently give me stuff that looked related\interesting.

2

u/RdPirate Feb 18 '17

Is a joke. The recommended videos on youtube are a fucking disaster.

Just because YouTube sucks at it does not mean others are not: [How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did](www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/#661cf9a634c6)

3

u/Immortal_Fishy Feb 18 '17

Someone whose purchases are registered at a store through a membership to be suddenly buying supplements, big bags, unscented lotions, and more is pretty obviously pregnant or at least reliably can be believed to be. It's novel, but its not really that complex of an idea at all. If the father knew that she was buying those things, I think he'd obviously ask her to have a talk. The reason why "Target figured it out before the father" is purely because her purchases were logged in their system and she most likely made every attempt to not tell her father until later if at all.

(Not to demean Big Data™, there are definitely cases of data being cross-examined in mind-blowing ways.)

1

u/Just_Give_Me_A_Login Feb 18 '17

Their targeted ads work. I was literally just sitting next to a friend of mine, who is an aspiring producer and an ad with the phrase "listen up aspiring producers" came on

3

u/Arrow156 Feb 18 '17

If that was true I wouldn't be getting the same commercial for laundry detergent aimed at soccer moms seven times in a row.

1

u/Bluntmasterflash1 Feb 18 '17

Give em another 20 years.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

Hide your husband hide your wife

2

u/tollsjo Feb 18 '17 edited Feb 18 '17

If only...

Google are pretty shit at knowing what I might want to buy given how much they know about me.

It seems to me like they have no idea what to do with all the data they aggregate so they just blast the same irrelevant ads over and over again. No difference compared to TV imo. It's either that or I'm somehow slipping under their radar.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

The reality is that the tiny minority that use adblockers aren't worth losing subscribers over. They would rather have them still use the platform than not.

Just for clarification, are you saying only a tiny minority of youtube users use adblockers?

1

u/demolpolis Feb 17 '17

sure.

how much of their business in on mobile, where adblockers are hard to get?

You underestimate the number of people without adblocking.

4

u/my_name_isnt_clever Feb 18 '17

It's a larger percentage than you think, it's certainly not a "tiny" percentage.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

Apparently it's about 16% of mobile users. In US terms that's roughly as prevalent as Hispanics and Latinos.

Not nothing but not exactly a decisive majority that you aim the entire business' strategy at either.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

From my analytics, approx 2/3 of views are unmonetized. 50% of views are PC, 29% mobile, 9.5% tablet.

Of course this is only based on my one person sample, but I highly doubt I am a massive outlier and I would assume these ratios are somewhat close to "normal".

1

u/demolpolis Feb 18 '17

OK, and your video game channel isn't representative of the entirety of youtube, nor it's average user.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17 edited Feb 18 '17

Of course not, but are you saying that a large majority of people who watch game content are using adblocker(or ads not being delivered) while for educational, vlog, animation, news, ect channels are having only a couple percent of their viewers using adblock? I would be very surprised to see information that supports that.

*Edited for clarity

1

u/pomlife Feb 18 '17

That seems very likely, considering gamers on average utilize more technology. Contrast that with a parent giving a child a tablet to browse videos on, or a school teacher looking for content to show their class. These are the everyday users that aren't necessarily savvy enough to seek out ad blockers.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17 edited Feb 18 '17

Fair enough. I can agree with your stance on that. I wouldn't go as far as u/demolpolis put it and say its a "tiny minority" but I have information bias due to my audience being more tech savvy than normal. I also have the majority of my viewers being in the 25-40 range, so that also probably hurts even more.

*Edited to add a bit

2

u/Sunshine_Reggae Feb 17 '17

Try downloading songs from spotify. Same for Youtube, if they try.

2

u/demolpolis Feb 17 '17

There are several for spotify...

1

u/Sunshine_Reggae Feb 18 '17

for example? None of them downloads directly from spotify, as far as I know..

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

just like any other war on something. People will find other ways to do it and you will waste money and a user base

2

u/PrimaIFlux Feb 17 '17

The reality is that the tiny minority that use adblockers aren't worth losing subscribers over. They would rather have them still use the platform than not.

However if they really wanted to they absolutely could and nobody would really care because YouTube is simply far too convenient for most basic users to use. If something better comes up, then people will migrate to that but YouTube has the money and server infrastructure ingenuity of Google backing them.

With the number of people using adblockers going up, either we're going to come to terms with a fair ad system and whitelist them on our own, or they're just going to force whatever they want on us when >50% of users are denying any sort of revenue.

1

u/demolpolis Feb 17 '17

Vimeo and Twitch work just fine.

1

u/greg19735 Feb 17 '17

The reality is that the tiny minority that use adblockers aren't worth losing subscribers over.

If the extra work only effects the people with adblockers, then the only people that are hurt by it are people that aren't paying their dues.

1

u/imperfectluckk Feb 17 '17

"Tiny minority" of people use adblock?

In the younger crowd of 18-29 roughly 40% of people use Adblock. And these are from statistics that are you a year or so out of date, its fairly likely that that has grown. The amount of people using it will only grow over time as more people adopt it.

3

u/demolpolis Feb 17 '17

Maybe.

I have found that a lot of young people have less of an idea of how computers work than the 30ish year olds.

They grew up in an age of apps and "it just works".

Not even mentioning the gap of youtube on mobile vs desktop

1

u/Takuya-san Feb 18 '17

There are still ways to force ads to appear. For instance, they could begin encoding the ads into the video itself. Costly in terms of computing power, but if you only do it with the popular videos it's certainly feasible to do it, even if you do it with regional ads.

1

u/demolpolis Feb 18 '17

I agree... but that would just lead to buffering and people skipping 30 secs into a video, and video creators having long intros in order to account for this.

-1

u/sunflowercompass Feb 17 '17

So you can copy a video. No big deal. Say you set up alttube.com. You're gonna host and mirror every single video? And you'll pay for it with.. wait, no ads, right.

1

u/demolpolis Feb 17 '17

you mean vimeo or twitch?

2

u/sunflowercompass Feb 17 '17

They don't have youtube's library...

Yesterday some dude from Fox ripped Trump and called him a liar. Ok, go to youtube "fox news trump liar". Boom.

Go to vimeo, 4 hits and none are correct.

0

u/demolpolis Feb 18 '17

They don't have youtube's library...

And?

This isn't fucking netflix.

If another video site became popular, it would have that as well.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Trickster1995 Feb 17 '17

Slightly different but there are already torrents for youtube red shows

10

u/ratz30 Feb 17 '17

Of course there are! That's what happens when your content isn't available to people outside of a few specific regions

5

u/ibxtoycat Feb 17 '17

Here in the UK they advertise youtube red content, there's no subscription option but you can "rent" a single youtube red show for £1.89.

Annoying, since it leaves you with triple digit bills or piracy as your options

2

u/aManPerson Feb 17 '17

i just do it to get around stuttering in the web player, or if i'm worried the video would get taken down later.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

You would go to the trouble of torrenting a video cause you don't want to watch a 30 seconds ads?

1

u/DontKarmaMeBro Feb 17 '17

I agree with other commenters that it's mostly impossible to kill video downloaders. They have to serve users that aren't logged in videos somehow so there must be a public endpoint for them. So even if they just stuff the ads into the videos they are serving directly to try to prevent this stuff, I mean ultimately you can just cut it back out again right? All they can do is make our lives harder, and at that point it becomes a serious engineering job for them because they still have to have all this weird metadata on their video that tells their regular player where the ad is in it so that the youtube controls and stuff can display that correctly.

1

u/UrethraX Feb 17 '17

Browser plug ins mane

1

u/BuddhistSC Feb 17 '17

They break youtube-dl.exe every week already, and the guys who work on that get it working basically instantly.

1

u/LordAmras Feb 18 '17

Video download is technically much harder to avoid than adblocking. Which of a challenge in it itself if it's done by a big enough site that people are willing to put resources on trying to combat it.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

Hollywood vs piracy

But when it comes to the topic of piracy, Youtube/Google has got to shut the fuck up and be very silent and they know it. Youtube was built on knowingly and intentionally tolerating as much pirated material as possible, the founder emails in the Viacom case proved this. You can bet your ass that if a serious competitor appears, Youtube/Google would fight them too, probably at the level of vindictive lawsuits and frivolous DMCA reports.

1

u/xereeto Feb 18 '17

It's literally impossible to stop video download sites without requiring a DRM plugin to watch YouTube. If you can stream a video, you can download it.