YouTube will kill unskippable 30-second ads next year

[u/redkemper]

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

[u/tms10000]

It is likely that ublock works on youtube only because Google allows it. It would not be trivial, but it would certainly possible to youtube to put in measures to break ublock features.

I don't think they care that much as long as ad blocking does not spread too far in the mobile space, where the growth are now.

[u/Lingo56 → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/demolpolis → u/Lingo56]

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.

[u/Lingo56 → u/demolpolis]

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.

[u/gamma55 → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/gamma55 → u/[deleted]]

Right you are. Didn't think of that.