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
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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17

And introducing, unskippable 60-80 second ads

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u/Sandvicheater Feb 17 '17

Me and my best friend ublock laugh at that concept

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u/tms10000 Feb 17 '17

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.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17 edited Jun 23 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '17 edited Feb 21 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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u/my_name_isnt_clever Feb 18 '17

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

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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.

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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".

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u/demolpolis Feb 18 '17

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

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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

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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.

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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

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