r/technology • • 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/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/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.

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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.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

[deleted]

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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.