Google intensifies fight against YouTube adblockers - gHacks Tech News
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Google just announced that it is intensifying its fight against adblockers on YouTube and specifically against third-party YouTube apps.

Google warns users of these apps that their experience may deteriorate soon. They may “experience buffering issues” or see errors such as “the following content is not available on this app” when trying to watch videos.

Similar to Google Search, ads have become insufferable for many users of the service. There are too many of them, they may break the viewing experience, and they may show inappropriate content.

YouTube Premium is expensive. What weights more for some users is that its functionality is severely limited when compared to third-party apps.

The cat and mouse game continues.

For those looking to avoid ads or improve privacy, here are some options for free, open source, privacy-friendly frontends to YouTube without advertisements:

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/frontends/#youtube

  • RealFknNito@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    7 months ago

    YouTube has been running on a loss since they last posted their info some handful of years ago. I think Susan was being pressured by creators to be transparent or something. YouTube has expanded well beyond what it used to be and hasn’t demanded money to compensate. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and Google/Alphabet has been fine with that but clearly aren’t anymore.

    Alphabet makes money in other areas, yes, but YouTube specifically is the problem child that keeps begging for an allowance. So, how does YouTube fix it? How do they save money? By kicking off the freeloaders. You watch ads, contribute your 13 cents for the day, then fuck off - or you can buy premium.

    Like I’ve said before, if you hate the big companies fix the tax laws, don’t bitch about them charging you for the service you’ve been getting free of charge.

    • baru@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      7 months ago

      YouTube has been running on a loss

      Can you look to that? They only seem to share revenue, not profit. And profit is easily manipulated. Apparently they had 29 billion USD in revenue in 2023. There was a huge growth in revenue. I don’t see why you really claim that they’re making a loss.

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        7 months ago

        This has been a point of discussion for nearly a decade. It’s almost common knowledge YouTube runs at a loss. CDN hosting was approximated to be about 2 billion in 2017, not including what they pay to creators, employees, etc. Their revenue does not cover all of these expenses, meaning there are no profits to announce. They borrow money from their parent company, Alphabet, because they benefit from YouTube by it merely existing under their control. They have an effective monopoly on video hosting and zero meaningful competition.

        • Frost-752@lemmy.worldEnglish
          31·
          7 months ago

          First of all, a link to reddit isnt an acceptable source. Second if it was common knowledge that YouTube ran at a loss I would think looking up “does YouTube run at a loss” would give something more recent then 2009 I did find this from 2016, by looking for “YouTube revenue report” and according to this YouTube generated 31bn USD in 2023, unfortunately I can’t find any concrete numbers for operating costs but some estimates I read were between a couple hundred mil to a few bn, either way drops in the bucket compared to profits. Sure YouTube may have operated at a loss at first but its highly unlikely it still is.

          • RealFknNito@lemmy.worldEnglish
            12·
            7 months ago

            First of all, the link to Reddit had their own links but hey, fuck trying to find a source. Second, you’re looking for decade old information as if it were brand new, not really how SEO works but hey.

            YouTube doesn’t report their expenses. We have to guess. The one time they did revealed they operate at a loss which is why in the fucking Reddit post I showed you, they were discussing said losses. But hey, not an acceptable source. Christ.

            • Frost-752@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              7 months ago

              A reddit post from 8 years ago is not going to have up to date information so no, not a valid source, but even in that reddit post many people point out that youtube was breaking even in 2014 not operating at a loss and I find it highly unlikely that the growing YouTube would still be breaking even a decade later. I did read the reddit post and the sources they provide require subscriptions to access. This will be the last I respond to this though since I can’t see this going anywhere, continuing the conversation would be asinine.

            • baru@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              7 months ago

              YouTube doesn’t report their expenses.

              But you said they aren’t making a profit. And you could see their revenue heavily increased in the last few years. So something has to give.