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Used VPN for cheaper YouTube Premium? Congrats, your subscription has been canceled
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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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I specified intrusive ads. They could have non-intrusive ads, like a little banner or something. Instead they put up multiple video ads before and during videos. No thanks.
Don't forget after! Man I hate that when I have to sit through an ad if I don't realize the video is all the way over yet, or I don't change it in time
I mean, it is great that you have very specific rules in terms of what kind of ads you will tolerate. You should write a letter to John Google about that.
But also? We have been through all this before. Back in the day, ads on websites were incredibly unobtrusive. A small png at the top of the page that everyone skimmed past. But people still wanted to block those because only the evil sites were sellouts who needed to pay for hosting and blah blah blah. Which more or less started the ad war we have going to today. First they were simple jpegs. Then they were animated gifs. Then they were annoying animated gifs. Then they became flash ads. Then they became flash ads about how this shitty age of empires ripoff totally has boobs. And so forth.
Because if people aren't looking at ads? The people who buy ads know that. So we get ads that are harder to look away from. Until they are ads we can't look away from because they are embedded in the videos themselves.
And, until we live in a post scarcity society where energy is infinite, it is going to cost money/resources to host web content. Ads are still the closest thing to an "effective" way to pay for a lot of that. And that means a war to have ads that get past ad blockers and ensure eyes get on them.
What really started the ad war was the endless drive for greater profits. Let's say I accept youtube's terms and sign up for premium. Sooner or later they will introduce ads into premium as well. We've seen this process happen with many other services before. I didn't start using an ad blocker until quite a bit after pop-ups were rampant and malware-infested ads became an issue. There's a point where it becomes too much and people will seek out alternatives. An entire generation grew up with convenient streaming services and they're generally less knowledgeable about piracy than the generation before them. That will likely change as those streaming services continue to jack up prices while making the experience worse all in the name of profit.
Again, there is an endless supply of entertainment these days. If companies think they can endlessly jack up prices and/or worsen the experience, they're contending with practically infinite supply, the consequences of which are obvious in when it comes to supply vs demand.
Were the ad companies interested in increased profits? Of course they were. But they also aren't a charity. And when they are buying ad space for a web comic but having zero impressions, they are going to be pissed. They aren't running a charity (well... some actually ARE but that is a different mess).
Again, this has been going on well before subscription models were even a thing.
That said, I do agree that it is a generational "problem". Youtube has been around for almost 20 years and, arguably, in its current form for almost 10. Significant parts of the internet have no memory of anything else. Like, my niece and nephew literally throw tantrums when they see tv commercials when their father is watching a football game. Whereas my sister and I remember the fights over who got to use the downstairs bathroom during the second commercial break in The Simpsons that week.
But... I am an old. I remember heartfelt blog posts from some of my favorite webcomics and gaming news sites that were basically "Look. Hosting costs money. Especially as we are getting a lot more popular. I go out of my way to curate what ads we run on this site and have an inbox set up in case a company sneaks a bad one in. Please whitelist me in your ad blocker so I can keep doing this in the evenings".
And... I dunno. It is just REALLY frustrating to watch people pretend they care about... anything all while dicking over "the little guys". Because Google is going to get their cut. The pewdiepies of youtube will also get their cuts because they have literally been doing this for years in the form of sponsored videos. But the low/mid tier creators? They aren't getting the massive sponsor deals (unless they want to do raid shadow legends or better help) AND are going to not be getting their ad revenue or youtube premium money because no ads were run.
I use VPN on all my personal devices and 100% block all of Google but my work computer is either company VPN or straight “normal” Internet.
From time to time I have to check out YouTube from the work computer and since they’ve got no data on my home IP address, it’s wild seeing the content of the ads shift from irrelevant (non-targeted) from my home IP to highly targeted on the work VPN (it’s clear they target the demographics of my company).