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YouTube is Losing The War Against Adblockers (www.howtogeek.com)

submitted 1 month ago by AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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YouTube is intensifying efforts to combat adblockers, including blocking video playback and warning users of potential account suspension.
Increased ads on YouTube have driven many users to adblockers, hurting both YouTube’s ad revenue and content creators reliant on ad-based income.
Despite these measures, many users are leaving YouTube or finding workarounds, leading creators to seek alternative revenue streams off-platform.

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[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 0 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I definitely got really awful, unplayably spotty playback that seemed linked to adblock usage. Then I saw an article about it and confirmed I wasn't going crazy, and that day it stopped happening, so it felt like I was going crazy all over again. It's like the moment they realised it was going to become a problem and they weren't as sneaky as they thought, they turned it off. I haven't had an issue since then.

[–] smeenz@lemmy.nz 0 points 1 month ago

I had the same experience with shitty playback buffering every few seconds on popular videos that should be cached on a nearby cdn, and then saw lots of articles about it and then boom a week later everything was back to normal

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 0 points 1 month ago

That would be quite a funny strategy that they could definitely implement. Creepy as hell but clever.

They know everything you do and look at, so they know if you're the sort of person that would look up a fix for this or just take it on the nose. If they realize you're looking at articles about the problem they just turn the function off.

[–] Kiernian@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

The kicker there is ... Nobody I know is going to think "wow, playback on this video sucks, I should disable my ad blocker".

Like, it wouldn't occur to ANYONE I know that a piece of software we consider necessary could be the problem, ESPECIALLY if everything else is working fine.

That's not even number ten on the list of troubleshooting steps and most people don't make it past one or two before giving up.

WTF were they thinking?