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So many corporate bootlickers here, damn.
I’ll say it again: Google pays 5-year-old “influencers” millions of dollars. They have always harvested your data to provide these free services - selling ads was just icing. They still harvest your data and sell ads and they still make the same money they’ve always made - only now they are insisting that everyone watch ads or pay for it as well. And of course, eventually YouTube will insist that you watch ads and pay for it. This is the equivalent of “network decay” for streaming services. This is unreasonable and while there are exceptions to the rule, most people have the same reaction to what Google is doing here: surprise, and dismay, if not outright anger and disgust.
Yet every single thread about it on the Internet is utterly overflowing with people lecturing us about how we shouldn’t expect something for nothing, as if we aren’t fully aware that this is the most transparent of straw men. These people insist that we are the problem for daring to block ads - and further - that we should be thrilled to pay Google for this content, as they are. And they are! They just can’t get enough of paying Google for YouTube! It’s morally upright, it’s the best experience available and money flows so freely for everyone these days, we should all be so lucky to be able to enjoy paying Google the way they do. And of course it’s all so organic, these comments.
Suggest that Google pays people to engage this narrative, however, and you will be derided and downvoted into oblivion as if you were a tin-foil-hat wearing maniac. This comment itself is virtually guaranteed to be responded to with a patronizing sarcastic and 100% organic comment about how lol bruh everyone who disagrees with you must be a shill.
did you just tey to pre-emptively suggest that anyone who disagrees with you is a google paid shill?
Because if so I would like to know where I can apply for my payment from Google.
I think any reasonable person knows by now that if you don’t “pay for a product you sre the product”, everyone knows youtube collects data and sells it and your eyes to advertisers that’s their business model, guess what those servers youtube runs on? aren’t free, as you yourself said, content creators aren’t free, the engineers working on YouTube aren’t free, so your suggestion is that despite this, youtube should still be free and ad/data collection free.
well do tell me, how long do you think youtube will last with your business model?
OMG but the people I base my entire personality on use that platform, ergo, everyone needs to vicariously support me thought them, and any maneuver to the contrary is an attack on the very core of my essence!
-ITT
In the second quarter of 2023, Google’s revenue amounted to over 74.3 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 69.1 billion U.S. dollars registered in the same quarter a year prior.
But man if we don’t pay for youtube premium how will they survive?
that’s google not youtube though, is it? i think youtube is running at a loss still + in a normal country that shit should have been blasted apart already way too many shit is under google.
I think they have pretty recently finally become profitable thanks to the increased amount of ads. Although you could always make the argument before that the data YouTube provides to Google that allowed their ad and data empire to thrive is invaluable whether YouTube directly profits or not.
why would it be invaluable? I am guessing it’s valuable amd is valued at a very close estimate at least.
Invaluable
adjective
beyond calculable or appraisable value; of inestimable worth; priceless:
Revenue isn’t profit?
I honestly don’t really care if people adblock or not but I think people need to acknowledge that adblock is essentially piracy. That doesn’t make it inherently bad or good but it has the same impacts as piracy at the end of the day. It’s a useful tool to use when companies start to get unreasonable but especially in the case of YouTube it impacts the amount of money the people who make the content earn.
I honestly don’t really care if people adblock or not but I think people need to acknowledge that adblock is essentially piracy.
The same way it is piracy to go to the bathroom during the commercials…
Look, the problem at hand is not if people use adblocker or not, the problem here is how Google check if you are using adblocker or not, which seems to be illegal.
Well, the full “check for adblocker” things seems to be illegal in EU, whatever way it is used, given a sentence from 2016
I’ve blocked maybe eight people in thirty minutes who are implicitly demanding that corporations create the law.
And one of them immediately down voted you. I wonder why they’re here on Lemmy instead of continuing to support Reddit? They clearly like to be bottoms to corpos.
We must trust our corporate overlords who will use AI to guide us in their right direction.
Everyone I don’t agree with == bootlicker 🙄
This whole thread is a whole lot of hullabaloo about complaining about legality about the way YouTube is running ad block detection, and framing it as though it makes the entire concept of ad block detection illegal.
As much as you may hate YouTube and/or their ad block policies, this whole take is a dead end. Even if by the weird stretch he’s making, the current system is illegal, there are plenty of ways for Google to detect and act on this without going anywhere remotely near that law. The best case scenario here is Google rewrites the way they’re doing it and redeploys the same thing.
This might cost them like weeks of development time. But it doesn’t stop Google from refusing to serve you video until you watch ads. This whole argument is receiving way more weight than it deserves because he’s repeatedly flaunting credentials that don’t change the reality of what Google could do here even if this argument held water.
It’s not even clear to me that the mechanism they’re using today is problematic. I don’t know what it is, but the author seems to think they do but aren’t sharing details beyond “trust me bro”. I agree that some kind of inspection-based detection might run afoul of the law, but I don’t see why that’s necessary. All you need to know is that the client is requesting videos without any of the ad requests making it through, which is entirely server-side.
Exactly.
But people are hell bent on “Google doing this, bad”.
Won’t cost them anything near weeks of dev time. They can just write it into their terms of service and prompt you to re-accept those next time you access the site.
Afaik you can’t bypass laws and regulations with ToS
Definetly not if you are not registered. And likely if you are not logged in. This is EU, not US.
You can’t bypass laws, but the law in question only requires permission of the enduser. Getting this permission in your ToS isn’t bypassing anything, it’s acting according to the law.
that’s not true in the EU.
the reason those cookie banners are everywhere, for example, is because the EU requires explicit consent for a lot of things that used to be covered by ToS.
simply putting clauses into your ToS doesn’t shield the company from legal action at all.
regardless of what’s written in the ToS, final say over what is and isn’t legal lies with local authorities, not YouTube.
Ha ha no. Google needs you more than you need google.
> but but but the ads moneh
If google made so much money from ads, they wouldn’t care if you watched it at all. They want your consumerist data and they can’t get it with adblock.
> but but but muh creators
Most major creators have complained about google shafting them with schizo rules about monetization. The biggers ones have started to sell merch and use other platforms as insurance. You watching those ads gives google more benefits than the creators.
Youtube is NOT essential. You can live without youtube. Simply follow the creators you like on other platforms. If you’re a creator, time to diversify your platform. The iceberg is sighted and it’s time to jump ship.
Ah yeah the kind of hullabaloo that makes everyone accept cookies on every single website ;)
This whole thread is a whole lot of hullabaloo about complaining about legality about the way YouTube is running ad block detection, and framing it as though it makes the entire concept of ad block detection illegal.
Nope, the point is that, at the moment, Google seems to look where it should not look to know if a user has an adblocker and they don’t ask for permission.
Let put it in another way: Google need to have my permission to look into my device.
But it doesn’t stop Google from refusing to serve you video until you watch ads.
Which is fine as long as Google can decide that I am using an adblocker without violating any law, which is pretty hard.
Of course Google could decide that it is better to leave EU and it law that protect the users, but is it a smart move from a company point of view ?
You’re missing the point/s
- What they’re doing is illegal. It has to stop immediately and they have to be held accountable
- What they’re doing is immoral and every barrier we can put up against it is a valid pursuit
- Restricting Google to data held remotely is a good barrier. They shouldn’t be able to help themselves to users local data, and it’s something that most people can understand: the data that is physically within your system is yours alone. They would have to get permission from each user to transfer that data, which is right.
- This legal route commits to personal permissions and is a step to maintaining user data within the country of origin. Far from being a “dead end”, it’s the foundation and beginnings of a sensible policy on data ownership. This far, no further.
How is it immoral? Is Google morally obligated to provide you with a way to use their service for free? Google wants YouTube to start making money, and I’d guess the alternative is no more YouTube.
Why is everyone so worked up about a huge company wanting to earn even more money, we know this is how it works, and we always knew this was coming. You tried to cheat the system and they’ve had enough.
I think it’s a question of drawing a line between “commercial right” and “public good”.
Mathematical theorems automatically come under public good (because apparently they count as discoveries, which is nonsense - they are constructions), but an artist’s sketch comes under commercial right.
YouTube as a platform is so ubiquitously large, I suspect a lot of people consider it a public good rather than a commercial right. Given there is a large body of educational content, as well as some essential lifesaving content, there is an argument to be made for it. Indeed, even the creative content deserves a platform.
A company that harvests the data of billions, has sold that data without permission for decades, and evades tax like a champion certainly owes a debt of public good.
The actions of Google are not those of a company “seeking their due”, for their due has long since been harvested by their monopolisation of searches, their walked garden appstore, and their use of our data to train their paid AI product.
I get what you are saying, but you could argue that google is pretty much a monopoly at this point, using their power trying to extract money from customers they could never do if their was any real competition with a similar number of channels and customers.
I think most users see google/youtube as a “the internet”, or a utility as important as power, water and heat. And don’t forget that google already requires users to “pay” for their services with data and ads in other services (maps, search, mail) as well.
So because they earn money somewhere else they should do something else for free? Why? What does Google owe us?
They only have the monopoly if we give it to them. I find their model fair, I use their service a lot. if they overprice me I’ll find another form of entertainment.
But you are right, people see YouTube as a necessity at this point. I’m trying to remind you, it’s not.
So because they earn money somewhere else they should do something else for free?
Obviously not, but there is nothing to stop Google from making Youtube a paid service and drop that charade about adblockers.
Google’s main source of income is ads across the board, so fighting adblockers is certainly in their best interest
Fine. But it need to fight by the rules.
It is not up to discussion: Youtube want to serve video to EU user ? They need to follow EU rules. If the rule says that adblocker detection technologies (or attempt) are illegal Youtube has no really a say in it.
How is it immoral? Is Google morally obligated to provide you with a way to use their service for free? Google wants YouTube to start making money, and I’d guess the alternative is no more YouTube.
Nope, but it is legally required to ask for permission to look into my device for data that it does not need to provide the serice.
Of course Google could make money, it just need to make them without violating the laws.
The guy really exudes “don’t you know who I am?” energy. Which is a shame since it detracts from the discussion.
And in the war you probably also sided with the Nazis because ‘well they invaded already, might as well give up’
Another three cheers for the EU! 🇪🇺🍻🥂
FUCK YEAHHHHHHHH. YOUTUBE IS FUCKED LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO
I am not paying for Premium again until they bring the dislike button back.
I am not paying for Premium.
It was pathetic for them to hide away this button with its statistics. Honestly it’s an valuable tool.
Too many big companies got their feefees hurtied because we downthumbered their stupid announcements. Think of them for once 😭
UP RYD!
As if it made any real difference while we had it…
Thank fuck for EU and GDPR
Don’t ask how, but my dad found out that at least with Ublock, cleaning the cache in the addon makes it bypass the stupid pop-up.
Not that the social media corps have ever given a shit.
Very much not true.
The app Threads from Meta had to be rewritten due to its extensive tracking in the US market. Not legal in the EU.
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The only thing Google needs to do now to make it legal is to force a prompt asking for your consent where if you disagree you are completely blocked off from the site.
GDPR does not allow this.
uBlock Origin has no issues with blocking ads.
I get trying to fight it via legal means, but it is a solved problem.
I think the internet is turning to shit and that Google/Youtube is greedy like every other conglomerate.
But… they have to get something from people using there services. I personally use YouTube like an iPad kid so I have premium. I like the EUs tech laws but I don’t think they should rule that a computer can’t push ads (assuming the ads are not malicious)
I like the EUs tech laws but I don’t think they should rule that a computer can’t push ads (assuming the ads are not malicious)
EU techs law don’t ban to push ads, they say that you cannot look into my device to check it I (could) see them without asking for my permission for something that you don’t need to provide a service.
They’re not ruling that YT can’t push ads, though. They’re ruling that they’re sniffing around the user’s computer for things that aren’t preventing them provide the service.
In the end, Google has options. One would be, and I’m not saying this is the best one, that they charge everyone to access their site. You know… they way some newspapers do. I’m sure there are other options.
they have to get something from people using there services
If the ads weren’t absolutely overwhelming (easily around 50% of all watch time, last time I watched without blockers) and if they weren’t so poorly implemented (starting ads at random times and not even caring if they’re cutting someone off mid-sentence, making 2min+ ads unskippable, accepting ads from very questionable advertisers) it might feel a bit less onerous.
YouTube’s ads have been malicious for years. If now they try to push the ads they used to have people wouldn’t have a reason to complain. But the way YouTube and Google are maximizing all their cash grabs they need to be put down in any way possible.
I’m all about sailing the seven seas, yar har, but at some point the time spent trying to circumvent ads exceeds the $15. Support the people you watch. Hell, I pirate games and if I like it I’ll buy it later. There’s a difference between not getting taken advantage of by corporations and just straight screwing over people trying to make a living.
And there’s a difference between supporting creators and supporting a cash grab company screwing over everyone and everything around them.
Is there a difference? Sure. The problem is doing the former without the latter getting in the way. Small creator can’t make videos if YouTube dies. Can’t find new people to watch their videos. To support them. I think it’s way too easy for people for forget that these platforms facilitate an essential service that is being taken for granted. There is no meaningful alternative.
This is frivolous and ridiculous.
If europeans had spent as much time building youtube competitors as they spent trying to find holes to litigate, europe would be richer
Are you aware that Dailymotion, arguably Youtube’s most serious competitor, is a French company?
We did just what you suggested.
Now it’s time for internet giants to play by the rules (e.g., privacy-wise, tax-wise), or there will never be room for competition.
good thing that it is tiny so it is not affected by the DSA
There are plenty already, why aren’t you using them?
there were . Does dailymotion still even exist?
It’s easier than ever to host things now, but EU laws ensure it would be sued to oblivion and die within a month.
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With gdpr that’s not allowed, either you don’t provide the site at all or you provide the site whether the user consents or not
Do you wish for more consent popups or do you hope that youtube is afraid of causing friction and will go back to how things were?
