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Youtube and others want their users to disable adblockers to increase their revenue from advertisements, but will forcing the users to so do be effective in the long-term?
What unexpected consequences could occur? Why do people use adblockers in the first place? Why aren't more users buying Youtube Premium as a solution? Do adblock users still contribute value to websites? Can websites effectively enforce such policies? Are there ways to naturally encourage more users to disable their adblockers instead?
Enjoy my informal and assorted ramblings as I learn basic video editing skills.
For more examples of the Cobra Effect, here is a playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lUrH4Sbgh8&list=PLBuns9Evn1w9XhnH7vVh_7C65wJbaBECK
Be aware: The publisher of this series, Reason TV, hit the nail on the head with exploring this concept, but they do have a HEAVY libertarian bias, and I do not agree with everything that they publish. Be aware before you watch a series that could alter your recommendations.
Supplemental links and sources will (slowly) be updated here. I should have done so in the first place, but future videos won't have this issue.
Adblocker legality in Germany: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/adblock-plus-wins-its-6th-court-case-brought-by-der-spiegel/
FBI on Adblockers: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221?=8324278624
NSA, CIA, and others on adblockers: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21068028-wyden-letter-to-omb-on-ad-blocking
Interesting article from Australia not in video: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3455730/government-agencies-ordered-to-block-online-ads-flash.html
Good info on adblock detection and GDPR compliance: https://iabeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/20160516-IABEU_Guidance_AdBlockerDetection.pdf
Insight on undisclosed ads: https://www.vox.com/recode/23197348/tiktok-ad-sponcon-influencers
Several cases where a website agreement was not enforceable (not the same as legal precedence):
https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-specht-v-netscape-commc-ns-corp
https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-nguyen-v-barnes-noble-inc
https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-meyer-v-uber-techs-inc
Personally, I don’t mind when ads are reasonable for a website or service I’m getting for free. I think people should get paid for the service they are providing. The problem is it always eventually gets out of control and at that point, yeah I’m going to block your ads.
I was on a website earlier today and 80% of the screen was ads. Sorry, you’re getting added to my block list.
Just never go to a website like that again if you have the choice. Seeing a drop in visitors and ad revenue after making the decision to pepper the entire screen with ads is the only thing that will cause the webmaster to reverse that decision.
Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time… a long time
Nowadays we call him spider-man
Same.
I’ve paid $10 for spotify every month for years and it’s always been a great service and the algorithm does a good job of finding me new music that I like.
But most of this stuff can be pirated or bought piecemeal without bothering with a subscription.
And that’s what we’ll do when it gets out of hand, as we all know it will.
Louis Rossmann: “when the pirate experience is better than the paid experience, you have a problem.”
Alternatively a Gabe Newell quote: “Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.” Not exactly the same context but it also applies.
Pretty good analogy though. Steam has some ads (out of the box it literally launches an ad window at startup) but it isn’t really a pain in the ass about it. You close the window, you move on, it only happens once and there’s nothing unskippable. It doesn’t shove ads in front of my face every time I launch a game from the library (I’d immediately leave the platform if there were.)
Fact is if steam and the other major platforms were ever to devolve within striking distance of how bad youtube has become, piracy would become unhinged. So far Valve has resisted the illusory “infinite money lever” that idiots in c-suites have misunderstood ads to be.
And the ads in Steam are from its own store. So it helps with discoverability. Seeing some fucking razor blade ad before watching some firefigther documentation is just completely unrelated. Plus: I can’t buy razor blades on youtube. It’s a fucking video streaming platform. When Steam shows me new games, it’s at least something I would actually do on Steam.