The Cobra Effect: Why Anti-Adblock Policies Could Hurt Revenue Instead

KZbin 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 KZbin 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: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z524o3tqiMeanpo
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: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/adblock-plus-wins-its-6th-court-case-brought-by-der-spiegel/
FBI on Adblockers: www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221?=8324278624
NSA, CIA, and others on adblockers: www.documentcloud.org/documents/21068028-wyden-letter-to-omb-on-ad-blocking
Interesting article from Australia not in video: www.computerworld.com/article/3455730/government-agencies-ordered-to-block-online-ads-flash.html
Good info on adblock detection and GDPR compliance: iabeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/20160516-IABEU_Guidance_AdBlockerDetection.pdf
Insight on undisclosed ads: www.vox.com/recode/23197348/tiktok-ad-sponcon-influencers
Several cases where a website agreement was not enforceable (not the same as legal precedence):
www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-specht-v-netscape-commc-ns-corp
www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-nguyen-v-barnes-noble-inc
www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-meyer-v-uber-techs-inc
More Links:
sondesix/status/1569856456811495424
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/326/286/fba.png (Formerly Mocha Wallpapers)

[@GalaxyGamingGroup]

Hello everyone! I definitely did not expect one of my first videos ever to get this much attention. The stories you all shared, even the alternate opinions from those who use premium or don't use adblockers were great to read. My notifications can't even keep up with the comments anymore. I'll address a few commonly brought up points (Last updated July 3rd): 1) I've heard all the feedback on audio levels and pacing. It's definitely being applied to future videos. 2) Looks like the "It would have stopped being free a long time ago" segment may have aged rather poorly, because KZbin is now testing out disabling video playback after 3 videos for some users. While some will debate the underlying meanings, if I severely underestimated the value of KZbin analytics data for Google as a whole, then I'm perfectly willing to own up to that mistake. 3) There's a bit more debate on "the customer is always right in matters of taste" than I thought. I thought it was derived from a Latin phrase meaning "regarding tastes, it shall not be disputed", but some attribute it to the hotel or fashion industry and say it's about taking customer complaints at face value (before the era of Karens) 4) I mistakenly said that "a judge" ruled on a supreme court case, when I should have said the jury. The annotation tool would have been helpful here, but apparently it was removed years ago. 5) Additional links and sources are (slowly) being added to the description. I should have done so from the beginning, but it won't be an issue in the future. 6) Nothing wrong with creators monetizing content as a whole. It's a tough career, and they have no control over what ads you see. Criticizing them is misguided energy in most circumstances (it's usually the guilt-tripping or blaming you for a bad sponsor when it becomes a problem). 7) My channel is now a part of the KZbin Partner Program. My ads are still disabled because I didn't create this channel with the intention of becoming a full time creator. It's purely a personal choice to try to make it "donation only", and not any form of moral statement. KZbin still has a "right to monetize" videos though, so if it reaches the point where you see ads every video anyways or receive unskippable ads, then let me know, because then at that point it's just a matter of "Do I want 55% or 0% of the revenue?" 8) A lot of you asked about that "alternative youtube site". Apparently there are certain issues with posting comments about it. But a recent C&D they filed may help you find it, since it failed to stop the group.

[@The_Dr_Fate]

undersand

[@nick1752]

wtf? 1) it's perfect 2) IT'S PERFECT 3) it's 4 am but you good bro, I thought you're like a 1 mil channel or smth, don't overly explain yourself, you good.

[@GalacticPoisonX]

Oh wow I didn’t even realize you were such a small KZbinr. I thought you at least had a couple of hundred thousand subs

[@cbsGD]

The thing that caused me to start using an adblocker is when youtube started showing unskippable double ads, and most of the time they would show up mid video, not to mention I like to watch youtube in bed and when they would show up, I would have to get up from where I was comfortably laying just to skip a double ad just for another one to appear 5 - 10 minutes later.

[@Aysentaro]

bro can you stop hitting your mic thx

[@so_fia]

I love how advertisers can put literal shit in their ads, but content creators have to be ad-friendly to be able to stay monetized for youtube to show the same literal shit from advertisers.

[@clemente_01]

THIS

[@azuarc]

TOXIC POOP.

[@mrcombustiblelemon2902]

Advertisers are KZbin's customers, content creators are the product. No double standard here.

[@so_fia]

@mrcombustiblelemon2902 Wow. Never thought about it like that. On one hand, it makes sense. But on the other hand, sometimes advertisers put things that are totally banable by KZbin rules. YT has a system that usually filters stuff like this, but I feel like it doesn't work for ad videos. So I don't actually see why ads can be... intricate, but a video can't. I guess it's just because ads are being hosted for money, but like... no? KZbin provides a place for advertising. it's not like you pay for hosting. You pay for a place, your ad can be put on, but any video uploaded on YT can be turned into ad (with some twiking).

[@mrcombustiblelemon2902]

@@so_fia the KZbin rules are for the products, not for the paying customers. The rules are in place to make YT more appealing to customers so YT can make more money, so applying them TO the customers would be counterproductive.

[@Soheil-ev6ls]

Rule #1 of advertising, is attracting customers. Not harassing them 💀

[@phantom-ri2tg]

That is not meta. The things I have heard of being meta is businesses.. It sounds like politics where the goal has become just aim to be the worse of two options is easier than aiming to be liked.

[@fred_derf]

Advertising, by its very nature, is annoying. It must interrupt what you want to do to attract your attention away from what you're actually interested in doing. It must be invasive or it doesn't work.

[@phantom-ri2tg]

meta in businesses. annoying typo.

[@phantom-ri2tg]

@@fred_derf I actually look at ads on the off chance something there interests me. it actually annoys me there is not a list of all the ads. like if the goal was actually to reach people who wanted the product I would figure there would be a list. For looking up lists online there is so much bloat of available stuff online it is pretty hard to do it unless you already know what you want. and even then for things like popular game genres it is hard.

[@fred_derf]

@@phantom-ri2tg OK great, so you've "justified" for you, 1% of the advertising you're inundated with on a daily basis. Good job.

[@skiphopkerplunk4464]

What broke me was my kids. My husband is an addict in recovery and the IP tied to the house is now full of triggering content, and all this nonsense and even with Google in safe mode and restricted mode, these ads still get through. I've blocked some of them through content filters from our ISP but they still can get through because YT doesn't view a sexually suggestive advertisement for marijuana products as "too adult" for the platform. I even wrote a nasty letter when they flagged my teenage daughters account for use of an ad-blocker. They have NO right to tell me what content my kids should be exposed to and I will continue to use ad-blockers and tracking blockers on all our devices because it's not worth the risk to my husband's recovery or our family just to watch a few minecraft videos. We will collectively leave the platform outright if they continue to push against the ad-blockers because I don't have to deal with it. We already don't have cable because we got tired of the crude adverts. I'm too old for this and don't have the emotional energy anymore to pander to companies who don't care about their consumer base.

[@lo2740]

that is america for you. As a side note, all these silicon valley companies impose their "views" to the rest of the world population, which should be totally forbidden and fighted.

[@russs7574]

See, that is what these people who run various platforms don't seem to comprehend. We the Customers always have the option to "take our ball and go home." Watching videos on YT is entertaining, but it's hardly an "essential" activity, and swearing off YT will hardly leave any unpluggable holes in our lives. As a private company, YT has every right to do what they're doing. And We the Customers have every right to give them the "Bud Light" treatment.

[@StraightJacket5150]

If you use Brave browser it will block nearly every ad in the universe. Any ad that isn't blocked can be selected and it will be blocked in Brave forever. I use Brave and I have no complaints abut the built-in ad blocker.

[@cooleyjay]

How about just pay for the service. Your husband's recovery is important enough yet here you are swatting at a moving target. Take your ball and go elsewhere. Or pay for the service and remove the ads.

[@feathero3]

@@cooleyjay Not everyone can afford to do that It still doesnt fix every problem, as this video demonstrated People shouldn't have to be strong-armed into paying for a service, especially when the free option does it better

[@lazydragon2551]

My breaking point was quite simple actually. As a child I got incredibly tired of ads interrupting PURELY music based videos, and at that point I grabbed an adblocker and never looked back. 90% of my time I spend on youtube is listening to music, when youtube starts getting in the way of that, I am done. I understand there are better platforms to do so, but I've already invested so much time into youtube, made playlists, etc etc. That moving to a different platform is just more hassle than staying.

[@everyonexist]

yes... don't interrupt music based videos

[@aprichman]

Wow, they will definitely miss you leeching off their service for free.

[@hundkebab2433]

​@@aprichmanyea you tell him little guy, gape that ass for papa KZbin ❤

[@Aetharn]

@@aprichman Wow, you're a massive prick! Also, fun fact, it wasn't free in the first place. They were using your data (address, age, gender, sexuality, preferences, location data) to make a lot of money from selling the profile they build on you! So if you're gonna be a prick, at least be correct. @lazydragon2551 There's ways to transfer playlists too. Should be a few websites for that anyways. I did the same, but in reverse (spotify to youtube) a while ago.

[@RioRav]

Leeching of a free service? Right..

[@SamePaul]

You actually described it right - when "single ad per video" was replaced by "double ads" I started to look for ad-blockers. Paid off greatly when ads became "every 5 minutes" and later non-skippable. But yes, 1 ad per video I was ready to tolerate

[@corruptedcardinal9253]

Even 2 ads per video were tolerable (for me) as long as they were skippable. When they started to be unskippable, I installed an adblocker and stopped using the app.

[@icantthinkofaname4723]

@@corruptedcardinal9253 I installed an adblocker when they started the BS that is the double unskippable 15 second ad. No thanks, I value my time.

[@yokusfrequently9362]

One time I literally got 3 ads and they were unskippable what is going on 😭

[@dragongolden1065]

@@yokusfrequently9362 if you're unlucky, it could be 5 unskippable ads I hate it

[@garvat2246]

same here

[@gap9447]

My favorite thing about adblocks is that if someone starts to use adblock, it's VERY unlikely that they will stop using it. Even if you make ads better. So sites with extreme advertisement hurt themselves permanently.

[@TheyCallMeIce]

No kidding. It's annoying being the "tech guy" of my house, but I take the opportunity to install adblockers on every device I set up. The internet is just a whole lot more usable with a metaphorical condom on.

[@MichaelPohoreski]

@@TheyCallMeIcePractice safe hex, use an adblocker! 😎

[@Adam_U]

@@TheyCallMeIce You ever kind of forget that ads even exist (because you've blocked them for so long), and then you use/see a friend or relative's device without a blocker? And you think "this is what the internet is like for normies??? WTF?"

[@carpenoctem3257]

@@Adam_Uas someone without Adblock and refuses to pay for premium out of principle… I gotta say yes

[@ceilingfan12345]

@@Adam_U Yeah. I was talking to my parents about how I couldn't understand how they could watch cable TV because I can't stand watching ads. They seemed confused since they knew I watched youtube all the time. I was shocked when they showed me how bad it had gotten.

[@JessScreams]

My tipping point was when I found out KZbin was showing ads on MY videos which I’ve been told dont get enough traffic to be monetized. They shouldnt get to place ads on videos where creators aren’t making any money from the ads. A lot of other things piled together to get me to get an ad blocker, but that was what made my blood boil

[@StraightJacket5150]

You should encourage those who watch your videos to do so with an ad blocker. Ask your users not to click on the ads on your videos because you don't get paid for the commercials.

[@fuzzywzhe]

Post on other sites. It's not like you have to put up with their nonsense.

[@hundkebab2433]

it's also hilarious how they demonetize you for saying shit like 'Fuck' but the ads keep running on your videos - the money just goes straight to KZbin fucking insane how this is even legal - imagine working at a company that deducts your payment for the entire day you've worked because you've said a NoNo word, yet the Corp still made money from your work that day - yea this definitely sounds illegal

[@fuzzywzhe]

@@hundkebab2433 What funny, is that no matter how much abuse KZbin gives creators they EXCLUSIVELY post to KZbin still, because they're stupid and like being abused.

[@StraightJacket5150]

@@hundkebab2433 No one has challenged it in court. But if someone did it could change everything.

[@Lunabyes]

My breaking point was when we all found out that youtube put ads in front of CPR and other emergency first aid instructional videos. Been using Adblockers ever since. I have certain creators allow listed however and am also a member of a couple channels.

[@chris.18045]

I'm sorry? Are you saying that it could be an emergency and you shouldn't have to watch an ad first? CALL 911...THEY'LL GIVE YOU INSTRUCTIONS ON WHAT TO DO!

[@fetchstixRHD]

@@chris.18045: Mind you, in the case of an emergency, you probably would get information quicker by searching a video than making an emergency call, taking into account waiting to be connected and giving the information. That said, an emergency call and being guided through what to do would be preferable for sure...

[@TheManOfManyNames.]

KZbin: "We're only testing this out, you can give feedback" Content creators: "This is terrible" KZbin: "Too bad, we're putting it in full throttle"

[@alexterra2626]

And when they actually like a feature KZbin is adding, they end up not adding it

[@sazikanebaldimor2386]

One just has to love modern marketing...

[@UtubeH8tr]

Cool well, I can put my v8 truck into full throttle through your front entrance to your hq.

[@hoverspike1]

this is what happened to the dislike button

[@user-nu8in3ey8c]

KZbin no longer cares about the customer experience, they now exist largely to use their algorithms and bots to shape your opinions and behaviors. It is why you cannot "dislike" things anymore, and the like button doesn't really do that much anymore.

[@FurryEskimo]

Hiding dislikes was also something they tested out, they did it, and ignored everyone who said it was awful.

[@miciso666]

Yeah its pro scammer....

[@plumebrise4801]

Return KZbin Dislike extension (There is also SponsorBlock to get)

[@halisternator]

@@plumebrise4801Thank you!

[@dubbyplays]

​@@plumebrise4801It's good but unfortunately it just gives the dislikes of people who used the extension to givs them. It doesn't reflect the amount of dislikes. But it's better than nothing

[@8bitmagic]

Pretty sure it actually pulls the information from the webpage. I installed a return dislike button like the day it was removed.

[@faydimbleby]

It's disturbing that KZbin doesn't understand what the effects of its own decisions will be. Really feels like they just decide to implement things before discussing the outcomes, which is textbook bad business.

[@davediamond9436]

so do you expect endless free content from youtube ?? it is expensive to run this "free content"

[@hackerman011]

@@davediamond9436 And KZbin is still thriving any way.

[@hahahahahahahahaa6580]

@@davediamond9436 yes very cool but I'm not watching an unskippable 15-second ad for Genshin Impact for the 50th time just to enjoy a 20-second video

[@fatusopp4739]

@@davediamond9436 watching youtube on my phone and seeing an AI ad of my country's president spreading misinformation doesn't make me feel bad at all. i'd maybe consider not using an adblocker if the ads weren't insanely intrusive, overabundant, inappropriate, and blatant scams 99% of the time. tons of internet users dont even know adblocks exist and many people that do will still not use them because of the connotations around them. the people that are tech literate enough to use them will just find ways to circumvent the ban of ad blocks. if anything, this situation will just make more end users aware of ad blocks.

[@russellfrancis813]

@@davediamond9436 There's a difference between a quick tailored ad to the vid length, and being inundated with multiple full blown ads each video. The amount of minutes they dedicate per video is greater, as a percentage, than what is done on TV. I've watched a 10 minute video broken up with 4 minutes of ads (if they weren't skipped). That's absolutely insane. That doesn't even count the ads they throw on at the end of the video. I never, in all my years watching TV, ever had to deal with such blatant anti-consumerism, and that's literally what drove people here from cable in the first place!

[@Ateist112523]

My breaking point came around 2005-7 when ads would suddenly have sound, and instantly start playing at loud volumes when you visited a website. It was so obnoxious. After experiencing that for a grand total of like, 5 times, I went and installed an adblocker and have never looked back. KZbin is testing the waters right now, and it's important that nobody buys premium because that is their only metric of success. If no one caves, they will not try to block adblockers.

[@ShadowWolf2023-yp5zg]

Too bad so many suckers including my sister, bro-in-law and my nephew are ok with it...People buy anything these days. I however am not as guilible.

[@diamonddust4486]

Gotta love KZbin having no quality control on their ads and then blaming us for wanting to avoid them.

[@wombatillo]

KZbin ads often make me want to shout at the screen of my phone. They really are terrible. Never had that problem with milk toast tv ads for example. (Been using adblockers for +10 years on my desktop but it's not as trivial on a phone.)

[@TheRealNintendoKid]

I don't want ANY ads, for anything. Forcing me to see their ads is a bad idea anyway. The more I have to see ads for your shitty product, the less likely I am to buy it.

[@chicken29843]

But they're oh so worried about what is in the content that those advertisements are on

[@TheGreenKnight500]

That's the thing. It's not like they're just adds. They're mostly adds for weird scams and spyware. I only occasionally see KZbin adds for normal products and businesses. Occasionally, I'll see adds for local businesses. I think I've only ever seen an add for something I was actually interested in once or twice. You'd think with all this data collection and learning algorithms, you'd have a system that would constantly send adds that I'm actually interested in. I've been here for over a decade. They have the data on me. And yet, they send me the most irritating adds they possibly could for things I'd never touch with a ten foot pole and a hazmat suit.

[@RedCrusader-ph2vk]

Some of the ads on here are just blatant scams that they're flat out ignoring. Who cares if our users are getting scammed if we profit from it, right?

[@xXRedTheDragonXx]

My adblock "Breaking point" was back when I worked at a computer repair store. We would have people come in time and time again with viruses on their computers. In each of these cases, I started showing people how to install adblock. I noticed that there was an approximately 95% drop in re-opened tickets for malware removal after this happened. The problem with advertising quality control is so bad that it's actively harmful to people online, and I am genuinely of the opinion that until actual legislation is put in place to enforce "ad quality control" that I will not disable my adblocker for any reason outside of it breaking a website that I need to use for work.

[@eekee6034]

I've been saying for years now that the #1 defense against malware is an adblocker. In 2015, I noticed my Linux laptop having big GPU slowdowns which persisted until reboot. I traced it to a Microsoft advert. I installed an adblocker and the problem went away. 2 years later, I was running FreeBSD on the same laptop. My conscience was bothering me a little bit, so I didn't install an adblocker. Same advert, same problem: graphics crippled until reboot. I installed an adblocker and have never looked back.

[@computerkiller1494]

my adblock breaking point happened in when i was watching a normal yt video with my dad and then two really sexualised unskippable ads came one after the other, with my dad asking if i visited any "naughty" website. Also i have limited data (80gb per month when it happened, 100gb per month now) and with like 6 unskippable 15 or 20 second ads per video that loaded at 1080p i always consumed all my data by the end of the month. Also my brother got a virus more than twice because of sketchy ads on yt and guess who had to remove those viruses? ME! and so after thinking a bit i decided to make my brother install adblocker, and i also did as well. Then a month later my father (who listens to old school music with yt) asked me if it was possible to remove the ads, since he puts the phone with a playlist on while in the car and can't just leave the wheel, pick up the phone, skip the ad, put down the phone and then return back to driving.

[@BloodWraith777]

I first learned of malware "leaking" through ads in the late 2000s, on the old Steam forums (TF2 forum specifically), there being a thread warning about an audio virus on Fpsbanana (now Gamebanana). I forget if this is what caused me to get ABP and NoScript or not, but just as well, ABP and NoScript are like an extra layer of ballistics glass on top of your actual antimalware, just gotta allow scripts on NoScript for sites you completely trust (and begrudgingly temporarily allow some scripts for random sites you don't frequent). It's sickening how some sites have 10+ interlinking sitescripts leading to many different websites, sometimes going into the 20+ range, it's like "Ah yes, dozens of potential for malware to leak through random scripting and ad BS with zero quality control." Like, keep that shit to under 10, much like this site.

[@crabwater]

kobold spotted

[@pureexile1702]

@@eekee6034 i do not understand what shady fucking sites people go to. i've bin running without adblock for years now. i've never got a malware or virus via a add

[@Mimikium778]

the reason i started using an adblocker is because of youtube, when i started getting ads that were longer than 20-30 seconds between videos in my music playlist, and multiple ads before the start of videos. i also wont forget when i saw i had an entire stand up special (1.5 hours) as one of my ads.

[@jackr2287]

Spotify deserves some credit, while I don't use it much, their ads tend to not violate the senses, or plaster them everywhere.

[@rattyratstuff7125]

adding adds to spotify when it used to be add free for free is just as bad as biden molesting all those kids@@jackr2287

[@OgSuda]

@@jackr2287 Spotify claims you watch a couple then get "30 minutes of music" which is absolutely not true and they are SO loud so I'd say otherwise lol

[@littlecheesie]

@@jackr2287 i'm only disagreeing because listening to Spotify on Xbox, their ads are way above the volume selected and there's three to four of them on there.

[@draketeeth8004]

Those long ads are wild! I remember getting a 45 minute one for a 5 minute video. Blew my mind!

[@Pixel_Coder]

when you see people having malware or viruses on their computer one thing that they always have in common is not having a ad blocker ad blocker should be normalized because it's a matter of security and not preference

[@ZeroKitsune]

This, for sure. When ad companies (which, incidentally, is also usually Google, funny that) have zero oversight or moderation for the kinds of things that can be sent out with their service...there really is just straight-up malware in some of them. Not to mention all the other ads that violate Google's policies that they just allow through anyway until someone complains. But even if you get one taken down, there's a hundred more, and Google does nothing. Ad blocking is just the next anti-virus.

[@roscob7089]

I think part of my breaking point was how ads have gotten so overstimulating. It felt like whenever I would try to relax by watching a video, there would be 5 different loud, screaming, in-your-face ads before I could even think about being calm.

[@thoopsy]

Yeah as somebody who's eye is naturally drawn to movement, how AM I supposed to read this article if it won't stop, if it's brighter and louder than what I'm ACTUALLY interested in?

[@dolfuny]

Damn ads for horror movies before like a 10 hour rain sounds video are the worst. I already don't like horror, I don't need an ad for them before I sleep lol

[@scrittle]

@@thoopsy I make an argument for hyperactive kids who are being manipulated for a worse viewing experience because KZbin wants to stuff elements everywhere to grab your attention, especially shorts! Shorts should've been its own app but they had to shoehorn it in (proud Revanced user, who disabled shorts)

[@soup331emd5]

​@@scrittleShhhh, we don't talk about revanced. God forbid Susan finds this one too.

[@Tera_GX]

90s TV did it first. And of course further in the past things had already gotten bad enough to force establishing laws about false advertising (which we all know is poorly enforced).

[@RandomHandle120]

My breaking point was when KZbin started showing ads on videos they had "demonetized" for not being "advertiser friendly". This was extremely hipocritical, so my thought was "if the creator is not getting paid for the ad, neither are you".

[@LRM12o8]

The whole "advertiser-friendly content" program is just one thinly veiled excuse for KZbin to not pay the content creators! Good to hear you don't support it! This in conjunction with the fact that the slew of shady advertisers and disturbing ads on KZbin should be of much more concern for Google than the content that's being uploaded are the reason why I will not consider KZbin Premium, no matter how hard they manage to make watching KZbin with an adblocker! And I did consider getting a Premium subscription before! The KZbin mobile app is also not appealing at all. It's so incredibly dumbed down/and or broken that even if I had Premium, I'd still wanna use an alternate app! Those alternate apps of course don't require premium to enable premium features, so there's also no point in premium from a UX standpoint. but like seriously: English video titles and -descriptions are being auto-translated without any way to view the original instead of that bot-generated mutilation of my native language, subtitles appear on every other video despite automatic captions being "turned off" in my settings, precise options for video resolution (like 480p, 720p(30/60), 1080p(30/60) ) have been replaced with stupidly vague options labeled something like "good image", "automatic" (which defaults to 480p on WiFi with a 500Mbps fiber connection, ridiculous) and "data efficient", with the actual numbers for the resolutions being hidden in a sub-menu under the "advanced" option 🤦‍♂🤦‍♂ and the app has been showing me some completely random short video immediately upon opening the app the last times I launched it, which is the latest stupid hoax of that shitty app. 🤮 EDIT: and also after you watched an ad, there's still an ad banner where the comments/infobox would be that you still need to click away and when you do click it away, a smaller ad banner will still permanently remain, absolutely ridiculous! Premium would solve this of course, but still it's yet ANOTHER deterrent from the official KZbin app.

[@QuikVidGuy]

"If the advertiser doesn't want their name associated with rhis video, why did you put it here?

[@petros_adamopoulos]

@@QuikVidGuy Yeah and also, they not want to be associated with it but if Hitler was a client, that'd be fine. Why don't they divulge their client list, maybe I wouldn't want to buy anything from them if I knew. Reciprocally, for me, if an ad of a brand I like appeared over a terrorist's video, I couldn't care less, firstly because I don't expect ads to be perfectly placed over videos approved by a person sharing my own political views or anything. Well, anyway, I'll always block ads and have never willingly clicked on a single one since the internet exists. They're just tasteless.

[@SamnissArandeen]

That's called *theft*

[@Unnamed_dangerous_entity]

@@SamnissArandeen its not, ye stoopid

[@masterikej1]

the rapid increase of ad quantity and length was quickly pushing me to my breaking point, but what really broke my ad tolerance was when i was in college trying to get weeks worth of work done in a few days and ads kept interrupting my music that i was using to focus. the simple disrupt of my flow would constantly cause me to lose my place in my work and after only a few disruptions, i installed the most aggressive ad blocker i could find, and ive never looked back.

[@e.m1108]

KZbin needs competition. And im still shock at how youtube is able to get away with this. Microsoft did something similar years ago and they got every regulator in the land blowing smoke up their butts.

[@jpsholland]

Rumble

[@lottery248]

there already are, including Rumble, Odysee, PeerTube.

[@BygoneT]

Good luck competing with fucking Google

[@BygoneT]

​@@lottery248never heard of them

[@LeTtRrZ]

It’s amazing to me how websites serve ads that are intrusive, obstructive, annoying, resource-intensive, and potentially dangerous, and then wonder why people block them.

[@NerdConfederation]

Totally forgot that they're so resource intensive actually. They outright cook your hardware and bloat your bandwidth now that I remember it. Phones are even worse. Whenever a network is available, the phone downloads ads in the background(destroying your hardware) so that it can play those while you're not connected. Recovered a few phones, and usually most of the phone's storage is covered in adware.

[@protonjones54]

​@@NerdConfederationis there a way to check for that stuff / remove it?

[@viermidebutura]

ALL are intrusive, obstructive, annoying, resource-intensive, and potentially dangerous

[@foresthillwolf7998]

It's even worse when your interest is already low. Looking for a quick answer to a question? First 3 links are to websites where even reading the text is a puzzle. Then, no one uses those sites. At all. They click and leave. That's not how you keep getting revenue or payouts from ads. That's how you deter everyone from staying long enough to make you money off of ads.

[@CatHasOpinions734]

​@@viermidebuturatrue, but there are degrees to this problem. Like, the "YOU'RE NOT A DISH" ads are so obnoxious that I have promised myself never to buy anything from that company as long as I live, but most people don't have trauma relating to soap. But YT also has tons of ads for alcohol and diet products, and for anyone who's recovering from alcoholism or an eating disorder, those can be extremely destructive. Hell, I've even seen ads for gambling apps.

[@gangliaghost8720]

I started ad blocking for one of the examples in the video: targeted alcohol ads. Looked up an AA meeting list and every single ad became an alcohol ad. It was unbelievable how awful it was. It actively interfered with my recovery, because they make them as tempting as possible.

[@niklasschmidt3610]

Good luck with your recovery

[@gangliaghost8720]

@@niklasschmidt3610 Hey thanks, it's going really well.

[@blllk8189]

Wtf that's terrible, they should honestly be sued for that! Thats just not okay. Btw, good luck with your recovery!

[@sogerc1]

Oh man that's terrible. I never even thought of it this way, to me ads are just annoyances and a waste of my time, but that's an actual problem. Stay strong!

[@gangliaghost8720]

@@sogerc1 yeah, it really changed my opinion about a lot of society in unexpected ways. I still get really mad at gas stations advertising when I pump gas.

[@JingLiisnotreal]

I was really into ASMR like in 2018/2019 and it was the only thing I would watch on youtube, at night in my dimly lit room as an aid for going to sleep. The thing about ASMR is that since the videos are made with a huge focus on the audio and specifically quieter and appealing sounds, they're best watched with headphones at relatively high volumes compared to other types of videos. Do you know how horrible it is to be falling asleep to a nice video of someone calmly and slowly brushing a mic with a makeup brush, listening to each and every single bristle as it moves slowly over the mic to create a combined sound that feels like it's brushing the sensory hairs in your cochlea oh so softly, and then you get jumpscared by an ad screaming into your ears because you've had your audio high to hear the ASMR video and was not at all prepared for an ad? The ASMRists would write in their comments and descriptions that they've opted out of having youtube displaying ads even at the expense of their own revenue so their viewers wouldn't have their eardrums destroyed, and yet they keep on getting ads on their videos that youtube is just putting on there without their consent. My breaking point was getting knocked out of the calm state that watching an ASMR video had left me in, by a stupid trio of ads that I couldn't even skip. Oh I made it optional for a few of my favourite creators, turning the sound down really low to watch the ads at the beginning and the end and turning it up again to actually watch the video, but from then on I refused to have to see ads when my time on the internet is going along so much better without them, and especially on fucking youtube.

[@esmfamil5086]

Omg this was my exact tipping point. I thought it was just me😂

[@F4im]

ASMR is a big part for me for staying here. I could loop a video I liked all night and it didn't show any ads. Now they do, which makes this app pointless.. if anyone has an alternative I'd like suggestions.

[@JingLiisnotreal]

​@@F4im what I do right now is use a v p n which lets me use my adblockers. You don't even have to pay for one, like I'm using a free one and even though I don't get to choose where it sets my location, most of the time it jumps it to somewhere where I can use my adblock, and if it doesn't, I just turn it on and off again

[@kevinwong_2016]

​@@F4im ublock still works, also vanced💀

[@henrikfox8960]

@@F4im INSTALL BRAVE BROWSER

[@paigecarlson1742]

Was really surprised when I heard the name of the inventor of pop-up ads. He actually lectured for my class a couple times, chatted with him and he was extremely down to Earth! Ironically one of the topics was unintended consequences of innovation.

[@andrewstephens8790]

neat you met on of the "bad guys" of our period of history. note how our society makes it very easy for very nice, well-meaning, otherwise intelligent people to accidentally be the proximate cause of great suffering and ill-effects.

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

My breaking point was finding out adblockers exist. Mostly because I'm old enough to remember an internet uncorrupted by ads, and one where it was still slow enough that you would have to leave a video to buffer for a while, yet the 30 second ad would load immediately and have no issues.

[@TheyCallMeIce]

Ah, yes. The time when you could leave your browser open when you have a spotty connection and let the video load completely so you could watch it without interruption. Where did it go

[@tappajaav]

@@TheyCallMeIce Bandwidth saving.

[@mynameisben123]

The quality of the content online was significantly lower back then though. I look at it as, the quality increased and this extra quality needs to be funded somehow.

[@TheyCallMeIce]

@@mynameisben123 That's... not entirely true. To put it lightly. From what I remember, content mostly had A LOT more effort put into it than today.

[@viceroybolt3518]

Stone age internet was a place of wonder, clicking on a link to an image and waiting 10 minutes as it wrote line by line or talking to random strangers in chat lobbies was fun!

[@TheRealSpellstar]

I grew up in a household of people who muted or fast-forwarded through ads, and my parents always educated me about the manipulative tactics that advertisers use. Using an adblocker just felt like the right thing to do. My breaking point happened before I was born

[@certaindeath7776]

@bassplayer2773 yeah i cant stand the manipulative voice acting in ads. on a computer you can aditionally turn the screen off

[@pi4795]

My parents didn't teach me about it but we got it explained in high school and luckily it really stuck with me. I adopted Firefox pretty early because of its tabs and after looking through add-ons I still remember what a game changer blocking was... Pages so clean, no more weird ads about winning a prize or you have a virus plz download this antivirus 😂. Good times when we were four randoms and nobody cared

[@StarHorder]

thats damn good parenting

[@keiraaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

Never had that but once I got to the internet and saw ads go from one 30 second skippable ad, to 2 unskippable 30 second ads and then so on so forth… Yeah, i’ve picked up adblocker. I think KZbin still does the 2 ad thing but some sites I went to would have 5 in a row and that to me is absurd. If I cannot skip those ads I will simply not use the service. And the same goes for youtube tbh.

[@c.edwards4457]

I was taught that anything you see on TV is trying to get your money.

[@KairuinKorea]

This is SO true. The whole thing about "people used sites as usual until they got annoyed by too many low quality ads" it is absolutely the fault of the websites themselves for going too far with ads. I only even started using ad blockers due to obnoxious youtube ads, not due to ads on ANY other platform. If it was just a single add you can skip after 5 seconds, I would not mind. But to have: - TWO unskippable begining ads AND unskippable mid role ads every 3 or 4 minutes it just becomes annoying.

[@colour_fall3851]

My tipping point for not only getting an adblocker, but also moving off chrome and onto firefox as a web browser was when one of the channels I watch saying that youtube was putting adds on videos they explicitly said they didn't want to be monetized because the video content was very serious so they wanted people to be able to watch it uninterrupted. I got hit with maybe 3 pairs of unskipable adds in that ~20 minute video

[@BlackSheep380]

KZbin bombards certain videos with more ads as a loose form of sensor ship....(via harrassment so that the audience will lose interest).

[@coolklefkisarecool]

Also they advertise unhealthy food and gambling

[@jopeteus]

My biggest problem with youtube ads is that they are 2-4 times LOUDER than the video I am watching

[@LoganHunter82]

Yeah. Hate that too. Especially when you're listening to something relaxing (like ASMR or rainfall) then suddenly BOOOM! BUY THIS CRAPPY MOBILEGAME! WOOHOOO!

[@jopeteus]

@@LoganHunter82 I listen to them sometimes too if I can't sleep. Then suddenly I get woken up by an annoying add

[@ARCHIVED9610]

⁠@@jopeteusYES! i listen to lofi hiphop on one tab and ambience on another and i cant even count how many times ive been woken up

[@falcon_arkaig]

SERIOUSLY!! I'll be watching a generally quiet KZbinr, so I have the volume up a bit. Then an ad jumpscares me as I'm trying to sleep :/

[@Pushing_Pixels]

It's 100% deliberate in order to capture your attention. Basically, every ad wants to be louder than the others so they stand out. So they all compress the crap out of their audio, then normalize it to maximum volume to saturate the whole dynamic range in the audio stream. It's so jarring because content creators generally aren't mutilating their audio just to be louder than each other, so viewers set their volume to match the level of most creators' content, but then the ad volume maxes out the signal and it's like being shouted at through a megaphone.

[@thelostredcoat4844]

my last straw was when KZbin started putting ads on non monetized creators, up until that point I reluctantly watched ads on peoples videos knowing that at the very least a portion of the revenue was going to the creator without me directly giving them money, but as soon as that changed it felt very money grabby, and since you can't tell the difference between a monetized KZbinr and a non monetized KZbinr I just turned ads of completely.

[@stonebubbleprivat]

Although ads are annoying, you forget that storing and streaming videos is extremely expensive, and videos with not many views cost more to host than youtube earns. KZbin is still not profitable.

[@Robidu1973]

@@stonebubbleprivat Then why is Google keeping YT alive if it's hitting their bottom line?

[@stonebubbleprivat]

@@Robidu1973 like all the tech companies do. To profit eventually when they figured out how to make money.

[@InsanePigeon]

​@@stonebubbleprivat1:23 BTW. Please watch the video before you preach your lord and master's word like gospel.

[@stonebubbleprivat]

@@InsanePigeon I watched it. That are numbers from alphabet the parent company of Google. Of course alphabet is profitable with Google search but that doesn't mean KZbin by itself is profitable. Amazon also makes a lot of money but twitch, a company of them, also looses money.

[@RFL1976]

The thing that advertisers and platforms like YT need to understand is that it is RUDE to interrupt people by shoving an advert in their face, I wish they would think in terms of making advertising a more consensual experience

[@MrRandomcommentguy]

I'm using a script that auto-skips ads on KZbin now instead of an ad blocker, but it isn't entirely seamless, and only now, after several years of using an ad-blocker, I am noticing just how many more ads get shown than there used to be, because there is a slight pause in the video every time the script skips the ad. On some videos there is an ad every 2 - 5 minutes. It is completely absurd. As for my tipping point, there were two simultaneous interrelated tipping points. The first was when ads started appearing multiple times per video instead of just at the beginning, and the second was when ads still showed up on channels or videos that had allegedly been demonetized for not being "advertiser friendly" - which demonstrated beyond doubt that KZbin (and by extension Google) were not acting in good faith.

[@westube643]

My breaking point was when I realized 1. More time was given to the ads then the actual video 2. When I clicked on a video and an ad played I immediately lost interest and/or forget why I wanted to watch the video in the first place.

[@tsm688]

pretty much the same breaking point as television for me, 23 years ago. more ads than program, and the ads are NOTHING which interests me. why bother?

[@Lemmon714_]

I haven't watched an ad in years and don't use an ad blocker

[@timefliesaway999]

@@Lemmon714_ good for you being rich but not everyone is

[@QuiVierge]

@@tsm688 This is the main reason why i stopped watching television all together, why am I forced to watch the same ads for like 5-10 minutes just so i can watch the second half of my favourite show just so that when it ends I'll have ANOTHER long ad that I'm forced to sit and watch? Yeah, no thanks.

[@floof6896]

probably an issue with your attention span on the 2nd part?

[@TSteffi]

What bothers me the most about ads is how they always crank up the volume. That means that whenever an ad starts, it always is a little jump scare and forces me to turn down the volume or mute the ad. This is not just inconvenient for me, but also makes it so that every ad comes with a built in negative emotional experience.

[@TSteffi]

As for the breaking point, that was a long time ago on a small german social media site called "kwick". They added banner ads, and it was fine. They added side bars left and right, and it was ok. Then came ads with auto playing videos. So I had to mute the site to not get constantly jump scared. But it was still ok-ish. But then they added another banner across the bottom, and it just didn't work properly. It showed up across the middle of the page, making it literally unusable. Not just me, but hundreds of users begged them on the forum to please fix it. They constantly refused, instead demanding users switch to a different browser. That was the breaking point for me, and many others. Needless to say the site went down shortly thereafter.

[@davidanderson4091]

I'm afraid that is a problem that goes way back before the internet. My parents used to complain about that 40 years ago with TV ads. The TV companies claimed they didn't push the volume up on ads, but my dad was a radio engineer, and he proved it to them when they interviewed him on a local news program. Right there in the studio, he attached an averaging power meter to a TV audio output, and showed that the volume jumped up by 5 dbm when the ads came on (5 dbm is almost double the volume!!). They didn't want to talk to him again after that!!

[@rubenskiii]

@@davidanderson4091did footage of that survive in any way shape or form? Would be a good watch!

[@rubenskiii]

A thing about adds on KZbin that has changed and when i saw it the first time it actually spooked me(i use adblocker but had to use another device than my own): In the earlier days there was a small count-down before an add would come on, so you knew. But now screen just goes to black for a second and then BAM! the add comes barging into your head, with colours and sounds so loud my god… Horrible change not a lot of people talk about. Also I’ve noticed that subtitles always glitch nowadays, to the point they are useless.

[@multimasti8778]

I swear, all ads need an "ad in 5 sec" warning for this situation

[@toxicdragon323]

KZbin ads used to be tolerable. But when KZbin started chaining ads together as well as making them unskippable, that's what drove me to get an adblocker. The fact that their ads became more aggressive, more intrusive, and more disruptive just further added reason to have an adblocker.

[@sonyaj66]

That, and for garbage, sketchy products or services that I will never, ever purchase. For example, I see ads pushing content from a known propaganda/extremist site on channels that are hosting content for the other political side...talk about "targeted ad fail". I often watch YT instructional videos while I'm running on the treadmill, and having the video interrupted several times with ads that I have to actively click to skip really does degrade the quality of the experience.

[@trikyy7238]

My breaking point was the first ad I ever saw on the internet. I said, huh, I don't want any of that, ever, so as soon as blocking became possible, I did it. My work laptop is locked, no way even to use a browser of my choice, so the browsing "experience" is horrible. I do all my random searches with my personal phone instead, just to avoid the horror of ads.

[@fatercoelho7476]

my breaking point was repetetive ads, being served the exact same ad 10x is just ridiculous, this was many years ago and I can only immagine how much worst the situation might be now

[@legionofanon]

I made the mistake of watching anime on a "smart" tv, the same ad played 3 times at every ad break, and there was about 3 breaks per episode. 3 episodes in i gave up and unplugged the tv

[@runelt99]

Me watching video normally: unskippable 20 second ad Me having a video in background while I shower: deploy the skipable 20 minute ad, good luck doing that with wet fingers hahahaha

[@Vilonu]

Remember when pretty much every 10 second ad on youtube was skippable after 5 seconds? Sometimes even 7 second ads were skippable. Now it's not uncommon to get two 16 second unskippable ads one right after the other, 32 seconds total, even if you're only watching like a 30 second video. Still not as horrendous as twitch tv though.

[@Gigachad-mc5qz]

Its bad enough they use your data without your consent, which is theft. Then they show you more garbage to keep the capitalist machine and consumerism going

[@voidcommando7574]

@@Prime501 how about the 10h ads that you couldn't skip so that u needed to restart the same video like 5times since u never would watch a 10h add

[@lucybiddle3912]

My first 'breaking point' was at 14 years old, when I literally did not HAVE any money to pay for premium anything and installed adblock out of necessity. As I started hitting adulthood and having my own money I started getting a few premium subscriptions and allowing ads on some sites. Then a friend passed away by suicide. Immediately every ad I saw was about suicide awareness, estate planning, will writing, the whole lot. I went on the internet to distract myself from it and instead every ad on the entire internet shouted constantly in my face, "HEY REMEMBER YOUR FRIEND'S DEAD?!" Adblock on maximum ever since. Effing ghouls.

[@happysocialmoth1197]

Dear God…. That's so effed up. I'm sorry that you had to go through this:(

[@Zythria]

I hate that this is something that happened to me; only not as morbid. Your phone is spying on you, and it is collecting data, based on what you say, key phrases... I swear. I was on the bus at work when someone co-workers were talking about some videos they saw, the day after the guy there were talking about, showed up in my feeds. It just makes you wonder...

[@Buckwheat_Spaghetti]

Yeah the 3rd party trackers are seriously ill because they sneakly implement them on the bias of a wall of text, their terms of service. Google (alphabet inc.) and Facebook (Meta) are run by vampires

[@A_Steam_User]

@@Zythria i swear they will find a way to see through face cam tape

[@berehap7004]

​@@A_Steam_UserI might be thinking too far into it, but some phones, for example Huawei, tell you to remove your hand when its in front of the front camera. Always a little suspicious lol

[@adilovee]

just a headsup, their specific method of anti-adblocking is actually illegal because youtube is probing the user's system for adblockers, which violates internet privacy laws

[@jpsholland]

But a company so big and so rich and on top of that a WEF member will never face a judge. They also do a lot of political censorchip which is against the law and human rights. The only way to touch them is to mass leave.

[@timotheatae]

​@@jpshollandWEF? Buddy, any two-bit CEO can join the WEF. It's not an authority. It's a. Y'know, forum? Being able to talk in some building doesn't make you powerful. You can take a tour of the US Capitol and shout "Tax Break!" at the wall and get just as little out of it as Google does the WEF.

[@coolklefkisarecool]

@@jpshollandYeah they keep showing me anti-P4lestinian ads

[@khizarahmed6875]

Ironically enough, KZbin recommended me this video. As an advertising and marketing student, I gained insights from this video I hadn't considered. My goal is to make advertising a more ethical practice through obtaining a PhD at the cross section of advertising and psychology so we hopefully can better identify the more harmful affects of this field, and I'm saving this video for when I can act on my plan. Lastly, I appreciated how even handed you were, even showcasing when advertising was done affectively, I've always said that advertising at it's worst is propaganda, but advertising at its best is art, and I think you captured that sentiment beautifully in your video. Thank you for stating your bias and being authentic; It is no question that you'll going to become massive, so please don't lose that. You earned my subscription; congrats on your success!

[@da3musceteers]

Sure ya do

[@sopi2]

KZbin has actively been getting more aggressive with ads. It's really brave of them to think users would leave ad-blockers before they leave the platform.

[@youtubeneedstochange4414]

Not brave, they're just so stupidly arrogant that they believe they can get their way no matter what.

[@combinecommando001]

@@youtubeneedstochange4414 the mentality of "we're too big too fail" but we know that pride comes before the fall.

[@cockatoofan]

They're just desperate not brave or stupid

[@nyx_jupiter-trash]

The amount of 3 in a row ads ive gotten is insane or unstoppable ads. Also some videos even from smaller creators give me ads every few mins in a 10 min video.

[@lyon2475]

All the adblockers I tried to use also didn't work after my main one broke, you got a recommendation for the current day?

[@kaylistensmusic]

The breaking point for me was youtube 1. Saying certain content is not adworthy to punish certain creators 2. Going ahead and putting ads on those videos anyways

[@Leandro-bj6jh]

Same, also I jumped to the adblock train way later then every body else. It happened when the videos just became unwatchable, I'd be listening to a video and then it would get interrupted over and over again, for minutes at a time.

[@VentelHD]

Imagine kids watching a cartoon with 10 ads in it, and one ads is some random dudes doing something and talking for 30 minutes... Sure you can skip it, but kids might not know yet how to do it. Then they're stuck watching some random crap!

[@totalmiroku89]

Why are children that young being left alone on KZbin? That's way more concerning@@VentelHD

[@RT-qd8yl]

@@totalmiroku89 Agreed. I wasn't allowed a computer with internet until I was 13. Granted things were way different in the late 90s, but either way kids under 10 shouldn't have unsupervised unrestricted internet access in ANY circumstance.

[@Real_RUBB3R]

My breaking point was when ads started to become unskippable, as I'm sure it was for millions of other KZbin users. I was totally fine with seeing ads as long as I could skip them after 5 seconds. Even if it's a short 15~ second ad, because it bugs me that they dictate that because the ad is so short, you shouldn't be able to skip it. There was also the multiple ad stacking (which is now a huge issue I have with Twitch and it irritates me that adblockers don't work for Twitch), and then of course the complete lack of quality control with ads, now allowing practically anything, including but not limited to sexual or inappropriate content, scams, or targeted ads for gambling or alcohol and such. I literally could not care less about ads if they were actually filtered through some kind of quality control and you were able to skip them, no matter how long.

[@Jesssss._]

For me uBlock origin has always worked on twitch, if that helps? I use it in combination of opera gx's adblock tho, so idk.

[@Wrennvy]

I honestly pay for KZbin Premium, and still have an adblocker. The breaking point was after both youtube and twitch increased both the quantity and intrusiveness (skipable to unskippable, single ad to multiple, preroll to content interrupting) that I realized that there is nothing stopping them from doing this if it seems the profits increase by doing so. They can and will push it as far as possible, and beyond, in the name of money. At least ad-block gives you control and a voice. Twitch seems to be trying something out with less intrusive ads right now, where they surround the video without interrupting it, and honestly, I think that should be the way youtube does it as well. People will put up with a lot-- but when you actively interrupt their content to force them to sit through something they don't want to? Not only will you drive them to ad-block, not only will some of them leave, but they will actively despise the companies and products being advertised for wasting their time.

[@jpsholland]

When everybody has premium, then ads will be shown there too and an even more expensive premium plus will appear. They will do this until our wallets are empty. Google had become a greedy and arrogant company.

[@Wrennvy]

@@jpsholland Yeah, they tried to change the price of the family plan from $22 AUD to $33 AUD. A 50% increase with the only warning being a single email. I just cancelled and told them the service they provide was scarcely worth the old price. I hardly notice a difference between KZbin Premium and using an Ad-Block. I just wanted to support creators but google is so fucking greedy.

[@diamondsanchez224]

There was a point, back in college, where I legitimately didn't mind ads on KZbin. At first I was like, "Eh, KZbin has to make money somehow right?" But as the ads became more frequent, misleading, and inappropriate, and as KZbin's PR tanked due to their own poor decisions, I hit my breaking point where I began using adblockers on all my devices. There are too many ads, most of which are unskippable or blatant lies, and rather than just fix them, KZbin wants to shove them down our faces even more. We don't come to KZbin to watch advertisements. We come to KZbin to watch videos we want to watch. Without the videos, you don't even have the advertisements.

[@murtadhaAlhusne]

can y say some of the AdBlockers ?? you use

[@PedroAbreu-im4sd]

@@murtadhaAlhusne ublock origin

[@manhle1582]

​@@murtadhaAlhusneI use AdGuard for desktop browser (Firefox and Chrome), Kiwi/Brave for mobile and SmartTube for Android TV. The best combination should be UBlockOrigin because AdGuard still sounds a little bit unprivacy imo.

[@ravenlorans]

Yeah but ebuTuoY don't need Ads, they get enough from the % they get from all the Sex Site Bots that have taken over and from all the people Stupid enough to join those sites. Then take Down My Instructions of how to Actually Report them but Leave the SSB Comments alone...

[@supme7558]

Inappropriate..oh brother

[@robbylebotha]

As a developer, ad blockers hurt revenue. But as a consumer with a developer knowledge, the problem is not the ads, the reason we block ads is because youtube has become extremely aggressive with ads, they started showing 5 minute ads and its obvious what they are doing, they are trying to piss you off so you buy premium. Without ad blockers, youtube is unusable. That is the problem.

[@A_Steam_User]

i once saw a 20 minute unskippable ad, that was the worst day of my life, and i was watching a 5 minute video, ever since i knew where to get one ive been using ad block.

[@3am246]

I’ve had ads that well exceeded 1 hour, they were skippable but only ever showed up on the kinds of videos you’d watch while doing something else so you couldn’t skip it

[@A_Person_64]

​@@A_Steam_User20 minutes UNSKIPPABLE??? What the heck?

[@lucnederhof2107]

They just pissed people off so that they searched for an ad blocker

[@CT-yc4gd]

Tbh, a 5 second ad annoys me. If the default setting was "Click here to continue this ad" instead of "click here to skip ad" I wouldn't care. But no one does that because we generally hate ads. I do not give a damn about the product or service many are trying to sell.

[@-M_F-]

For me it was when advertising abandoned the principal of advertising. You're supposed to spread brand awareness so when people are trying to make a decision they have your brand in mind. Advertisers realized that they could increase self selection by making their ads as unappealing and irritating to the vast majority of people in order to get click-through rates from mostly children by making them loud, colorful, and annoying. Doesn't matter what it is, they're paid per click.

[@MNTR-eh1pe]

Your video hit the nail on the head on the whole debate on Adblock. True, nobody was using adblock since day 1 of KZbin, ads weren't an issue a few years ago. Used to be you'd watch a five-second skippable ad or a 30 second ad then enjoy the video uninterrupted, but like your video pointed out, the amount increased. Watching a twelve minute video meant 3-4 more ads, listening to a music video was ruined by an ad right in the middle of the song. Heck, adblock was recommended to me by another youtube user after I ranted in the comment section about being bombarded with ads. Then youtube started messing with the features, taking away the dislike button because some whiny actors didn't like their movie trailer being disliked, but I think a large percentage of users has the extension for it now. It all ultimately boils down to greed! KZbin is making billions, BILLIONS, not millions, in ad revenue so the community isn't going to feel sorry for them. I'm glad to support certain creators and pause my adblock for them, but others whose videos are saturated with ads, naw, I'm not gonna watch an ad every five minutes. Fairness is a two-way street, decrease the volume of ads and people might agree to disable their blockers, until then, I stand firmly against youtube and their policies.

[@MeowMeowMeowX3333]

My breaking point was seeing how little my favorite content creators were getting out of ads, and seeing how they still had to bend over backwards to be advertiser friendly so they didn't get punished by the algorithm. The content I was receiving was worse not only because of the ads, but because the content creators themselves were being forced to create worse products in order to survive on the platform.

[@Taka.1011]

The first adpocalypse, the content creator didn't get ad revenue, becouse yt didn't serve ads in that video. The second time, when yt decided that they could serve ads and not pay the content creator, that was it. At that second it became ethical

[@Depl0rable10]

​@gataca4548 just remember, if 1 percent of consumers paied 8.50 a month, content creators would make 1 million dollars annually per million subscribers. Same goes if half the people paied 20 cents per month. 1.2m dollars per year per million subs. Unironically if you want to turn on ad blocker but have any guilt in the matter, buy one thing from the creator. Doesn't matter what it is. T-shirt, waterbottle, 5 dollar super chat ect. That is worth probably double or triple what your ad time for the rest of your life is worth.

[@HelloHamburger]

​​@adamvargo7830 Bad take. Stop trying to guilt trip other people for trying to create a useable convenient product for themselves and skip ads they had no interest in buying in the 1st place. Also, I don't believe that if more people used YT Premium, that creators would be paid more. They're only paid by what people watch. So, like, if the video blocks ads, they get cents for your view. YT is a corporate company and it is not in their best interest to pay $1 million to every YTuber with over a million subs. Will never happen. Even if YT was the most profitable business out there, more than Disney or Amazon combined. It still would likely never happen. Also, like was shown in the vid, Indians don't pay that for Yt Premium. So, they wouldn't count for 8.50 like you said, where is this # from anyway?

[@XMysticHerox]

Just give people 5 bucks once and you will have given them more money than they would have ever made off of ad revenue from you.

[@Ryusuta]

Oh my god, THIS. Seriously.

[@iansarmiento23]

The thing is, I probably wouldnt had been blocking ads if KZbin didn't become greedy. They increased the length of the ads, the amount of ads, the frequency of ads, and even put them on videos that didn't even have ad sense in the first place. We're hardly supporting creators with ads since I doubt majority of the videos ad revenue actually goes to the creators.

[@lostbutfreesoul]

A lot of it does not. Not only is it a small percentage of each advertisement, but there is a long list of things that get you disqualified from that payout as well. What, you thought they stopped running advertisements on platforms that where demonetized? Naaaah, they just don't give any of it over to the person who made that video in the first place.

[@officer_friendly_]

especially on 15 second shitpost videos i get 2 unskipabble ads

[@FM-Whispers]

I'm pretty sure the revenue split for creators/KZbin is 55/45, which is a majority split, but still, it's practically as low as it can get with the creator still getting the majority split, so KZbin is being greedy, I agree though I hate that sometimes I'll get 2 unskippable 15 second ads

[@LawfulBased]

My basic reaction on any site where I could not avoid the ad's with blockers has been the following for years: _" Open an alternate tab with middle-mousclick or better have one open already._ _Mute the tab with the ad and do something different for the 15 to 40 seconds included. "_ This boosts your synapses with multitasking training and sends the right mental message at least for myself. 👏☺

[@user-ejxomyq]

KZbin tried to make me watch two unskippable drug ads. Both are 2 minutes long,

[@kiyan5340]

The breaking point for me was that I see adverts everywhere else in the rest of my life. At work, on billboards during my commute, on the radio, in newspapers, on my social media feed, even inside video games or in services I'm already paying for that didn't have ads before. There's just so much. When I get home, its meant to be an oasis from all that. I don't want any ads when I'm trying to rest from this capitalistic hell we've created for ourselves and forced to participate in from birth until death.

[@GarbsyWarbsy]

my breaking point was recently. Instead of simply skipping ads, you now HAVE to sit through one ad, and then press a Next button to see ANOTHER ad.

[@ikebirchum6591]

My ad breaking point was when I was trying to use the Terraria's Fandom wiki on mobile browser and the search bar was unusable 75% of the time because an un-removable ad would cover it. It also did a thing where ads would wait a bit before loading in the middle of the page, suddenly shifting everything on the page downward and sometimes causing me to click on things I didn't intend to click on

[@thewitheredstriker]

As a long-time FANDOM user, I feel your pain. This website has fallen off SO badly it's not even funny. I couldn't imagine ever using FANDOM without a) an ad-blocker, and b) additional CSS I added to my account to hide even more crap.

[@mds_main]

YES ME TOO

[@augustday9483]

Fandom wikis are UNUSABLE without aggressive adblocking. It's crazy how bad those sites are.

[@thewitheredstriker]

@@augustday9483 I know. It's outrageous. It was not always this bad, but holy shit, it became horrendous.

[@generatoralignmentdevalue]

Wikia was trash before this. Actually fan-run wikis have always been better. Those over-the-top ads are just hitting home why this crap corporate knockoff exists at all.

[@NXTangl]

Love the netflix piracy example, since piracy is now probably more convenient than netflix again.

[@GeorgeSukFuk]

It is

[@Ruchunteur]

I wouldn't go as far as "more convenient". Piracy is cheaper but it's not that convenient. Most site are dodgy, quality isn't always there and sometime it's just plain impossible to find what you are looking for. Piracy never has been about convenience, not now, not ever. It's always been about the money. Maybe you are a student, maybe you have no revenue, maybe you can't afford the price or maybe you just not willing to pay for the product in question (as in, you'll rather not ever get that product at all if it mean you have to pay for it. You are not a potential client).

[@8BitShadow]

@@Ruchunteur "Piracy never has been about convenience" are you sure about that? The entire anime industry would beg to differ lol.

[@Ruchunteur]

@@8BitShadow even anime. If you had a proper place to get the anime you want at a reasonable price and you had the money you would probably go there instead of going to website that set off your anti virus every 5 minutes. The thing is, a lot of people watching anime doesnt have the money. Lots of student or young adult with low incomes.

[@vylbird8014]

@@Ruchunteur I've been pirating since before Napster, and I can tell you it was /all/ about convenience! Back in those earlier days, there simple was no legal media source on the internet. No steam, no itunes, no spotify, no netflix. You wanted a film, you got off you ass and walked your way down the store to buy a DVD. Or you ordered online and waited for delivery. Compared to that, piracy was very convenient indeed - and that convenience is the main reason is thrived. An argument could be made that the many convenient legal platforms we have today exist only because of piracy. It forced companies who were very reluctant to accept online distribution to do so anyway.

[@kevnar]

I have a very strong phobia about a certain subject. When I turned on KZbin on my smart TV (without adblockers), one of the very first ads that popped up featured that horrible phobia I have. I had a panic attack, and nightmares the whole night. Just about had to go to the hospital. If KZbin blocks my ad-blocker, I'm just not going to be able to use it at all.

[@XatxiFly]

I'm so sorry that happened and I wish you a peaceful recovery. Advertising in general is kind of inherently incompatible with psychological safety and consent and for SO many reasons I wish the Internet wasn't built on it, but I am sometimes still surprised by how egregious and widely triggering ad content can be.

[@quiccfrfr]

bro purchase yt premium 💀

[@feathero3]

I am also very sorry this happened to you, and hope you can stay safe. That said, I am also very curious, what was the phobia about? Was the ad intentionally scary, or just accidently scary due to a phobia?

[@kevnar]

@@feathero3 I'm definitely not going to announce it on the internet. Wayyy too many trolls out there. But thanks for your concern.

[@feathero3]

@@kevnar Ah, fair point.

[@gamilith]

my breaking point was when i would click on a video and decide i didn't want to watch it anymore simply because there was an ad.

[@lessermook7608]

Exactly. 🤣

[@kasPWI]

One thing worth noting: The original KZbin app that came pre-installed on early iPhones had the feature to play videos while the screen was locked. Eventually the feature got removed and made a premium only "benefit".

[@blaacksugar7714]

An important rule of drug dealing: First one's free.

[@reinhardt3090]

And this is one of the many reasons I will happily use AdBlock.

[@sticksbender4057]

Another note, you can actually trick your iPhone into playing KZbin videos with the screen locked without premium.

[@antonyduhamel1166]

​@@sticksbender4057You can do this on Android as well.

[@flaturiah]

I was there when that happened, iirc was washing dishes

[@pantsdraws]

my breaking point was the minute that youtube introduced two 15 second unskippable ads in a row. i can understand a 30 second ad that i can skip in 5 seconds but having to sit for half a minute and have my intelligence insulted by ads that aren't for me was the last straw

[@cbsGD]

frrr

[@ShinsHandle]

Mine was the same, but they'd put them on videos that aren't even as long as the ad itself.

[@articulated_clavicles]

@@ShinsHandlesame. wanted to watch a 10 second video and youtube tried to put me through 30 seconds of ads. i gave up

[@ChronomancerDe]

That was the same for me.

[@ssisnake]

I had this happen on a minute and fifteen second video, the ads were almost the same length as the actual video.

[@sealsealin9959]

The moment I have been shown badly censored porn as an ad, that was the tipping point for me. I didn't mind it personally since I could close the browser tab and just be done for the day, but considering the fact that I have been mostly using Incognito mode when it came to that sort of thing which SHOULD probably block any cookies/data that would try to specifically target me, I grew wary of the potential ads could have on those underaged. I have lived through the Wild Wild age of the internet long enough to take the necessary steps to avoid malware, shocking content or other blasphemies, but what about today's children that are basically given birth into a whole new digital world? What about said drug abusers who try to defeat their addiction, but ads are specifically trying to break them? Or simply just small inconveniences like looking at videos on KZbin on the bus without a headset and you get the most vile and deranged ad that clearly has been heard by others around? I do think another factor that made me do it is the fact that most ads are extremely psychologically intrusive. Every brand must come up with the perfect catch phrase, the perfect logo, the perfect marketing that wont let you sleep at night, dreaming only about Pepsi's derangedly made logo for example. Trying to continuously one up the latest ad in a way that make them hard for the eyes. Ever since I got Brave and other ad blocking services, I am happy. At the end of the day, I probably save up to 1 hour of ads if I were to run my own damn music playlist without an active adblocker. Its pure insanity to guilt trip the people that bring you the profit.

[@addicted2mako]

My breaking point was getting an ad in the middle of a meditation video. No better way to throw me into a state of irritation than ear-blasting me with product shilling when I'm just starting to relax

[@mjetektman9313]

To be honest, adblockers nowadays are basically a requirement for web browsing since web became so bloated and full of spam that sometimes your PC will struggle to open a website like it was a AAA PC game

[@RmFrZQ]

I've felt that way two decades ago. Web was a garbage pit back then and it gradually got worse and worse.

[@nvelsen1975]

I'm happy with my $ 600 new graphics card, so I can watch the ads on a website again and actually open it at all.

[@punknerdvee]

Fucking this.

[@vorpal22]

As any content distributor, when you know that 90%+ of the data retrieved for your page is ads, you should know that nobody is going to use your page without adblocking.

[@vorpal22]

@@RmFrZQThe ads were competing with the ads for our attention. It was reminiscent of those garish 90s webpages that used scrolling marquees and flashing fonts just because they could and it was a novelty that was "fun." Unlike actual content distributors, advertisers never learned that nobody finds that fun.

[@superlynx98]

To be honest, it was over 10 years ago that I first installed an ad blocker, so I can't actually remember what the "final straw" was... But seeing how much worse it's gotten now, I'm so glad I got in when I did

[@LoganHunter82]

Yeah. I've been using adblock also something like 10 years now. To me, breaking point was when there began to be something like 10 ads in a 10 minute video. And unskippable ads.

[@sayingnigromakesyoutubecry2647]

Same

[@RandomPerson964]

At least fifteen years for me (2008-ish). I was 12 or 13 at the time. Since I now have money to buy things myself, I've come to prefer outright buying the media I consume and I've been paying for KZbin premium for a few years.

[@barritoothy]

@@RandomPerson964 4k video downloader + ad blocker = youtube premium

[@SimuLord]

I've been on the Internet for so long (stretching all the way back to the 1990s) that my earliest experience was the "dot-com boom" era Internet, when everything was fly-by-night and my base assumption became "if they're advertising on the Internet, they're a scammer, guaranteed." So when ad blockers were invented, I got one, and that mentality's followed me all the way to 2023. And I'm not so sure the assumptions of today are any less valid than they were in 1998. The Internet is a wretched hive of scum and villainy and if there's an advertisement that's not from a well-established brand in the offline space, it's still more likely than not to be a scam.

[@simonphoenix3789]

yeah there is no way I plan on paying for youtube premium, not when they have such disgusting policies like censorship of comments and channels that have interesting content. I am rather hopeful that such a move by youtube would give the space needed for another video hosting website to grow in popularity and replace youtube, or at least offer a viable alternative.

[@fnglert]

My breaking point was ads mid video. I'd be grooving to a song and get interrupted by ads.

[@LogeenthLive]

KZbin finally forced me to take my adblocker off, and suddenly I found myself inundated by gambling ads, video game ads with questionable marketing, and flat out 'get rich quick' webinar ads. And KZbin wonders why I even had adblocker in the first place.

[@KevinBower-gy5be]

No affiliation - but the AdBlocker Ultimate (free download on Firefox) extension fixes it. They have firgured a way to bypass YT's anti-adblock. Make 100% sure any other adblockersyou have are either turned off, or set to whitelist YT.

[@goodnightmyprince6734]

I feel like a sucker for having premium

[@thunkjunk]

You using FireFox? There are blockers which still work and there is even a KZbin video explaining how to keep your blockers up to date.

[@oliviermarcoux9675]

SO. MANY. WEED. ADS. i dont even smoke weed bro im just in the age range theyre marketing not to mention im pretty sure its illegal to buy from somewhere other than the government

[@choronos]

OP, there are ways to get around KZbin's adblocker detection. It takes a little bit of effort and some research, but it's not difficult.

[@bad_bau]

My breaking point for Adblocker was when KZbin started playing multiple ads every ad roll. My breaking point for Sponsorblocker was the Established Titles fiasco immediately followed by a bunch of creators accepting BetterHelp sponsorships again.

[@jimbob5891]

Better help is a scam? I've gotten their ads, never looked into them.

[@muenstercheese]

@@jimbob5891 yeah, they have terrible conditions for their contractors and shitty privacy/service for users

[@boianko]

I have just realized that trusting sponsors is never a good idea, especially if it's some general service and not a niche ad that conforms to what the channel advertising it is actually about. If a movie review channel is telling where to get my razors, or a cooking channel is telling me that I should buy a novelty plot of land, more likely than not they just took some money and didn't bother to look into what they're actually advertising.

[@ariabritton9669]

lol i hated betterhelp before i knew this. fuck all advertisers

[@SomeplaceScary]

It feels like every single podcast I follow is doing betterhelp sponsorships and its 🙃

[@olliem890]

I used to fall asleep listening to youtube videos I had already watched, and the amount of times had to skip an ad was unbelievable. Also, the time where I woke up to a 10 minute ad

[@D4mnTh4tsBig]

My tipping point for installing an adblocker was the first time I saw an ad in the middle of the video. I was so shocked I actually screenshotted it.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

My breaking point was when Google removed "Don't be evil" as their corporate slogan and Facebook had the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Seemed like the morally correct thing to do to cost these companies as much money as possible.

[@nashaigra8973]

We have 0 adds in Russia. Maybe use VPN for it? I dont really know if that works but mb give this a try

[@CodaCoda9]

Your are also hurting the content creators though. And sure mr beast won’t notice, but tons of small content creators need those views.

[@nashaigra8973]

@@CodaCoda9 I mean i aint hurting anyone, they gave me that and i took it. If some1 does Utube as a job idc about them

[@shadesoftime]

Worst of all, google still gets profit from you, because not only do they show ads, but they also collect your data and you physically can't stop them from doing most of it since the data they collect is what videos you watched and stuff like that

[@CodaCoda9]

@@nashaigra8973 why don’t you care about people that do KZbin?

[@diamondinvr]

The cracks started with the double unskippable ads, but my breaking point was mid-roll ads. Nothing I love more than watching a gameplay video and having it abruptly interrupted by something I literally couldn't care less about

[@dustinrichardson6533]

mid-syllable too. and now there's 2 of them. Every 5 minutes. And then an ad at the end of the video. And it'll play another 2 when you click on the next video you want to watch. Did I mention that 3 of those ads were the same clip, and one of them was just a longer version of the same ad that was skippable? And that there's a ~40% chance that those ads were for a political candidate (60% if it's an election year)? And one was in spanish, even though you aren't anywhere near fluent in it? Bonus points when you're cleaning or doing chores around the house and it just plays a casual, 15-minute ad for a church that is almost definitely a cult and you're so numb to the ads that it takes you a full 3 minutes to realize what's going on.

[@hbalint1000]

Not to mention how even mid-roll ads were shown to you as tiny yellow bars before so you could at least prepare to be interrupted but they had to take that away as well.

[@soupcangaming662]

@@dustinrichardson6533 and 70% them is just TikTok.

[@soupcangaming662]

@@hbalint1000 And then take away dislikes. And then take away comments. And then take away videos. And then take your computer. And then take away your family. And then kill you, and use your brain for robotic personalization experiments whilst forcibly overthrowing the US government to create a dictatorship and start a nuclear war. Okay, I made most of that shit up.

[@raymondwiggins354]

Midroll ads are a lot like popup (keeps trying to autocorrect to popular) ads, the most annoying form of advertisment. Ads like old spice (specifically terry crews) are pretty good, but so many youtube ads are stupid, inappropriate, and/or boring.

[@benoitbergeron8858]

The tolerance of my fellow men to ads is something that I will never understand.

[@michaelchen2718]

This is one of the most well-made videos I have ever watched. Props to you.

[@raphaeldagamer]

The major issue I take with KZbin banning ad blockers is that the platform does not moderate the advertisements, and they are trying to make it a violation of the TOS to moderate ads. I hope this goes crazy and makes it to the supreme court where it will then become illegal to block ad blockers in any capacity, including in a mobile app. Google can afford to lose ad revenue from KZbin. Content creators might not be able to afford that loss. This is just going to become KZbin trying to outsmart the room for their own profit and ending up ruining it for everyone.

[@havenbastion]

When the information reaches your device it's no longer their business. That's the real evil. They want to control your device, not their site.

[@LoLFilmStudios]

What are you on about? KZbin because intolerable with ads years ago. Pay.

[@v.k.8153]

I dunno which supreme court you mean, but the US Supreme Court would *NEVER* side with consumers over corporations.

[@Spacecoreinspace]

​@@v.k.8153 yeah, they'd more than likely completely ruin the chance, despite adblockers being on the client's side of the things, which the provider of the service should NOT be able to tamper with in any way shape or form unless it's sending malicious feedback to the server i could see the eu maybe putting pressure on them, and forcing them to back off of it, but even that's unlikely

[@SimuLord]

The Supreme Court in the US isn't going to rule in favor of any consumer-friendly business practice. It's a stacked court. Even if Congress tried to pass the EU privacy laws practically word-for-word, the court would probably strike it down as soon as advertisers or tech companies sued.

[@negativearchitecture]

I started using adblockers when websites became genuinely unusable without them. Like, to the point where you were 100% going to get a virus if you clicked around a website enough times. All the excessive & incessant ads annoy me enough but all the straight-up malicious/dangerous ads out there were my breaking point.

[@thoopsy]

Oh yeah, I got a computer virus once because of wanting to download a foreign song. It's terrible.

[@Anolaana]

It's coming full circle back around to the 2002 days where there were popups everywhere. Now they're just implemented with CSS lightboxes and stuff that try and nab you when you tab away from the page and stuff.

[@Zoey--]

Fun fact I've not had a single virus since installing adblock. Not had one in over 15 years!

[@chinsaw2727]

@@Zoey-- What do you use?

[@ElJosher]

@@chinsaw2727on computers, ublock origin is top of the line.

[@sivaindraneeldhulipala2282]

This somehow feels like a great university lecture on ad-blockers. Great job man!

[@armyforlife3191]

It should be illegal to not be able to use adblockers. It’s insane that they give you the ultimatum of watching KZbin free (forced to watch ads) or having to pay KZbin Premium (where you can go ad-free)

[@wombatillo]

The idea that skipping or muting ads is 'theft' is ludicrous but this is what we get when intellectual property rights have been normalized as if they were completely analogous to physical property rights.

[@fss1704]

Yeah, unless you talk about buying something and keeping, then they reserve the right to be digital and delete the stuff you paid for from your device because it was removed from the store.

[@majbloodnok]

Especially when they are serving those ads over your mobile data connection, many of which have data caps on them. Yes, you are actually paying for that unstoppable advert to be transferred to and played on your mobile device.

[@sazikanebaldimor2386]

i used to switch channels when TV got ads and try to switch back in time to the program when ads where finished 😅. most of the time it worked

[@sazikanebaldimor2386]

@@ithecastic Thanks for telling me about the spelling error. i think i missed the point where they synced up. im not watching tv since somewhat around 20 years. got bored of the content, moved to the internet.

[@fovarberma752]

"Intellectual Property Rights" is the reason Star Wars Episode 7-9 are so bad while fan-made content manage to remain awesome. It has the same effect everywhere.

[@Catonator]

My breaking point was about 10 years ago. I was living in a rural area and my internet was terrible. KZbin was beginning to have an issue with 10-hour unskippable garbage ads due to their new ad serving platform, and ads would just generally be forced to play at higher resolutions than my internet could support. I got adblock and it literally saved me money by triggering my bandwidth limit less often.

[@MutleeIsTheAntiGod]

Always found it funny when I was on a limited plan and they'd serve an HD video for an ad before my 240p music video

[@mr.voidout4739]

Daaaamn, that sucks. I'm eternally grateful to my friend for introducing me to firefox and adblockers when I got my first comp. I still remember an internet plastered with ads, but I've never experienced a single YT ad (on my own comp of course.) They block adblock, I google a 20x more talented coder that can write script that not only blocks ads, but outright disables them. You still have the embedded ads, but at least you don't have an experience akin to trying to enjoy a walk in a park while "salesmen" rush at you and wave their peddlings in your face.

[@Ratigan2]

I like your pfp, it reminds me of nimbat

[@HeadacheCentral]

My mom's laptop was generally slow as it was and ads would just slow it to an even slower crawl. Shit like this wouldn't have benefited anyone.

[@SebineLifeWind]

I love the mobile "feature" where your video starts muted and the ads don't. Just refresh until your video says CLICK TO UNMUTE.

[@swolecole8899]

I view ads as the modern door to door salesman, they have the right to knock and ask if you wanna buy something and you have the right to slam the door in their face. They cant stick their foot in the door and try to convince you, and youtube cant tell me i cant use adblock.

[@w.d.g.]

A 59 minute ad came up, I paused it and screen captured it, and I’ve always kept that as a reminder. I was just trying to watch a 10 or 15 minute educational video on how to build stuff. On KZbin. The ad was trying to sell me alcohol and I’m very against drugs and alcohol. My dad died young of liver cancer, a drunk. I hate alcoholics, but not as much as alcohol.

[@hilmiylmaz527]

i used youtube without adblock for years, my breaking point was the time when i was watching a 3 hour gameplay video and there were double unskippable ads every five minutes.

[@ghb323]

2 15-seconds. Yeah actually 30 seconds.

[@new_simsons]

Yep, same. I was watching a long video where a KZbinr played bad games. The video was divided by chapters. Each chapter was 1 game and about 5 minutes. EVERY SINGLE TIME A CHAPTER ENDED AN UNSKIPPABLE AD APPEARED. Now I'm considering installing an ad blocker. Might be too late tho.

[@katiehesse6578]

@@new_simsons I switched to Firefox, ublock origin works well on desktop and mobile

[@scalylayde8751]

only health and safety psas should be allowed to be unskippable, I think

[@new_simsons]

Now I installed a bunch of extensions including an ad blocker (AdBlock) and I'm much more happy

[@Halvorwin]

I think the funniest thing of this whole ordeal is that KZbin quite literally is the REASON a lot of people use adblocker programs across the entire internet. Their ad practices have been down right terrible for years now.

[@MegaLokopo]

Why not pay for premium then? Does youtube not provide a service that is worth %45 of whatever premium costs now?

[@yankotliarov9239]

​@@MegaLokopobecause a) you still need ad blocker for other sites that run google ads. B) premium still gives worse experience than YT Revanced and adblocker

[@piljara]

@@MegaLokopo this is a very difficult question to answer and it's pointless to even talk about. youtube is used all over the globe, in many third/second world countries where it absolutely is not worth it to pay for premium. a lot of the first world already pays for premium. the people who dislike youtube as a company are always going to find workarounds to not have to pay.

[@MegaLokopo]

@@piljara KZbin premium is priced lower in those countries. If you don't like youtube as a company, why would you use youtube?

[@ILoveCatsYippee.]

@@MegaLokopo i dont believe in subscription based services period. the ONLY service I have is Spotify, and that is because THAT, something that i stream for 16 hours a day, is worth $5 (student) a month to me. I watch KZbin while I eat and for something on the side if I'm playing a boring game, it isn't worth it for me to pay for premium

[@pencilonpaper1026]

A big thing that made me get adblock for youtube is asmr videos. I sleep to them pretty much every night and alot of creators are thankfully considerate and either put the ads at the beginning of the video or the end of a long one or no ads at all. Still, it was frustrating having my volume relatively high, about to fall asleep, and an ear bleeding ad playing. Also the rampant scam ads and ads with flashing since I'm epileptic.

[@NeurodiverJENNt]

I am so glad I watched this video... I had not heard someone describe the Cobra effect prior to this which feels astounding to me because it's concept is something we see in everyday life everywhere we look!!!!! In government, in ecosystems, in a lot of people led interventions... Anyway on the KZbin subscription, I personally have it and would never get rid of it because one huge benefit it offers is allowing me to play KZbin videos without having my phone screen on as well as the widget feature that allows me to watch or listen to KZbin while doing other things on my phone. So it's not just getting rid of ads.

[@danhatman3538]

The thing that bothered me most about ads is how often they're much louder than the source material. Like 1.5 -3x louder than my actual playlist. Scared the hell out of me

[@hatti...]

Pair that with the fact that ads often have the most annoying, obnoxious sounds and music. It completely kills any mood or train of thought you got going on

[@aperson6821]

One thing that really annoyed me was being forced ads to watch in HD, when I was using KZbin at 144p for audio-only purposes. I was often running other programs on my laptop which made the ads cause a lot of lag, and it just became unbareable.

[@ChronomancerDe]

Jeah Ads just forcing max Resolution is just insanity. Best example is when using mobile data and like video:360p Ad:1080p

[@kewlkidsklub4207]

Absolutely agree, before I upgraded to 40g of data I only had like 3 gigs, I refused to watch KZbin with it because half my data would be used just loading and watching ads at max resolution, despite watching my videos as 240p.

[@norrecvizharan1177]

On the flipside, I've been on tows far out into mountainous/foresty areas where the connection's more spotty than usual, and I've noticed that for some reason, the ads have a far faster load time than the actual videos themselves. I mean, it still struggles out there, but it's like a 10 second average load time versus a half a minute or more, give or take. So it's as if they straight up give advertisements bonus data priority or somethin.

[@ethribin4188]

This also. Especially when i was on the way and paying for every MB. I dispised adds, as they cost me not only time but also money

[@viiltelijamurhaaja7225]

@@norrecvizharan1177 Or maybe they have less ads than videos so they can process them into smaller file? Dont know

[@lizharmon3451]

Awesome video! I have been hounded by this for about a month now. My breaking point came when a simple 15 minute video included more than 15 minutes of regular ads, and often also included those half hour infomercials to boot. I have been forced to reboot and c-clean my computer at least once a day to stop this you-tube ad from blocking my videos from playing. This is a sleazy way to drum up business and has become the most annoying pop-up I have encountered since I installed ad-blocker.

[@Neitism]

As the IT-Guy of my family, I explain cybersecurity, Spam, fishing etc. quite often. And recently this topic came up. The german law is luckily rather direct in this case as you stated. My parents are not bad in using Computers, just lack the what feels like sometimes very extensive knowledge how to "properly" move in the internet. And when a big website like youtube says stuff like what you do is wrong, they dont question it. So one could make the claim that this ad block-block, is straight out predatory towards less tech savvy people.

[@seronimo__7735]

My breaking point was when KZbin started demonetizing all of the video essays from multiple creators I watched. They gave no reason, so it was obvious that some trolls had just started reporting everything. This was after they'd started demonetizing song covers, music tutorial videos, you name it. They also put ads on channels who had previously made a point about using no ads (such as Bill Wurtz). If none of the creators I watched were gaining anything from the ads I watched, I wasn't going to watch them.

[@bmprimer7809]

video essays are so good man, do you watch jacob geller?

[@napalmchicken]

The "enough is enough" point for me were ads that prevented my ability to even view or interact with the content. Like I would be reading a news article, and suddenly a new car drives across the screen. Also, where the appearing and disappearing of ads means that when I'm trying to click on something, the thing I wanted to click on is suddenly in a different place and I click on something totally random.

[@havenbastion]

Look up the definitions of contempt and disdain. That's exactly how we're being treated, as though our interests are beneath concern, even beneath notice.

[@OrdericNeustry]

That's why I ended up getting an adblocker on my phone. Went to a site where the the search bar was in a small pop-up and the ad beneath that made it impossible for me to actually select the search bar.

[@cericat]

Ugh I forgot that, at one point I had to enable an ad blocker on YT because their ads kept breaking the videos for me, sucks I wasn't alone with that sort of experience.

[@starfish258852]

The intro statement made me wanting to sub to you for the transparency alone.

[@Toby-rl8sg]

Excellent video! When KZbin began bombarding with multiple ads after and during every single video I needed an adblocker!

[@thebearded4427]

The breaking point for me was when i realized i spent more time watching ads to see if the video was decent than i was actually watching content. Ironically this was made even worse when the dislike button change was implemented

[@ceilingfan12345]

That's a big part of the reason why the dislike button change was implemented

[@RazorM97]

KZbin seeing vanced including features users like: 👎 KZbin removing dislikes and stopping addblockers to get revenue for YT premium, ignoring everyone and taking a politically biased stance:👍

[@Denastus]

ReturnKZbinDislikes is pretty good.

[@stitches768]

Exactly, I only watch videos I've watched dozens of times before. I mean I used to for drawing and other multitasking but at this point it's just for my sanity

[@TheGravityShifter]

@@Denastus It's basically a necessity if you can get it.

[@milantoth6246]

My breaking point was when youtube simultaneously introduced unskippable ads longer than 5 seconds while also introducing double ads. I still think it’s ridiculous.

[@foxesofautumn]

They wants you annoyed enough to go premium. It reeks of blackmail.

[@SOTP.]

i remember at one point i had a glitched unskippable 2 minute ad

[@trevorwylie5882]

my breaking point was when youtube started playing and flashing ads beside the video i was watching did not mind either the ad shown before before the video.

[@norwegianguy]

KZbin bringing these made me change from a lifelong Chrome to Firefox, it's probably the best transition i've ever had.

[@marikastewpit3132]

I know I am five months late to the party, but I wanted to thank you for a fun and thought provoking video about slightly controversial subject made with tasteful approach. You even went as far to put in a disclaimer at the start to warn audience about your own biases and potential misrepresentation of facts. If only everyone was doing that. To answer your "question of the day" - it was the same as majority of youtube users: ads became too many and too intrusive. More specifically, one day I was searching for a specific version of a song I wanted to listen to while working on my personal little project. I could not remember which artist made that specific remix, so I had to try clicking on several videos with the song name just to check if it is the version I want to listen to or not. The idea being, I will just quickly click through several of them until I find the one I like in a minute or two. But of course, every single click on the video resulted in double unskippable ad which I had to sit through despite not even knowing if I am really going to watch/listen to the video in the first place. After watching eight obnoxious commercials for the sake one song I snapped, yelled some obscene and extremely rude words at my poor monitor, temporarily abandoned my project and started researching ways to shut down the ads for good. I knew about Premium but in my anger that was the last option I would ever consider, way behind abandoning youtube altoghether. Although it is on me for not remembering the name of the artist, the conflict happened directly as the result of advertisements becoming too aggressive and intrusive. As for the points you make in the video, one that deserves highlighting is: (addressing a fictional top manager responsible for youtube's revenue and marketing) Make better product! Look at Netflix/Spotify model. Make the Premium itself THE best adblocker, plus some extra cool features specific to KZbin that adblockers can't provide - and suddenly you will have users willing to pay. Right now you want money for services that are commonly offered free, and you are surprised that people are fighting you. You shouldn't be guilt tripping users or issue warnings to them, you should be improving your service to the point they willingly come to you with their money.

[@deadbody1877]

my breaking point was when KZbin thought it was a good idea to shove 8 adds in a 10 minute video and fandom making adds take up half the screen

[@Prodawg]

Mine was when 15 second ads could randomly be unskipable, so basically forever

[@Content_Deleted]

Fandom's ads on mobile are unforgivable.

[@fireworkstarter]

yea i dontg understand fandom doing that since now i justy look for another wiki i am ableto use on my phone. its not like i am going to watch thier ign/watch mojo style videos

[@lizzard96]

oh my god yea fandom's website is absolutely unbearable on both mobile and desktop without an adblocker at this point. I have an old-ish PC because I can't afford a newer one and trying to open a fandom page without adblock enabled usually results in Chrome warning me to close the page again as it is taking up too much system memory 💀

[@RAFMnBgaming]

Fandom is the worst website. I'm glad at least some wikis are left that don't use it.

[@astra_not]

My breaking point for using an ad blocker was when I got an unskippable 30 minute ad before a five minute video. It’s basically impossible to use the internet without one these days.

[@sydneygorelick7484]

What the fuck, that has to be a typo. 30 minute unskippable?? You've gotta be kidding!

[@bigdadbeefsticks]

YES! This happened to me and I was absolute baffled. Thankfully I could still do the ad skip work around by hitting the little i icon and saying I didn't wanna see that ad anymore, but it's crazy that I even got that ad to begin with. You can't even use the workaround for some half of the ads now.

[@walters9620]

@@sydneygorelick7484 i had a few of those. your content will play after this ad and then its a damn 20 minute ad for utter bullsh@t

[@norml.hugh-mann]

Yet all you have to do is pay for the services

[@deathwingterminator2786]

I have gotten that too and worse yet, you know the thing in the bottom left corner that appears and tells you how many adds you have left? Yeah it said "1 out of 5" ads

[@simonphoenix3789]

The reason I started using adblockers was because of how intrusive the ads on youtube are. Many videos have ads every few minutes or an ad to view a video that is just a few minutes long. Its completely not worth it. If I didn't have adblocker, I simply wouldn't view those videos at all.