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by caconym_ 970 days ago
Another true entitlement is adblock users complaining that YouTube is greedy, etcetera, now that they're actually kicking said users off their site. You (in the general sense) are certainly not responsible for making YouTube's business work, but by a similar token they are certainly not under any obligation to continue serving data to users who don't generate any revenue.
2 comments

> by a similar token they are certainly not under any obligation to continue serving data to users who don't generate any revenue

Sure. Let's see them return HTTP 402 Payment Required instead of a free video stream then. I'm actually okay with that.

Somehow I doubt they'll ever do that. They want that mass market appeal, don't they? I know it. You know it. Everyone knows it. Just like the "free" apps who do anything in the world to get themselves installed so they can start monetizing.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. By all accounts, YouTube is implementing countermeasures that block adblock users from watching videos on their site. What is functionally different between that and returning a 402, especially since you can in fact pay for ad-free YouTube?
Nope. Still free, they just managed to circumvent my browser extension. They're not even supposed to know I have it installed.

They need to either start charging everyone for access or stop complaining. I pay for access to a lot of things but I'm not paying money to avoid ads. I sure as hell am not gonna pay money to watch videos with hard coded ads.

> They need to either start charging everyone for access or stop complaining. I pay for access to a lot of things but I'm not paying money to avoid ads.

Then don't. It's fine. However please don't complain about not being able to get access to the content on Youtube without paying or watching ads.

> I sure as hell am not gonna pay money to watch videos with hard coded ads.

That's up to the content creators, not Youtube. Very few of my subscribed channels use hard-coded apps and if they do they need to make up for it with worthwhile content.

> please don't complain

I don't complain. If I see an ad I just close the tab. uBlock Origin and yt-dlp is the only reason I watch stuff on YouTube at all.

> That's up to the content creators, not Youtube.

Their business relationships are not my concern. I'm not paying to watch ads. Maybe YouTube should implement their own Sponsor Block system for the benefit of their paying customers.

> Nope.

What part of my comment, specifically, is this responding to?

> They need to either start charging everyone for access or stop complaining.

Why?

> What part of my comment, specifically, is this responding to?

The notion that detecting our adblocker and actually charging for content are equivalent.

> Why?

Because if they send us ads we'll delete them and there is pretty much nothing they can do about it.

> The notion that detecting our adblocker and actually charging for content are equivalent.

Well then maybe you meant to respond to somebody else, because that's not something I said at any point.

> Because if they send us ads we'll delete them and there is pretty much nothing they can do about it.

This entire HN thread and the linked article are about how they are literally doing something about it, and it's working.

Convenient lack of mention of the content creators in these threads where people just complain about Youtube corporation.
Content creators have other revenue streams these days. The ones I enjoy have quite the following on Patreon and other such platforms. Unlike ads, those are perfectly ethical ways to make money and I wish them all the success in the world. They don't even require copyright to work since they don't depend on artificial scarcity.