YouTube Ads and The Cobra Effect

[Blackleaf]

Paradoxically, it seems that YouTube attempting to crack down on ad-blockers can actually hurt their revenue for several reasons. For instance, attempting to force users to stop using ad-blockers just forces users to innovate, finding new ways around it. If people using ad-blockers are forced to turn them off, then the platform will experience an influx of users who will not engage with ads (no clicking on the ads, muting the app until the ads done, etc), which makes those ad spaces appear less valuable to the companies paying for them.

Additionally, YouTube fails to recognize why people choose to use ad-blockers in the first place. There is absolutely no quality control for YouTube ads. They promote malware, they often include sexual content that would ironically get a YouTube video demonitized for showing it, and they've become annoyingly frequent. It started as one ad at the beginning of the video. Now it's two ads at the beginning, several ads sprinkled throughout the middle, and two ads at the end of the video, which people only watch because they can't tell that the video is over. People are willing to tolerate some ads, but YouTube is just obnoxious with theirs.

...It also doesn't help that their content creators make basically nothing off of their ads, so I feel absolutely no shame in blocking it. Even the big YouTubers make their money off of merch and/or subscribers, and I often hear them joke about getting their twelve cent checks from YouTube. By the time a content creator gets past the algorithm that randomly flags videos for demonitization, the scam companies that false flag videos for using content they don't even own, the actual companies that own the thing the video is about and has never heard of fair use before, and all the other hoops they have to jump through, they're left with basically nothing. Which is why many don't even bother, just promote their Patreon, and hope YouTube doesn't give them a bullshit strike on a ten-year-old video and take down their channel for no apparent reason.

[Dark Lightning]

Haven't had a problem with viewing music videos on youtube, yet. If that happens, the little I visit youtube will dwindle to zero.