Inside the ‘arms race’ between YouTube and ad blockers / Against all odds, open source hackers keep outfoxing one of the wealthiest companies.::YouTube’s dramatic content gatekeeping decisions of late have a long history behind them, and there’s an equally long history of these defenses being bypassed.
A question for the tech savy, free alternatives to youtube like newpipe relies on youtube servers to access content, right? I mean, if youtube were to disappear magically we wouldn’t have a palce where to upload and store so many Gb of videos?
Am I missing something (I know I’m probably missing a lot!)? Thanks in advance for the replies!
newpipe is just a client for accessing youtubes servers, yes, so if youtube went away we would need to use vimeo or something else (maybe peertube, open source yt alternative?)
Thank you! Who pays for vimeo/peertube hosting costs though?
Vimeo is a private operation just like YouTube.
Peertube is a “federated” system where videos are hosted among the computers of the people who upload videos.
There really needs to be a way to seed peertube videos without leaving the window open. A firefox extension even. They have extensions that do bittorrent, it shouldn’t be hard. Videos could end with a “click here to seed this video” message
Yeah I was really surprised when I started looking into it that there’s no “remote bandwidth runners” option. Although I think Peertube’s devs may be just starting to think about that kind of thing since they just added support for remote transcode runners
Thanks!
Open source Hackers FTW!
Please donate and keep Open Source as it is
I always wondered why YouTube doesn’t stream the ad intermixed into the video? Like, it’s DASH, right? How does that work, can’t the server send a video then switch to another stream source (the ad) and back?
Switching stream sources is the most easy detectable form of ads. Also the most easily blocked, simple dns blocking will suffice.
That’s interesting info, thanks!
Because YouTube doesn’t want you to skip ads? If the ad was just another part of the show, you would just fast forward past the ad.
Well obviously seeking would be disabled during those ads. But maybe that’s not preventable.
Then ad blockers could use this information to know which part of the video is the ad and block it again.
😏👏 Excellent
I’m on Linux and use Firefox with ghostery and AdBlock extensions. I’ve got hit with the “must watch ads to play video” thing on YouTube, but just end up activating a user agent extension and set it to report that I’m “running chrome on windows 10”. Voila. I can magically watch YouTube videos without ads again.
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Serious question: what is the best add blocker right now? I’ve been using ublock origin, but it doesn’t seem to be working that well these days.
Vinegar + SponsorBlock on iOS/iPadOS/MacOS.
thank you for recommending vinegar, it is incredible
I apologize for my strongopinion but I believe yours is misguided or similar. Ublock origin is objectively the best ad blocker , they are an extremely talented team, dedicated and have been for a long long time.
The enemy is getting stronger, not the defense not working well.
:)
Thanks!
Hell yeah brother
Apparently you need to clear the plugin’s cache semi-regularly.
As sometimes it won’t update itself as fast.
That makes sense. Thanks for the advice!
ublock origin by far. Just refresh the filter list every now and then.
To be absolutely sure no one gets this wrong - uBlock Origin is what you want. Not just uBlock.
To be even absolutelier sure no one gets this wrong - use uBlock Origin on Firefox (or one of it’s forked versions) because every other Browser runs chromium under it’s hood which heavily restricts ad blocking abilities
Add no-script to the mix and you are golden. On mobile I use adguard to filter ads from pretty much every single app and website. As soon as I can figure out a couple of things bothering me with FF mobile I’ll be moving over to it with extensions.
Pls consider editing and making it unlock origin. They are different and someone who won’t know better will get the wrong one :)
Done. Thanks for lmk
uBlock-Origin on Firefox.
Counterpoint… Invidious…
I throw all my links into piped if I’m on desktop, no need to have an additional sponsorblock or RYD extension that way
Against all odds
lol someone hasn’t been paying attention to how this stuff generally works…
Against all odds? This is a game that’s been going on for year, hacker vs Corp, and the hacker always wins. Same shit as anticheat in games, it’s a constant arms race but the hacker is nearly always a step ahead.
Got this too couple of times, all I did was F5 and go on with my day. Nothing happened.
To me it seems weird that YouTuber is doing this at all. They should know that they can’t win, I doubt their CEO is that incompetent. Especially after all this time of wasted effort on their side to overpower a very small fraction of users who actually block ads online. Could it be to draw attention from something else that’s actually more worrying?
Because as an AdBlock user, since I bothered configuring them and using only ublock I haven’t had almost any popups and my experience, especially now on the later stages, is exactly like it was before the ban.
I can’t help but think there’s more to this because they can’t be wasting resources, further damage their reputation and risk absolute monopoly on video platforms for a fruitless endeavor.
Even if YouTube isn’t profitable by itself, which, given the user data harvesting and the ads I definitely doubt, google still is. I’d appreciate any takes on this because it’s been bugging me for a while now.
There’s no need to look for conspiracies when the truth is simple enough. Current YouTube CEO Neal Mohan was senior vice president of display and video ads at Google. Ads has been his wheelhouse for quite awhile.
Could be but it’s such a bad short term solution that I can’t help but think there’s a little more. Look at the other replies, they have some interesting perspectives on the matter.
Google = biggest advertising company in the world
Youtube = biggest money drain for Google
Adblock = a direct obstacle to the longterm feasibility of Google’s ability to ever reconcile the money drain against their primary product (advertising) and end up in the black
The current state of Youtube’s profitability is a long way off mattering for anything. For all it costs to run, it can be sustained indefinitely without much issue. This will remain the case until Youtube advertising reaches saturation. Given how much stuff like TV ads still cost, we can safely say this is still a long way off, regardless of the potential rise of competing platforms.
The landscape of youtube & adblockers is unlikely to be the same then, and restrictive measures taken now aren’t really representative of what it’ll be like. The actions taken now are for 2 reasons: maintenance of consumer expectation, so that it doesn’t feel like site monetization is changed substantially when the money faucet gets switched on. And market research.
I have no doubt that a primary intent behind recent actions to do with delays or slowdowns was to measure the blowback, using it a yardstick for further actions not yet taken, which will eventually culminate in some action which actually meaningfully changes Youtube’s monetization. But this may not be for many years.
None of us here are really experiencing problems, we have only heard of them and are discussing them. When something new happens, you’ll hear “what else is new? they’ve done [something similar to] this many times before”, with those people ignoring that the historic actions were totally mitigated everytime. And in the process, we the vanguard of the internet keeping Google’s advertising monopoly restrained by engaging with adblockers, become conditioned to yield to advertising and a Google-controlled internet.
Because that’s the only way they can win. Barring serious pro-Google changes to privacy laws around the world, the ultimate means to force advertising simply isn’t available to them. Their best hope is to try and convince us that blocking ads is just too much of a hassle, ideally without ever actually making it so in a way that causes some mass migration away from Youtube. That’s not a hard line to tread
This is likely to be going on indeed. It’s just that the drm failed (for now), so maybe they are trying to get the next best thing? For the short term it surely isn’t but a long term goal in case the drm fails to be implemented again could be a reason for these experimental actions. It isn’t bad to have a plan b I guess.
Great response, thanks.
You look from a position of a tech-savvy user.
You know how Firefox is built different from Chrome. You know what Manifest V3 is. You know how Ublock Origin is different from other adblockers, etc.
The fact is, we are the minority. Most people would just keep using Chrome or Chromium-based browsers and won’t know any better. They’ll end up (and already end up) in a trap that’s super easy to escape, they just don’t plan to/don’t know how.
And for us Firefox geniuses they prepare quite a few surprises, like the recently found artificial delay of 5s when your user agent reports you use Firefox on some experimental users. This will drag on, and while we absolutely know what to do to fuck them up, normal users, who are the majority, don’t.
You look from a position of a tech-savvy user.
You give me too much credit, I mostly learn things by hanging around here lol. It’s not difficult to follow some instructions for a few simple things.
The fact is, we are the minority.
This is kind of my point, actually. Why go so far for a minority? As you say, most people won’t even try it because it’s too big a hassle, or so they think. Those who will, however, actively engage with their systems to maximize positive user experience. As such, to simply move the goal a few more clicks away won’t make give up, but instead fuel more of their aggression. This is why this whole story began in the first place. That’s why it’s a hilariously bad plan that I can’t help but question. AdBlockers are now better than before thanks to this whole mess, so watching YouTube get beaten at their own game so effortlessly makes me suspicious.
Or maybe the CEO is stupid lol, that’s also a possibility.
That already qualifies you as tech-savvy, lol. Going so deep as to know what Lemmy is is quite an accomplishment in itself. You don’t have to be an IT specialist, you should just know the most general details on what computer is and how it works instead of “magic box that runs YouTube” with latter being synonymous to “video”.
I reckon when Chrome fully switches to Manifest V3, most users won’t bother looking for alternatives - for them it’ll just be the end of an adblocking era. Then maaaaybe some of them will learn to switch. But very far from everyone.
Frankly, with the prevalence of adblocks everywhere, even on your grandma’s computer, this way YouTube can actually significantly increase the ad revenue.
They probably believed there were easy things they could do that wouldn’t result in an “arms race” that would net them a larger profit than the effort they put in. Once you promise x% more revenue they won’t let you take that back so they keep pushing.
Very possible
Anybody who thinks this is “against all odds” doesn’t understand the Internet very well.
YouTube can’t win this race when they don’t control the platform you’re viewing it on. You can always install ‘something’ to get around it.
The solution to that is to control the platform using Chrome, Android etc.
Twitch has increased their ad blocking techniques for the last 3 years or so. Twitch has been a lot more advanced and aggressive with their method. Yet, there are still ways to subvert the ads on twitch. If I didnt read lemmy, i wouldnt even know youtube was doing anything. I have just basic adblocking ublock
Although every once in a while, twitch will release a new technique and it might take 24 hours to solve.
You would be surprised how many people will just uninstall the ad blocker the third time YouTube isn’t working for 24 hours.
Every time YouTube or twitch make a change, a certain percentage of users give up, which means more revenue.
The reverse of this is every time I watch youtube without an ad blocker, their ads are SO obtrusive I go right back to “Nah fuck this, FUCK their ability to make money if this is how they go about it”
I have changed my programs because twitch won against its methods. I used to use alt twitch player to get around the ad system. The app creator didnt care to update anymore and twitch’s update broke the system.
All that did though was make me find alternative ways to ad block. If it came to it, if i was unable to block ads. I’d just never watch. Ads are usually full volume screaming at you, so its like an assault on you.
Either way, i think having more viewers is more important than getting an ad to EVERY watcher. IMO Youtube and twitch both lose money on offering their services to everyone. Some people will upload/stream to 0 viewers and i think that its like 50% of their creators. Thats a ton of wasted bandwidth and storage.
IMHO i think twitch could charge something like 3-5$ a month to broadcast a stream. Youtube could charge something like 10c an upload or something.
I get users needing to create content to grow viewerbase, but charge something extremely minimal to get back a little something.
I think you would see significantly less streamers if you did that and they need streamers equally as much as they need viewers.
I bet a lot of the current top streamers would have never given it a chance if they had to pay first.
More content creators are always good, but theres also people on there just wasting resources that will never be successful. Always stream to 0-2 people.
Idk, it’s a tough choice. Which is why they most likely would never use a pay to create style.
I think that’s a big part of why Google doesn’t fight (and in fact helps) the banking and streaming companies that want to lock down Android more. It’s harder to block ads if you can’t block them in the browser and can’t block them system wide via hosts file. (Yes you can use VPN + DNS, but it’s a lot more battery intensive.)
YouTube’s end game is baked in ads. There are streaming services that already do this so it’s not impossible. It would not surprise me one iota if YouTube isn’t working on this now.
Once this happens, I suspect that the last round of people that have been holding out to subscribe to premium will either cave and do so or people will simply abandon YouTube.
Baked in ads run counter to googles entire ad philosophy though, to say nothing of the technical challenges that poses. Googles big selling point right now is targeted ads where the ads they serve you are based on your activities that they’ve tracked. With baked in ads every viewer of that stream gets the same ads, so while they could traget ads based on the contents of the stream, they would no longer be able to target the ads at specific viewers.
There’s also the problem that baked in ads are in many ways actually easier to skip. There are already extensions like sponsorblock that can skip specific segments of videos, and if it’s not served as a separate stream it will be more difficult to give special treatment to the ad portion of the video.
This is completely wrong. You are serving video stream, you just substitute for the ad you would serve the user, at a randomized point in the video. YouTube doesn’t do this because they don’t want to reimplement the tracking and logging, but if it was financially necessary it wouldn’t be hard to do.
They would then also need to implement a new (and much less intuitive than 4m20s) way of referring to specific timestamps, since with ads at random points the timecode would be dynamically changing for each viewing.
I have some background in tech but admit I’m a long way out of touch now. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’re working on back end stuff to have personalised ads “baked in”. I know the resource implications of this are huge, but it still wouldn’t surprise me.
The resource implications are the problem. The cost - in terms of compute time - to bake those ads eats into the profit earned from advertising as a whole. Since only a fraction of users adblock, they would probably lose more money than they gained.
They’ll consider it once the compute cost inserting the ads is low enough that it’s worth it. I have no idea if we’ve reached that point yet, but I’m guessing not, since otherwise they’d already be doing it.
Most of the formats served by YouTube are already chunked, which means they can easily insert different chunks of video (ads, etc) at various points in the stream by changing the manifest. This is trivial, computationally. The complexity lies in building the mechanisms to make it work.
The non-chunked formats are only used by older devices, and are lower quality. Those would require re-encoding to change, but few users see them anyway, and those users probably don’t adblock.
Platforms can now insert ads directly into the manifest file into totally random timestamps. The file chunks’ names follow the same pattern as the original video. You cannot filter or prepare for it. Probably that will be the future. (AWS MediaConvert can do this for example.)
And they only create the manifest file upon starting the stream so you can inject personalized ads too.
I guess we will have to compare the last video frame and/or audio sample of every segment to the first frame and/or sample of the next segment or something like that?! Maybe the effects of “the loudness war” in ads will help us detect ads solely by the loudness change within the audiostream?
Baked in personalized ads aren’t impossible.
I can’t remember which streaming service it was (I want to say Tubi?) But they had baked in personalized ads. The technology isn’t far fetched and certainly possible with what youtube already has.
Sponsorblock only works on specific, known timed segments.
Say a video you want to watch has 8 places that YouTube can put up an ad (as determined by YouTube). Out of those 8 places, it decides to serve 5 ads. But the ads are of different lengths.
Sponsorblock can’t block those ads.
I’m not saying people won’t try but YouTube has all the information it needs to serve intrusive ads. And, I hate to say it, but they have the market dominance to pull the rug under premium subscribers feet because you know that in a year or two, they are going to start serving ads to those people too.
Sponsorblock only works on specific, known timed segments.
That’s not true though, sponsorblock is user reported, that’s why it works for sponsor segments and in-video ads of all lengths and locations in videos. If ads get baked into a video they can’t be taken out or changed, since that’s what getting “baked in” means in this context, and as soon as a single user reports the ad it will be blocked by sponsorblock for anyone who uses it. If it can be taken out or changed, then it’s not truly baked in and that can be exploited.
All they need to do is fuzz the time when the ad plays to defeat this.
The ads would be baked into the stream, not the source video. This is a fairly trivial problem, and I’m surprised they aren’t doing it already.
As soon as on user does it? Welcome, DoS attack!
Ah I think we have a different definition of “baked in”.
What I mean is that the video does not change urls or sources when playing the ad and the video. So it looks like an unbroken video feed but on the back end, YouTube added the video between the designated time frames.
I get what you mean that if ads never change and are forever in the video file then sponsorblock will continue to work. But I don’t think this is what YouTube will do.
If they make it in any way removable no matter which end its on then other people will be able to figure out how to remove it too.
But don’t they do that on their tv app already, that’s why DNS blockers don’t work? I’m pretty sure they serve targeted ads on the tv app.
Wouldn’t SponsorBlock be a way around this?
Platforms can now insert ads directly into the manifest file into totally random timestamps. The file chunks’ names follow the same pattern as the original video. You cannot filter or prepare for it. Probably that will be the future. (AWS MediaConvert can do this for example.)
Meh, download the vid, then have software figure out where the ads are. It’s possible.
Hell, even just present a button for the user to hit when an ad segment starts.
The only reason it hasn’t happened yet is because it is a fundamental change to the architecture of the platform, but will very much happen.
A lot of people are saying this isn’t possible, theyre wrong. It’s called “Server Side Ad Insertion (SSAI)” and tldr it places the ads directly in the video itself. One of the popular streaming services uses SSAI, another uses SGAI. Theyre both something the CDN must implement alongside the client.
The technical explanation: SSAI, at least with HLS, places the ad segments within the media playlist. This means there is no additional and easy to block call to the ad server to ask for ads (that’s Server Guided Ad Insertion, SGAI). SGAI places markers where ads need to go in the media playlist, and the client asks the server for some ads to place there.
There’s also CSAI which is fully client side (the client decides where to place ads and how many) but I’d like to doubt youtube uses this. Doesn’t seem very smart.
Even if, lets say, youtube baked the ads into the content segments, it wouldn’t solve anything. There will still be markers and metadata to find where they are (the client needs these to notify ad partners you watched the ad, and to display the yellow “ad” markers, and to display a timer) which can be used to skip them client-side with an extension.
Overall YouTube probably won’t win because there’s always something to do to bypass ads. Some methods are easier to bypass than others, but they’re all enforced client-side in the end. The only thing they could possibly do to have even a fraction of a chance would be to block you from getting the next content segments until the ad duration has passed in real-time. That’s a last resort, however, because that will likely hurt QoS and client stability. There’s a reason it isn’t already done. Don’t forget, also, the developers who work on this stuff don’t like ads either. Nobody is going out of their way to prevent ad blocking beyond what the execs want, and the execs don’t know what they want.
Do note that although I specify HLS there is likely little to no difference with other streaming tech, I just want to be clear about my experience.
If ads are inserted at random time stamps and the client reports the watched intervals, then the server doesn’t need to communicate which intervals are ads.
That could still be bypassed by building a library of ads in the ad blocker, then examining the video feed when an ad is encountered, looking it up in the DB, and automatically jumping ahead as many seconds as its expected duration, but that would be a substantially heavier operation than what uBlock Origin currently does.
It also wouldn’t enable forcing users to watch the ads, since the client wouldn’t know to enforce an unskippable segment from 1:38 to 2:08. And that’s probably the real reason it won’t be implemented - an executive probably has “must preserve these features” as a constraint, so an engineer wouldn’t even propose this feature to them.
Lololol it’s been like 2 weeks.
Against all odds, open source hackers keep outfoxing one of the wealthiest companies.
sigh developers will ALWAYS be able to outsmart companies stealing from others.
I was gonna say, the Internet wouldn’t be what it is today without those so-called open source hackers. They’re the giants that Google and all the rest are standing on the shoulders of.
We’re going to relearn this lesson with LLMs. Open source is a maximalist approach to productivity.
my wife watches a lot of youtube via PS4, so ads aren’t blockable. but she discovered when an ad starts playing if you go to the ‘i’ icon, select you don’t want to see this ad, then click resume video, the video starts playing again. not exactly a blocker and requires those manual steps, but beats watching 30 second unskippable ads every 5 minutes
