this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."

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[–] selokichtli@lemmy.ml 65 points 1 year ago (29 children)

Jesus Christ, why can't they just leave it alone. At this point they are grasping at straws. More likely, people will stop using YouTube at all than turning off adblockers or switching browsers.

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 19 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Considering those are people who only cost them bandwidth and provide nothing in return, that might actually be a net positive for their bottom line.

[–] TheChurn@kbin.social 29 points 1 year ago (5 children)

'Those people' are still incredibly valuable for YouTube.

They watch content, and interact with creators which increases the health of the community and draws in more viewers - some of whom will watch ads.

They choose to spend their time on YouTube, increasing the chances they share videos, talk about videos, and otherwise increase the cultural mindshare of the platform.

Lastly, by removing themselves from the advertising pool, they boost the engagement rates on the ads themselves. This allows YouTube to charge more to serve ads.

Forcing everyone who currently uses an adblocker to watch ads wouldn't actually help YouTube make more money, it would just piss off advertisers as they would be paying to showore ads to an unengaged audience that wouldn't interact with those ads.

[–] Kepabar@startrek.website -1 points 1 year ago

This comment is the equivalent of some guy telling you that you'll be paid in exposure and that the exposure is going to be worth way more than money in the long run, just trust me bro.

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