Instead of blocking them, this extension speeds them up to x16 and also mutes the ad. Experiencing a 30 second ad in 2 seconds is pretty funny. And it works on Edge and Chrome.

  • AlolanYoda@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    107
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    7 months ago

    Everyone’s hating on this approach but I think it’s nice that we have other options. I’m sure Ublock is going to come out on top of this cat and mouse game YouTube is playing with them, but if YouTube manages to temporarily disable Ublock I’ll look into this solution. Thanks!

    • soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      7 months ago

      Google will give up eventually. They’re definitely burning more money than they would gain from winning the battle

      • Wisely@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        23
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        They give up on everything else all the time. I wonder if expanding their ad business is the one exception though. They ran out of new users and already pack videos full of ads. Forcing them on people who block them is the only thing left for them to attempt as they seek to continue perpetual growth.

        • uzay@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          7 months ago

          Ads are the very core of Google at this point. They are more likely to give up their search engine and the name Google before they give up their ad business.

        • linearchaos@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          7 months ago

          Unfortunately the videos with ads absolutely packed through them are largely due to the creators choosing the settings for extra monetization.

          • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 months ago

            Youtube just made changes that prevent creators from choosing to only allow skippable ads. Now youtube chooses what type of ads to run at the start and end of a video.

            The only choice creators have is to enable or disable mid-roll ads, and where to place them (but the default is to allow youtube to make those choices too)

      • Atemu@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        7 months ago

        I do not believe that is the case. Youtube ads are an insanely profitable business. I suspect throwing a couple dozen of FTEs on blocking ad blockers would be <1% of current revenue.

        • soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          I don’t doubt they make tonnes of revenue from ads however you have to remember how small the share of adblocker users are. So the extra money from fighting the adblock user base is a clear gamble. Especially as those types of users are the ones who are more likely to avoid YouTube completely if they can’t bypass ads.

          Someone in Google would have done the research because it’s not a simple case of war profit = adblockusers * ad revenue per user

          I strongly believe they’ll stop once they hit a certain threshold/target of “reduction of adblock users”. They won’t go on like this forever.

          • 1984@lemmy.today
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            7 months ago

            Don’t forget they want to introduce things like WEI to lock down what devices and plugins you can even use on your own computer. That’s what Google stands for.

      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        7 months ago

        They’re definitely burning more money than they would gain from winning the battle

        Maybe at the moment, but I suspect part of the motivation for this is that they are trying to prevent another “adpocalypse” type boycott from their advertisers.

    • atrielienz@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      7 months ago

      That’s why I tried to present it without an anti-google seeming bias. I wanted people to just have the facts and not all the BS in the article. I think it’s a good option for people who don’t want to block ads so creators they watch benefit.