YouTube intensifies fight against ad blockers showing pop-ups, and users are frustrated | Blocking ad-block users::undefined

  • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Are you new to the internet? Every website, every single one of them, costs money to maintain and keep running. If you don’t pay to keep it online, someone else has to. Ads are a way for everyone to contribute a super small amount to keep the thing you’re on, online. When one or two people block them, it’s not a big issue. When most people do, it becomes one.

    How do you pay to keep the servers up when most users are free booting? What do you do about high traffic when most of it isn’t paying for the servers you need to keep it running smoothly?

    It’s the fucking apex of entitlement to think you should be able to slink through every website without paying a cent either through your data, your attention, or your wallet. You’re on lemmy, you should have a basic understanding of how this shit works and it baffles me you don’t. The instance you’re using is up because of volunteers, paying the electric bill and for the hardware so you can type shit this stupid. Maybe we’re just finally getting normies with how big the site is growing. Maybe this is a good thing. I take it back, welcome to the internet.

    • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      Ads are a way for everyone to contribute a super small amount to keep the thing you’re on, online.

      In 2022 Google grossed around $280 billion, and only around 10% of that from Youtube. Before tax they profited around $73 billion, and after tax around $60 billion. They’re doing fine selling ads.

      And we paid all of that $280 billion, even those of us with adblockers, because companies charge us more to cover their marketing costs. I pay for google every time I pull out my credit card.

      I don’t feel like watching ads to convince even more companies to pay google to advertise to me and buy my data. They’re all making enough money already, and every year they spend less of it on wages or tax for society to function. Their money goes to stock buybacks, payouts to their major shareholders, executive bonuses, and think tanks to push policies and social trends that hurt all of us.

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        They profited $73 billion

        Revenue is not profit. Profit is what you have after expenses. So let’s do a quick logic exercise. $13 billion after taxes, minus bandwidth costs worldwide, minus hundreds of server centers worldwide, minus tens of thousands of TB storage per server, minus redundant storage just in case a server blows, minus what they pay creators, minus what they pay employees.

        Boy howdy, not so sure about this one. Especially when we know in 2015 they lost 470 million from operating the platform. They took losses from keeping Youtube alive. Hmmm. Seems like a narrow fuckin margin if that’s possible. Haven’t heard of Netflix losing money from a year of keeping their platform up.

        “I don’t feel like watching ads” so buy premium. “I pay for google every time I pull out my credit card” that… what? “They’re making enough money” 470 million in losses. “They own the entire fucking planet” They aren’t even one of the five companies that own everything. You’re thinking Blackrock. “Every year they pay lower wages” That’s every corporation. Yes, eat the rich. This is not eating the rich. We do not get higher wages from you using adblocker.

        • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          I gave you both revenue and profit. Their revenue was $280 billion, not $73 billion. $73 billion was their profit before tax, and $60 billion was profit after tax. $13 billion, the difference, was their income tax.

          they took $470 million in losses

          According to the Credit Suisse report, which also massively contradicted Google’s own earnings reports, lowballing YouTube’s revenue by a factor of ten iirc.

          that…what?

          Advertising costs money. To cover that cost, companies charge us more for their goods and services. I don’t know what is baffling to you about this.

        • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          Also, when I said “they own the entire fucking planet” in my original unedited comment — which I edited for tone before I saw your near-immediate response — I was referring both google and the companies that advertise through google, which is why I said “they all make enough money already.” All is plural. Google sells enough ads, and their client companies buy enough ads.

          Also, Blackrock is an asset management company that handles other people’s money. Google earns 16 times more revenue than them.

          • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I gave you both revenue and profit.

            Of Google, not YouTube. I said YouTube took losses and actually costs Google money, which it does. Yes, YouTube is part of Google just as Google is part of Alphabet but what I’m explaining is that YouTube, isolated on its own, does not make money. Hence the ads, premium subscription, etc.

            Advertising costs money.

            Y… Yes. So does shipping the product to retail stores and depending on the product, the continued research into said product or the manufacturing of it. All expenses are calculated and a price is set above that to create a margin but what I don’t understand is your point. The only difference is that as a creator on YouTube, you get a cut of that advertisement budget from companies you might not personally buy from and put it towards products you do. What baffles me is that I’m having to break down economic concepts that I assumed were pretty transparent.

            Google sells enough ads

            Not gonna lie, I’ve missed the advertisements of Google since I was pretty sure everyone was aware of them. They’re synonymous with searching something on the internet. They kinda won on the advertisement front, like band-aid and kleenex. They make their money on pushing ads but if everyone blocks ads, they don’t get paid. Hence why they made it harder to do on Chrome and why they’re cracking down on it on YouTube. Their entire business model (or large majority of it) is ads. Adblocker is a direct obstacle to their existence. What is your proposed alternative for them to make money if not ads?

            Blackrock is an asset management company

            They’re an investment company that have purchased trillions of dollars in shares of some of the most massive companies you or I are aware of. Google, Amazon, Telsa, all of them. The more shares they own, the more direct legal power they have over the company. So just like Alphabet owns Google, a company like Blackrock can own Alphabet by direct investments. They have over 52 million shares of Telsa valued at $220 each or about 5% of the company. These are the kind people conspiracy theories are made about and are the ones we should be taxing into oblivion for those bigger wages. Not YouTube.