> point fingers at YouTube for something they weren’t involved in
YouTube monetizes based on view count. They also send the data to the client. That client data is in anyway involved, and could be blocked, is YouTube’s design problem.
The ability to block any network request I want is an essential feature of the general computer and I will promptly abandon any service which tries to impinge upon my security as well as my freedom to use what I own in the way I wish, to obstruct that. Now sure, they could perform some kind of tracking that doesn't generate additional network requests. But they know how the open Web works and the tradeoffs even if they may not like it, so I would guess their architecture is deliberate.
They could just embed tracking code to the streaming service? As in: count how many times the chunk of video was sent to the clients, rather than relying on the clients to work as THEY intended...
This would make replays or scrubbing count as additional views. To fix that, they would need some kind of set to uniquely store all clients, and that‘s questionable from a security and moral point of view, even for YouTube.
If YouTube stored the entire video in a cache people would yell and scream about that. Oh, I’ve got 2TB of YouTube cache that didn’t get cleaned properly, how annoying.
it once again lands in browser cache. I remember a moment when it returned no-cache.
We are back to situation where:
- google doesnt get any info if user with adblocker keeps rewinding in that ~3hour window
- player refetches if you pause for few hours and come back, or decide to rewind 3 hour video to watch again
- your SSD is hammered with gigabytes of useless browser cache writes - might be good idea for Extension overwriting those headers to no-store/max-age=0
I would be surprised if browsers actually cashed the entirety of videos, even if the cash policy allows for it. That does seem like a way to thrash SSD.
What? Replays already do count as additional views. Load a video one day, then load it again the next day. That's two views. There isn't a way to avoid this non-problem.
and YT 'multiple times throughout a video playback' client side endpoint has been tracking this for years reporting every single minute of video you watched, thats what is powering Most Replayed Feature (scroll bar graph showing popular moments in every video)
Not for the cheater. You’d still buy 1m views on some shady site, armies of bots on hacked devices/routers would still pull down the steams at no cost to the bad guys.
A number of YouTubers have made the claim that their views were affected but not revenue, so it seems like the monetization is based on ad-watching views at least.
The entire way this issue was figured out was because it only affected desktop views that weren't monetized to begin with, which the guy in the linked video guessed meant adblockers.
If the monetization weren't limited to ad-watching views, we'd probably still be trying to figure out what happened.
Presumably, it would affect that, and also long-term channel growth. Which would be dastardly if it were intentional, because it would basically cull the platform of channels who voice support for ad blocking.
I wonder if CTR was affected. Could one of the affected channels could have detected that not adding up? I guess it was probably already blocked for privacy. Maybe I shouldn't be giving them ideas.
Interestingly, anybody can now measure what percentage of any channel's viewers run ad blockers, by using publicly available data on how much their views dropped during this period.
Just to be clear, YouTube doesn’t pay users based on view count, it revenue shares based on money generated by ads and subscriptions. Using an ad blocker without premium has always meant the creator doesn’t get paid for the views, because that traffic generates no revenue for them to share
No, but the algorithm puts their content in front of people in part based on how many views it has gotten. Or does whatever the heck the shadowy black box wants it to.
Yes but with the intent that they generate revenue, if ad blocked users had distinct behavior different from ad watching users it was mostly ignored while I was there
For better or worse a gigantic portion of people who make their livelihoods on the internet are fully dependent on closed source platforms. Do you think people who sell things on Shopify or Etsy are any more able to scrutinize the systems they depend on to make a living?
So what's your suggestion for how YouTube could be doing better here?
Especially in the scenario that (as the top level comment in this thread suggests) YouTube didn't actually make any changes and the reason the views dropped is because EasyList added an entry to their privacy filter. Should YouTube have recognized that they're in a quasi-monopoly position as you suggest, done the research to identify EasyList as the culprit behind the view metric drop, and then released a change to their client to add a new endpoint which isn't blocked by EasyList?
We don't know that the EasyList theory is what's really going on here, but if you're going to tar YouTube/Google over this ordeal, then I think you have some responsibility for suggesting how they could have done better.
I don't understand what point you are trying to make, but I am honestly surprised if they monetize based on view count and not based on advertisement view and click counts.
> Revenue from YouTube Premium membership fees is distributed to video creators based on how much members watch your content. As with our advertising business, the majority of the revenue will go to our partners.
Worse than that, YouTube relies on client data for view counting while also actively creating an incentive for ad blockers to disrupt client data because of their anti-ad blocker measures.
This reminds me that I think it was the Invidious project that had a disclaimer saying they could not prevent YouTube from counting your view. Well, I guess they probably could after all, and probably did, depending on which method was used to fetch the video.
it's not the same thing. it looks the same to you, because you don't give a shit, but it's not the same.
I want ad-free viewing on any youtube client in my house, and I do not want to maintain infrastructure to allow that. The terms of the service indicate that I should pay if I want an ad-free experience, so that's what I do.
Some unknown portion of my subscription fee goes towards the monetization of videos that I watch, which I definitely want to happen. Ad blockers don't pay people in lieu of ads, and youtube premium does.
> I want ad-free viewing on any youtube client in my house, and I do not want to maintain infrastructure to allow that.
Firefox + Adblock/uBlock works on mobile, and desktop. If your TV blocks firefox, buy a dongle or mini-pc and use that. And way better for your privacy anyway. And a mini-pc gives you tons more capabilities like emulators etc. You literally buy those intel n100 mini-pcs for like 100 bucks.
If my 70+ years old parents can do that without my help, ... So no, need to maintain a "infrastructure" to blocks ads...
> Some unknown portion of my subscription fee goes towards the monetization of videos that I watch,
> Some unknown portion of my subscription fee goes towards the monetization of videos that I watch, which I definitely want to happen. Ad blockers don't pay people in lieu of ads, and youtube premium does.
You do realize that what Youtube pays out these days is so small amount, that most creators resorted to sponsoring. This is way more profitable for the youtubers involved. The add revenue is more like icing on a cake, not a main source of income.
And ironically, Youtube is one of the best paying platforms for creators. That is saying a lot.
If i remember correctly, for many its barely 1/5 of their actual income. There is a reason why you see those constant creator advertisement for whatever VPS service etc... and merch sales, ... that is where the money is.
Not taking in account the algorithm and its non promoting videos even if your subscribed, the constant DMCA issues where creators lose tons of money on false claims, ...
> it's not the same thing. it looks the same to you, because you don't give a shit, but it's not the same
I give a shit, I just give more of a shit about my personal privacy and my data not being shared with hundreds of anonymous third parties through the advertising auction mechanism than I do about a creator being paid.
Give me ads without RTB and I’ll very seriously reconsider my adblock usage.
Please tell me how analytics information about what videos you watch is an invasion of your privacy. Google already has the info, they serve it and their servers have logs which get analyzed.
it is impossible to download something from the web without a log line entry being generated, so what privacy are you losing? Please tell me.
The RTB auction mechanism fires off personal identifiers as part of the auction mechanism to hundreds of third parties. This is problematic to me because my browsing history is being profiled by random companies I’ve never heard of or consented to process my personal data.
Because google links that information to what you do in other places of the internet. I don't care if my church knows my favourite hymn or my sex store knows I buy sex toys, I care if my church knows I buy sex toys.
yes? It's called pay-per-view. Many creators will insert a segment in the video with a sponsor who will pay them based on their reach. These are typically not blocked, since they're inserted into the video before uploading. YouTube inserts random ads on top of that for every view (which can be blocked).
Though that’s a bit of a dick move to use that. I don’t have a problem with the author making money, I just don’t like the tracking and the politics of youtube. Also those ads are skippable, where yt ones aren’t.
In a way agree with that, and I don't use sponsorblock because of that, but there's another side too: sponsored segments are a dick move too. Well, probably not all of them, but certainly a lot of them. YouTubers proudly proclaiming they use the sponsored product and they are oh so happy with it is lying, most of the time, plain and simple. And the products that are advertised on YouTube are very often on the shady side of things too.
When I see an embedded ad I will immediately know from the type of product if I should ignore it or intentionally avoid that product because most embedded ads come from the worst of the worst companies. Why would they want me watching their ad if it makes me NOT want to buy their product?
Indeed. But they typically are contingent on a certain number of views. If adblockers cause that stat to go down, then you get the opposite of what you are aiming to achieve: the user will see the "message from our sponsor" but their view does bot contribute to providing that sponsor with the data that the youtuber held up their end of the deal. Ends up bring an unpaid ad.
Views might be important to get the attention of a potential advertising partner, but once the relationship has started then keeping it going will likely be dependent on much more relevant metrics for the advertiser. And those metrics will usually be tracked on their end, rather than via YouTube. I'm referring to metrics like click-through rate, propensity to order, revenue on advertising spend, etc. Personalized referral URLs and discount codes are what allow the advertisers to connect their tracking and reporting to the originating YouTuber.
yeah, FWIU they are an increasingly popular monetization channel in addition to YT's built-in ad-rev system (which is famously very bad for creators)
*) and conveniently for YT that out-of-band monetization channel - which they don't profit from - is the exact thing that's negatively affected by an overall drop in view counts
YouTube monetizes based on view count. They also send the data to the client. That client data is in anyway involved, and could be blocked, is YouTube’s design problem.