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  • When video streaming first appeared on the internet, I basically stopped watching cable. I tolerate 0 ads and abuse video and streaming services until it's impossible to do so and then I just won't use those services anymore. It's not sustainable to let me watch, acknowledged. I don't care.

    YouTube was working at a massive deficit to capture video streaming. I didn't mind them trying to "catch up", but they've gone way, way too far.

  • I wish that I'd screenshotted it, but I've had one outrageously long 1+ hr. ad on Youtube. The thing was literally a feature length infomercial, I thought that autoplay had carried onto the next videos in my playlist and couldn't believe that it was an ad when I saw the length. For shit like that to have slipped through Youtube's "quality control" even once speaks volumes - how in the Hell did someone submit an ad longer than a Saturday morning cartoon and have it slotted into the same category as 15 second toothpaste ads?

    The longest ad I've see on YouTube was about 7 years ago and I watched the whole ad because someone paid for the entire Michael Jackson's Thriller video as an ad.

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    My take on ads is this: I've been using the internet since 1989 - before search engines, advertising, SLIP/PPP/ADSL, etc.

    When ads began to appear on websites in the late 90s, I was OK with it. A banner ad here, etc. Then they started to move. And flash. And make noise. And then popups, and pop-unders.

    At that point I started to BLOCK THEM ALL. If your business model is a game of distraction from the site I'm visiting, then fuck you, your family, and anyone you've ever met.

    Moving on to UI web-based stuff, the demise of excellent sites like AltaVista (with its superior search syntax) and the growth of Goooooooogle (with its astonishingly and intentionally shit search syntax), the progress and intention was obvious.

    There was a brief period where Google, etc, provided what people wanted. But that time has passed. Now it's all in on GIGO: garbage in, garbage out.

    tl;dr: Once advertisers started to behave like gambling sites, they were yeeted to the hell in which they belong.

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    Know what I don't understand? My wife watches YouTube in bed and I hardly notice ads. Granted, I have my ear plugs in while I read, but I'm not completely tuned out. Ads are rare enough that I'm a bit surprised to notice one.

    When I watch YouTube on my PC, without a condom so to speak, fuck me it's unusable. I simply refuse to engage until uBlock catches up.

    All I got is that her content isn't easily monetized? One one hand, she watching a lot of political news from the Philippines. OTOH, she's mostly on those dumb crime shows where it's all white trash confessing to the pigs.

    As of this week, I can no longer watch in Firefox and have to go to Edge. Anyone?

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    I was fine with pre-roll ads and mid roll ads.
    Then YouTube became ultra greedy during Covid when tons of people watching, they went from 1-3 ads per video to 30 ads for a 30 minute video (2 ads every 2 minutes).
    What the fuck.

    I installed adblocker because they did that. YouTube was not watchable at all.
    Sucks, because I didn’t mind supporting the platform and creator, but their greed ruined that.

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    My problems:

    • Ads not for kids in kids videos.
    • Very long "ads". Let's say, 1 hour? I know that there are longer ads, but, well, if you think that an hour ad is not a problem, well...
    • Ads everywhere. In the video, in the recommendations bar, in the main page.
    • Ads INSIDE the video. I know this is not about a youtube thing, but I really hate being in middle of some video an then the guy starts talking about Brave or something.
    • The pourly implementation of ads in middle video. On TV you were able to tell when and how the ads would came and felt natural because your content wasn't cut out of nowhere.

    Taking it from the last point: that's why I love Pluto.tv. I can be watching my, whatever, and then I know that ads are coming, because uses the same timing as regular TV, so I can use that time of ads to just ignore them and get on my phone or do something else, like old TV times. Not in middle of my video that it's gonna last 5 minutes, damn.

    Edit: One last thing that I've forgot. I hate that everyone can submit ads, making the platform more like a town with no law. Why would I care about a product made with AI which ad itself is also made with AI?

  • I know many people, including me, that fall victim to the manipulation of advertising.

    Back in the olden days, it was "here is my product, and this is the price, if you like it buy from this store"
    Now it's not just the actual ad, it's product placement in tv and movies, celebrity endorsement, influencers, and all that.

    Just remember that advertising costs money, and that is in the price of the product. Products that don't advertise can easily be better value.

    There were a time when I wanted to study marketing. I always love how Coca-Cola doesn't try to make you buy its product, it's just there, it doesnt say "buy!", "we cheap!", "we are better than the others!" or any bullshit. That dream ended when I learned what SEO was and what was doing to internet.

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    Advertising is pollution

    Full stop.

    Every marketer is trying to coerce you into a decision you wouldn’t arrive at on your own by limiting the information available and lying to you.

    If I were chief ad engineer at YouTube i would probably be afraid of anyone knowing what I did for money.

    You know facilitating the theft of people’s money by targeting them with brainwashing.

    If you’re a marketer. Get a real job pal.

  • I know many people, including me, that fall victim to the manipulation of advertising.

    Back in the olden days, it was "here is my product, and this is the price, if you like it buy from this store"
    Now it's not just the actual ad, it's product placement in tv and movies, celebrity endorsement, influencers, and all that.

    Just remember that advertising costs money, and that is in the price of the product. Products that don't advertise can easily be better value.

    Products that don’t advertise can easily be better value.

    This is exactly my reasoning in refusing to do business with service providers that (in my view) over-advertise (looking at you Geico, Progressive, United Health, Taco Bell, other major advertisers)...

    Any service provider doing that much advertising is telling me 2 things with every ad: First, you already obviously have too much money and, Second, you obviously don't need my money.

    Fuck you and your "brand recognition".

    🙄 🤡 🖕 💩

  • I despise ads because they steal time, and their very existence is an insult to the people that are exposed to them. All ads tell me is „your time is worth very little and we believe you are easily manipulated“.

    Based on average ad length and cost on YouTube, ChatGPT has calculated that advertisers pay about $9 per hour of ads. While that seems a bit high to me, it is plausible. My time is worth more than that.

    Yes, I do pay for YouTube premium. Though in a cheaper country, because the normal price is excessive imho.

    Ads can exists, I do not have any problem with it. I think that we need to have tools and techniques to avoid them. If the medium doesn't let you use those tools, it's right there where I have a problem: Ads in a magazine? Just change page, Ad on TV?, just change channel, Unskipable ad? Woah woah woah. YouTube, dear, you are forcing me to watch something that I don't wanna. Edit: The same with Netfilx... Amazon... Spotify... It's not like I can change of app like I would with TV channels

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    Advertisements are an attack to manipulate me and change my behaviour. I don't tolerate them at all. They also ruin the product, because it eventually becomes more important to cater to the advertisers than the users.

    If Youtube went back to how it was originally (no ads, downloadable videos, creator-controlled, etc), I, and many others, would happily pay them even if we could get the content for free (see Patreon, or GoFundMe, or PornHub, or Imgur, or Reddit, or many other sites as examples).

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    People seem to think the cost is just the wasted time from playing ads, but the lasting mental pollution in my brain is worse. I don't want that shit in my head. I don't want to think about ads. I don't want to see ads when I close my eyes. I don't want shitty ad jingles popping up in my mind while I'm trying to live my life. A youtube video is not worth having to carry more ads in my head.

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    It's not the ads I hate, it's the data harvesting I hate. Static ads without trackers don't exist on YouTube, unfortunately.

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    I just have a moral objection to advertising in general, and try to subject myself to it as little as possible.

  • I understand that we exist under capitalism and that it costs money to host and distribute these videos.

    I'm willing to pay for access to this service by letting an ad play (probably while I'm pouring a glass of water in another room and have my speakers off).

    What gets me is a 3 minute ad on a 44 second video. Interrupting the middle of a sentence with an ad is also annoying. Placing a 30 second ad in the middle of a song can also fuck right off.

    Find an appropriate spot for your ad, and make it's length sensible with regards to the length of the content I'm watching. Or just don't offer an ad supported tier of your service.

    ^ this. All of it. It’s death by a thousands cuts and just shows the incredible amount of greed they have (not shareholder value, it’s bloody greed).

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    There is no tolerable amount of ads, because not only are they an awful experience, they explicitly drive user hostile growth and decisions in the future (ie enshitification).

    I used to pay for YouTube to avoid ads, before I got sick of Google and refused to give them any more money. Now I use a pihole and a browser based adblocker, as well as 3rd party front ends, because fuck Google. I don't give a shit if I'm denying them income.

  • There is no tolerable amount of ads, because not only are they an awful experience, they explicitly drive user hostile growth and decisions in the future (ie enshitification).

    I used to pay for YouTube to avoid ads, before I got sick of Google and refused to give them any more money. Now I use a pihole and a browser based adblocker, as well as 3rd party front ends, because fuck Google. I don't give a shit if I'm denying them income.

    to me I still use the paid version because, for me it's not that expensive on the family plan, and I do want the content creators to get paid. I do hate the monopoly etc... but as far as I can tell it's one that can't really be broken. Far as I can see no other site can actually arrange a system in which creators get paid any substantial amount.

    also do have to note the inevitable put up or shut up part of nature. There's basically only 2 options of systems when it comes to the internet, either we deal with ads or we pay for services. Until a magical extra option appears I'm OK with paying to avoid ads.

  • I know many people, including me, that fall victim to the manipulation of advertising.

    Back in the olden days, it was "here is my product, and this is the price, if you like it buy from this store"
    Now it's not just the actual ad, it's product placement in tv and movies, celebrity endorsement, influencers, and all that.

    Just remember that advertising costs money, and that is in the price of the product. Products that don't advertise can easily be better value.

    There are lots of local brands that don't advertise that are better than nationally-known brands, at a much lower cost.

  • to me I still use the paid version because, for me it's not that expensive on the family plan, and I do want the content creators to get paid. I do hate the monopoly etc... but as far as I can tell it's one that can't really be broken. Far as I can see no other site can actually arrange a system in which creators get paid any substantial amount.

    also do have to note the inevitable put up or shut up part of nature. There's basically only 2 options of systems when it comes to the internet, either we deal with ads or we pay for services. Until a magical extra option appears I'm OK with paying to avoid ads.

    I pay to avoid ads on Amazon Prime... Now i have to endure unskippable ads every 10 minutes, and my annual fee is up over 50% since i started.

    Fuck them. No matter what, these mercantilists will extract everything they can, and they will break any promise or contract they sign as soon as it bemefits them. We, however, cannot do the same.

  • Just out of curiosity, what is it EXACTLY about ads on YouTube that you dislike? Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they're unskippable? What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads? If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?

    I have my thoughts on the matter, but I want to know what YOU think.

    Ads are a brainwashing technique designed to turn my baser instincts against myself for someone else's gain. And they're unwanted content that disrupts the flow of the content I've chosen to watch.

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    It's something Americans say.
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    That would be 1 in 4 users and that's just not accurate at all. What you mean to say is 25% of Windows users still use windows 7. Its still an alarming statistic, and no wonder bruteforce cyberattacks are still so effective today considering it hasn't received security updates in like 10 years. I sincerely hope those people aren't connecting their devices to the internet like, at all. I'm fairly sure at this point even using a Debian based distro is better than sticking to windows 7.
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    This guy wasn't born yesterday.
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    Interesting! Python and Bash do the same as British.
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    Obviously the law must be simple enough to follow so that for Jim’s furniture shop is not a problem nor a too high cost to respect it, but it must be clear that if you break it you can cease to exist as company. I think this may be the root of our disagreement, I do not believe that there is any law making body today that is capable of an elegantly simple law. I could be too naive, but I think it is possible. We also definitely have a difference on opinion when it comes to the severity of the infraction, in my mind, while privacy is important, it should not have the same level of punishments associated with it when compared to something on the level of poisoning water ways; I think that a privacy law should hurt but be able to be learned from while in the poison case it should result in the bankruptcy of a company. The severity is directly proportional to the number of people affected. If you violate the privacy of 200 million people is the same that you poison the water of 10 people. And while with the poisoning scenario it could be better to jail the responsible people (for a very, very long time) and let the company survive to clean the water, once your privacy is violated there is no way back, a company could not fix it. The issue we find ourselves with today is that the aggregate of all privacy breaches makes it harmful to the people, but with a sizeable enough fine, I find it hard to believe that there would be major or lasting damage. So how much money your privacy it's worth ? 6 For this reason I don’t think it is wise to write laws that will bankrupt a company off of one infraction which was not directly or indirectly harmful to the physical well being of the people: and I am using indirectly a little bit more strict than I would like to since as I said before, the aggregate of all the information is harmful. The point is that the goal is not to bankrupt companies but to have them behave right. The penalty associated to every law IS the tool that make you respect the law. And it must be so high that you don't want to break the law. I would have to look into the laws in question, but on a surface level I think that any company should be subjected to the same baseline privacy laws, so if there isn’t anything screwy within the law that apple, Google, and Facebook are ignoring, I think it should apply to them. Trust me on this one, direct experience payment processors have a lot more rules to follow to be able to work. I do not want jail time for the CEO by default but he need to know that he will pay personally if the company break the law, it is the only way to make him run the company being sure that it follow the laws. For some reason I don’t have my usual cynicism when it comes to this issue. I think that the magnitude of loses that vested interests have in these companies would make it so that companies would police themselves for fear of losing profits. That being said I wouldn’t be opposed to some form of personal accountability on corporate leadership, but I fear that they will just end up finding a way to create a scapegoat everytime. It is not cynicism. I simply think that a huge fine to a single person (the CEO for example) is useless since it too easy to avoid and if it really huge realistically it would be never paid anyway so nothing usefull since the net worth of this kind of people is only on the paper. So if you slap a 100 billion file to Musk he will never pay because he has not the money to pay even if technically he is worth way more than that. Jail time instead is something that even Musk can experience. In general I like laws that are as objective as possible, I think that a privacy law should be written so that it is very objectively overbearing, but that has a smaller fine associated with it. This way the law is very clear on right and wrong, while also giving the businesses time and incentive to change their practices without having to sink large amount of expenses into lawyers to review every minute detail, which is the logical conclusion of the one infraction bankrupt system that you seem to be supporting. Then you write a law that explicitally state what you can do and what is not allowed is forbidden by default.
  • X launches E2E encrypted Chat

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    So you do have evidence? Where is it?
  • AI cheating surge pushes schools into chaos

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    Sorry for the late reply, I had to sit and think on this one for a little bit. I think there are would be a few things going on when it comes to designing a course to teach critical thinking, nuances, and originality; and they each have their own requirements. For critical thinking: The main goal is to provide students with a toolbelt for solving various problems. Then instilling the habit of always asking "does this match the expected outcome? What was I expecting?". So usually courses will be setup so students learn about a tool, practice using the tool, then have a culminating assignment on using all the tools. Ideally, the problems students face at the end require multiple tools to solve. Nuance mainly naturally comes with exposure to the material from a professional - The way a mechanical engineer may describe building a desk will probably differ greatly compared to a fantasy author. You can also explain definitions and industry standards; but thats really dry. So I try to teach nuances via definitions by mixing in the weird nuances as much as possible with jokes. Then for originality; I've realized I dont actually look for an original idea; but something creative. In a classroom setting, you're usually learning new things about a subject so a student's knowledge of that space is usually very limited. Thus, an idea that they've never heard about may be original to them, but common for an industry expert. For teaching originality creativity, I usually provide time to be creative & think, and provide open ended questions as prompts to explore ideas. My courses that require originality usually have it as a part of the culminating assignment at the end where they can apply their knowledge. I'll also add in time where students can come to me with preliminary ideas and I can provide feedback on whether or not it passes the creative threshold. Not all ideas are original, but I sometimes give a bit of slack if its creative enough. The amount of course overhauling to get around AI really depends on the material being taught. For example, in programming - you teach critical thinking by always testing your code, even with parameters that don't make sense. For example: Try to add 123 + "skibbidy", and see what the program does.
  • Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection

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    I have the regular F-droid and it does automatic updates now.