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‘Reddit can survive without search’: company reportedly threatens to block Google
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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I'm at a loss for words. Surely, YouTube trying to Adwall would be the stupidest thing in social media history. Surely, Musk changing Twitter's name would be the stupidest thing. No, Steve Huffman has somehow managed to surpass the old masters. "We can survive without people being able to find our website VIA SEARCH RESULTS"! YOU. STUPID. MOTHERFUCKER.
The YouTube ad-blocker ban isn't stupid at all.
Something isn't a bad business decision just because you don't like it. That's now how business works.
"I won't watch videos at all if I can't view them without watching ads or paying money."
....Yeah. That's the idea. From a business perspective people who don't pay or view ads are leeches they're perfectly happy to burn off.
If you view people as purely advertising receptacles then this business move is logical. But if you view people as agents that can build their own alternatives or advertise your services then this would seem to be a dumb business move.
If you view people who actively cost you money while bringing nothing to your business as assets you're bad at business.
If 100% of people who used adblockers decided to stop using YouTube entirely over this, the only result would be YouTube saving money. Video hosting is simply too expensive for anyone to make a website where anyone can host and view for free without ads.
Well that's the contention. Your example starts and ends with people leaving YouTube. If YouTube is the limit of consideration then yes, no value exists outside YouTube and this is a silly argument.
People will find alternatives. You can't stop people witj adblockers from using YouTube by blocking adblockers - no more than you can stop piracy. People just build better, more resilient ways to bypass things. This decision has good understanding of business but not psychology.
The only real way is to make it more convenient to use YouTube with ads, so no one goes for adblockers anyway.
They absolutely can, and I suspect the day is coming soon when they do.
Instead of simply putting ad breaks in the video, they'll be able to splice in a few ads to the video and re-render it to include ads each time someone clicks on the video.