Learn how Google is cracking down on Ad Blockers on YouTube. How do adblockers work and should they be allowed on the Internet? 

#youtube #tech #thecodereport 

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🔗 Resources

Firefox Delay Controversy https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/17z8hsz/youtube_has_started_to_artificially_slow_down/
uBlock Origin Source Code https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
YouTube Ad Blocking News https://www.engadget.com/google-admits-youtubes-war-on-ad-blockers-is-resulting-in-suboptimal-viewing-experiences-115041371.html

🎨 My Editor Settings

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- vscode-icons
- Fira Code Font

🔖 Topics Covered

- Is adblock theft?
- Is YouTube banning Adblockers?
- Chrome Extensions manifest v3
- YouTube Partner revenue split on ads
- Privacy issues on the Internet
2024-02-04T05:00:03.094Z
nova-2
2-general-nova
2024-01-09.29447
30089e05-99d1-4376-b32e-c263170674af
4d689046-a2f0-47b4-a2d6-cb028553c2e5
d663ab8e5da5f8ccbb3e237320b7ba9076472510e7f02c061715384c580a5100
67875a7f-c9c4-48a0-aa55-5bdb8a91c34a
deprecated
You may not realize it, but we're in the middle of a high stakes war.
Not in the Middle East, but right here in your browser.
And what's at stake is a few precious seconds of your attention while staring at this magic glowing screen.
It is November 24, 2023, and you're watching the code report.
Back in June 2023, a small group of users were surprised to get this message cutting them off for having an ad blocker enabled, making them the first casualties of YouTube's ad blocker blocker.
Because you're just a material girl living in a material world, your attention is very valuable.
It only takes a few seconds for a good advertisement to inject some information into your hippocampus, where where it can then be transferred to the frontal lobe to manipulate your impulse control to get you to buy something you don't need.
By the way, guys, Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale, FireShip Pro 40% off.
Learn to code and get a free t shirt.
Buy it now before the impulse fades from your prefrontal cortex.
That's an example of an honest advertisement that you should definitely take advantage of, but most companies need to pay someone else to shill for them.
In 2022, Alphabet the company generated 200 $80,000,000,000 in revenue.
That's a lot of money, but 224,000,000,000 of that is from advertisements.
But then what's even more crazy is that of that 200 and for only 29,000,000,000 comes from YouTube.
That's only 11% of advertising revenue, and I would have expected that number to be a lot higher based on the number of ads that I skip on YouTube.
It's the 2nd most popular website in the world, but platforms like Facebook and Instagram do a much better job of generating ad revenue.
On top of that, YouTube is extremely expensive to operate.
Streaming A video around the world with low latency requires massive data centers with CDNs all over the world.
YouTube's infrastructure is truly a technological marvel, and they offer it all for free in exchange for a a little bit of your privacy, and some real estate in your brain.
However, this is unacceptable for many because it requires an invasion of privacy.
Information might be collected about your browsing history, location, and graphics just to show you targeted advertisements, and that's kind of creepy.
That's the philosophical argument anyway, but mostly ads are just annoying as and we should have the freedom to use the Internet the way we want to.
Although, as a content creator myself, I could make the argument that adblock is theft.
Whenever you watch an ad, 55% goes to me with the other 45% going to the big guy.
Attention.
However, when someone goes to the Chrome Web Store and installs ublock origin, an open source Chrome plugin used by 34,000,000 other people, it uses a variety techniques to block ads both on websites and YouTube.
Like, it'll block network requests that go to ad servers.
It'll block analytics tools that data and also blocks the JavaScript that's responsible for displaying things like banner ads.
Once installed, you can test it to make sure that it's working okay on sites like adblocktester.com.
And because it's all open source, you can see how everything works in the source code here on GitHub.
But now you're a filthy pirate stealing from honest creators like Logan Paul and SS Sniper YouTube's gonna go out of business and take all of its creators with it.
That's the argument anyway, and YouTube has been cracking down.
Recently, it's been promoting its own ad blocker, YouTube Premium, and it shares revenue from that product with YouTube creators.
In full disclosure, I've been an affiliate for YouTube Premium in a past video, and I currently use it myself.
But but there's a significant number of people out there who you couldn't pay to pay for the service, no matter how much advertising you try to inject into their encephalons.
Facebook also waged war against ad blockers back in 2016, but largely failed, although Netflix recently cracked down on account sharing, which to them is considered and their stonks have been way up ever since.
And the thing is, YouTube could just ignore this issue and chalk it up to the cost of doing business on the Internet, but instead, they woke up and chose violence.
If you have an ad blocker enabled, you may get this warning that video playback will be disabled if you don't disable your ad blocker.
In addition, the overall experience for adblock users will likely get worse in the future.
Like recently, a small group of users were noticing a 5 second delay before a video started playing, which is apparently part of YouTube's efforts to detect ad blockers.
Now a bigger part of this war, though, comes down to Chrome extensions.
When you build a Chrome extension, you have to have a manifest dot JSON file.
This file defines what the extension is allowed to do on the user's like access network request to block ads.
If we look at the manifest for u block, you'll first notice that it's using manifest version 2.
Then if we go down to permissions, you'll notice it's using web request and web request blocking.
These APIs made it easy for an extension to intercept a network request and then modify it so it can't display the ad it wants to.
Now the thing is, manifest version 2 is being deprecated in favor of version 3, which replaces the web request API with the declarative net request API, which is far more limited when it comes to dynamically filtering content.
What's kinda funny is that Chrome actually might need ad blockers because as recently as last Christmas, the FBI was recommending people install them to protect against malicious advertisements hosting ransomware.
Ultimately, I do think it's possible that YouTube could eradicate ad blockers all but currently, it's a lot like when Barbara Streisand tried to suppress a photo of her house that almost nobody knew about, resulting in the opposite intended effect making the photo extremely famous.
We're currently seeing the Streisand effect with ad blockers where more and more people are learning about them and using them despite the fact that they violate the terms of service.
It's also making the ad blockers become more sophisticated.
It's only a matter of time before someone invents an ad blocker blocker blocker that can block this ad blocker blocker, forcing YouTube to then invent its own ad blocker blocker blocker blocker, at which point this joke becomes too repetitive.
This has been the code report.
Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.

Speaker 0: You may not realize it, but we're in the middle of a high stakes war. Not in the Middle East, but right here in your browser. And what's at stake is a few precious seconds of your attention while staring at this magic glowing screen. It is November 24, 2023, and you're watching the code report. Back in June 2023, a small group of users were surprised to get this message cutting them off for having an ad blocker enabled, making them the first casualties of YouTube's ad blocker blocker.

Because you're just a material girl living in a material world, your attention is very valuable. It only takes a few seconds for a good advertisement to inject some information into your hippocampus, where where it can then be transferred to the frontal lobe to manipulate your impulse control to get you to buy something you don't need. By the way, guys, Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale, FireShip Pro 40% off. Learn to code and get a free t shirt. Buy it now before the impulse fades from your prefrontal cortex.

That's an example of an honest advertisement that you should definitely take advantage of, but most companies need to pay someone else to shill for them. In 2022, Alphabet the company generated 200 $80,000,000,000 in revenue. That's a lot of money, but 224,000,000,000 of that is from advertisements. But then what's even more crazy is that of that 200 and for only 29,000,000,000 comes from YouTube. That's only 11% of advertising revenue, and I would have expected that number to be a lot higher based on the number of ads that I skip on YouTube.

It's the 2nd most popular website in the world, but platforms like Facebook and Instagram do a much better job of generating ad revenue. On top of that, YouTube is extremely expensive to operate. Streaming A video around the world with low latency requires massive data centers with CDNs all over the world. YouTube's infrastructure is truly a technological marvel, and they offer it all for free in exchange for a a little bit of your privacy, and some real estate in your brain. However, this is unacceptable for many because it requires an invasion of privacy.

Information might be collected about your browsing history, location, and graphics just to show you targeted advertisements, and that's kind of creepy. That's the philosophical argument anyway, but mostly ads are just annoying as and we should have the freedom to use the Internet the way we want to. Although, as a content creator myself, I could make the argument that adblock is theft. Whenever you watch an ad, 55% goes to me with the other 45% going to the big guy. Attention.

However, when someone goes to the Chrome Web Store and installs ublock origin, an open source Chrome plugin used by 34,000,000 other people, it uses a variety techniques to block ads both on websites and YouTube. Like, it'll block network requests that go to ad servers. It'll block analytics tools that data and also blocks the JavaScript that's responsible for displaying things like banner ads. Once installed, you can test it to make sure that it's working okay on sites like adblocktester.com. And because it's all open source, you can see how everything works in the source code here on GitHub.

But now you're a filthy pirate stealing from honest creators like Logan Paul and SS Sniper YouTube's gonna go out of business and take all of its creators with it. That's the argument anyway, and YouTube has been cracking down. Recently, it's been promoting its own ad blocker, YouTube Premium, and it shares revenue from that product with YouTube creators. In full disclosure, I've been an affiliate for YouTube Premium in a past video, and I currently use it myself. But but there's a significant number of people out there who you couldn't pay to pay for the service, no matter how much advertising you try to inject into their encephalons.

Facebook also waged war against ad blockers back in 2016, but largely failed, although Netflix recently cracked down on account sharing, which to them is considered and their stonks have been way up ever since. And the thing is, YouTube could just ignore this issue and chalk it up to the cost of doing business on the Internet, but instead, they woke up and chose violence. If you have an ad blocker enabled, you may get this warning that video playback will be disabled if you don't disable your ad blocker. In addition, the overall experience for adblock users will likely get worse in the future. Like recently, a small group of users were noticing a 5 second delay before a video started playing, which is apparently part of YouTube's efforts to detect ad blockers.

Now a bigger part of this war, though, comes down to Chrome extensions. When you build a Chrome extension, you have to have a manifest dot JSON file. This file defines what the extension is allowed to do on the user's like access network request to block ads. If we look at the manifest for u block, you'll first notice that it's using manifest version 2. Then if we go down to permissions, you'll notice it's using web request and web request blocking.

These APIs made it easy for an extension to intercept a network request and then modify it so it can't display the ad it wants to. Now the thing is, manifest version 2 is being deprecated in favor of version 3, which replaces the web request API with the declarative net request API, which is far more limited when it comes to dynamically filtering content. What's kinda funny is that Chrome actually might need ad blockers because as recently as last Christmas, the FBI was recommending people install them to protect against malicious advertisements hosting ransomware. Ultimately, I do think it's possible that YouTube could eradicate ad blockers all but currently, it's a lot like when Barbara Streisand tried to suppress a photo of her house that almost nobody knew about, resulting in the opposite intended effect making the photo extremely famous. We're currently seeing the Streisand effect with ad blockers where more and more people are learning about them and using them despite the fact that they violate the terms of service.

It's also making the ad blockers become more sophisticated. It's only a matter of time before someone invents an ad blocker blocker blocker that can block this ad blocker blocker, forcing YouTube to then invent its own ad blocker blocker blocker blocker, at which point this joke becomes too repetitive. This has been the code report. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
You may not realize it, but we're in the middle of a high stakes war. Not in the Middle East, but right here in your browser. And what's at stake is a few precious seconds of your attention while staring at this magic glowing screen. It is November 24, 2023, and you're watching the code report. Back in June 2023, a small group of users were surprised to get this message cutting them off for having an ad blocker enabled, making them the first casualties of YouTube's ad blocker blocker. Because you're just a material girl living in a material world, your attention is very valuable.
youtube
war
advertising
pornography
middle east
It only takes a few seconds for a good advertisement to inject some information into your hippocampus, where where it can then be transferred to the frontal lobe to manipulate your impulse control to get you to buy something you don't need.
By the way, guys, Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale, FireShip Pro 40% off. Learn to code and get a free t shirt. Buy it now before the impulse fades from your prefrontal cortex. That's an example of an honest advertisement that you should definitely take advantage of, but most companies need to pay someone else to shill for them. In 2022, Alphabet the company generated 200 $80,000,000,000 in revenue. That's a lot of money, but 224,000,000,000 of that is from advertisements. But then what's even more crazy is that of that 200 and for only 29,000,000,000 comes from YouTube. That's only 11% of advertising revenue, and I would have expected that number to be a lot higher based on the number of ads that I skip on YouTube. It's the 2nd most popular website in the world, but platforms like Facebook and Instagram do a much better job of generating ad revenue. On top of that, YouTube is extremely expensive to operate. Streaming A video around the world with low latency requires massive data centers with CDNs all over the world. YouTube's infrastructure is truly a technological marvel, and they offer it all for free in exchange for a a little bit of your privacy, and some real estate in your brain. However, this is unacceptable for many because it requires an invasion of privacy. Information might be collected about your browsing history, location, and graphics just to show you targeted advertisements, and that's kind of creepy. That's the philosophical argument anyway, but mostly ads are just annoying as and we should have the freedom to use the Internet the way we want to. Although, as a content creator myself, I could make the argument that adblock is theft. Whenever you watch an ad, 55% goes to me with the other 45% going to the big guy. Attention. However, when someone goes to the Chrome Web Store and installs ublock origin, an open source Chrome plugin used by 34,000,000 other people, it uses a variety techniques to block ads both on websites and YouTube.
streaming
multimedia
youtube
revenue
telecommunications
advertising
media
customers
earnings
sales
social media
marketing
google
copyright
internet
purchasing
Like, it'll block network requests that go to ad servers. It'll block analytics tools that data and also blocks the JavaScript that's responsible for displaying things like banner ads.
Once installed, you can test it to make sure that it's working okay on sites like adblocktester.com. And because it's all open source, you can see how everything works in the source code here on GitHub. But now you're a filthy pirate stealing from honest creators like Logan Paul and SS Sniper YouTube's gonna go out of business and take all of its creators with it. That's the argument anyway, and YouTube has been cracking down. Recently, it's been promoting its own ad blocker, YouTube Premium, and it shares revenue from that product with YouTube creators. In full disclosure, I've been an affiliate for YouTube Premium in a past video, and I currently use it myself. But but there's a significant number of people out there who you couldn't pay to pay for the service, no matter how much advertising you try to inject into their encephalons. Facebook also waged war against ad blockers back in 2016, but largely failed, although Netflix recently cracked down on account sharing, which to them is considered and their stonks have been way up ever since. And the thing is, YouTube could just ignore this issue and chalk it up to the cost of doing business on the Internet, but instead, they woke up and chose violence. If you have an ad blocker enabled, you may get this warning that video playback will be disabled if you don't disable your ad blocker. In addition, the overall experience for adblock users will likely get worse in the future. Like recently, a small group of users were noticing a 5 second delay before a video started playing, which is apparently part of YouTube's efforts to detect ad blockers.
youtube
netflix
theft
software
copyright
social media
customer support
copyright licenses
video gaming
Now a bigger part of this war, though, comes down to Chrome extensions. When you build a Chrome extension, you have to have a manifest dot JSON file. This file defines what the extension is allowed to do on the user's like access network request to block ads. If we look at the manifest for u block, you'll first notice that it's using manifest version 2. Then if we go down to permissions, you'll notice it's using web request and web request blocking. These APIs made it easy for an extension to intercept a network request and then modify it so it can't display the ad it wants to. Now the thing is, manifest version 2 is being deprecated in favor of version 3, which replaces the web request API with the declarative net request API, which is far more limited when it comes to dynamically filtering content. What's kinda funny is that Chrome actually might need ad blockers because as recently as last Christmas, the FBI was recommending people install them to protect against malicious advertisements hosting ransomware.
Ultimately, I do think it's possible that YouTube could eradicate ad blockers all but currently, it's a lot like when Barbara Streisand tried to suppress a photo of her house that almost nobody knew about, resulting in the opposite intended effect making the photo extremely famous. We're currently seeing the Streisand effect with ad blockers where more and more people are learning about them and using them despite the fact that they violate the terms of service.
youtube
It's also making the ad blockers become more sophisticated. It's only a matter of time before someone invents an ad blocker blocker blocker that can block this ad blocker blocker, forcing YouTube to then invent its own ad blocker blocker blocker blocker, at which point this joke becomes too repetitive. This has been the code report. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
You may not realize it, but we're in the middle of a high stakes war. Not in the Middle East, but right here in your browser. And what's at stake is a few precious seconds of your attention while staring at this magic glowing screen. It is November 24, 2023, and you're watching the code report. Back in June 2023, a small group of users were surprised to get this message cutting them off for having an ad blocker enabled, making them the first casualties of YouTube's ad blocker blocker. Because you're just a material girl living in a material world, your attention is very valuable. It only takes a few seconds for a good advertisement to inject some information into your hippocampus, where where it can then be transferred to the frontal lobe to manipulate your impulse control to get you to buy something you don't need. By the way, guys, Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale, FireShip Pro 40% off. Learn to code and get a free t shirt. Buy it now before the impulse fades from your prefrontal cortex. That's an example of an honest advertisement that you should definitely take advantage of, but most companies need to pay someone else to shill for them. In 2022, Alphabet the company generated 200 $80,000,000,000 in revenue. That's a lot of money, but 224,000,000,000 of that is from advertisements. But then what's even more crazy is that of that 200 and for only 29,000,000,000 comes from YouTube. That's only 11% of advertising revenue, and I would have expected that number to be a lot higher based on the number of ads that I skip on YouTube. It's the 2nd most popular website in the world, but platforms like Facebook and Instagram do a much better job of generating ad revenue. On top of that, YouTube is extremely expensive to operate. Streaming A video around the world with low latency requires massive data centers with CDNs all over the world. YouTube's infrastructure is truly a technological marvel, and they offer it all for free in exchange for a a little bit of your privacy, and some real estate in your brain. However, this is unacceptable for many because it requires an invasion of privacy. Information might be collected about your browsing history, location, and graphics just to show you targeted advertisements, and that's kind of creepy. That's the philosophical argument anyway, but mostly ads are just annoying as and we should have the freedom to use the Internet the way we want to. Although, as a content creator myself, I could make the argument that adblock is theft. Whenever you watch an ad, 55% goes to me with the other 45% going to the big guy. Attention. However, when someone goes to the Chrome Web Store and installs ublock origin, an open source Chrome plugin used by 34,000,000 other people, it uses a variety techniques to block ads both on websites and YouTube. Like, it'll block network requests that go to ad servers. It'll block analytics tools that data and also blocks the JavaScript that's responsible for displaying things like banner ads. Once installed, you can test it to make sure that it's working okay on sites like adblocktester.com. And because it's all open source, you can see how everything works in the source code here on GitHub. But now you're a filthy pirate stealing from honest creators like Logan Paul and SS Sniper YouTube's gonna go out of business and take all of its creators with it. That's the argument anyway, and YouTube has been cracking down. Recently, it's been promoting its own ad blocker, YouTube Premium, and it shares revenue from that product with YouTube creators. In full disclosure, I've been an affiliate for YouTube Premium in a past video, and I currently use it myself. But but there's a significant number of people out there who you couldn't pay to pay for the service, no matter how much advertising you try to inject into their encephalons. Facebook also waged war against ad blockers back in 2016, but largely failed, although Netflix recently cracked down on account sharing, which to them is considered and their stonks have been way up ever since. And the thing is, YouTube could just ignore this issue and chalk it up to the cost of doing business on the Internet, but instead, they woke up and chose violence. If you have an ad blocker enabled, you may get this warning that video playback will be disabled if you don't disable your ad blocker. In addition, the overall experience for adblock users will likely get worse in the future. Like recently, a small group of users were noticing a 5 second delay before a video started playing, which is apparently part of YouTube's efforts to detect ad blockers. Now a bigger part of this war, though, comes down to Chrome extensions. When you build a Chrome extension, you have to have a manifest dot JSON file. This file defines what the extension is allowed to do on the user's like access network request to block ads. If we look at the manifest for u block, you'll first notice that it's using manifest version 2. Then if we go down to permissions, you'll notice it's using web request and web request blocking. These APIs made it easy for an extension to intercept a network request and then modify it so it can't display the ad it wants to. Now the thing is, manifest version 2 is being deprecated in favor of version 3, which replaces the web request API with the declarative net request API, which is far more limited when it comes to dynamically filtering content. What's kinda funny is that Chrome actually might need ad blockers because as recently as last Christmas, the FBI was recommending people install them to protect against malicious advertisements hosting ransomware. Ultimately, I do think it's possible that YouTube could eradicate ad blockers all but currently, it's a lot like when Barbara Streisand tried to suppress a photo of her house that almost nobody knew about, resulting in the opposite intended effect making the photo extremely famous. We're currently seeing the Streisand effect with ad blockers where more and more people are learning about them and using them despite the fact that they violate the terms of service. It's also making the ad blockers become more sophisticated. It's only a matter of time before someone invents an ad blocker blocker blocker that can block this ad blocker blocker, forcing YouTube to then invent its own ad blocker blocker blocker blocker, at which point this joke becomes too repetitive. This has been the code report. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
You
you
may
may
not
not
realize
realize
it,
it
but
but
we're
we're
in
in
the
the
middle
middle
of
of
a
a
high
high
stakes
stakes
war.
war
Not
not
in
in
the
the
Middle
middle
East,
east
but
but
right
right
here
here
in
in
your
your
browser.
browser
And
and
what's
what's
at
at
stake
stake
is
is
a
a
few
few
precious
precious
seconds
seconds
of
of
your
your
attention
attention
while
while
staring
staring
at
at
this
this
magic
magic
glowing
glowing
screen.
screen
It
it
is
is
November
november
24,
24
2023,
2023
and
and
you're
you're
watching
watching
the
the
code
code
report.
report
Back
back
in
in
June
june
2023,
2023
a
a
small
small
group
group
of
of
users
users
were
were
surprised
surprised
to
to
get
get
this
this
message
message
cutting
cutting
them
them
off
off
for
for
having
having
an
an
ad
ad
blocker
blocker
enabled,
enabled
making
making
them
them
the
the
first
first
casualties
casualties
of
of
YouTube's
youtube's
ad
ad
blocker
blocker
blocker.
blocker
Because
because
you're
you're
just
just
a
a
material
material
girl
girl
living
living
in
in
a
a
material
material
world,
world
your
your
attention
attention
is
is
very
very
valuable.
valuable
It
it
only
only
takes
takes
a
a
few
few
seconds
seconds
for
for
a
a
good
good
advertisement
advertisement
to
to
inject
inject
some
some
information
information
into
into
your
your
hippocampus,
hippocampus
where
where
where
where
it
it
can
can
then
then
be
be
transferred
transferred
to
to
the
the
frontal
frontal
lobe
lobe
to
to
manipulate
manipulate
your
your
impulse
impulse
control
control
to
to
get
get
you
you
to
to
buy
buy
something
something
you
you
don't
don't
need.
need
By
by
the
the
way,
way
guys,
guys
Black
black
Friday,
friday
Cyber
cyber
Monday
monday
sale,
sale
FireShip
fireship
Pro
pro
40%
40%
off.
off
Learn
learn
to
to
code
code
and
and
get
get
a
a
free
free
t
t
shirt.
shirt
Buy
buy
it
it
now
now
before
before
the
the
impulse
impulse
fades
fades
from
from
your
your
prefrontal
prefrontal
cortex.
cortex
That's
that's
an
an
example
example
of
of
an
an
honest
honest
advertisement
advertisement
that
that
you
you
should
should
definitely
definitely
take
take
advantage
advantage
of,
of
but
but
most
most
companies
companies
need
need
to
to
pay
pay
someone
someone
else
else
to
to
shill
shill
for
for
them.
them
In
in
2022,
2022
Alphabet
alphabet
the
the
company
company
generated
generated
200
200
$80,000,000,000
$80,000,000,000
in
in
revenue.
revenue
That's
that's
a
a
lot
lot
of
of
money,
money
but
but
224,000,000,000
224,000,000,000
of
of
that
that
is
is
from
from
advertisements.
advertisements
But
but
then
then
what's
what's
even
even
more
more
crazy
crazy
is
is
that
that
of
of
that
that
200
200
and
and
for
for
only
only
29,000,000,000
29,000,000,000
comes
comes
from
from
YouTube.
youtube
That's
that's
only
only
11%
11%
of
of
advertising
advertising
revenue,
revenue
and
and
I
i
would
would
have
have
expected
expected
that
that
number
number
to
to
be
be
a
a
lot
lot
higher
higher
based
based
on
on
the
the
number
number
of
of
ads
ads
that
that
I
i
skip
skip
on
on
YouTube.
youtube
It's
it's
the
the
2nd
2nd
most
most
popular
popular
website
website
in
in
the
the
world,
world
but
but
platforms
platforms
like
like
Facebook
facebook
and
and
Instagram
instagram
do
do
a
a
much
much
better
better
job
job
of
of
generating
generating
ad
ad
revenue.
revenue
On
on
top
top
of
of
that,
that
YouTube
youtube
is
is
extremely
extremely
expensive
expensive
to
to
operate.
operate
Streaming
streaming
A
a
video
video
around
around
the
the
world
world
with
with
low
low
latency
latency
requires
requires
massive
massive
data
data
centers
centers
with
with
CDNs
cdns
all
all
over
over
the
the
world.
world
YouTube's
youtube's
infrastructure
infrastructure
is
is
truly
truly
a
a
technological
technological
marvel,
marvel
and
and
they
they
offer
offer
it
it
all
all
for
for
free
free
in
in
exchange
exchange
for
for
a
a
a
a
little
little
bit
bit
of
of
your
your
privacy,
privacy
and
and
some
some
real
real
estate
estate
in
in
your
your
brain.
brain
However,
however
this
this
is
is
unacceptable
unacceptable
for
for
many
many
because
because
it
it
requires
requires
an
an
invasion
invasion
of
of
privacy.
privacy
Information
information
might
might
be
be
collected
collected
about
about
your
your
browsing
browsing
history,
history
location,
location
and
and
graphics
graphics
just
just
to
to
show
show
you
you
targeted
targeted
advertisements,
advertisements
and
and
that's
that's
kind
kind
of
of
creepy.
creepy
That's
that's
the
the
philosophical
philosophical
argument
argument
anyway,
anyway
but
but
mostly
mostly
ads
ads
are
are
just
just
annoying
annoying
as
as
and
and
we
we
should
should
have
have
the
the
freedom
freedom
to
to
use
use
the
the
Internet
internet
the
the
way
way
we
we
want
want
to.
to
Although,
although
as
as
a
a
content
content
creator
creator
myself,
myself
I
i
could
could
make
make
the
the
argument
argument
that
that
adblock
adblock
is
is
theft.
theft
Whenever
whenever
you
you
watch
watch
an
an
ad,
ad
55%
55%
goes
goes
to
to
me
me
with
with
the
the
other
other
45%
45%
going
going
to
to
the
the
big
big
guy.
guy
Attention.
attention
However,
however
when
when
someone
someone
goes
goes
to
to
the
the
Chrome
chrome
Web
web
Store
store
and
and
installs
installs
ublock
ublock
origin,
origin
an
an
open
open
source
source
Chrome
chrome
plugin
plugin
used
used
by
by
34,000,000
34,000,000
other
other
people,
people
it
it
uses
uses
a
a
variety
variety
techniques
techniques
to
to
block
block
ads
ads
both
both
on
on
websites
websites
and
and
YouTube.
youtube
Like,
like
it'll
it'll
block
block
network
network
requests
requests
that
that
go
go
to
to
ad
ad
servers.
servers
It'll
it'll
block
block
analytics
analytics
tools
tools
that
that
data
data
and
and
also
also
blocks
blocks
the
the
JavaScript
javascript
that's
that's
responsible
responsible
for
for
displaying
displaying
things
things
like
like
banner
banner
ads.
ads
Once
once
installed,
installed
you
you
can
can
test
test
it
it
to
to
make
make
sure
sure
that
that
it's
it's
working
working
okay
okay
on
on
sites
sites
like
like
adblocktester.com.
adblocktester.com
And
and
because
because
it's
it's
all
all
open
open
source,
source
you
you
can
can
see
see
how
how
everything
everything
works
works
in
in
the
the
source
source
code
code
here
here
on
on
GitHub.
github
But
but
now
now
you're
you're
a
a
filthy
filthy
pirate
pirate
stealing
stealing
from
from
honest
honest
creators
creators
like
like
Logan
logan
Paul
paul
and
and
SS
ss
Sniper
sniper
YouTube's
youtube's
gonna
gonna
go
go
out
out
of
of
business
business
and
and
take
take
all
all
of
of
its
its
creators
creators
with
with
it.
it
That's
that's
the
the
argument
argument
anyway,
anyway
and
and
YouTube
youtube
has
has
been
been
cracking
cracking
down.
down
Recently,
recently
it's
it's
been
been
promoting
promoting
its
its
own
own
ad
ad
blocker,
blocker
YouTube
youtube
Premium,
premium
and
and
it
it
shares
shares
revenue
revenue
from
from
that
that
product
product
with
with
YouTube
youtube
creators.
creators
In
in
full
full
disclosure,
disclosure
I've
i've
been
been
an
an
affiliate
affiliate
for
for
YouTube
youtube
Premium
premium
in
in
a
a
past
past
video,
video
and
and
I
i
currently
currently
use
use
it
it
myself.
myself
But
but
but
but
there's
there's
a
a
significant
significant
number
number
of
of
people
people
out
out
there
there
who
who
you
you
couldn't
couldn't
pay
pay
to
to
pay
pay
for
for
the
the
service,
service
no
no
matter
matter
how
how
much
much
advertising
advertising
you
you
try
try
to
to
inject
inject
into
into
their
their
encephalons.
encephalons
Facebook
facebook
also
also
waged
waged
war
war
against
against
ad
ad
blockers
blockers
back
back
in
in
2016,
2016
but
but
largely
largely
failed,
failed
although
although
Netflix
netflix
recently
recently
cracked
cracked
down
down
on
on
account
account
sharing,
sharing
which
which
to
to
them
them
is
is
considered
considered
and
and
their
their
stonks
stonks
have
have
been
been
way
way
up
up
ever
ever
since.
since
And
and
the
the
thing
thing
is,
is
YouTube
youtube
could
could
just
just
ignore
ignore
this
this
issue
issue
and
and
chalk
chalk
it
it
up
up
to
to
the
the
cost
cost
of
of
doing
doing
business
business
on
on
the
the
Internet,
internet
but
but
instead,
instead
they
they
woke
woke
up
up
and
and
chose
chose
violence.
violence
If
if
you
you
have
have
an
an
ad
ad
blocker
blocker
enabled,
enabled
you
you
may
may
get
get
this
this
warning
warning
that
that
video
video
playback
playback
will
will
be
be
disabled
disabled
if
if
you
you
don't
don't
disable
disable
your
your
ad
ad
blocker.
blocker
In
in
addition,
addition
the
the
overall
overall
experience
experience
for
for
adblock
adblock
users
users
will
will
likely
likely
get
get
worse
worse
in
in
the
the
future.
future
Like
like
recently,
recently
a
a
small
small
group
group
of
of
users
users
were
were
noticing
noticing
a
a
5
5
second
second
delay
delay
before
before
a
a
video
video
started
started
playing,
playing
which
which
is
is
apparently
apparently
part
part
of
of
YouTube's
youtube's
efforts
efforts
to
to
detect
detect
ad
ad
blockers.
blockers
Now
now
a
a
bigger
bigger
part
part
of
of
this
this
war,
war
though,
though
comes
comes
down
down
to
to
Chrome
chrome
extensions.
extensions
When
when
you
you
build
build
a
a
Chrome
chrome
extension,
extension
you
you
have
have
to
to
have
have
a
a
manifest
manifest
dot
dot
JSON
json
file.
file
This
this
file
file
defines
defines
what
what
the
the
extension
extension
is
is
allowed
allowed
to
to
do
do
on
on
the
the
user's
user's
like
like
access
access
network
network
request
request
to
to
block
block
ads.
ads
If
if
we
we
look
look
at
at
the
the
manifest
manifest
for
for
u
u
block,
block
you'll
you'll
first
first
notice
notice
that
that
it's
it's
using
using
manifest
manifest
version
version
2.
2
Then
then
if
if
we
we
go
go
down
down
to
to
permissions,
permissions
you'll
you'll
notice
notice
it's
it's
using
using
web
web
request
request
and
and
web
web
request
request
blocking.
blocking
These
these
APIs
apis
made
made
it
it
easy
easy
for
for
an
an
extension
extension
to
to
intercept
intercept
a
a
network
network
request
request
and
and
then
then
modify
modify
it
it
so
so
it
it
can't
can't
display
display
the
the
ad
ad
it
it
wants
wants
to.
to
Now
now
the
the
thing
thing
is,
is
manifest
manifest
version
version
2
2
is
is
being
being
deprecated
deprecated
in
in
favor
favor
of
of
version
version
3,
3
which
which
replaces
replaces
the
the
web
web
request
request
API
api
with
with
the
the
declarative
declarative
net
net
request
request
API,
api
which
which
is
is
far
far
more
more
limited
limited
when
when
it
it
comes
comes
to
to
dynamically
dynamically
filtering
filtering
content.
content
What's
what's
kinda
kinda
funny
funny
is
is
that
that
Chrome
chrome
actually
actually
might
might
need
need
ad
ad
blockers
blockers
because
because
as
as
recently
recently
as
as
last
last
Christmas,
christmas
the
the
FBI
fbi
was
was
recommending
recommending
people
people
install
install
them
them
to
to
protect
protect
against
against
malicious
malicious
advertisements
advertisements
hosting
hosting
ransomware.
ransomware
Ultimately,
ultimately
I
i
do
do
think
think
it's
it's
possible
possible
that
that
YouTube
youtube
could
could
eradicate
eradicate
ad
ad
blockers
blockers
all
all
but
but
currently,
currently
it's
it's
a
a
lot
lot
like
like
when
when
Barbara
barbara
Streisand
streisand
tried
tried
to
to
suppress
suppress
a
a
photo
photo
of
of
her
her
house
house
that
that
almost
almost
nobody
nobody
knew
knew
about,
about
resulting
resulting
in
in
the
the
opposite
opposite
intended
intended
effect
effect
making
making
the
the
photo
photo
extremely
extremely
famous.
famous
We're
we're
currently
currently
seeing
seeing
the
the
Streisand
streisand
effect
effect
with
with
ad
ad
blockers
blockers
where
where
more
more
and
and
more
more
people
people
are
are
learning
learning
about
about
them
them
and
and
using
using
them
them
despite
despite
the
the
fact
fact
that
that
they
they
violate
violate
the
the
terms
terms
of
of
service.
service
It's
it's
also
also
making
making
the
the
ad
ad
blockers
blockers
become
become
more
more
sophisticated.
sophisticated
It's
it's
only
only
a
a
matter
matter
of
of
time
time
before
before
someone
someone
invents
invents
an
an
ad
ad
blocker
blocker
blocker
blocker
blocker
blocker
that
that
can
can
block
block
this
this
ad
ad
blocker
blocker
blocker,
blocker
forcing
forcing
YouTube
youtube
to
to
then
then
invent
invent
its
its
own
own
ad
ad
blocker
blocker
blocker
blocker
blocker
blocker
blocker,
blocker
at
at
which
which
point
point
this
this
joke
joke
becomes
becomes
too
too
repetitive.
repetitive
This
this
has
has
been
been
the
the
code
code
report.
report
Thanks
thanks
for
for
watching,
watching
and
and
I
i
will
will
see
see
you
you
in
in
the
the
next
next
one.
one
success
In this video, the speaker discusses the issue of privacy and ad blockers on YouTube, including the use of open source Chrome extensions and the potential for YouTube to eradicate them. They also mention the use of Chrome extensions and the potential for YouTube to invent their own ad blocker blockers. The video ends with a recommendation to check the manifest version 2 for any potential issues with YouTube's ad blocker.
The high-stakes war on AdBlockers
You may not realize it, but we're in the middle of a high stakes war. Not in the Middle East, but right here in your browser. And what's at stake is a few precious seconds of your attention while staring at this magic glowing screen. It is November 24, 2023, and you're watching the code report. Back in June 2023, a small group of users were surprised to get this message cutting them off for having an ad blocker enabled, making them the first casualties of YouTube's ad blocker blocker. Because you're just a material girl living in a material world, your attention is very valuable. It only takes a few seconds for a good advertisement to inject some information into your hippocampus, where where it can then be transferred to the frontal lobe to manipulate your impulse control to get you to buy something you don't need. By the way, guys, Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale, FireShip Pro 40% off. Learn to code and get a free t shirt. Buy it now before the impulse fades from your prefrontal cortex. That's an example of an honest advertisement that you should definitely take advantage of, but most companies need to pay someone else to shill for them. In 2022, Alphabet the company generated 200 $80,000,000,000 in revenue. That's a lot of money, but 224,000,000,000 of that is from advertisements. But then what's even more crazy is that of that 200 and for only 29,000,000,000 comes from YouTube. That's only 11% of advertising revenue, and I would have expected that number to be a lot higher based on the number of ads that I skip on YouTube. It's the 2nd most popular website in the world, but platforms like Facebook and Instagram do a much better job of generating ad revenue. On top of that, YouTube is extremely expensive to operate. Streaming A video around the world with low latency requires massive data centers with CDNs all over the world. YouTube's infrastructure is truly a technological marvel, and they offer it all for free in exchange for a a little bit of your privacy, and some real estate in your brain. However, this is unacceptable for many because it requires an invasion of privacy. Information might be collected about your browsing history, location, and graphics just to show you targeted advertisements, and that's kind of creepy. That's the philosophical argument anyway, but mostly ads are just annoying as and we should have the freedom to use the Internet the way we want to. Although, as a content creator myself, I could make the argument that adblock is theft. Whenever you watch an ad, 55% goes to me with the other 45% going to the big guy. Attention. However, when someone goes to the Chrome Web Store and installs ublock origin, an open source Chrome plugin used by 34,000,000 other people, it uses a variety techniques to block ads both on websites and YouTube. Like, it'll block network requests that go to ad servers. It'll block analytics tools that data and also blocks the JavaScript that's responsible for displaying things like banner ads. Once installed, you can test it to make sure that it's working okay on sites like adblocktester.com. And because it's all open source, you can see how everything works in the source code here on GitHub. But now you're a filthy pirate stealing from honest creators like Logan Paul and SS Sniper YouTube's gonna go out of business and take all of its creators with it. That's the argument anyway, and YouTube has been cracking down. Recently, it's been promoting its own ad blocker, YouTube Premium, and it shares revenue from that product with YouTube creators. In full disclosure, I've been an affiliate for YouTube Premium in a past video, and I currently use it myself. But but there's a significant number of people out there who you couldn't pay to pay for the service, no matter how much advertising you try to inject into their encephalons. Facebook also waged war against ad blockers back in 2016, but largely failed, although Netflix recently cracked down on account sharing, which to them is considered and their stonks have been way up ever since. And the thing is, YouTube could just ignore this issue and chalk it up to the cost of doing business on the Internet, but instead, they woke up and chose violence. If you have an ad blocker enabled, you may get this warning that video playback will be disabled if you don't disable your ad blocker. In addition, the overall experience for adblock users will likely get worse in the future. Like recently, a small group of users were noticing a 5 second delay before a video started playing, which is apparently part of YouTube's efforts to detect ad blockers. Now a bigger part of this war, though, comes down to Chrome extensions. When you build a Chrome extension, you have to have a manifest dot JSON file. This file defines what the extension is allowed to do on the user's like access network request to block ads. If we look at the manifest for u block, you'll first notice that it's using manifest version 2. Then if we go down to permissions, you'll notice it's using web request and web request blocking. These APIs made it easy for an extension to intercept a network request and then modify it so it can't display the ad it wants to. Now the thing is, manifest version 2 is being deprecated in favor of version 3, which replaces the web request API with the declarative net request API, which is far more limited when it comes to dynamically filtering content. What's kinda funny is that Chrome actually might need ad blockers because as recently as last Christmas, the FBI was recommending people install them to protect against malicious advertisements hosting ransomware. Ultimately, I do think it's possible that YouTube could eradicate ad blockers all but currently, it's a lot like when Barbara Streisand tried to suppress a photo of her house that almost nobody knew about, resulting in the opposite intended effect making the photo extremely famous. We're currently seeing the Streisand effect with ad blockers where more and more people are learning about them and using them despite the fact that they violate the terms of service. It's also making the ad blockers become more sophisticated. It's only a matter of time before someone invents an ad blocker blocker blocker that can block this ad blocker blocker, forcing YouTube to then invent its own ad blocker blocker blocker blocker, at which point this joke becomes too repetitive. This has been the code report. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
In this video, the speaker discusses the issue of privacy and ad blockers on YouTube, including the use of open source Chrome extensions and the potential for YouTube to eradicate them. They also mention the use of Chrome extensions and the potential for YouTube to invent their own ad blocker blockers. The video ends with a recommendation to check the manifest version 2 for any potential issues with YouTube's ad blocker.