Youtube, Long Digging Its Own Grave, Is Ordering More Shovels.
For about a week now, Youtube has started to crack down on ad blockers¹. If you are one of the 40 or so percent users on the internet (estimates differ widely) who uses one, you might have encountered it: Youtube variably popping up a warning that reminds you that your browser plugin is “not allowed” or “a violation of the Youtube terms and conditions”.
While I expected this to happen for quite while, let us mark that occasion with looking back at Youtube’s history and at where a lot of things went wrong:
Me at the zoo — an elephant without an ad
The very first Youtube video ever uploaded showed Youtube co-founder Jawed Karim in front of an elephant at the zoo². The video perfectly encapsulated what “video sharing” was understood to be at the time: Sharing a casually recorded video with a broader audience and enjoying the feedback. One may say that the video was pointless, but it had a certain innocence about it and set the tone of Youtube at the time. It was free and funded — eventually — with some ads.No big deal.
Over time the ads became more prominent, especially after Google took over Youtube in 2006, but despite this Youtube has always been rather lax with ad blocking. While they obviously tried to undermine ad blockers by technical means here and there, the browser plugins normally caught up quickly and it was back to business as usual.
Now things appear to be different. For non-logged in users, they nag you with a delay, for users logged into their Youtube account, they appear to hard block you from watching after three videos. The whole mechanism appears a bit erratic and random, hinting at Youtube likely experimenting with and evaluating the user’s response.
The vicious cycle of revenue sharing and becoming a monopoly
Because the original concept of Youtube was fairly simple, the concept was inevitably copied by others. With little to make Youtube stand apart from existing and potential competitors, growing into a monopoly was likely the only path Google saw as feasible, and revenue sharing was the way to get them there.
Growing into a monopoly was likely the only path Google saw as feasible, and revenue sharing was the way to get them there.
Google, capitalizing on their vast advertisement network, did so by applying their ad model to the video site and offering video creators a share of the revenue. This was something other startups could not easily copy: The prospect of earning real money lured many creators from other sites to set up shop on Youtube.
It worked: More curation focused platforms like Blip TV or Metacafe have long thrown the towel and closed shop, Vimeo has retreated to become a “high definition” service with a questionable pricing strategy³.
However, soon people realized that, with Google showing no interest in becoming a content curator, quality and revenue do not have to be related
In the early days that was somewhat beneficial and led to an increase of good quality content on a single platform, however soon people realized that, with Google showing no interest in becoming a content curator, quality and revenue do not have to be related: all you have to do you just have to play the algorithm well enough.
Because — maybe obviously — Google did not care if their ads are playing before a carefully crafted video essay or a stock footage-laden junk clip with computer generated voice over. The ad impression was just the same.
While Youtube has indeed cracked down on videos featuring hate and racist propaganda, and to some extent on disinformation campaigns, it certainly has not done so on scam videos, faked live streams, misleading poster images and clickbait titles. Curation is nowhere to be seen. Moderation exists in robotic form mostly.
The overall messy experience has not improved by Google mindlessly bundling Youtube with other paid Youtube services, and do not get me started about Youtube shorts, that might make sense on mobile, but has brought the desktop version of Youtube to the edge of breaking.
The vicious cycle of promising easy money via revenue sharing and sinking deeper and deeper into the sinkhole of quality should be a warning to others who try the same (just take a look — or better: don’t — at Elon Musk’s recent attempt at financially rewarding his most vicious trolls on X)
Revenue sharing without curation is the inevitable path to the dark side.
I consider revenue sharing without curation the inevitable path to the dark side. Content sites like Medium and others — albeit to a much lesser extend and without the ads — show similar issues.
Ads without any sense
But the recent crackdown on ad blocking plugins also shows that Google is ignorant of the reasons ad blockers have become so widespread: Pure desperation. Skippable ads have mostly disappeared, ads are getting longer and more frequent (a 40 minute video can easily have ten ad breaks) and the quality of advertisement (and advertised products) has noticeably declined. Madness reigns.
..often showing me the same ad several times on the same video, thereby messaging me with the subtilty of a sledgehammer, until my choices are down to either go mad or turning on that ad blocker
Not to mention that Youtube’s ad algorithm (which is also Google’s and will proliferate what Google “knows” about your interests to other websites) is likely one of the worst I have ever encountered, often showing me the same ad several times on the same video, even if I have skipped that very same ad five minutes before, clearly having expressed disinterest. Basically Google messaging me with the subtilty of a sledgehammer, until my choices are down to going mad or to capitulate and turn on that ad blocker.
The situation from Google’s perspective is worsened by the fact that many quality content creators nowadays have their independent ways to generate revenue, either via sponsored promotions as part of the video, or via systems like Patreon which, in addition to raising money, have given them a chance to create a steady and predictable community of followers and have lessened the need to play the Youtube algorithm.
This basically limits Google’s option of placing excessive ads to those videos who have no genuine community and rely on algorithm alone, hence sinking even deeper into the quality abyss.
Google does what Google does best
Google is not a software company, they are not an internet service company. They are not even — as many assume — a vicious data harvesting company as such. They are in the advertisement business. They may do other things, but that is their business.
Like the everything Google / Alphabet has has done (Gmail, Youtube, Android) it always develops until it includes advertisement. It is like a natural law. Google spent years making Chrome the dominant desktop browser (though not without some help from Mozilla’s incompetence) and there are signs that they will use this position now to fight ad blockers directly in the client, which likely has been their motivation for the browser all along.
Is that actually what advertisers want?
Do advertisers really believe that forcing ads on people who use ad blockers is worth paying for? Has advertisement sunk to the level where a provider needs to force the viewers eyes open like in a scene from Clockwork Orange?
If I finally feel the need to get a commercial VPN it will surely not be from any of those companies advertising on Youtube, out of pure spite. It would feel like having surrendered to the relentless pain those companies have inflicted on me over the years. And the knowledge that it would not stop even if I gave them my money. ..
Has advertisement sunk to the level where a provider needs to force the viewers eyes open like in a scene from Clockwork Orange?
There the cycle is complete: Revenue sharing as an incentive to mass produce garbage, quality content withdrawing which leads to more and lower quality ads on more videos, bundles with endless harassment to sign up to some premium service that pulls in features I did not came for.
And because you might want to ask: Why don’t you pay for Youtube premium and be done with it?
There are two reasons, mainly: Paying for Youtube does not make the flood of mediocre content any better, worse, it requires to use Youtube with an account, hence giving in to their (in my humble opinion) abysmal recommendation algorithm.
Secondly since the advert of sponsored promotions inside videos, while on a subscription users might be seeing “fewer” ads, but still sit through minutes of advertisement despite paying what I consider a premium price.
So, what is it going to be?
The widespread use of generative AI to produce videos like on a of a production line presents a new challenge for Google, and it will only get worse from here: Youtube can either continue not to care and just count the ad impressions (which will eventually make the valuable content insignificant) or .. no, let’s leave it at this. It’s most likely what Google is going to do. And so the fight between browser plugins and web service will go on. Let’s just be honest, Youtube has long ceased to be a “content sharing” service, it’s an ad platform with videos sprinkled in between.
¹ YouTube limits ad blocker usage in new test — Tech Crunch
² Me at the Zoo — Wikipedia
³ Vimeo is telling creators to suddenly pay thousands of dollars — or leave the platform — The Verge
