Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Birth of the Ad Block-Blocker-Blocker”.
Youtube another YouTube Thing: YouTube has confirmed that it is experimenting with blocking some users with ad blockers enabled from watching videos on the platforms. Spicy YouTube has previously addressed this issue, but it has been a few years since the last time there’s a screenshot of a YouTube notice to users with an ad block enabled that was posted to Reddit. That’S just the YouTube logo. It says ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube. It looks like you may be using an ad blocker ads, allow YouTube to stay free for billions of users worldwide, you can go ad-free with YouTube premium and creators can still get paid from your subscription and then there’s a button.
That says, allow YouTube ads and then there’s another button that says: try YouTube premium. I don’t know what allow YouTube ads would do um. Oh, maybe it maybe what if they like, scripted away for your disable this the extension on that that must only work through Chrome or something I don’t know I mean most people are using Chrome, so maybe it works yeah, I don’t know uh. The more legitimate criticisms include that YouTube’s ads have increased a great deal over time and that YouTube premium is relatively expensive from the perspective of occasional viewers discussion question: is there any better way to convince people to pay for content? Um? No, that’s my response.
I I don’t think like I’m not saying this is necessarily a good way, but I don’t think there’s a different way like how do I, how do I, how do I even talk about this without starting some kind of Firestorm, no yeah you’re, just gon na get Wrecked because I think the entire I wish I was wearing my ad block yeah privateering shirt, because the entire counter argument to me last time around was that if consuming the ads was the form of payment for consuming content on the platform, then Google would block ad Blockers so, okay, here we are um. I don’t know what else to tell you guys and I believe the main defense at that time was well. It’S like not actually like in the terms or something I guess it is now. I guess so um is that better? I mean yeah I’ll see about this yeah.
It’S one, it’s one of those things where um and people are saying like float play, I’m like yeah. I think if people weren’t subscribed on flowplane and they had Adblock on YouTube and then this happens. I don’t necessarily know that they’re going to subscribe on Flipline, like these options, have existed yeah already, so if they weren’t already subscribed to it, then that option is not the better way to convince people, because it already existed, and I actually didn’t say you may not Use ad blockers, I mean we’ve even talked about in the past, who showed people how to set up a freaking pie, hole Yeah we’ve shown multiple times how to set up these types of services.
All I said was you’ve got to consider the consequences of your actions. Yeah, the consequences are real, the more people block ads, the more a platform will become actually not sustainable and they will introduce more Draconian anti-ad blocking measures. That’S just how it works. That’S I don’t make these rules I’m just. I am the Messenger time to shoot.
Please! No raise your weapons, not shoes; no, no! I don’t think they’ll ever do anything about sponsor block, though um. That’S not their thing, though yeah, I guess so, there’s no actual Financial incentive for them trying to block sponsor block. Oh that’s true. It’S hard to say I mean I wouldn’t even put it past them to just say: look we don’t allow any extensions that interfere with the functionality of YouTube.
Will that will that make YouTube a worse experience for some users? I mean, I don’t think, there’s anything. I don’t think it technically does, though it just skips you forward in the video right um I genuinely haven’t used it. I don’t know what it does yeah it skips around in the video yeah um, but I’m just using timestamp functionality. It just wouldn’t surprise me yeah! No for sure yeah yeah, but yeah, that’s uh. That is what it is. I’M not surprised every once in a while I’ll get like I’ll be in my Google News thing and I’ll jump to a web page, and it’s like no. You can’t watch this because I have it export to my browser and it blah blah blah. You can’t view this page unless you subscribe, it’s not an ad blocking thing, but it’s just like some news page that requires Facebook, page yeah and I’m like okay.
Well, I’m not going to do that. So I’m going to leave and the argument is like: oh well, you lost their traffic whatever and it’s like yeah, but I’m also not taxing their service and if I didn’t pay – and they didn’t have ads – and I did view it, how am I benefiting them? So, like I don’t know, I don’t know that that’s necessarily the wrong call for them. That might be the right call for them. Maybe this newspaper makes a bunch of money through subscriptions and they just it’s better for them to operate.
That way. It’S not my decision. Yep, it is my decision to just not pay it well.
This is another like big controversy that I started when I said look the provider of the service or the product is the one who sets the price, and if you don’t like it, you don’t pay it, but just taking it is actually not um how that works. Yeah so like I don’t find some way to like break around that limitation. I just don’t read the article just go, find something else. There is an incredible amount of stuff on the internet. Not one thing truer words, never spoken, it’s like actually, okay.
There really is an incredible amount of stuff on the internet. Your Life Will Go On if you can’t access that one, video or article or whatever it is you’ll you’ll be fine. So I don’t know. I don’t have a lot to say about this. I am a YouTube premium subscriber so like this won’t affect me. I watch a bunch of YouTube, so it’s like and I use YouTube music yeah.
I don’t believe YouTube. Music is the best, but it comes with YouTube premium yep and I’m not gon na pay. For anything else, Great Value, so it is what it is and when, like I look at the bundle – and I do consider that I do actually use YouTube music, all the time like I run it for basically at least eight hours a day, because I use it For just background noise, when I’m working, I yeah I get, I get the value out of my YouTube premium subscription for sure yeah. I don’t know what to tell you guys, don’t know what to tell you guys other than this is.
This is what happens, and this is okay. This is fair. Uh, someone in full plane chat, said.
If you give someone something or a service that will become an expectation uh when it changes, people feel wronged, um and, and that yeah that’s legit yeah. So I could. I could understand people that have used ad blockers on YouTube for like a decade that are, it’s now being blocked being like.
Well, that’s annoying yeah, yeah sure yeah, but like YouTube’s response to that may end up, rightly being you mad bro yeah like realistically I mean you can say, you’re gon na go somewhere else, but when you’re trying to figure out how to fix your dishwasher, you won’t You’Ll go to YouTube, some people will kind of will sputter and angrily say. No. I will yes, you will. Yes, you will because that’s the fastest, because your time is worth money which is exactly how the ads work. Your time is worth money and that will be the fastest way to get that dishwasher repaired you’d be silly not to right.
It’S it’s tough. You just watch the ads. You can, you can literally, you can load it up.
Have the ads play put it down, gather your tools and then, when the ads are done playing pick it back up again. People are talking a lot about how much the uh, how much the prevalence of ads has increased on the platform lately and honestly. That is, that is a big challenge um I I do find it pretty obnoxious whenever I’m accidentally on an account that doesn’t have a YouTube premium to me. It’S it’s always.
It’S felt like the the gas price problem where, like it, feels like. Oh, like tons of people are blocking ads or whatever other reasons, so we need to increase ads and then oh, we blocked ad blockers but they’re not going to pull the ads back, probably and there’s a lot of pressure on creators to increase the frequency of ads. I mean here um.
I got this report from Colton earlier that uh, apparently is from Patty Galloway’s latest newsletter, something something I hope this isn’t like a paid newsletter or something that I’m not supposed to talk about. It’S like I just want to address this quickly. Krusty trombone in full plane chat, said nah.
It’S principle ads are toxic. I I don’t disagree, which is why I have premium and running flow plane and do stuff like that. I don’t like ads.
I avoid them as much as I can, but, like I don’t do that with an ad blocker yeah. That’S that’s not actually your call to make if the. If the service says the the payment is ads, then your options are consume the service and pay with ads.
Don’T consume the service or privateer and just know what you’re doing that’s what you’re doing so. I have my like the level that I’m happy with um and you can have your own and that’s why this is great. I love angermon or eggerman over on Twitch chat.
I don’t understand who the f is buying crap out of ads me. Neither and yet here we are they’re, clearly they’re, clearly working pretty good um yeah, so okay, this is this – is really interesting. It’S an evaluation of RPM, so Revenue per mil, which does not mean million it means thousand uh by average view duration and the um.
The argument made to me by our business team is, you know, hey um, with how long Wan show runs the AdSense numbers, for it would be insane like potentially three times what we’re making um, which is thousands of US dollars per episode additionally for Wan, show um Got ta check and get approval from Linus. Can you Loop me in um and basically yeah our our RPMs are substantially lower than what they should be based on this, like average RPM per video length you know chart here and basically my my response is the part we’re missing here in our calculations? Is the RPM of our baked in stuff, maybe for something like wancho? We should cut our rates, cut the sponsors out and do mid-rolls. I just don’t want to overdo it right, because that’s the problem that I see on the platform is that you’ve got you’ve. Got people trying to triple dip right, they’ve got the pre-roll ad and then they’ve got the mid-roll ad and then they’ve got the shout out for their patreon and then they’ve got the shout out for their sponsor and then they’ve got the shout out for their merch And so I think we were overdoing it for a while and in each video we had a merch shout out, plus a float plane shout out. We’Ve dialed that back, so we are at um no mid.
So our our typical Loadout on LTT anyway, is that we have pre-rolls enabled no mid-rolls. We do have our own baked in sponsorship spots and we will call out either float plane or um the LTD store in a way that is organically integrated into the content. That’S sort of our our Loadout right now and seems to be about as high as you can go without it being obnoxious and there’s been a lot of arguments internally, pushing me to turn mid-roll ads on and every time I kind of come back, and I say: Okay, sure, what are we getting rid of and the answer is always I don’t know – I think we have a pretty. I think we have a pretty optimal configuration right now and I don’t I don’t think we’re gon na change it anytime soon, especially when they’re Dennis ads we’ll see yeah yeah.
I I think, if anything, what we need to do is just make our baked and stuff more engaging and convert better, and then we can increase our rates for that. If we really want more money like let’s just work for it yeah, I guess is my response. Make the odds content? I know there’s a few other creators in the space doing that type of thing too, where it’s like.
You actually want to watch the ads because they’re just funny yeah and it’s like okay cool. If you want to win me over that way, like fair enough, in my opinion, .