Google admits cracking down on people using ad blockers

The word "admit" in a headline always raises my hackles. This wasn't a secret. Your reporter didn't wheedle the truth out of them. You sent an email, and they responded with what they had already said countless times.

I paid for the YouTube premium that came with the old Google Music subscription, and the problem was it regularly showed ads anyway, especially in the kids stuff.<p>So then we still needed ad-blocking, which broke Google in a way that it tried to show even more ads (ad blocking probably disrupting the ability to track a &#x27;premium&#x27; user&#x2F;client).<p>So we&#x27;re back to relying completely on ad-blockers, and have completely cut out any Google or YouTube sourced content for the kids.

The free ride is over. I feel like the only reason this is upsetting to people is because it seemed to be free for so long. If you give someone a free meal every day for 15 years, and then suddenly take it away, they&#x27;ll be pretty upset. But nobody ever asked why the food was free? It costs to make and it costs to deliver. Google have datacenters all over the world and we still expect the food to be free.<p>They literally created an entire market of content creators. We can&#x27;t go back to torrents, we&#x27;re addicted now.

I used to watch YouTube quite a lot on my TV without ad blocking, but over the past few years the quantity and duration of ads became so incredibly ridiculous that I stopped doing that. It&#x27;s probably not what they intended, but the primary effect is that I drastically cut down on the amount of time I spend watching YT. Whenever I do watch videos it&#x27;s now on desktop or mobile with an ad blocker, and it&#x27;s not enough to justify the price of Premium.

I would recommend them to ditch video ads and maybe people won&#x27;t use ad blockers anymore. But I&#x27;m afraid that this ship has sailed.

baz00 admits cracking down on using Google.<p>Only way to do something about this crap.

Joining the Apple ecosystem makes a whole lot more sense than paying for Google&#x27;s rubbish dump. I would not have imagined saying that a year ago. But if I was to pay, I&#x27;ll pay for a quiet, satisfying life. Not for Google&#x27;s cheapness - for sure, there is no actual value there for me. It&#x27;s just a habit. The last fifteen years have been about a habit. Oh! I can choose something else! Wait until others get that idea.

What I wonder is who is pushing them to do this? Or is it coming from within? If they could somehow prove that everyone definitely saw each ad they played, what actual difference would it make? Is this a thing advertising companies compete with each other on? How likely it is people actually see the ad?

Over the past few months I’ve stopped using YouTube all together. The service is pretty bad without an ad blocker, and I wouldn’t pay $10 per month just to waste my time.

&quot;Google justified the move by saying that &quot;ads are a vital lifeline&quot; or its creators that &quot;help them run and grow their businesses&quot;.&quot;