Online Ads That Made Me Want to Take a Bath With My Toaster
YouTube is about to make a big change to the platform — and we're all gonna hate it.
Let me foreplay today’s issue with a special shout-out to Dave, of username Prouhet, who became a paying subscriber, helping this newsletter stay free from affiliate marketing spam. Your impeccable taste in thought-provoking humour is greatly appreciated. Thanks Dave, you legend.
Hi there fellow Jake Paulers and welcome back to your 7th favourite dose of second-screen content.
So Youtube has recently put on the clown makeup and done something stupid
The World Wide Web's most extensive repository of vlogger apology videos has been caught A/B testing what could become the cringest feature to ever disgrace the surface of the internet: an ad blocker ban.
It's true, friends. After years of overindulgence, Cat Video Inc. is finally doing to YouTube browsing what Tabasco sauce does to dildo riding. Completely fucking ruin the user experience.
YouTube has already made a statement about it
As soon as the news got a bit of traction on Reddit, a YouTube employee came out and said that "it was just an experiment."
And look, I would love to go into a brow-wiping phew! at the sound of the word "experiment" there, but far too many lab mice have died of artificial ulcers and prototype shampoos under that word for it to be anywhere near soothing.
YouTube made $28.8 billion in advertising revenue in 2021 when 40% of all internet users were on ad blockers already — that’s a lot of potential green Benjamins lost to a Chrome extension — so I’m gonna Sherlock my Holmes here and solve the case: this ad blocker ban is an "experiment" as much as "Adblock Ban" is my stripper name.
(I'd rather go with something like Richard Shiner if you’re wondering).
But you may think that being shown ads is not that bad
You might be imagining a more virginal time in advertising, dear reader:
Notice how the overcoat is sitting still on the side, not trying to float around your cursor while forcing your retinas to watch a seizure-inducing video of Belle Delphine rubbing her feet on it for extra clicks.
Decades of overstimulation and banner blindness have turned the internet into something that pretty much looks like my sleep paralysis demon; a soulless, pop-up-laden cash grab straight from the bloody colon of hell.
Can’t wait for the 2030s, when the newest iPhone is gonna waterboard me until I put my credit card down for a 30-day Apple Music trial.
"Well, just pay for the ad-free experience, duh"
Not to be rude, but YouTube Premium is bullshit. The exclusive content is meh. Downloaded videos don't work unless you're connected to the internet — which, if you ask me, makes any 'Download' feature about as useful as a "Selfie Mode" on a toaster.
And for the love of all that is sane; paywalling background play?
I don't know who was the senior product manager with the galaxy brain idea of making a paid feature out of something my Motorola E790 could do back in '05, but he gives off the vibe of being the proud bearer of the smallest dick in the observable universe.
Nah. A Frito-Lay bag of chips has a better ROI than this unrecyclable garbage — and half of that bag is air. The only way of getting a decent bang for your buck here would be to have triplets, and then outsource parenthood to a bunch of YouTube Kids-streaming iPads.
And you'd still be paying for that later anyway when those dysfunctional little screen junkies have to go get checked up on Dr Phil as soon as they hit puberty.
But let's say you want to watch ads to support your favourite creators
Watching ads can seem like a good way of tipping your halo to them — especially if your bank account's balance uses "zero/zilch" pronouns, making you not solvent enough to look around their merch store.
But there's a reason your favourite YouTubers have a merch store in the first place.
Relying on branded mugs, catchphrased t-shirts and Patreon tiers to pay your bills doesn't sound like fun, but ever since the adpocalypse, YouTube has been demonetizing videos for as tiny a reason as the sound of the word "fuck," so I don't think they have much of a choice.
That is if they belong to the partner program at all.
YouTube has something they call "Right to Monetize All Content," which entitles them to slap ads even on channels that can't profit from them. So, as a viewer, you can't even be sure that the 0.025 cents of a dollar you generated by sitting through an ExpressVPN commercial is landing in the right pockets.
This ain't even about money anyway
Well, it is for them. Ads don't keep YouTube free; creators do, and that's why they're afraid. Because the day Nikocado Avocado skips a mukbang, both YouTube and Taco Bell stocks are gonna drop a few dozen points — and that goes directly against YouTube CFO's goal of doing the Baby Shark dance on top of his brand new party yacht, I guess.
But for us, regular internauts, it should be a question of principle to resist this ad blocker ban. Not only for our sanity as consumers but also for our safety.
You don't need to go to the dark web and click on every "Downlaod Now FRee!1!1!!" button to be the victim of a drive-by Javascript malware attack. There are plenty of fake ads, spam and malvertising on YouTube that can do exactly that to you without the inconveniences of setting up a Tor browser.
Yes; with ad blockers on, we're probably gonna miss out on a few sponsored Skillshare promo codes, but the internet is very much like a glory hole at a Walmart bathroom stall — you'll regret going inside without wearing protection.
Keep your morals grey — and your ad blocker red
If not for you, do it for your friends. You don't wanna find one of them choking on his dinner, only to turn into a pulseless grape smurf because YouTube decided to interrupt the Heimlich manoeuvre tutorial video with an unskippable Hello Fresh commercial.
Or do you?
And if YouTube goes through with the ban, just remember this; the internet should be an instrument of freedom, a gateway to knowledge. It was meant to be a tapestry for imagination, not a storefront for profit.
A canvas. Not a billboard.
Tech corps may advertise their ad-ridden vision of the internet as much as they want, but that vision will only have as much power as we, the consumers, choose to give away.
Personally, I’m never gonna buy it.
But enough small talk. In the true spirit of doomscrolling through videos on the internet, let's call it a day before we accomplish something meaningful.
Stay cocky,
Loudt
“Adblock Ban" is my stripper name. Where can I find you? I have dollar bills to spare.