# YouTube "forbidding" ad blockers. Concerns, if any? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 13, 2023, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493 "2023-10-13T04:54:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/241 "2023-11-08T13:01:53Z")
For my channel (and of course I may not be typical): Android: 28.4% Windows: 26.8% iOS: 19.4% MacOS: 4.4% FireOS: 3.5% Linux 1.7% ChromeOS: 0.7% Others (various gaming consoles, smart TVs/TV boxes and appliances etc) 15.1% Fun fact: last month 6 of my video views (out of a total of 1.5 million) were from Windows Mobile, and I got one view from a Nintendo Wii, apparently! ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/242 "2023-11-08T13:10:35Z")
[This site suggests](https://influencermarketinghub.com/youtube-adblock/) between 11-27% of viewers use ad blockers. They say that one study says one survey says 27%, another survey of just YouTube viewers said 11% but that was 63% no, 11% yes and a big empty zone so I suspect a lot of unaccounted for yes answers are in there. Interestingly, they also show that the rate of adoption of ad blockers has dropped from 7.5% in 2018 to 3.3% in 2021 suggesting that there’s a cap of around 30% who are knowledgeable, interested and able to use ad blocking software. > [@Mangetout](#): > > and probably won’t have much of an appetite for the jiggery-pokery described upthread to make them work consistently on YouTube True. I could see it going in either direction though: Either the remaining amount of users willing to fiddle to block ads isn’t worth the resources in fighting or someone invents a better ad blocker that doesn’t require installing a script, etc and ad blocking gets more popular as a result. Right now the fiddle-around curve is based on a new fight using older extensions. Given time, more streamlined better extensions could come out. In reality, and just a guess, I suspect that the numbers would largely shake out the same. Some percentage is made aware of ad blocking and pursues it, some other percentage just gives up and watches ads in videos (without decreasing their total videos watched) and/or subscribes to premium and the final numbers aren’t all that different from where they started, just with a bit of time and money lost making new tools on both sides. [Edit: I originally said the ad block numbers lined up with Mangetout’s numbers but he’s listing total users, I think, and not percentage using blockers] ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/243 "2023-11-08T13:30:13Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > (and of course I may not be typical) Your channel is very technical, right? Avoiding scammers and the like? I would say that’s atypical. And, even then only around 30% are viewing from an ad-block-capable platform. Even if 60% of those viewers actually had blockers, it’s 18% of YouTube viewers on your pretty tech channel. Thanks for the stats, BTW. I love that someone used a Wii to view it. I still have a working Wii that we occasionally use for Rock Band. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/244 "2023-11-08T13:35:11Z")
There was an [ad block hack](https://www.techradar.com/phones/windows-phone/windows-phone-has-one-last-laugh-by-letting-users-bypass-youtubes-ad-blocker) going around about changing some identifier to make YT think you were using Windows Mobile. Might explain some of the six Windows Mobile ‘users’. > As flagged by our colleagues over at Windows Central, in Chrome the option to download and use a third-party user-agent – a tool designed to basically identify the type of device, browser version and operating systemyou’re using to handle HTTP requests – can be used to select Windows Phone, which then removes the YouTube popup that usually blocks people from watching videos on the site if they have an ad-blocker enabled. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/245 "2023-11-08T13:43:50Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Your channel is very technical, right? Avoiding scammers and the like? I would say that’s atypical. My channel is atypical, but because it’s not just about any one thing (YouTube wants creators to pick a topic and stick to it, because that’s easier to match to ads. I don’t wanna do that) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/246 "2023-11-08T13:46:50Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > [Edit: I originally said the ad block numbers lined up with Mangetout’s numbers but he’s listing total users, I think, and not percentage using blockers] Yeah, I don’t have stats on how many people are using ad blockers - YouTube Analytics doesn’t have anything about that - I can’t even derive it by subtracting ad impressions from total views, because some videos get more than one ad impression (pre and post roll for example), and skipping an ad straight away doesn’t count as an impression, I believe About 79% of last month’s revenue came from ads, 21% from Premium subscriptions ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/247 "2023-11-08T13:59:08Z")
Just a quick more philosophically-based query… Is there any difference between someone who abjectly refuses to click on an ad\*, perhaps even going so far as to boycott a product which does show up on their feed, and one who blocks them all so that he doesn’t even see them in the first place? Yes, I know that it is just “views” which ultimately count, not “clicks” (maybe for some ads it is the latter, for most the former, ignorance willing to be fought there). But the advertisers WANT you to actually, you know, spring for their product, not just make a quick note of the thing, then put it completely out of your mind forevermore. It may be that they aren’t losing nearly as much revenue as they may think. [\*Another reason I use an adblocker is inadvertent clicks. Here I am scrolling and clicking on a page, but an ad suddenly pops up right where I just clicked, and oops I just gave the bastards their little revenue hit. Even worse is when I am trying to work around the ad, but click on it by accident anyway-usually on my phone when my finger is much less precise than a mouse is. Pisses me off to no end either way.] Edit: the article that **Jophiel** gave upthread has an entry which says exactly that. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/248 "2023-11-08T14:06:34Z")
Done! Thanks folks. I created a new Google account using an existing Yahoo email and added it as a family member. Now I am happily watching videos about security vulnerabilities in the SMB1 file sharing protocol and Wireshark filters for SMB, without a care about it polluting my home YouTube recommendations with loads of networking stuff that I don’t care about in my off hours. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/249 "2023-11-08T14:30:02Z")
I can no longer have a youtube video continue playing in a small window while I do other things on my phone. Did they make changes there as well? I’ve never bothered to block ads on my phone. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/250 "2023-11-08T14:34:06Z")
That has only ever worked for some videos for me, since I’m not a + subscriber. I don’t know what the distinction was – maybe music videos wouldn’t keep playing but content videos would? ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/251 "2023-11-08T14:45:29Z")
Googling seems to indicate that playing in the background counts as a premium benefit which I’ve never had. I guess what I’m talking about is playing in the background? If I minimized the youtube app, the playing video would remain in a separate little window that I could move around and resize. It worked until sometime yesterday, I think. It’s a bummer if something changed because I used it all the time. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/252 "2023-11-08T15:09:44Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Also using Firefox, uBlock and no ill effects noticed. A bit more info. It seems to be triggered only by certain web sites. One in particular is [https://finance.yahoo.com/](https://finance.yahoo.com/) I’m guessing that this is continually updating stock info, and it is that traffic stream which causes the problem? Turning ublock off for that site prevents the issue from appearing. OK, this is workable, then. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/253 "2023-11-08T15:40:18Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Just a quick more philosophically-based query… > > Is there any difference between someone who abjectly refuses to click on an ad\*, perhaps even going so far as to boycott a product which does show up on their feed, and one who blocks them all so that he doesn’t even see them in the first place? > > Yes, I know that it is just “views” which ultimately count, not “clicks” (maybe for some ads it is the latter, for most the former, ignorance willing to be fought there). But the advertisers WANT you to actually, you know, spring for their product, not just make a quick note of the thing, then put it completely out of your mind forevermore. > > It may be that they aren’t losing nearly as much revenue as they may think. I don’t have any metrics on it, but I think most of the ad revenue on my channel comes from ad views (impressions), not ad clicks - and I think that’s the general way they work, indeed, a lot of the shorter ads (often as short as 5 seconds), plus any of the ads that play on smart TVs and such, aren’t even really expecting a click - they are view ads only I don’t think advertisers are aiming to get anyone to deliberately or consciously write down a note about the product - they are looking to insert their brand into your sphere of awareness, perhaps in the hope that you’ll impulse-buy their product when you see it in the real world. Edit: Found it in the analytics; it looks like about 6% of my revenue comes from clicks; the rest from just ads being seen. Given that the payout for a click is likely to be a fair bit more than a view, that 6% of monetary revenue is probably coming from way less than 1% of ads being clicked on ---
**Author:** ![FloatyGimpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/floatygimpy/32/7750_2.png) [@FloatyGimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FloatyGimpy)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/254 "2023-11-08T16:00:20Z")
Has it gone back to normal for anyone else? I was using incognito mode but yesterday it just started working like normal again. Maybe it was just a temporary thing? ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/255 "2023-11-08T16:57:56Z")
In principle I would not mind paying for a service like YouTube if I had any confidence that a reasonable amount of the subscription actually went to the content creators. I’m a musician myself, and if I play a gig I expect to be paid at the end of the evening! Plus some infrastructure charge; it does cost money to run the servers of course. But being a sceptic I suspect that any subscription would just drop to the Google bottom line. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/256 "2023-11-08T17:59:22Z")
Mine’s been acting normal for a few days, using Chrome and uBlock Origin. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/257 "2023-11-08T18:47:22Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > For my channel (and of course I may not be typical): Interesting. The channel I run for work is definitely not typical, as it is academic lectures. For the last 28 days it is 75% computers (Windows 58%, Mac 25%, Linux 2%). The remaining is 20% IOS and Android, and 5% TVs, Roku, etc. No Wii views, but one Playstation view. If I expand to the last 365 days I get more Playstations, a Nintendo Switch, and Xbox. Also WebOS, which isn’t that a smarttv thing, but with roots going back to PalmOS? Also one KaiOS, which I don’t even recognize. I get using a game box as a TV streaming device, but it must be awful depressing to sit down in front of your gaming console, and then watch academic lectures on quantitative genetics. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/258 "2023-11-08T18:52:31Z")
Youtube seems to be ratcheting up the messages, roughly a week at a time I think. First a message would pop up, interrupting the video at the beginning, saying adblockers were forbidden, but I could click the X in the corner to close it, and proceed with the video. Now the same pop up, but I have to wait for about 5 seconds to close it. What’s next, I wonder. (Sorry, I haven’t read much of the thread to see if this is already discussed.) I have Adblock Plus on Opera browser in Windows. As far as anyone knows, does Ublock work okay on Opera? Opera also has its own ad blocker, I don’t know if there are compatibility issues. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/259 "2023-11-08T18:53:35Z")
> [@Folly](#): > > Googling seems to indicate that playing in the background counts as a premium benefit which I’ve never had. I guess what I’m talking about is playing in the background? If I minimized the youtube app, the playing video would remain in a separate little window that I could move around and resize. > > It worked until sometime yesterday, I think. It’s a bummer if something changed because I used it all the time. Yeah, they changed something. I just got a pop-up that says: Wish videos kept playing when you closed the app? Get background play with YouTube Premium No Thanks Get it now ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2023, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493/260 "2023-11-08T18:56:33Z")
I’ve gotten notifications like that for years, but only for some videos. Others play minimized without any problem. I just tried a Cracking the Cryptic video and it continued playing after I swiped home. But, In Da Club by 50 Cent stops playing when I hit home. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-forbidding-ad-blockers-concerns-if-any/991493.md?page=14)