Adblockers = Predatory pricing

People would really like to see a competitor to YouTube.

I believe that can not happen as long as YouTube continues to do nothing about ad blockers. Allowing the ad blockers is a type of stealth predatory pricing.

The ad blockers basically make it impossible to launch a competitor to YouTube.

It would be relatively easy for YouTube to stop the ad blockers. Today they work because the ad is handled out of band. The ad comes from a different URL. So the ad blockers simply block the URL where the ad comes from. The technical term is "out of band".

Which is exactly what we want with web sites. Because if it was not done out of band then your data would be exposed. When done out of band your data stays at Google.

But YouTube is different because Google owns YouTube. So there is no need to protect that data as it is all one company.

YouTube could easily just put the ad instream and then ad blockers would no longer work. If Google would make this change it would open the door for a true YouTube competitor.

There is currently an anti-trust investigation being built in the US against Google. Could one thing that comes out of the investigation is YouTube forced to stop the ad blockers?

I am curious what others think? Am I crazy? Has looking the other way with piracy ever been connected with predatory pricing?

An ad blocker is a piece of software that makes it so you do not get ads. It can be an extension that you add to your browser. Which is the most common way to use. But there is also ad blockers you can set up for an entire home. There is also versions of YouTube clients that has the ad blocking built in that you can use.

tl;dr Not doing something about ad blockers is predatory pricing and why we can't get a competitor to YouTube

Submitted December 03, 2020 at 05:35PM by bartturner https://ift.tt/3g3G9wm via TikTokTikk