The Cobra Effect: Why Anti-Adblock Policies Could Hurt Revenue Instead 

Hello everyone! I definitely did not expect one of my first videos ever to get this much attention. The stories you all shared, even the alternate opinions from those who use premium or don't use adblockers were great to read. My notifications can't even keep up with the comments anymore. I'll address a few commonly brought up points (Last updated July 3rd): 1) I've heard all the feedback on audio levels and pacing. It's definitely being applied to future videos. 2) Looks like the "It would have stopped being free a long time ago" segment may have aged rather poorly, because RU-vid is now testing out disabling video playback after 3 videos for some users. While some will debate the underlying meanings, if I severely underestimated the value of RU-vid analytics data for Google as a whole, then I'm perfectly willing to own up to that mistake. 3) There's a bit more debate on "the customer is always right in matters of taste" than I thought. I thought it was derived from a Latin phrase meaning "regarding tastes, it shall not be disputed", but some attribute it to the hotel or fashion industry and say it's about taking customer complaints at face value (before the era of Karens) 4) I mistakenly said that "a judge" ruled on a supreme court case, when I should have said the jury. The annotation tool would have been helpful here, but apparently it was removed years ago. 5) Additional links and sources are (slowly) being added to the description. I should have done so from the beginning, but it won't be an issue in the future. 6) Nothing wrong with creators monetizing content as a whole. It's a tough career, and they have no control over what ads you see. Criticizing them is misguided energy in most circumstances (it's usually the guilt-tripping or blaming you for a bad sponsor when it becomes a problem). 7) My channel is now a part of the RU-vid Partner Program. My ads are still disabled because I didn't create this channel with the intention of becoming a full time creator. It's purely a personal choice to try to make it "donation only", and not any form of moral statement. RU-vid still has a "right to monetize" videos though, so if it reaches the point where you see ads every video anyways or receive unskippable ads, then let me know, because then at that point it's just a matter of "Do I want 55% or 0% of the revenue?" 8) A lot of you asked about that "alternative youtube site". Apparently there are certain issues with posting comments about it. But a recent C&D they filed may help you find it, since it failed to stop the group.

my breaking point was when i would click on a video and decide i didn't want to watch it anymore simply because there was an ad.

Gotta love RU-vid having no quality control on their ads and then blaming us for wanting to avoid them.

I love how advertisers can put literal shit in their ads, but content creators have to be ad-friendly to be able to stay monetized for youtube to show the same literal shit from advertisers.

The ironic thing is, if youtube was still only running a single ad at the start of the video like they used to, I might actually consider disabling my adblock. Right now though, i'm not even gonna think about considering it. I aint watching 4 minutes of ads every 2 minutes of a video.

Hiding dislikes was also something they tested out, they did it, and ignored everyone who said it was awful.

What bothers me the most about ads is how they always crank up the volume. That means that whenever an ad starts, it always is a little jump scare and forces me to turn down the volume or mute the ad. This is not just inconvenient for me, but also makes it so that every ad comes with a built in negative emotional experience.

RU-vid: "We're only testing this out, you can give feedback" Content creators: "This is terrible" RU-vid: "Too bad, we're putting it in full throttle"

My breaking point was when I started getting literal scam ads. Fake Mr. Beast giveaways and blatant pyramid scheme gurus along with the constant spam of hyper sexualized/shocking mobile game ads using stolen footage from other games. The fact this stuff gets approved and pushed by RU-vid is very worrisome to me

Rule #1 of advertising, is attracting customers. Not harassing them 💀

My breaking point was when RU-vid started showing ads on videos they had "demonetized" for not being "advertiser friendly". This was extremely hipocritical, so my thought was "if the creator is not getting paid for the ad, neither are you".

my breaking point was repetetive ads, being served the exact same ad 10x is just ridiculous, this was many years ago and I can only immagine how much worst the situation might be now

This is my philosophy towards advertisers: If I want to buy your product, I will look for your item, read reviews, and then purchase it. I will never buy your product if you shove the ad into my face, because it shows me that you spent more on the ad then on the quality of the product you’re selling. No remorse in installing adblockers, never thought of not using them.

I grew up in a household of people who muted or fast-forwarded through ads, and my parents always educated me about the manipulative tactics that advertisers use. Using an adblocker just felt like the right thing to do. My breaking point happened before I was born

my last straw was when RU-vid started putting ads on non monetized creators, up until that point I reluctantly watched ads on peoples videos knowing that at the very least a portion of the revenue was going to the creator without me directly giving them money, but as soon as that changed it felt very money grabby, and since you can't tell the difference between a monetized RU-vidr and a non monetized RU-vidr I just turned ads of completely.

My first 'breaking point' was at 14 years old, when I literally did not HAVE any money to pay for premium anything and installed adblock out of necessity. As I started hitting adulthood and having my own money I started getting a few premium subscriptions and allowing ads on some sites. Then a friend passed away by suicide. Immediately every ad I saw was about suicide awareness, estate planning, will writing, the whole lot. I went on the internet to distract myself from it and instead every ad on the entire internet shouted constantly in my face, "HEY REMEMBER YOUR FRIEND'S DEAD?!" Adblock on maximum ever since. Effing ghouls.

here's the thing: i never read those messages as "disable adblockers", i read them as "get a better adblocker, or wait for the next update"

I started ad blocking for one of the examples in the video: targeted alcohol ads. Looked up an AA meeting list and every single ad became an alcohol ad. It was unbelievable how awful it was. It actively interfered with my recovery, because they make them as tempting as possible.

My breaking point was getting an ad in the middle of a meditation video. No better way to throw me into a state of irritation than ear-blasting me with product shilling when I'm just starting to relax

My biggest problem with youtube ads is that they are 2-4 times LOUDER than the video I am watching

my tipping points were: 1. getting so many election ads to the point were like 1/100 ads i got were something not related to the election 2. going on any forum or wiki was hell since like 90% of the screen would just be ads 3. i got the same ad like 20 times in a row and after that i remembered adblock exists

RU-vid has actively been getting more aggressive with ads. It's really brave of them to think users would leave ad-blockers before they leave the platform.

I think part of my breaking point was how ads have gotten so overstimulating. It felt like whenever I would try to relax by watching a video, there would be 5 different loud, screaming, in-your-face ads before I could even think about being calm.

My breaking point was when I realized 1. More time was given to the ads then the actual video 2. When I clicked on a video and an ad played I immediately lost interest and/or forget why I wanted to watch the video in the first place.

The Crunchyroll ads FORCED me into either piracy, or ad blocking… I now use both

The cracks started with the double unskippable ads, but my breaking point was mid-roll ads. Nothing I love more than watching a gameplay video and having it abruptly interrupted by something I literally couldn't care less about

One thing worth noting: The original RU-vid app that came pre-installed on early iPhones had the feature to play videos while the screen was locked. Eventually the feature got removed and made a premium only "benefit".

My favorite thing about adblocks is that if someone starts to use adblock, it's VERY unlikely that they will stop using it. Even if you make ads better. So sites with extreme advertisement hurt themselves permanently.

I view ads as the modern door to door salesman, they have the right to knock and ask if you wanna buy something and you have the right to slam the door in their face. They cant stick their foot in the door and try to convince you, and youtube cant tell me i cant use adblock.

The breaking point for me was youtube 1. Saying certain content is not adworthy to punish certain creators 2. Going ahead and putting ads on those videos anyways

My adblock "Breaking point" was back when I worked at a computer repair store. We would have people come in time and time again with viruses on their computers. In each of these cases, I started showing people how to install adblock. I noticed that there was an approximately 95% drop in re-opened tickets for malware removal after this happened. The problem with advertising quality control is so bad that it's actively harmful to people online, and I am genuinely of the opinion that until actual legislation is put in place to enforce "ad quality control" that I will not disable my adblocker for any reason outside of it breaking a website that I need to use for work.

You actually described it right - when "single ad per video" was replaced by "double ads" I started to look for ad-blockers. Paid off greatly when ads became "every 5 minutes" and later non-skippable. But yes, 1 ad per video I was ready to tolerate

Every time I get that "Adblockers are not allowed on RU-vid." message I switch to another browser with the same adblocker and continue on with my day. Works like a charm

My breaking point was seeing how little my favorite content creators were getting out of ads, and seeing how they still had to bend over backwards to be advertiser friendly so they didn't get punished by the algorithm. The content I was receiving was worse not only because of the ads, but because the content creators themselves were being forced to create worse products in order to survive on the platform.

One thing that really annoyed me was being forced ads to watch in HD, when I was using RU-vid at 144p for audio-only purposes. I was often running other programs on my laptop which made the ads cause a lot of lag, and it just became unbareable.

It’s amazing to me how websites serve ads that are intrusive, obstructive, annoying, resource-intensive, and potentially dangerous, and then wonder why people block them.

I think the funniest thing of this whole ordeal is that RU-vid quite literally is the REASON a lot of people use adblocker programs across the entire internet. Their ad practices have been down right terrible for years now.

The "enough is enough" point for me were ads that prevented my ability to even view or interact with the content. Like I would be reading a news article, and suddenly a new car drives across the screen. Also, where the appearing and disappearing of ads means that when I'm trying to click on something, the thing I wanted to click on is suddenly in a different place and I click on something totally random.

My breaking point was when Google removed "Don't be evil" as their corporate slogan and Facebook had the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Seemed like the morally correct thing to do to cost these companies as much money as possible.

My breaking point: I made an educational RU-vid site. I steadfastly refused to monetize it (the channel isn't big enough anyway, but I made a promise to my viewers early on that I'd never put ads on it). Then in 2020 RU-vid put ads on *all* videos. I didn't want ads, but they were forced on me AND I don't get a cut of the profits. So now I view adblockers as a way of taking back, in a small way, what we used to have.

my breaking point was the minute that youtube introduced two 15 second unskippable ads in a row. i can understand a 30 second ad that i can skip in 5 seconds but having to sit for half a minute and have my intelligence insulted by ads that aren't for me was the last straw

My breaking point was about 10 years ago. I was living in a rural area and my internet was terrible. RU-vid was beginning to have an issue with 10-hour unskippable garbage ads due to their new ad serving platform, and ads would just generally be forced to play at higher resolutions than my internet could support. I got adblock and it literally saved me money by triggering my bandwidth limit less often.

Love the netflix piracy example, since piracy is now probably more convenient than netflix again.

I used to fall asleep listening to youtube videos I had already watched, and the amount of times had to skip an ad was unbelievable. Also, the time where I woke up to a 10 minute ad

Honestly my 'breaking point' was the actual malware ads. Not the ones you click on, but the ones that simply load and cause pop-up tabs to appear and attempt to force a download or add something to your browser cache, etc, etc. THOSE aren't common anymore, but early 2010 era, there were a few ad companies that, knowingly or not, added those to the list of ones that could appear for people.

The thing is, I probably wouldnt had been blocking ads if RU-vid didn't become greedy. They increased the length of the ads, the amount of ads, the frequency of ads, and even put them on videos that didn't even have ad sense in the first place. We're hardly supporting creators with ads since I doubt majority of the videos ad revenue actually goes to the creators.

i used youtube without adblock for years, my breaking point was the time when i was watching a 3 hour gameplay video and there were double unskippable ads every five minutes.

The best analogy for ads I can think of is this: Banner ads are like billboards. Not too distracting, just an optional, out-of-the-way advertisement for a local business. Modern ads are like having random stops where a lengthy video is projected onto your windshield displaying someone’s attempt to disguise a robbery as “an investment opportunity”. And the gov gets mad when you bypass these stops.

There was a point, back in college, where I legitimately didn't mind ads on RU-vid. At first I was like, "Eh, RU-vid has to make money somehow right?" But as the ads became more frequent, misleading, and inappropriate, and as RU-vid's PR tanked due to their own poor decisions, I hit my breaking point where I began using adblockers on all my devices. There are too many ads, most of which are unskippable or blatant lies, and rather than just fix them, RU-vid wants to shove them down our faces even more. We don't come to RU-vid to watch advertisements. We come to RU-vid to watch videos we want to watch. Without the videos, you don't even have the advertisements.

I started using adblockers when websites became genuinely unusable without them. Like, to the point where you were 100% going to get a virus if you clicked around a website enough times. All the excessive & incessant ads annoy me enough but all the straight-up malicious/dangerous ads out there were my breaking point.

My breaking point was the implementation of consecutive ads that had inconsistent or misleading skip timers. For example, skipping a 10 second ad to be met with an unskippable 15 second ad. Another one being a 5 second ad with a 5 second skip timer. The illusion of convenience.

My breaking point was a horror movie ad (I'm especially sensitive to horror) while I was trying to get myself to sleep because I was nervous about my first day on the job starting at 3am. A man stuck his hand in a blender... I didn't sleep.

To be honest, adblockers nowadays are basically a requirement for web browsing since web became so bloated and full of spam that sometimes your PC will struggle to open a website like it was a AAA PC game

RU-vid finally forced me to take my adblocker off, and suddenly I found myself inundated by gambling ads, video game ads with questionable marketing, and flat out 'get rich quick' webinar ads. And RU-vid wonders why I even had adblocker in the first place.

The breaking point was having way too many repetitive ads, cutting out the "skip ad" button, and the quality control of ads became nonexistent. The ads go against RU-vid guidelines as there was violent and sexual content being shown, and yet they got a pass compared to RU-vidrs.

My breaking point was a slow culmination of A) more than 2 ads started playing at the same time, B) the "skip" button was downgraded or C) purposely ads-disabled video (possibly a medical one) had ads added anyway, D) 1-minute MINIMUM ads for a 5-second video, E) HORROR ADS (they became a repressed memory after I installed adblocker!) Edit: Oh, I just found the legitimate reason, from an old message I sent I clicked "stop seeing this ad" on an NSFW ad I'd been getting for weeks when I clicked "tell us why" it remembered the last time i put in the "tell us why" thingy *and it autofilled it to "repetitive" because it remembered my preference for the same ad*

my breaking point was recently. Instead of simply skipping ads, you now HAVE to sit through one ad, and then press a Next button to see ANOTHER ad.

To be honest, it was over 10 years ago that I first installed an ad blocker, so I can't actually remember what the "final straw" was... But seeing how much worse it's gotten now, I'm so glad I got in when I did

Interestingly enough my breaking point wasn't actually the amount of ads or their content. It's that every ad on youtube would throw away the video buffer that had built up, and back when I didn't have that good internet that was mighty annoying especially when I intentionally let the buffer build up before playing the video.

>open youtube >watch 2 videos >get ad of poorly animated women twerking >close youtube instantly and go back to other platforms

Back in the old days (2015-ish), when RU-vid was the only website that allows skippable ads, all the ad companies were competing to increase the artistic value of their ads. Those old ads were so artistically good that I watched most of them without skipping. The deterioration of ad quality and the inability to skip them were the tipping point. I ended up with ad-blockers since then. I hate those fake mobile game ads nowadays.

Breaking point is when I was trying to download a mod for a video game and there were about ten different download buttons. I thought it wasen't worth the risk. I looked up how to stop seeing ads, or something like that and have been living in bliss for years

The idea that skipping or muting ads is 'theft' is ludicrous but this is what we get when intellectual property rights have been normalized as if they were completely analogous to physical property rights.

Google will never block these ads until they are DIRECTLY held accountable for them. Maybe a class action lawsuit for everyone who was scammed by a Google ad? Get everyone to make a claim. For every nickel and dime that is lost, for every scam item that never arrives. Then maybe ad quality would improve.

My breaking point to get an ad blocker was specifically because it became cumbersome to listen to music. I was ok with an ad every once and a while, but when I’m getting like 2 or 3 ads per song it gets pretty degrading

My breaking point was finding out adblockers exist. Mostly because I'm old enough to remember an internet uncorrupted by ads, and one where it was still slow enough that you would have to leave a video to buffer for a while, yet the 30 second ad would load immediately and have no issues.

For me the tipping point to use an adblocker had nothing to do with youtube. At some point webpages were just 90% advertising with popups everywhere. It is just infuriating. having an adblocker made the webpages so much cleaner and nicer to view. The whole internet became a better experience

My breaking point was when I started getting served ads of gofundme accounts for children with life threatening illnesses. I remember one in particlar where they filmed a very young girl asking the viewer to save her life. I cant afford my own medical expenses and it was taking a toll on my mental health.

My breaking point was when I would be watching a video and get a double unskippable ad and wanted to go back and rewatch the portion that got interrupted only to be hit with another double unskippable ad not 2 seconds after I rewinded. That was just ridiculous at that point.

The thing that bothered me most about ads is how often they're much louder than the source material. Like 1.5 -3x louder than my actual playlist. Scared the hell out of me

the very first reason I actually decided to use an adblocker was because I noticed the sheer amount of ads on certain websites was making my whole PC SLOW DOWN. So a friend showed me adblockers and other extensions that help with safety and privacy, and right after adding those... I didn't have any more slowing down issues at all. I was SHOCKED at how resource heavy the ads were

My breaking point came when RU-vid started having *ONLINE GAMBLING* Ads which by the way, is *ILLEGAL* in my country. Another thing was shitty mobile game ads which constantly appeared.

Another breaking point was an ad I kept repeatedly seeing about 2 or 3 years ago, it was a un-skippable google ad during Christmas time and it was a kid getting excited over a random present. It was literally just google’s usual awful music, followed by the kid’s worst ear-rape high pitched screaming that a deaf person couldn’t ignore. I swear they’re somehow convinced that if they create the most abrasive and annoying advertisements possible it will somehow create profit

My tipping point was when I realized that over 30% of my monitor had ads plastered all over it. I had initially disabled my Adblock for RU-vid, to support creators, but RU-vid’s double unskippable ads convinced me otherwise.

The breaking point for me was when i realized i spent more time watching ads to see if the video was decent than i was actually watching content. Ironically this was made even worse when the dislike button change was implemented

I started adblocking when I was a kid. My ADHD affects my impulsivity, and since I wasn’t medicated, I needed a buffer to prevent me from doing things like playing pay-to-win games and visiting shady sites. Now I just consider it a regular quality of life thing. I can’t stand ads and think they’re incredibly intrusive.

My breaking point was probably seeing all those NSFW ads as a 14-15 year old and fearing my parents would see it and take my laptop/internet away from me for looking at such things.. not even on some fringe site, but on youtube and other "mainstream" sites. Also those long unskippable ads that would show up on youtube more regularly at that time. I immediately noticed how cluttered most sites were with ads and how barren or empty they looked without them... made me realize just how many ads i used to be subjected to.

RU-vid ads used to be tolerable. But when RU-vid started chaining ads together as well as making them unskippable, that's what drove me to get an adblocker. The fact that their ads became more aggressive, more intrusive, and more disruptive just further added reason to have an adblocker.

My breakind point with ads were 10 minute videos that took 20 minutes to get through just by the sheer volume of ads. Then, when I would listen to mindfulness/relaxation content I'd get blasted by extremely loud and obnoxious ads which doesn't help when you're already overstimulated. Now I use a browser with Adblock built in and my life has never been more peaceful.

A corporate not only giving a free pass to advertisers to put whatever NSFW content they want in their ads, but also constantly saying "we don't give a shit if you don't want to see them, we will piss away millions to find new ways to shove them down your throat" wonders why those measures aren't very popular.

My ad breaking point was when I was trying to use the Terraria's Fandom wiki on mobile browser and the search bar was unusable 75% of the time because an un-removable ad would cover it. It also did a thing where ads would wait a bit before loading in the middle of the page, suddenly shifting everything on the page downward and sometimes causing me to click on things I didn't intend to click on

The breaking point for me was an 8 minute video with 10 ad breaks. I decided to make my own ad blocker (RU-vid makes it really easy, and I already use DNS ad blocking for other websites) which took me about 4 hours. I am pretty sure I've already saved 4 hours of time since then...

My personal limits when it comes to ads are horror movie trailers and fake game ads that are often super sexualized. I used to think to myself "I'll enable ads on the content creators I want to support most" but it's come to a point where I can't just ignore it even for creators that make things I love to watch. There's just far too little oversight on RU-vid's part on what ads get shown

Respect the hell out of you for putting a disclaimer about your potential biases and conflicts of interest. I think more people who make commentary videos should put similar disclaimers at the beginning of their videos whenever they talk about a person/subject/event. Nobody is inherently unbiased and it's refreshing to see somebody being upfront about it.

For years and years I was one of those people that adamantly refused to get an adblocker. It wasn't out of moral principle, I didn't think ads were a necessary evil or anything, I just generally don't go out of my way to fiddle with browser add-ons or third party apps. So I was fully tolerant of ads just out of pure laziness. What really broke me was the sheer QUANTITY of ads. 5-10 years ago you got maybe 1 ad at the beginning, 1 at the end, and maybe 1 or two midrolls. Now it's an unending barrage of double ads, unskippable 15 second ads, skippable ads that will keep playing for minutes if you're not at your device to skip them (huge problem when trying to listen to videos while doing something else). I think youtube truly killed their golden goose by making their platform a nightmare for people like me, the lazy folks that would never have gone out of their way to get an adblocker if they didn't ramp the ads up to such an obscene amount.

Scams on ads were the breaking point for me. They even try to appear as well known government institutions, this should be illegal.

What's ironic is that without things like this happening, I could've gone my whole life without things like ReVanced and Adnauseam

I have never once bought a product because an ad before, never once. I will continue to do this. Watching ads are literally just a waste of my precious time on this earth nothing more.

Its so addicting hearing about everyone's "breaking point". Mine was when I had so many ads that half of the websites I used had ads covering 90% of the screen

My breaking point was when RU-vid started demonetizing all of the video essays from multiple creators I watched. They gave no reason, so it was obvious that some trolls had just started reporting everything. This was after they'd started demonetizing song covers, music tutorial videos, you name it. They also put ads on channels who had previously made a point about using no ads (such as Bill Wurtz). If none of the creators I watched were gaining anything from the ads I watched, I wasn't going to watch them.

My breaking points were 1.) when the sheer amount of ads on webpages started lagging my entire computer and 2.) seeing one of my friends use one; it was just that much better.

My breaking point was when the Adblock informed me how many ads it’s blocked. I just checked, 8.3 MILLION ads since installation.

It wasn’t RU-vid ads that did it for me. It was the pop ups and independently opened windows that randomly occur on smaller websites

The major issue I take with RU-vid banning ad blockers is that the platform does not moderate the advertisements, and they are trying to make it a violation of the TOS to moderate ads. I hope this goes crazy and makes it to the supreme court where it will then become illegal to block ad blockers in any capacity, including in a mobile app. Google can afford to lose ad revenue from RU-vid. Content creators might not be able to afford that loss. This is just going to become RU-vid trying to outsmart the room for their own profit and ending up ruining it for everyone.

For me the breaking point was that someone pointed out what a problem it could be if you hypothetically were looking up something important in a time sensitive situation and needed a video to learn what you needed, but youtube conveniently put three unskippable 15 second ads before the start

Well said. Even “safe” ads are annoying. Especially when they pop up out of nowhere, and pressing the “x” brings you to the ad instead of deleting it.

My breaking point was a moment when I realized that I was mentally keeping a list of the most spammed ads, just to never buy their products out of spite. At that point I felt I might as well block them. I was out in town, hungry, and wanted something quick. Walked past a burger place, but thought to myself "No not these f-k's, I'm sick and tired of them".

My breaking point for using an ad blocker was when I got an unskippable 30 minute ad before a five minute video. It’s basically impossible to use the internet without one these days.

I'm sure many people remember when RU-vid initially decided to allow mid-roll ads for videos that were at least ten minutes long (now eight minutes). It essentially let creators spam ads by elongating their videos to ten minutes, and seeing 6 ads (when RU-vid had those yellow bars to indicate when an ad would play) within a ten minute video was the breaking point for me.

I never really had a breaking point for ads since one day I just learned about them and thought "this will let me watch more of my favorite RU-vidrs"