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WarmWashtoday at 5:48 PM2 repliesview on HN

Then start loading ads.

Youtube's biggest threat ever died in the cradle because they foolishly thought users would volunteer money to them.

No one with capital and capability looks at youtube, looks at youtube's audience, and says "Yeah, 30-40% ad-blocking and 4.5% paying for premium, these are the people I want to build services for!".


Replies

mywittynametoday at 6:21 PM

Those ad-blocked viewers are important, which is why YT doesn't actually crack down on them.

Those are the people who will happily go to an alternative product. And while that product might start as a pirate YouTube, the one that nabs 30% of YT's traffic can certainly make a pivot to legit. If you're a content creator whose audience is mostly in that group, you're likely to start posting content directly on the competitor's site.

I'm guessing OP had their account banned for using a tool like yt-dl too aggressively. Then again, doing that does give a warning.

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sleepybretttoday at 7:18 PM

He was on premium, paid for ad blocker.