(I created this thread over on ERA but wanted your guys’ take as well)
There was some chatter on Reddit about this last night that I dismissed, a friend of mine read this as “if I use ad blockers on YouTube they will ban my Gmail account so I’m moving all my services off @gmail and using a different email address”. I don’t get that take myself, but maybe he’s right and I’m wrong?
But regardless, VG247 breaking this down seems to make it clear Google wants to … scare away all their YouTube content creators? Why would they do this? This seems like a terrible idea that’s going to backfire and have creators scrambling for new places to move to, wouldn’t you expect?
I have a little channel with around 1300 subscribers, it’s cool - I can put up some fun videos and people sometimes like them and more often ignore them - and I don’t monetize so I don’t think I have anything to worry about - but then again, I’m not commercially viable either?
I think that it is just giving Google a way to potentially close accounts. Commercial viability in this case would be like if someone somehow was generating tons of traffic on YouTube, but somehow not generating any ad revenue. I’m not sure how that’d even happen, but it seems like a valid rationale for Google.
I mean, YouTube’s a service that they pay to operate.
I don’t think there’s likely any reason why they’d close yours.
Commercial viability in this case isn’t whether YOU are commercially viable as a professional youtuber, but rather whether providing the YouTube service to you is commercially viable to Google.
The terms are vague, by design I assume. The “for cause” subsection of the terminations section mentions they may close “your access, your Google account, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service,” but it’s the next subsection that mentions “commercial viability,” and that section only says they may terminate “your access, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service,” and does not mention closing your Google account. Very unclear, and I suspect Google will act however it wants, which actions may appear arbitrary to an outside observer, so I don’t think the fears of getting your Gmail closed for using an ad blocker are entirely unfounded.
Regardless, the “content creator” framing of the VG247 article seems dumb, because as far as I can tell that section of the terms doesn’t apply solely to “channels” or “content creators” at all, but to all users of the service (who if they have Google accounts technically have “channels,” but whatever).
Probably nothing to see here, sounds like this is just a wording change on an existing entry:
Update: The line in question has actually been part of YouTube’s terms of service since last year, but the most recent update changed the wording.
“YouTube may terminate its legal agreement with you if the provision of the service to you by YouTube is, in YouTube’s opinion, no longer commercially viable.”
That line has now been changed to the harsher and clearer, “YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the Service to you is no longer commercially viable.”
I don’t even care about gmail. I can switch email providers with minimal disruption (due to using my own custom domain) and it’s an inconvienience at most if I can’t access other stuff.
The real pain is losing access to all the systems that I’ve used Google single sign on for, some of which don’t have their own username/password capabilities.
I’ve been wondering about that. The only reason I haven’t deleted my Facebook account is that long ago I used it for my Spotify sign-in, and I can’t be arsed trying to transfer it over to a conventional log-in, if it’s even possible.
That is not what I said. I said this shit is vague enough that it reads that Google can do whatever the hell they want, which is probably true anyway. Then I decided just in case that ever happens for any reason, it would probably be safer to not have all my vital access to things tied to gmail. I said this more than once. But thanks for that.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything. What kicked this off was your email to me last night, giving me the heads up that Google was banning accounts that watched YouTube videos with ad blockers. You had sent that email from a non-Gmail account, so I used you as an example of what some people were interpreting this as.
I suspect it’s most likely to be applied in cases where someone is doing something on their channel that Youtube thinks is bad for their business - i.e. tarnishing their brand kinda thing. I can’t imagine Youtube caring about small accounts that aren’t making money enough to shut them down. And while I imagine they’re not very fond of adblockers, actually banning people for using them seems like a nuclear step no other site has been prepared to take, so I’m skeptical of that.
I don’t know for sure, but something to keep in mind is these ad-blockers are found on Google’s own Chrome Extension store. It’s not like they are banned there and only available via hacks or cracks.
If content creators monetise their videos, it’s to be able to continue to put the time and effort into creating their videos. IMHO, the least you can do is to not completely block ads. Skip them when possible if you must.
Or you can also enjoy Youtube completely free of ads while still sharing revenue with the creators you watch by subscribing to Youtube Premium. No interruption to your viewing schedule and you give back something while getting access to the premium features.
It costs me about $15 for myself and 4 more family members to enjoy all the benefits on our family accounts. The ability to download videos and background youtube play are awesome on their own. All 5 of us use that. And no ads without guilt is very welcome.
If I could cherry pick which ones I watch with ads and which I don’t, maybe. Mostly I hate ads in front of content that is itself an ad, like movie or game trailers.
I did the YouTube membership for a bit this last summer, and enjoyed the ability to download videos as well as watching The Karate Kid, but it’s just one more monthly expense and I think I’m about ready to start paring those down, rather than adding to them. It’s such a resource sink, having Hulu and Netflix, and Office 365, and Amazon Prime, and on and on and on…
