I'm curious if ad blockers can somehow make it appear as though blocked YouTube ads were viewed. If they could do this, would it mess with tracking data and give some ad revenue to the creators? Is there any way this could actually happen?
3 Answers
Essentially, an ad blocker can only make it look like an ad was served and viewed. YouTube has pretty sophisticated tracking, and they know exactly when they need to check for ad completions. If there's a discrepancy in what they track (like if the viewer keeps watching content without acknowledging the ad), they might not count that ad impression for payment purposes. So, while you could spoof some data, it wouldn't really mess with their algorithm in a significant way.
There are tools like AdNauseam that are designed to try and tackle this issue. I also use some extensions that help skip sponsor ads. It’s certainly an interesting approach to managing ads!
I’ve been using the Brave browser for YouTube for years now, and I haven’t seen ads in ages! I even built a little media center with an old Lenovo Thinkcentre just to enjoy ad-free streaming on the TV. Works like a charm!
That's cool! But just a heads up, that’s not exactly what the original question was about.