That’s the point. They want to stop people bypassing ads by using alternative front ends. If they succeed with server side ads, then it’s going to be difficult to block ads. Maybe not impossible, but difficult.
It’s maybe doable, but figuring out where ads start and end in a video file isn’t necessarily trivial. The app must know what to look for, and YouTube might try to obfuscate it to make it harder.
Database of ad timestamps like sponsorblock only works if ads happens at the same timestamps (and are of equal length). This is not necessarily the case.
The only reliable way I can come up with is a database of ads to look for, but that can be huge to accommodate for all possible ads. There’s also risk of false positives (risk of skipping video when there are no ad).
Since it is server side, will this effect the alternative front ends?
That’s the point. They want to stop people bypassing ads by using alternative front ends. If they succeed with server side ads, then it’s going to be difficult to block ads. Maybe not impossible, but difficult.
That’s what I figured, but I’m not expert on how things work so wanted someone who knows more chime in. Sad times
It won’t, you’ll just use an app that pre downloads all your favorite channels and scans them for ads so it can auto skip them.
It’s maybe doable, but figuring out where ads start and end in a video file isn’t necessarily trivial. The app must know what to look for, and YouTube might try to obfuscate it to make it harder.
Trust in the Foss.
If it pisses people off enough they will manually create a database of videos and ad timestamps for removal if it can’t be easily automated.
Database of ad timestamps like sponsorblock only works if ads happens at the same timestamps (and are of equal length). This is not necessarily the case.
The only reliable way I can come up with is a database of ads to look for, but that can be huge to accommodate for all possible ads. There’s also risk of false positives (risk of skipping video when there are no ad).