Why do trailers in the windows app have ads but not the web app?

[Mahinepua 129]

The windows client has both ads and subtitles still, plus additional youtube overlays. Not all trailers are affected, but lets say every second trailer we try to play.

The same thing doesnt happen with the web app.

@softworkzIs there a technical reason for this?

 

[Luke 42882]

Hi, I think we’re still trying to figure that out although I don’t think it’s consistent every time. We have to use the YouTube ask to embed videos and so that means we do have to play by their rules.

[softworkz 5352]

6 hours ago, Mahinepua said:

The windows client has both ads and subtitles still, plus additional youtube overlays. Not all trailers are affected, but lets say every second trailer we try to play.

The same thing doesnt happen with the web app.

@softworkzIs there a technical reason for this?

 

Do you have an adblocker extension in the browser perhaps?

 

[Mahinepua 129]

No and it’s not an issue with the android client nor did it happen with the old windows app.

[serpi 82]

Are you using YouTube Premium in your Browser and are you logged in with your account?

[Mahinepua 129]

No I don’t have YouTube premium and I’m logged into my YouTube account in the browser.

[softworkz 5352]

20 hours ago, Mahinepua said:

@softworkzIs there a technical reason for this?

One reason I can imagine might be the fact that Google doesn't have anything available for recognizing and tracking you when running inside the app.

The Windows app is running the UI from file:// urls, which means that there are no remote http requests to (google) servers which set cookies (or rather some smarter replacements) by which Google can recognize you and determine how many ads you have been shown already. When the can't determine that, they might assume you are trying to trick them in some way and showing you more ads therefore.

When you thnk about from a different angle, it makes even more sense: Even though the client is loading content from remote servers, it never navigates to any website, it only hangs around in the realm of the local file scheme and none of their usual identification tricks are working - they're flying blind more or less, which is pretty unusual. In this regard, we probably shouldn't wonder when they are showing different behavior.

What I'm alluding to, implies the overarching concept that they are tracking you and doing some bookkeeping with regards to the total amount of ads shown to you within a certain timespan, making sure that it remains slightly below of becoming a major annoyance. If you don't let them do this, they are penalizing it as you could also be trying to intentionally trick them.

The above is just a theory, but that's exactly the kind of things they are doing. Each time when they're adding  new browser features to "protect your privacy", it just means that they are killing off competitors after they have already switched to a newer and better method for tracking you, which the others haven't figured out yet.