Sounds like what adnauseam is doing. It loads ads hidden and clicks on some of them but I am not sure if it does that with YouTube ads or just blocks them.

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 7 points 11 months ago (3 children)

So does this cause advertisers to lose money since their ads are being clicked but never viewed by human eyes? Because if so, I'll install ad nauseum asap

[–] Uncle_Bagel@midwest.social 7 points 11 months ago

I thinkk the main idea behind ad naseum is to drown out any information you leave behind. Basically it hiides your data in a pile of useless and fake data that becomes useless.

[–] BaumGeist@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not for AdSense ads, like what YouTube uses. Click-Through Rate (CTR) is only used to determine how much of a cut Google gives to the ad hosts, the advertisers just bid for the spots. The advertisers can see the CTR metrics, and so they might be willing to bid more, but that's not guaranteed.

So google makes money either way, and the advertisers spend money either way. The only difference is that your favorite websites and youtubers get paid too.

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 1 points 11 months ago

Hmmm well for some reason I was under the impression that ad nauseum can be used alongside uBO, but I see now that it can't so I guess I'll keep uBO since I've got a ton of custom filters, but this was insightful so thanks.

[–] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Yep, advertisers are paying for ad clickthroughs that no human ever sees.