DEV Community: Harris Ahmad

Uncovering the Hidden Data Costs of Mobile YouTube Video Ads

Harris Ahmad — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 07:29:43 +0000

Every time you watch a YouTube ad on your phone, you're probably paying more than you think — not just with your time, but with your mobile data. And if you're in a developing country, that cost can be genuinely significant. Our paper, published at WWW '24 (ACM Web Conference 2024), is the first independent empirical study of YouTube video ad data costs from the user's perspective. Prior work focused entirely on the platform or advertiser side. We wanted to know: what does the user actually pay?

What We Did
We built a distributed scraper using Selenium and PyTube, parallelizing collection across 20 machines over the course of a year. The result: a dataset of 17,600 YouTube videos and 46,600 ads spanning 8 countries — including the first large-scale corpus of YouTube data with per-video buffer metrics.
Then we analyzed where data actually goes during ad delivery. Not just what plays, but what gets buffered and thrown away.

The Findings
The headline result: video ads contain multiple latent and avoidable sources of data wastage that users never see but always pay for.
The biggest driver? Main-video resolution. At 720p, latent buffer loss is approximately 3× higher than at 360p — roughly 10.1 MB vs 3.4 MB per session. That buffered data is fetched, then discarded. You pay for it either way.
This isn't a minor rounding error. When you map these losses against the UN Broadband Commission's "1 for 2" affordability benchmark (1 GB should cost no more than 2% of monthly income), the burden on users in low-income countries is stark. A waste that's invisible in the US can represent real money for a user in Pakistan, Nigeria, or Indonesia.

Why It Matters
The web measurement community has spent a lot of energy studying performance from the network's perspective. We think the user's wallet deserves the same attention — especially as mobile internet remains the only internet for billions of people.
Our dataset and code are publicly available if you want to dig in further.
Read the paper.

🚀 Announcing the Ultimate Repository for Data Structures in Multiple Languages! 🚀

Harris Ahmad — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 19:13:16 +0000

I am excited to share my latest project, a comprehensive collection of data structures implemented in C++, Go, JavaScript, and Python. This repository is perfect for students, educators, and software developers looking to understand and utilize different data structures in practical applications.

Why You’ll Love It:

Detailed implementations with real-world applications
Easy-to-follow examples
Contributions welcomed!
Get Started:
Navigate to the respective directory and follow the instructions in the comments or documentation within the code. Example for Go Singly Linked List:

go run LinkedList.go

Future Plans:

More data structures in existing languages
Support for additional programming languages
Practical applications demonstrating real-world use cases
Check it out on GitHub and star the repo if you find it useful! ⭐️

Link to the repo: https://github.com/harris-ahmad/DataStructuresAndAlgorithms

🚀 Exciting News!

Harris Ahmad — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 01:55:55 +0000

I am thrilled to announce that I have just published my first npm package: @harrisahmad/simpleauth! 🎉

🔐 simpleauth is a simple and efficient authentication system built using Passport.js. It’s designed to help developers easily integrate session-based authentication into their Node.js applications.

Features:

Easy to set up and integrate
Secure session-based authentication
Built with Passport.js for extensibility
Lightweight and fast

How to Install:
You can install simpleauth via npm:

npm install @harrisahmad/simpleauth

How to Use:
Check out the documentation and example usage on the npm's website: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@harrisahmad/simpleauth

GitHub: https://github.com/harris-ahmad/AuthenticationSystem

Why I Built This:

As a developer, I understand the challenges of implementing authentication in applications. I wanted to create a solution that simplifies this process and helps other developers save time and effort.

I would love for you to check it out, give it a try, and provide feedback. Your input will be invaluable in making simpleauth even better.

Thank you for your support!

🚀 Announcing the Ultimate Repository for Data Structures in Multiple Languages! 🚀

Harris Ahmad — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:29:11 +0000

Why You’ll Love It:

Detailed implementations with real-world applications
Easy-to-follow examples
Contributions welcomed!

Get Started:
Navigate to the respective directory and follow the instructions in the comments or documentation within the code. Example for Go Singly Linked List:

go run LinkedList.go

Future Plans:

More data structures in existing languages
Support for additional programming languages
Practical applications demonstrating real-world use cases

Check it out on GitHub and star the repo if you find it useful! ⭐️

Link to the repo: https://lnkd.in/dM7S5iKi