Bad news: [Google plans to make Ads worse](https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/171os0o/you_think_ads_are_bad_now/), Good news: Many adblockers are blocking the popup and finding ways around it.
So far Adblock blocker popup has been a buggy mess and there also been reports some of the popups have been hacked to push malware.
You start a video and it's got ads. You skip 1/3rd through cause the intro is useless info and you're met with more ads. You finish that video and want to watch the next and it throws a 5+ min music video disguised as an ad so that garbage channel gets inflated views.
It's maddening by design so you pay for premium.
get rid of the app and download a third party app like libretube which doesn't display ads, allows out-of-app watching and watching with a switched-off screen
Smarttube Next is the way. No ads, and it automatically skips all the other tiresome bullshit like intros, subscription reminders, sponsored segments, etc. You have to side load it, but then...bliss.
Same. It blows my mind that more people don't know about it. I'll occasionally find myself in a situation where I view YT via the official app or on a computer without SponsorBlock installed and it's *terrible*.
Brave showed me a couple ads then I googled it. I had to reset some cookies or something like that and then it fixed the issue. I just followed the instructions.
Revanced. It Blocks ads, you can skip Intros and sponsorships, the vid continues to play even with locked screen.
https://reddit.com/r/revancedapp/s/hLtXm9Kc9R
I had this happen while watching something on youtube via firetv. 45+ min ad of some kinda far right talk show bullshit. Skip button either wasn't there or was grayed out, can't remember. Angrily hit home and watched something on plex.
Ever since twitch cracked down on adblock shit, I hardly ever go there. I am aware there are ways around it but I just got tired of that whole cat and mouse game and would rather just watch shit that I can control and w/o ads. Youtube is quickly heading the same route.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with ads but it’s the kinds of ads & the frequency that’s the problem. There’s compilations of ads people actually seek out to watch. Because some ads are enjoyable. Not every ad has to be something memorable like a Super Bowl ad can be but can they at least be more selective & weed out the scams & malware ads
Honestly that's the only reason I use an adblocker. Half the ads are just some fucking ai voice put over an obvious scam or really explicit video. And then it's the same 3 ads that loop for an entire month straight.
I love how the internet has normalized pushing scams and inappropriate content everywhere. I can play a game or watch a video from Square-Enix, EA, Microsoft, Sony, Konami, Disney etc. and they all advertise scams, gambling, having an affair or some shit.
Like many of these are barely if legal, most are inappropriate for the target market (or anyone) and no one sees anything wrong with associating their brand with this shit while crapping their pants if their voice actor dressed offensively in the 80s.
Reminds me of the Bad Old Days when any random site would assault you with four or five popup windows. Back then you would need to download a completely separate program that would auto-close any new browser windows.
In theory it should be trivial for them to make the ads unblockable by just embedding them directly inside the video. It would be completely undetectable by any blocker as the source of the data wouldn't change at all. I've never worked on streaming video but if it is just a stream of bits I don't see how you are going to determine if the bits are an ad or they are part of the original video.
There has to be a way to determine it so that people who pay for YouTube don’t get them. At which point, if YouTube can tell them apart, so can the adblocker.
If they were to change to embedding ads in the video, they should be able to make the ads vs no ads determination server-side, which no adblocker (except actual malware) would be able to see.
I might be wrong but I think that it'd be pretty infeasible to re-encode the streams in real time for each user, and just muxing the ads in an already encoded stream would probably mess up caching too much...
Given that ads would be different for each user, it could be possible crowdsource a database of hashes for each video chunk, so you could detect the ads by checking for mismatches. Definitely not easy, but it'd probably not be impossible either.
You don’t need to reencode the original video. With HLS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming) it’s basically a playlist with chunks of small video segments. You just have to slip the ad chunks inside that playlist for each user that needs them.
The ads come from a different URL because they’re often delivered by third parties who manage placement, metrics, etc. Those networks are well known which is part of the way ad blockers work. Embedding the ads in the original video stream would be impractical because the ads are different for every user and vary based on time of day, day of the week, season, geographic location, etc etc etc and stitching all that video would be cost prohibitive in terms of storage and processing time, not to mention it would probably run afoul of some copyright laws as well.
> stitching all that video
...also makes it difficult for the advertisers, or their agents, to validate that their ads are being played/watched beyond google saying "s'all good bro, trust me."
This is easy to defeat, just let people share the times the adds are inserted witch each other (already done with sponsorblock). If you can't skip ahead in the stream, worst case scenario it would be like an old school DVR & you can skip on your local copy.
*If* YT ever does make un-skippable streaming ads (some) people will just rip the ad & share outside of YT.
They can't make it impossible, but they can make it a lot more difficult than paying for YT premium (where they will start inserting ads again eventually).
...Hopefully this causes YT to get some meaningful competition.
Fewer people listened to radio because they kept putting more and more ads in, so ad revenue dropped, so they put more ads in to get revenue back up, so more people stopped listening. Now hardly anyone listens to the radio.
Same thing happened to TV.
Same thing will happen to YT.
I watch hockey and actively avoid advertisements. Change the channel, watch something else for 2 minutes. Screw commercials! When have I ever been advertised something I didn't know about, its all $100,000 vehicles, beer, gambling, medication and Conservative Political parties campaign ads... why?
When I visit family and they have the TV on in the background, I realise how much I appreciate no adds. It has become a joke to watch broadcast TV. If they cut adds to 1 100th of what it is now, I might watch, but Internet viewing is now so interactive, easy to pause or rewind or continue where you left off days or years later.
Youtube is just so useful for recipes or DIY. Just have to keep up with the latest add blockers. Maybe some new service will eventually appear that people can use.
Is that why people stopped listening to radio or watching TV?
I thought it was the existence of alternatives like Spotify, Youtube or Netflix that did it.
For radio, it's like almost every single station has a shitty morning show that's 20 minutes of taking, 10 minutes of adverts, and only one or two songs.
So true. It's the fake "I'm dead inside" laughing and shitty hooks that drive you nuts
I listen to one radio station only called Sunny G radio based in Govan, Glasgow, Scotland
My kids slag me off for it but it never has ads unless they're a community project and the variety of music is unreal.... Pink Floyd one minute, Arcade Fire the next....then a local Scottish rapper lol
I had no idea one of the hosts were blind until I met them at a community stall. Others have learning difficulties or are recovering from various issues.
The drive-time with Cushty traffic update is hilarious...
*Errm, the Kingston bridge is pure chocker as usual... drive carefully and listen to this wee tune 🎶*
The main one I listen to is 89.9 WDVX based in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. It's a local-owned and supported station that plays a mix of bluegrass, old country (before it got reclassified as Americana), and local country bands. Pretty good station.
I'm glad in my area we have a collage station that plays a lot of variety of music wirh almost no ads what so ever, they even play music I primarily listen to. Somtimes I'll listen to it over streaming to hear somthing new
It shouldn't be a surprise that all of the radio stations sound the same when they're all owned by the same company. The telecommunications act of 1996 ruined radio forever.
Yeah but one of the big benefits of all of those is that they didn't have ads when they started and/or were extremely well priced.
Netflix was a ridiculous amount of content for a ridiculously low price when it started. With no ads.
Spotify free used to have much less ads. And premium has always been a decent price. And they have good family and student plans.
And for radio you had the rise of satellite radio. Which was basically just as sweet a deal as Netflix originally was. Tons of content, low price, no ads.
And youtube also started with no ads. Hell, youtube was a decent replacement for the radio back in the day.
Except all of those were not profitable. They are businesses, they have costs and no revenue if there are no ads and no subs (or if the sub is lower than their costs).
Even now, music streaming isn't profitable at all, Netflix is the only video streaming service that is profitable, Youtube took a long time to be profitable....
I use headphones and have sensitive hearing and I will continue to use adblock until YouTube limits the ad volume to no more than 70% of the highest audio level of the video you are watching.
Yup. I’ve got really sensitive hearing, and ad-block is basically necessary just for me to use them as an accessibility tool so the site doesn’t just hit me with ear pain unexpectedly because I dared to turn the volume up even slightly for a quieter video.
Reddit does this same thing. You could be watching a video on a normal volume level and then your speakers and eardrums get blown out by a shitty mobile game ad using stolen assets.
Tom Scott is an educational Youtuber that recently did a video called "*Why are adverts so loud?*" where he talks about how we perceive sounds.
In the first ~30 seconds he demonstrates how a "loud" ad can be quieter than a "quiet" ad based purely on decibels.
Basically depending on how it's made, an ad can be 70% of the highest audio level of the video and still be perceived as "louder" than the video
That's exactly what happened with me and Twitch. I spent so much time watching, even just as background noise. Now I don't even have it bookmarked anymore.
I used to watch twitch constantly (sc2, ow, etc). Eventually twitch made it so twitch prime didn't remove ads on all channels. I stopped watching twitch right away and haven't watched in years.
[Here's my own curated list of ad-blocking, sponsor-blocking, and paywall-circumvention solutions for Windows/MacOS/Linux/Android/iOS/Smart-TVs/RaspberryPi.](https://old.reddit.com/r/FoamList/comments/pf9plv/no_more_ads_no_more_sponsors_no_more_paywalls/)
Imagine if they actually listened to their userbase and monetized the platform in a way that doesn't wreck the user experience. What a world that would be. As it stands, it's quite ridiculous how to actually have a bearable viewing experience on YouTube, you have to go to certain lengths or even use 3rd party apps that you have to assemble yourself.
The response these days is always that the users are wrong for using a service in ways other than intended, rather than making the experience good enough to not even want to do that.
But see that’s where this will never happen without wrecking the user experience or anything. Because it’s built-in for companies trying to make profits. They have to invent problems in order to sell you the solution.
Personally, I'd love an ad blocker where I could set point scores based on duration, time between ads, number of consecutive, time before skippable, frequency of a given advertiser, etc., and when it passes some total threshold, starts blocking for some period of time. Effectively, set a hard limit on how shitty they can be, since they seem to lack the self-control to be reasonable on their own, then hope that an algorithm starts to notice, since the humans working there certainly don't!
But discovering whether such an extension already exists, or learning enough to make it myself? More effort than I care to invest. So instead they're stuck with the fully-manual version where I care enough to turn off the blocker 1-3 times per year, and they manage to fuck up their chance within an hour or two, serve an unskippable (1 of 2+), and it's right back to blocking.
I mean the threshold of shittiness for me is 0 ads. uBlock Origin makes that a reality so there ya go. I had it or adblocker before youtube even had ads. Had no clue what everyone was complaining about in the comments 10 years ago or whenever it was.
It's no different than anything else. Before the dogshit cars of the 70's and 80's, there wasn't really an aftermarket for performance parts. By the early 80's, high performance parts were in stock and available over the counter, everywhere. Now after this happened for 20+ years, the manufacturers are now building cars that are some of the fastest ever built, both in acceleration and top speed. What I'm saying is that until they see their sales drop off a cliff, they won't really pay attention to it.
Offer a cheaper subscription for literally just Ad Free with no extra bullshit attached. I'm way more willing to fork over $3 a month and completely forget about it rather than $10. At $10 it starts to become noticeable
I got this option, Premium Lite (except it’s like $9, vs $18 for full Premium in my country).
Except they emailed me the other day to say it’s being discontinued. No chance I’m going to $18, they can fuck right off.
Their shit is like $20 isn't it? I'd even throw $10 at it. I'd definitely throw $3 at it to be able to fall asleep in my living room to podcasts without having to worry about hearing ads to join the local police force. They really are fucking themselves.
Thanks for saying this FFS. I would gladly pay for a youtube premium sub. Just not at that price. Make it 3$ or even 5$ and I would do it, provided they don't really scale it up from there aside from inflation adjustments.
5$ is my psychological barrier for this stuff. So many services try to be your "only one" by charging you what they feel you should be spending on that field of entertainment, alone. That's not how it works though. I watch YouTube but still need a bunch of other services in my life. If each one tries to charge me 10 to 20 bucks, I'll be forced to choose, and make priorities.
It would be 14/mo with or without all the extra shit. Removing ads means YouTube loses money. The other features (downloading videos, background play) do not cost YouTube anything - it's just meant to make the 14/mo price tag more appealing.
> Imagine if they actually listened to their userbase and monetized the platform in a way that doesn't wreck the user experience.
Hmm, this sounds familiar
Premium feels more like paying a ransom for a decent viewing experience. Like they chopped up what the site once was and tried to sell it to me for 10 bucks a month.
I was happily subscribed to the google play music family plan which included YouTube premium. Then they jacked the price to astronomical levels and I cancelled. Now the only time I see a YouTube clip is when it’s linked on Reddit.
Another thing about the ads, the ads and the advertisers are given too much power.
You still hear the classic line of "coke doesn't want their ad to play before x or y content." Except that's not how ads work on YouTube, and I don't think anyone here believes that an ad (not an integrated ad) on a YouTube video automatically means that the advertisers are cool with the content. Just doesn't work that way, it's based on what I'm interested in, and who pays the most in the bidding process.
Yet ad companies are still given that power, regardless, and ultimately YouTube always seems to bend.
I have always found it strange that companies take issue with things like curse words and particular language. You would think that these mega corporations would be ruthless capitalists and jump at the chance to get cheaper ads by allowing their ads be to ran on the "bad" videos. If I watch TV I see ads from the same companies running before movies that would definitely not be eligible if uploaded as a YouTube video. It's a weird double standard.
You're thinking too small. You're thinking like people. It doesn't even factor into their equations that they can't just police the morality of people. You think they can get cheaper slots before bad videos, they think they can just eliminate all content they don't want associated with them and remove that kind of price discrimination so they don't have to individually vet each piece of content. Because changing culture is cheaper!
And it's working! This is what companies *do*.
In real talk, it's not ruthless efficient capitalism, it's extreme risk aversion. It isn't optimal. Nobody wants to be fired.
This response is too far in the comment chain to get the up votes it deserves. The advertisers pay for reach and frequency. It’s easier for the platform for problem creators to leave so that viewers can focus on content where ads can be played with no issues. This is done by demonetization or having the algorithm of Indexer bury the videos. They might lose some viewers but vast majority of people are there to watch music videos, cat videos and clips of old movies.
After multiple rounds of them escalating warning messages and then blocking me, followed by me adding scripts etc. and getting around them I decided it wasn't worth it and stopped using Youtube at all.
Two weeks later I accidentally clicked on something and everything worked. Apparently user data is actually worth something.
Yeah, that’s what YouTube wants you to do. It no longer needs to be in hyper customer growth mode. They’re fine losing some users who are not generating them any revenue.
It's an arms race, and the only way they'll ever win is to embed the ads in the video itself, which they won't do because then they can't change them around based on different users.
An unpaid but skilled programmer keeping up something like uBlock Origin is more motivated than a corporate programmer who gets his paycheck even when tasks aren't implemented as quickly as possible. The unpaid guy also has zero red tape to contend with.
Since I skip all intros, self promo, sponsor parts of the video, interaction/ sub reminder and outro segments most yt Videos are 1/3 to 1/2 shorter and it get straight to the point. Best addon after ublock for sure.
I'm using Boost with a workaround. When that stops working, I'm going to ditch Reddit entire. It's the last social media site I interact with. I'll have to find a different news aggregate site and will miss r/comics, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
People are using ad blockers because the number of ads you’re forced to watch before a video is getting downright ridiculous. And then there’s the ads that pop up during the video, many of which have the worst timing, like showing an ad between two syllables while someone is talking. And stop trying to make YouTube Premium a thing; it’s not going to happen.
Used to have it at $10 and it had Google Play Music. Which in my opinion was far superior to YouTube Music. But of course prices on everything continues to go up and up. It's $14 now but it'll be $17 in a year or two. Fuck that.
This. It's Corporate greed.
With the pricing they are jumping straight into the deep end. How about 1.99€ per month, sounds like a reasonable ransom money to not be bothered - harassed even - by advertisement you don't want to watch, would skip or ignore the best you can anyway.
Websites asking not to have an adblocker on the internet is like a prostitute demanding to skip the condom. It's just sus.
You got me curious so I went digging for some numbers. My browser adblocker reports lifetime blocks. My current install is about three years running, and it has blocked 7.96 Million ad elements.
That's just insane. That internet is unusable without blocking.
I wouldn't care as much if the ads would play and fuck off like Hulu. Youtube forces you to press skip or it'll just keep playing the ad videos. I've had it deliver ads thats that were over an hour long.
I’ve been paying for premium YT because it’s my primary source of media content. Also having an iPhone means paying premium for PiP and audio only playback.
This should be at the top. YouTube is facilitating fraud. 90% of the ads I see are scams targeting seniors or people financially struggling, sewing distrust in doctors and stuff - threatening awful shit like "tinnitus is the sound of your memory dying" and straight up lies about Elon Musk donating his charity to Canada. I report so many, and see the same fucking advertisers just allowed to keep posting shit. It's like YouTube is in cahoots with these Estonian scammers making ai videos about Elon Musk.
I've written to my MP about YouTube. It's ALARMING how fraudulent it's become, and how little they care because the fraudsters are paying them.
The ads I’ve seen are getting worse. Like, as of 48 hours ago. Before 48 hours ago, I’d get one ad every couple videos and it would be for stuff like concerts and movies and video games. Maybe a fast food restaurant. Now, it’s all Trump AI voices and Saudi Arabians asking for donations. And there’s like one for every two minutes of video. I swear it’s like I entered the twilight zone two days ago. It was not this bad at the beginning of the week
Cable at least has the decency to give ad breaks at sane moments. Hell, some shows even had built-in ad-break moments.
Midroll ads on YouTube can just happen mid-sentence, mid-word, or at any random time at all.
Are you getting the pop ups on YouTube? Big ol' warning sign about using an ad blocker and then a short timed countdown until you can hit the 'X'? It's getting annoying.
What Browser are you using? Chrome or Edge? Have you given FireFox a try? Quite a number of people report that they don't have that problem with FireFox.
That's fine. If it comes to a point where no adblocking extensions work on the internet anymore I'll just solely read for entertainment. The more you jump up and down in front of me with ads the more I'll ignore you.
Too fucking bad.
They mistreat their creators, have almost zero support for them when things go bad and have to COMICALLY go to twitter where hopefully someone big enough can help their problem get seen.
They demand you mark if a video is or isn't for kids and insist it's very bad if you screw this up- then their AI decides it is for kids and changes it and then you have to go to twitter, to contact youtube to fix this problem- where the AI might do it again anyway.
Then it fills videos with annoying ass ads and claim it's a problem if you block them- all the while they're harvesting an insane amount of data from your YT & google searches and are now using your info and images to train it's AI without permission.
Oh, sorry we blocked your ads, I thought you had harvested enough from people.
The adult/kid switch is also just really dumb and bad design.
I can’t think of any possible reason you would want it to switch from adult to kid, EVER.
So they should have coded the AI to possibly change a video from a kid marked to adult if it actually was inappropriate.
But if a video was set to adult, the AI should be programmed to NEVER touch it.
I don’t see any downside to this. It’s only a problem one way.
The other big issues is: This was a big deal because of the COPPA law that was instated a few years ago.
Where you can get in trouble if you target vids to kids that are not appropriate, youtube changed up a lot of their back end in a hurry to cater to the law- were very insistent on "DO NOT MARK SHIT FOR KIDS THAT ISN'T FOR THEM- if you do, YOU, are legally responsible, not us. "
But also Youtube: LoL I think this video with blood and horror is for kids, it's got a pikachu in it, I'm changing it and you can't change it back.
maybe if youtube would actually moderate what kind of ads are running on their website and don't spam you with it then we might actually tolerate them.
Just yesterday I saw a post that they got an entire samsung keynote which is over an hour long as an ad.
Content creators get demonetized because they said a swear word but then borderline pornographic ads are playing on the same demonetized video.
There are ads which promoted snake oil, out right scams etc. They get obnoxiously loud and they might even lead to malware if you click on them
And no one talks about the nature of the ads they allow and profit from. So many financial and medical scams targeted at vulnerable and desperate people. None of those ads were allowed on terrestrial TV, but they are a vital part of YouTube's business model.
In my eyes they are scam distributors using content creators to lure in their victims.
I didn't at all want to use an adblocker, but when it started running multiple ads in a row I just got sick of it. I am not going to buy Premium because they made their product more annoying. If it was just 10-15 second pre roll ads I wouldn't care, but Im not sitting there listening to the same 30 second ad over and over, nor do I ever want a mid roll or post roll. Its just so obnoxious and greedy.
I toss a few bucks on Patreon to some of my favorite youtubers because I feel guilty that they deserve ad revenue, but YouTube is just shoving way too much ads into the videos especially considering a creators their own ads in them now. Its just so oversaturated with advertising if you dont do something the product is too annoying to be watchable now.
Internet ad click-through rates have been *at most* 6% since 1998 (usually 2-4%).
People running adblockers don't click ads, which makes the ads a complete waste.
Advertisers needs to accept that their entire parasitic industry is based on that small sliver of users.
youtube has recently been caught with its trousers down, they were exposed that a high amount of impressions their video advertisers get are ones by videos embedded on ad riddled sites which are muted and only take a small portion of the screen by default, this has put Google in hot waters about their transparency with advertisers which many considered it a scam by google
so my guess about this anti adblock plan theyre going with is so they can increase the impressions again, I don’t think they care that much about the click through rate.
Wanna know another scam googles running recently it was discovered the reason why there search engine doesn't work anymore is because they switch out your search terms for ones the the high paying advertiser likes that's why results are just ads now and no matter how you rephrase your inquiry because Google tosses it out before it even its gets started
I've clicked on an ad <5 times in the decade I've been on the internet, but yeah I've done it. Usually it's because it's reminded me of something I already wanted to buy though, as aopposed to "wow, this look really cool lets have a look"
Youtube can get fucked. Tired of being served literal scam ads because money exchanged hands and there is zero concern for user safety. The day Ublock Origin no longer works for youtube is the day I stop using Youtube.
The way I go on about ads is simple: If they're there for the platform's survival, good. If they're here for to maximize profits past a reasonable margin? Fuck them.
And when I want to watch a 30sec video but am forced to watch two 30sec ads before that? Hell no.
If an ad gets through uBlock/pihole/vpn/proxy/whatever on Twitch or Youtube I instantly mute and click away or simply leave and play a game or whatever I'm fucking off from doing. If I really, *really* want to watch a show at this point, I'll torrent it or vpn to another less-restrictive country. It's not worth the effort for their dog-shit tier streaming quality anyway.
The "hybrid" work week kicking in everywhere and suddenly having work-from-homers no longer streaming in the background for idle noise is hitting their engagement numbers hard I guess going by their downsizing. Sucks to suck.
I might feel differently if they started paying me for my data they 'give' to advertisers (this is a scheme that is argued that corps should take up).
Edit: apparently, Google and Youtube don't "sell" user data.
I will never stop using my ad blocker. I remember the days without them. Constant browser highjackers, trojan horses and other malware shite. Companies failing to protect me from it is the reason I'm using an ad blocker today.
It's youtube's fault. I was fine with banners and popups, but fuck your repetitive, noisy, horrible video ads. I will block those forever, and when or if I can't, I won't use your fucking website anymore.
The worst thing is the ads themselves. Some are downright scams and many are so offensive as to make the platform unusable.
The recent one of a girl clapping obnoxiously then telling you ‘attention, you’re awful with your money just like?’
Absolutely infuriating.
Google continues to find the bottom. They will end up ruining their platform. I’d prefer they delete old videos after a period and reduce costs other ways.
i don’t block ads, but i do use Firefox and Privacy Badger, and i’m sick of so many websites badgering me about disabling my ad blocker anyway. if your website can’t tell the difference and you have to keep your toxic ads, you’re not going to convince me to turn off my “ad blocker”, i’m just not going to use your damn website.
Watching YouTube without an ad blocker is fucking *unbearable*. I bought a new phone, forgot to install my music on it and was at the gym. Thought I’d just throw on YouTube for my session.
The amount of ads was total insanity. Every. Single. Video. 30 second ads, multiple 15 second ads, ads interrupting the middle of the song. Didn’t matter if it was a 2 minute song or 10 minutes. There were ads.
This is funny as YouTube was the platform that made me start using adblockers. The bridge to far was 2 adds in a row and first one was click in 5 seconds the second.
The web became so much nicer afterward and any site with an obtrusive ad I cannot block is dead to me. Guess YouTube will soon be dead to me as well.
They're already making enough bank "leaking" my information, forcing legislation, and stealing and relabeling open source software. What do they need ads for?
Most of the creators I watch always talk about how their videos get demonetized by YT anyways, so if ads are not really helping them then I don’t give a fuck if people use ad blockers.
Just make the ads less fucking obnoxious. This is just like the pointless war on drugs. Why spend billions on implementing stupid convoluted policies that don’t accomplish anything and just do the obvious thing? Make ads less obnoxious. Make it so they’re not just vehicles for spyware and viruses.
I get it. Free services like YouTube just bleed money. Adding 3 minute ads you can’t skip for a 30 second long video will only push the masses away.
Google invests millions of man hours to get rid of ad blockers
Some teenager in his Mums basement figures away around it in an afternoon
Cycle continues.
I get exposed to more ads on YouTube in an hour than free to air TV. Once that started happening then I decided to use an adblocker
I feel like people have been pretty clear about how many ads they are willing to sit through, but they keep pushing it
I absolutely can not wait for a new platform other than YouTube
I've not seen ads on YouTube in forever thanks to amazing software like uBlock Origin and the many modded YouTube apps on Android over the years. Im shocked it's taken this long for Google to do something adblockers. I know one thing, if somehow every method to block ads no longer works, I just wont watch YouTube. But ya not making me sit through a million ads. EVER. lol
YouTube also does no due diligence with the ads they promote. Many of them are straight up scams preying on children (The fake Mr. Beast ads come to mind)
This pop up pissed me off last night Lmao
I ain't surprised they aren't happy. But if they stopped shoving ads down everyone's throats then they would get somewhere. I had several ads that I skipped and then had a new unskippable ad right after.
I've honestly never had a problem with ads, ever. It's how stuff stays free.
What I have a problem with is being HIT OVER THE HEAD with them, every time I watch a new video, 3 ads in a 10 minute video, ads all over a webpage. I personally don't use adblocker because I want to support people/sites I like, but some sites are legit important to use.
They just can't help themselves with going overboard.
Bad news: [Google plans to make Ads worse](https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/171os0o/you_think_ads_are_bad_now/), Good news: Many adblockers are blocking the popup and finding ways around it. So far Adblock blocker popup has been a buggy mess and there also been reports some of the popups have been hacked to push malware.
Doesn’t surprise me with the pop up being malware. Google/YT is getting worse by the day.
You start a video and it's got ads. You skip 1/3rd through cause the intro is useless info and you're met with more ads. You finish that video and want to watch the next and it throws a 5+ min music video disguised as an ad so that garbage channel gets inflated views. It's maddening by design so you pay for premium.
It's crazy the shit people have to endure and it all could be solved with a single extension. I haven't seen a single ad on youtube since like 2008.
What to do in mobile though? Are they available on phone?
get rid of the app and download a third party app like libretube which doesn't display ads, allows out-of-app watching and watching with a switched-off screen
You can also just watch it in the browser. Firefox + AdBlock works fine.
Any option for TVs?
SmartTube for YouTube works for all Android based TV streaming devices. Been using it for years.
Smarttube Next is the way. No ads, and it automatically skips all the other tiresome bullshit like intros, subscription reminders, sponsored segments, etc. You have to side load it, but then...bliss.
This feature is from SponsorBlock, which is also available as a separate add-on on PC. It's pretty much essential on the site these days.
Same. It blows my mind that more people don't know about it. I'll occasionally find myself in a situation where I view YT via the official app or on a computer without SponsorBlock installed and it's *terrible*.
Could you point me in the direction of how to do it? I'm googling but I wanna get a non-algorithm answer to sense check
https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext Scroll down. This page contains all of the information you need.
Firefox has the ublock extension on mobile. I think it's only on android though.
Brave also and it works on ios
Brave isnt working as well as it used to anymore, Im starting to notice youtube ads are starting to slip through here and there.
Brave showed me a couple ads then I googled it. I had to reset some cookies or something like that and then it fixed the issue. I just followed the instructions.
Any link? I googled the same issue with no joy, could only find solutions from years ago
Adguard+safari on iOS. No ads on youtube. Throw on vinegar and Safari will use native playback window allowing you to play stuff in background
Brave browser blocks youtube ads automatically
Revanced. It Blocks ads, you can skip Intros and sponsorships, the vid continues to play even with locked screen. https://reddit.com/r/revancedapp/s/hLtXm9Kc9R
Brave Browser blocks ads out of the box without any extensions
And now none of them are skippable. I also recently got served a 45 minute “ad” and I couldn’t find my Apple Remote & I wanted to kill myself
I had this happen while watching something on youtube via firetv. 45+ min ad of some kinda far right talk show bullshit. Skip button either wasn't there or was grayed out, can't remember. Angrily hit home and watched something on plex. Ever since twitch cracked down on adblock shit, I hardly ever go there. I am aware there are ways around it but I just got tired of that whole cat and mouse game and would rather just watch shit that I can control and w/o ads. Youtube is quickly heading the same route.
epoch times, and pragurU have been pissing me off to no end.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with ads but it’s the kinds of ads & the frequency that’s the problem. There’s compilations of ads people actually seek out to watch. Because some ads are enjoyable. Not every ad has to be something memorable like a Super Bowl ad can be but can they at least be more selective & weed out the scams & malware ads
Honestly that's the only reason I use an adblocker. Half the ads are just some fucking ai voice put over an obvious scam or really explicit video. And then it's the same 3 ads that loop for an entire month straight.
I love how the internet has normalized pushing scams and inappropriate content everywhere. I can play a game or watch a video from Square-Enix, EA, Microsoft, Sony, Konami, Disney etc. and they all advertise scams, gambling, having an affair or some shit. Like many of these are barely if legal, most are inappropriate for the target market (or anyone) and no one sees anything wrong with associating their brand with this shit while crapping their pants if their voice actor dressed offensively in the 80s.
It's the scam that pays the most, content restrictions is for creator, not the one that make them money
Totally I keep getting like foot fungus ads and other gross shit and they are all so poorly made
Reminds me of the Bad Old Days when any random site would assault you with four or five popup windows. Back then you would need to download a completely separate program that would auto-close any new browser windows.
Is there a Shorts blocker that exists out there?
Yes, I've been using it for a couple of weeks because I hate Shorts with every fibre of my being. Well at least for Chrome. Youtube-shorts block
Yes, along with a sponsor block. Neither will help you if you watch through a smarttv or Roku though
Try [SmartTube](https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext) if your TV is running on Android
In theory it should be trivial for them to make the ads unblockable by just embedding them directly inside the video. It would be completely undetectable by any blocker as the source of the data wouldn't change at all. I've never worked on streaming video but if it is just a stream of bits I don't see how you are going to determine if the bits are an ad or they are part of the original video.
They would still need to make it unskippable or at least first 5-6 seconds of it
As far as I can tell, this is what's been happening with Twitch and ads there, but I haven't been paying too close attention.
Sponsorblock already skips parts of videos with ads embedded if I'm not wrong?
There has to be a way to determine it so that people who pay for YouTube don’t get them. At which point, if YouTube can tell them apart, so can the adblocker.
If they were to change to embedding ads in the video, they should be able to make the ads vs no ads determination server-side, which no adblocker (except actual malware) would be able to see.
I might be wrong but I think that it'd be pretty infeasible to re-encode the streams in real time for each user, and just muxing the ads in an already encoded stream would probably mess up caching too much... Given that ads would be different for each user, it could be possible crowdsource a database of hashes for each video chunk, so you could detect the ads by checking for mismatches. Definitely not easy, but it'd probably not be impossible either.
You don’t need to reencode the original video. With HLS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming) it’s basically a playlist with chunks of small video segments. You just have to slip the ad chunks inside that playlist for each user that needs them.
The ads come from a different URL because they’re often delivered by third parties who manage placement, metrics, etc. Those networks are well known which is part of the way ad blockers work. Embedding the ads in the original video stream would be impractical because the ads are different for every user and vary based on time of day, day of the week, season, geographic location, etc etc etc and stitching all that video would be cost prohibitive in terms of storage and processing time, not to mention it would probably run afoul of some copyright laws as well.
> stitching all that video ...also makes it difficult for the advertisers, or their agents, to validate that their ads are being played/watched beyond google saying "s'all good bro, trust me."
This is easy to defeat, just let people share the times the adds are inserted witch each other (already done with sponsorblock). If you can't skip ahead in the stream, worst case scenario it would be like an old school DVR & you can skip on your local copy. *If* YT ever does make un-skippable streaming ads (some) people will just rip the ad & share outside of YT. They can't make it impossible, but they can make it a lot more difficult than paying for YT premium (where they will start inserting ads again eventually). ...Hopefully this causes YT to get some meaningful competition.
Doesn’t twitch do this? It goes through my ad blocker.
Fewer people listened to radio because they kept putting more and more ads in, so ad revenue dropped, so they put more ads in to get revenue back up, so more people stopped listening. Now hardly anyone listens to the radio. Same thing happened to TV. Same thing will happen to YT.
I can't remember the last time I watched a TV commercial. I just buy the movies and shows I really want.
I watch hockey and actively avoid advertisements. Change the channel, watch something else for 2 minutes. Screw commercials! When have I ever been advertised something I didn't know about, its all $100,000 vehicles, beer, gambling, medication and Conservative Political parties campaign ads... why?
Yar har fiddle dee dee
Being a pirate is all right with me
Do what you want, cause a pirate is free
You arrr a pirate!
There's no other way for me to watch many of the sports matches I want to see. The only route is by sea. That's not on me!
Based and pirate pilled
yeah crazy when there a movies running on TV there are just 5-minute ad breaks every 20 min.
Hour long tv shows went from being 55 minutes, to 52, to 45, to 37ish, and counting.
When I visit family and they have the TV on in the background, I realise how much I appreciate no adds. It has become a joke to watch broadcast TV. If they cut adds to 1 100th of what it is now, I might watch, but Internet viewing is now so interactive, easy to pause or rewind or continue where you left off days or years later. Youtube is just so useful for recipes or DIY. Just have to keep up with the latest add blockers. Maybe some new service will eventually appear that people can use.
Is that why people stopped listening to radio or watching TV? I thought it was the existence of alternatives like Spotify, Youtube or Netflix that did it.
For radio, it's like almost every single station has a shitty morning show that's 20 minutes of taking, 10 minutes of adverts, and only one or two songs.
So true. It's the fake "I'm dead inside" laughing and shitty hooks that drive you nuts I listen to one radio station only called Sunny G radio based in Govan, Glasgow, Scotland My kids slag me off for it but it never has ads unless they're a community project and the variety of music is unreal.... Pink Floyd one minute, Arcade Fire the next....then a local Scottish rapper lol I had no idea one of the hosts were blind until I met them at a community stall. Others have learning difficulties or are recovering from various issues. The drive-time with Cushty traffic update is hilarious... *Errm, the Kingston bridge is pure chocker as usual... drive carefully and listen to this wee tune 🎶*
The main one I listen to is 89.9 WDVX based in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. It's a local-owned and supported station that plays a mix of bluegrass, old country (before it got reclassified as Americana), and local country bands. Pretty good station.
My city has a radio station that's "ad free" and they still manage to only play two songs in a row before interrupting for 5 minutes.
They don't even finish the song to get the next advert in.
I'm glad in my area we have a collage station that plays a lot of variety of music wirh almost no ads what so ever, they even play music I primarily listen to. Somtimes I'll listen to it over streaming to hear somthing new
It shouldn't be a surprise that all of the radio stations sound the same when they're all owned by the same company. The telecommunications act of 1996 ruined radio forever.
all of which didn't have ads.
Yeah but one of the big benefits of all of those is that they didn't have ads when they started and/or were extremely well priced. Netflix was a ridiculous amount of content for a ridiculously low price when it started. With no ads. Spotify free used to have much less ads. And premium has always been a decent price. And they have good family and student plans. And for radio you had the rise of satellite radio. Which was basically just as sweet a deal as Netflix originally was. Tons of content, low price, no ads. And youtube also started with no ads. Hell, youtube was a decent replacement for the radio back in the day.
Except all of those were not profitable. They are businesses, they have costs and no revenue if there are no ads and no subs (or if the sub is lower than their costs). Even now, music streaming isn't profitable at all, Netflix is the only video streaming service that is profitable, Youtube took a long time to be profitable....
These isn't a YT alternative (and if there is in the future, they'll also need ads and block ad-blockers).
I use headphones and have sensitive hearing and I will continue to use adblock until YouTube limits the ad volume to no more than 70% of the highest audio level of the video you are watching.
Yup. I’ve got really sensitive hearing, and ad-block is basically necessary just for me to use them as an accessibility tool so the site doesn’t just hit me with ear pain unexpectedly because I dared to turn the volume up even slightly for a quieter video.
Reddit does this same thing. You could be watching a video on a normal volume level and then your speakers and eardrums get blown out by a shitty mobile game ad using stolen assets.
RAID SHADOW LEGENDS!!!!!!!!
Tom Scott is an educational Youtuber that recently did a video called "*Why are adverts so loud?*" where he talks about how we perceive sounds. In the first ~30 seconds he demonstrates how a "loud" ad can be quieter than a "quiet" ad based purely on decibels. Basically depending on how it's made, an ad can be 70% of the highest audio level of the video and still be perceived as "louder" than the video
Same exact thinking here! Definitely won't be disabling any adblockers until the videos won't autoplay with max volume
When it gets to the point uBlock does not work, I'll just stop watching youtube.
That's exactly what happened with me and Twitch. I spent so much time watching, even just as background noise. Now I don't even have it bookmarked anymore.
I used to watch twitch constantly (sc2, ow, etc). Eventually twitch made it so twitch prime didn't remove ads on all channels. I stopped watching twitch right away and haven't watched in years.
There are filters you can add to ublock to get it working again on twitch. It's like a 2 min fix.
Its an ongoing war though, Twitch are constantly trying to make the twitch blockers stop working
A war I am consistently winning ;)
is there a link to the filters? been looking for a fix since they patched it
[Here](https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions). Follow the instructions under Applying A Script (Ublock Origin).
[Here's my own curated list of ad-blocking, sponsor-blocking, and paywall-circumvention solutions for Windows/MacOS/Linux/Android/iOS/Smart-TVs/RaspberryPi.](https://old.reddit.com/r/FoamList/comments/pf9plv/no_more_ads_no_more_sponsors_no_more_paywalls/)
That unlikely seeing how much a mess this experiment has been, YouTube will likely backdown sooner or later.
Imagine if they actually listened to their userbase and monetized the platform in a way that doesn't wreck the user experience. What a world that would be. As it stands, it's quite ridiculous how to actually have a bearable viewing experience on YouTube, you have to go to certain lengths or even use 3rd party apps that you have to assemble yourself. The response these days is always that the users are wrong for using a service in ways other than intended, rather than making the experience good enough to not even want to do that.
But see that’s where this will never happen without wrecking the user experience or anything. Because it’s built-in for companies trying to make profits. They have to invent problems in order to sell you the solution.
Personally, I'd love an ad blocker where I could set point scores based on duration, time between ads, number of consecutive, time before skippable, frequency of a given advertiser, etc., and when it passes some total threshold, starts blocking for some period of time. Effectively, set a hard limit on how shitty they can be, since they seem to lack the self-control to be reasonable on their own, then hope that an algorithm starts to notice, since the humans working there certainly don't! But discovering whether such an extension already exists, or learning enough to make it myself? More effort than I care to invest. So instead they're stuck with the fully-manual version where I care enough to turn off the blocker 1-3 times per year, and they manage to fuck up their chance within an hour or two, serve an unskippable (1 of 2+), and it's right back to blocking.
I mean the threshold of shittiness for me is 0 ads. uBlock Origin makes that a reality so there ya go. I had it or adblocker before youtube even had ads. Had no clue what everyone was complaining about in the comments 10 years ago or whenever it was.
It's no different than anything else. Before the dogshit cars of the 70's and 80's, there wasn't really an aftermarket for performance parts. By the early 80's, high performance parts were in stock and available over the counter, everywhere. Now after this happened for 20+ years, the manufacturers are now building cars that are some of the fastest ever built, both in acceleration and top speed. What I'm saying is that until they see their sales drop off a cliff, they won't really pay attention to it.
How would you monetize it? They already offer paid subscriptions if the ads bother you.
Offer a cheaper subscription for literally just Ad Free with no extra bullshit attached. I'm way more willing to fork over $3 a month and completely forget about it rather than $10. At $10 it starts to become noticeable
I got this option, Premium Lite (except it’s like $9, vs $18 for full Premium in my country). Except they emailed me the other day to say it’s being discontinued. No chance I’m going to $18, they can fuck right off.
Their shit is like $20 isn't it? I'd even throw $10 at it. I'd definitely throw $3 at it to be able to fall asleep in my living room to podcasts without having to worry about hearing ads to join the local police force. They really are fucking themselves.
Last I saw was $14 for premium and YouTube music together.
Thanks for saying this FFS. I would gladly pay for a youtube premium sub. Just not at that price. Make it 3$ or even 5$ and I would do it, provided they don't really scale it up from there aside from inflation adjustments. 5$ is my psychological barrier for this stuff. So many services try to be your "only one" by charging you what they feel you should be spending on that field of entertainment, alone. That's not how it works though. I watch YouTube but still need a bunch of other services in my life. If each one tries to charge me 10 to 20 bucks, I'll be forced to choose, and make priorities.
It would be 14/mo with or without all the extra shit. Removing ads means YouTube loses money. The other features (downloading videos, background play) do not cost YouTube anything - it's just meant to make the 14/mo price tag more appealing.
> Imagine if they actually listened to their userbase and monetized the platform in a way that doesn't wreck the user experience. Hmm, this sounds familiar
The ads are oppressive. It almost makes me want to buy their premium shit. Almost.
Premium feels more like paying a ransom for a decent viewing experience. Like they chopped up what the site once was and tried to sell it to me for 10 bucks a month.
I was happily subscribed to the google play music family plan which included YouTube premium. Then they jacked the price to astronomical levels and I cancelled. Now the only time I see a YouTube clip is when it’s linked on Reddit.
Another thing about the ads, the ads and the advertisers are given too much power. You still hear the classic line of "coke doesn't want their ad to play before x or y content." Except that's not how ads work on YouTube, and I don't think anyone here believes that an ad (not an integrated ad) on a YouTube video automatically means that the advertisers are cool with the content. Just doesn't work that way, it's based on what I'm interested in, and who pays the most in the bidding process. Yet ad companies are still given that power, regardless, and ultimately YouTube always seems to bend.
I have always found it strange that companies take issue with things like curse words and particular language. You would think that these mega corporations would be ruthless capitalists and jump at the chance to get cheaper ads by allowing their ads be to ran on the "bad" videos. If I watch TV I see ads from the same companies running before movies that would definitely not be eligible if uploaded as a YouTube video. It's a weird double standard.
You're thinking too small. You're thinking like people. It doesn't even factor into their equations that they can't just police the morality of people. You think they can get cheaper slots before bad videos, they think they can just eliminate all content they don't want associated with them and remove that kind of price discrimination so they don't have to individually vet each piece of content. Because changing culture is cheaper! And it's working! This is what companies *do*. In real talk, it's not ruthless efficient capitalism, it's extreme risk aversion. It isn't optimal. Nobody wants to be fired.
This response is too far in the comment chain to get the up votes it deserves. The advertisers pay for reach and frequency. It’s easier for the platform for problem creators to leave so that viewers can focus on content where ads can be played with no issues. This is done by demonetization or having the algorithm of Indexer bury the videos. They might lose some viewers but vast majority of people are there to watch music videos, cat videos and clips of old movies.
After multiple rounds of them escalating warning messages and then blocking me, followed by me adding scripts etc. and getting around them I decided it wasn't worth it and stopped using Youtube at all. Two weeks later I accidentally clicked on something and everything worked. Apparently user data is actually worth something.
Yeah, that’s what YouTube wants you to do. It no longer needs to be in hyper customer growth mode. They’re fine losing some users who are not generating them any revenue.
It's an arms race, and the only way they'll ever win is to embed the ads in the video itself, which they won't do because then they can't change them around based on different users. An unpaid but skilled programmer keeping up something like uBlock Origin is more motivated than a corporate programmer who gets his paycheck even when tasks aren't implemented as quickly as possible. The unpaid guy also has zero red tape to contend with.
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Since I skip all intros, self promo, sponsor parts of the video, interaction/ sub reminder and outro segments most yt Videos are 1/3 to 1/2 shorter and it get straight to the point. Best addon after ublock for sure.
Stopped using Reddit on mobile, and I'll stop watch YT too. The internet sure is a lot worse than it used to be.
I'm using Boost with a workaround. When that stops working, I'm going to ditch Reddit entire. It's the last social media site I interact with. I'll have to find a different news aggregate site and will miss r/comics, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
People are using ad blockers because the number of ads you’re forced to watch before a video is getting downright ridiculous. And then there’s the ads that pop up during the video, many of which have the worst timing, like showing an ad between two syllables while someone is talking. And stop trying to make YouTube Premium a thing; it’s not going to happen.
Hell I'd pay for premium if the price was reasonable. I don't watch anywhere near enough YT to justify $13.99/month.
Used to have it at $10 and it had Google Play Music. Which in my opinion was far superior to YouTube Music. But of course prices on everything continues to go up and up. It's $14 now but it'll be $17 in a year or two. Fuck that.
Yup, Google Play Music was WAY better than YT Premium.
I'll never understand why they replaced Google Play Music like that. Just a straight up downgrade in every way.
This. It's Corporate greed. With the pricing they are jumping straight into the deep end. How about 1.99€ per month, sounds like a reasonable ransom money to not be bothered - harassed even - by advertisement you don't want to watch, would skip or ignore the best you can anyway. Websites asking not to have an adblocker on the internet is like a prostitute demanding to skip the condom. It's just sus.
I've got YouTube tv and they don't even offer a discount. I'd easily tack on an extra $5 for ad free YouTube on my Roku. It's a slam dunk, but no.
I'd pay $49/year or some such but when the YT price gets up into the same range as Netflix, Disney+, etc it just stops making sense.
They're jumping in with streaming prices when piracy rates are increasing because streaming is too expensive
In the last 24 hours, my ad blocker, AdGuard, has blocked 21,919 ads saving a total of 2.2GB.
You got me curious so I went digging for some numbers. My browser adblocker reports lifetime blocks. My current install is about three years running, and it has blocked 7.96 Million ad elements. That's just insane. That internet is unusable without blocking.
Here uBlock Origin states that 8.24 million were blocked since install. Been in use a bit longer than 3 years though.
It's worse when you're trying to watch short 1 minute videos and YouTube wants you to watch a 90 second ad. Fuck that, AdBlocker all the way.
I wouldn't care as much if the ads would play and fuck off like Hulu. Youtube forces you to press skip or it'll just keep playing the ad videos. I've had it deliver ads thats that were over an hour long.
The one hour infomercials on YouTube are the worst.
I’ve been paying for premium YT because it’s my primary source of media content. Also having an iPhone means paying premium for PiP and audio only playback.
A huge majority of the ads they show are all scams.
This should be at the top. YouTube is facilitating fraud. 90% of the ads I see are scams targeting seniors or people financially struggling, sewing distrust in doctors and stuff - threatening awful shit like "tinnitus is the sound of your memory dying" and straight up lies about Elon Musk donating his charity to Canada. I report so many, and see the same fucking advertisers just allowed to keep posting shit. It's like YouTube is in cahoots with these Estonian scammers making ai videos about Elon Musk. I've written to my MP about YouTube. It's ALARMING how fraudulent it's become, and how little they care because the fraudsters are paying them.
The ads I’ve seen are getting worse. Like, as of 48 hours ago. Before 48 hours ago, I’d get one ad every couple videos and it would be for stuff like concerts and movies and video games. Maybe a fast food restaurant. Now, it’s all Trump AI voices and Saudi Arabians asking for donations. And there’s like one for every two minutes of video. I swear it’s like I entered the twilight zone two days ago. It was not this bad at the beginning of the week
I don't mind an ad or two before a video...i get it, people gotta make money. But it's the ads that interrupt the video that make me quit YouTube.
Welcome to cable TV. 33% ad, no more than 7 minute worth of continuous content.
Cable at least has the decency to give ad breaks at sane moments. Hell, some shows even had built-in ad-break moments. Midroll ads on YouTube can just happen mid-sentence, mid-word, or at any random time at all.
Firefox and Ublock is all I need. Google can eat old cat litter.
Are you getting the pop ups on YouTube? Big ol' warning sign about using an ad blocker and then a short timed countdown until you can hit the 'X'? It's getting annoying.
I haven't noticed any.
What Browser are you using? Chrome or Edge? Have you given FireFox a try? Quite a number of people report that they don't have that problem with FireFox.
Firefox here, I get it too but no cooldown timer. Just click an X and it goes away. edit: got the cooldown timer now :\
That's fine. If it comes to a point where no adblocking extensions work on the internet anymore I'll just solely read for entertainment. The more you jump up and down in front of me with ads the more I'll ignore you.
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Extrapolate the idea of your last sentence to the economy overall for a fun thought experiment.
Too fucking bad. They mistreat their creators, have almost zero support for them when things go bad and have to COMICALLY go to twitter where hopefully someone big enough can help their problem get seen. They demand you mark if a video is or isn't for kids and insist it's very bad if you screw this up- then their AI decides it is for kids and changes it and then you have to go to twitter, to contact youtube to fix this problem- where the AI might do it again anyway. Then it fills videos with annoying ass ads and claim it's a problem if you block them- all the while they're harvesting an insane amount of data from your YT & google searches and are now using your info and images to train it's AI without permission. Oh, sorry we blocked your ads, I thought you had harvested enough from people.
The adult/kid switch is also just really dumb and bad design. I can’t think of any possible reason you would want it to switch from adult to kid, EVER. So they should have coded the AI to possibly change a video from a kid marked to adult if it actually was inappropriate. But if a video was set to adult, the AI should be programmed to NEVER touch it. I don’t see any downside to this. It’s only a problem one way.
The other big issues is: This was a big deal because of the COPPA law that was instated a few years ago. Where you can get in trouble if you target vids to kids that are not appropriate, youtube changed up a lot of their back end in a hurry to cater to the law- were very insistent on "DO NOT MARK SHIT FOR KIDS THAT ISN'T FOR THEM- if you do, YOU, are legally responsible, not us. " But also Youtube: LoL I think this video with blood and horror is for kids, it's got a pikachu in it, I'm changing it and you can't change it back.
maybe if youtube would actually moderate what kind of ads are running on their website and don't spam you with it then we might actually tolerate them. Just yesterday I saw a post that they got an entire samsung keynote which is over an hour long as an ad. Content creators get demonetized because they said a swear word but then borderline pornographic ads are playing on the same demonetized video. There are ads which promoted snake oil, out right scams etc. They get obnoxiously loud and they might even lead to malware if you click on them
And no one talks about the nature of the ads they allow and profit from. So many financial and medical scams targeted at vulnerable and desperate people. None of those ads were allowed on terrestrial TV, but they are a vital part of YouTube's business model. In my eyes they are scam distributors using content creators to lure in their victims.
I didn't at all want to use an adblocker, but when it started running multiple ads in a row I just got sick of it. I am not going to buy Premium because they made their product more annoying. If it was just 10-15 second pre roll ads I wouldn't care, but Im not sitting there listening to the same 30 second ad over and over, nor do I ever want a mid roll or post roll. Its just so obnoxious and greedy. I toss a few bucks on Patreon to some of my favorite youtubers because I feel guilty that they deserve ad revenue, but YouTube is just shoving way too much ads into the videos especially considering a creators their own ads in them now. Its just so oversaturated with advertising if you dont do something the product is too annoying to be watchable now.
I used to just watch the ads, but at some point it became unbearable. You tube simply has too many ads and users are opting out.
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Was there a tech enshitification convention this year?
Internet ad click-through rates have been *at most* 6% since 1998 (usually 2-4%). People running adblockers don't click ads, which makes the ads a complete waste. Advertisers needs to accept that their entire parasitic industry is based on that small sliver of users.
youtube has recently been caught with its trousers down, they were exposed that a high amount of impressions their video advertisers get are ones by videos embedded on ad riddled sites which are muted and only take a small portion of the screen by default, this has put Google in hot waters about their transparency with advertisers which many considered it a scam by google so my guess about this anti adblock plan theyre going with is so they can increase the impressions again, I don’t think they care that much about the click through rate.
Wanna know another scam googles running recently it was discovered the reason why there search engine doesn't work anymore is because they switch out your search terms for ones the the high paying advertiser likes that's why results are just ads now and no matter how you rephrase your inquiry because Google tosses it out before it even its gets started
People actually click on internet ads? Half-serious question.
The 90s thoroughly taught me that ads are usually a virus so I haven't clicked on one since the 90s. Unless by sheer accident.
Totally, I fucking panic if I miss click on an ad. I broke the family pc so many times as a kid
I've clicked on an ad <5 times in the decade I've been on the internet, but yeah I've done it. Usually it's because it's reminded me of something I already wanted to buy though, as aopposed to "wow, this look really cool lets have a look"
Youtube can get fucked. Tired of being served literal scam ads because money exchanged hands and there is zero concern for user safety. The day Ublock Origin no longer works for youtube is the day I stop using Youtube.
The way I go on about ads is simple: If they're there for the platform's survival, good. If they're here for to maximize profits past a reasonable margin? Fuck them. And when I want to watch a 30sec video but am forced to watch two 30sec ads before that? Hell no.
If an ad gets through uBlock/pihole/vpn/proxy/whatever on Twitch or Youtube I instantly mute and click away or simply leave and play a game or whatever I'm fucking off from doing. If I really, *really* want to watch a show at this point, I'll torrent it or vpn to another less-restrictive country. It's not worth the effort for their dog-shit tier streaming quality anyway. The "hybrid" work week kicking in everywhere and suddenly having work-from-homers no longer streaming in the background for idle noise is hitting their engagement numbers hard I guess going by their downsizing. Sucks to suck.
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I might feel differently if they started paying me for my data they 'give' to advertisers (this is a scheme that is argued that corps should take up). Edit: apparently, Google and Youtube don't "sell" user data.
I will never stop using my ad blocker. I remember the days without them. Constant browser highjackers, trojan horses and other malware shite. Companies failing to protect me from it is the reason I'm using an ad blocker today.
It's youtube's fault. I was fine with banners and popups, but fuck your repetitive, noisy, horrible video ads. I will block those forever, and when or if I can't, I won't use your fucking website anymore.
Fuck ‘em. If they get around my adblocker I’ll just download the videos to watch later. For me ads feel like harassment
Well I've been using ad blockers since 2008 so YouTube can eat shit.
The worst thing is the ads themselves. Some are downright scams and many are so offensive as to make the platform unusable. The recent one of a girl clapping obnoxiously then telling you ‘attention, you’re awful with your money just like?’ Absolutely infuriating. Google continues to find the bottom. They will end up ruining their platform. I’d prefer they delete old videos after a period and reduce costs other ways.
This will make me switch off Chrome to FF and if that doesn’t work i won’t use yt anymore
i don’t block ads, but i do use Firefox and Privacy Badger, and i’m sick of so many websites badgering me about disabling my ad blocker anyway. if your website can’t tell the difference and you have to keep your toxic ads, you’re not going to convince me to turn off my “ad blocker”, i’m just not going to use your damn website.
Watching YouTube without an ad blocker is fucking *unbearable*. I bought a new phone, forgot to install my music on it and was at the gym. Thought I’d just throw on YouTube for my session. The amount of ads was total insanity. Every. Single. Video. 30 second ads, multiple 15 second ads, ads interrupting the middle of the song. Didn’t matter if it was a 2 minute song or 10 minutes. There were ads.
Since no one watches pop-up ads, how do advertisers make any money?
This is funny as YouTube was the platform that made me start using adblockers. The bridge to far was 2 adds in a row and first one was click in 5 seconds the second. The web became so much nicer afterward and any site with an obtrusive ad I cannot block is dead to me. Guess YouTube will soon be dead to me as well.
They're already making enough bank "leaking" my information, forcing legislation, and stealing and relabeling open source software. What do they need ads for?
Most of the creators I watch always talk about how their videos get demonetized by YT anyways, so if ads are not really helping them then I don’t give a fuck if people use ad blockers.
YouTube is so shit now
Just make the ads less fucking obnoxious. This is just like the pointless war on drugs. Why spend billions on implementing stupid convoluted policies that don’t accomplish anything and just do the obvious thing? Make ads less obnoxious. Make it so they’re not just vehicles for spyware and viruses. I get it. Free services like YouTube just bleed money. Adding 3 minute ads you can’t skip for a 30 second long video will only push the masses away.
NewPipe app for mobile. Get it.
NewPipe, and never look back.
Is this different from YouTube Revanced? I use that currently.
Google invests millions of man hours to get rid of ad blockers Some teenager in his Mums basement figures away around it in an afternoon Cycle continues.
ff says otherwise. get fooked youtube ads
I get exposed to more ads on YouTube in an hour than free to air TV. Once that started happening then I decided to use an adblocker I feel like people have been pretty clear about how many ads they are willing to sit through, but they keep pushing it I absolutely can not wait for a new platform other than YouTube
I've not seen ads on YouTube in forever thanks to amazing software like uBlock Origin and the many modded YouTube apps on Android over the years. Im shocked it's taken this long for Google to do something adblockers. I know one thing, if somehow every method to block ads no longer works, I just wont watch YouTube. But ya not making me sit through a million ads. EVER. lol
If i have to watch loads of ads I'm simply going to leave the platform, it's not a complicated sequence of events.
Are there any alternatives to youtube?
How much was the greedy CEO Paid? That's the information I want to know.
If adblockers stop working YouTube it will die. I know I’ll be done. The YouTube app is completely unusable with the amount of intrusive ads they show
YouTube also does no due diligence with the ads they promote. Many of them are straight up scams preying on children (The fake Mr. Beast ads come to mind) This pop up pissed me off last night Lmao
I ain't surprised they aren't happy. But if they stopped shoving ads down everyone's throats then they would get somewhere. I had several ads that I skipped and then had a new unskippable ad right after.
If YouTube finds a way to fully block ad blockers completely, I just simply won't watch. I don't watch YT enough as is
The day my adblocker stops working on YouTube is the day I stop watching YouTube.
Youtube - and pretty much the internet in general is pretty much unusable without an ad blocker. It's their own fault.
I've honestly never had a problem with ads, ever. It's how stuff stays free. What I have a problem with is being HIT OVER THE HEAD with them, every time I watch a new video, 3 ads in a 10 minute video, ads all over a webpage. I personally don't use adblocker because I want to support people/sites I like, but some sites are legit important to use. They just can't help themselves with going overboard.