YouTube viewers will soon have to sit through even longer ads, with Google rolling out new 30-second unskippable spots on a popular app.
The article about crappy ads wants me to turn off my ad blocker, lol
YouTube has ads?
I demonetized YouTube on my android platform long time ago
I recommend Peertube. There’s not much there yet, but myself and others are trying.
Also, did you know you can upload your video to Peertube and have YouTube pull it via RSS? That’s what I’m doing!
All of my stuff you’ll find on Peertube and I don’t have to do anything else to get it up on YouTube.
No one will create content without ad revenue. Peertube is doomed to fail.
This is a terrible take, as most content creators I watch already cannot survive off of Youtube ad revenue and rely on third-party monetization, like Patreon subscriptions.
Besides the fact that plenty of people make content for free, from the simple love of creating something.
Didn’t YouTube start without ads? Was doing fine back then, right?
It’s so fucking funny though. I would love to pay YouTube. But I will never pay a company that abuses my data the way they do.
There’s that, but I’d also like to point out, that as a paying customer, you’re still force fed that bottom tier slop with no way to filter it other than hoping some combination of reporting/not interested/don’t show me this channel again works.
But even if you say, not to recommend a channel, it can still show up. So you get to pay for low grade AI slop videos. Or “content farms” that take 2 videos and just splice them together for some reason (both horizontal and vertical). Or the “I’m just going to stare at the camera and do nothing while I play a video that’s from another platform”. Like it’s endless.
The “shorts” platform is pure garbage. Can I turn shorts off? No I can “show fewer shorts”.
So you pay, to not get ads. They sell ALL your data to double dip (since they selling your data anywho) and there’s no benefit for the content. They have all this data, all this tech, and the platform is rot with shit.
That’s true. I guess I would only pay for a YouTube that is actually useful. “People want to block channels. Best we can do is ‘I am not interested’ and still show them.”
We need an alternative with people on it.
Gotta start somewhere. Get on peertube.
Hell that’s the reason I’m here and not on Reddit.
Or to come to terms with needing to pay for the services you use. YouTube has a paid option that supports the platform and creators much more that watching ads.
Of course, I also upload my videos to PeerTube. Seems like the best alternative I’ve seen thus far.
I’d consider paying if Google wasn’t just an evil company and if paid vanilla YouTube was better than the third party frontends and apps. As it stands, you can get more/better features for free.
I want value for money if I’m going to pay, and right now paying for YouTube would not improve my experience with it in any way. I’d be paying ~£156 per year for nothing to change.
I get a lot of value from YouTube that I would happily pay for, and I already pay for online services that respect me but I wouldn’t pay a company that treats users like they do. It’s not the ads I have a problem with, it’s the tracking of users. They could have ads on their website that don’t track users. You can subscribe to premium and presumably they don’t show you ads, but they still track you. If they didn’t do that I would happily pay them.
That’s incredibly fair
That used to be a fair deal. We know better now and even have a word for what will happen to us once we’re locked into the system, enshittification. Just about every subscription model eventually leads to squeezing as much as they can out of us without a corresponding increase in value.
I agree in general, but when it comes to YouTube and the creator economy I do partially disagree.
You aren’t locked into anything, you can just go somewhere else. It isn’t like Netflix and the other million subscription services where they hold all of the power, that’s the beauty of independant online video creation; the creators have the power. If YT becomes enshittified enough, creators will leave to somewhere else. As it is, I currently watch some videos on PeerTube, some on YouTube, some on Nebula, and some on other platforms. People do struggle with using multiple websites across the internet, preferring to stick to a core few websites, but for their favorite creators I believe they’d branch out.
I guess there are some examples of that happening with places like patreon, floatplane, twitch, kick, etc. It’s hard to fathom anything coming along that can even approach the reach of youtube without backing from another big tech company and eventually following the same enshittification pattern.
It really is hard to fathom, but I think it has a high likely hood of happening some day. I also think it’s why YouTube hasn’t been enshittified more than it has been, they know that it’s a possibility.
Oh no, the ads I block are getting even longer!?
I just purchased a new travel router that will have options for ad blocking built in. Would that block ads on any device sharing that connexion? TV, phone, PC, smart fridge,…?
Those will not block YT ads.
They’ll block ads at a DNS level, but YouTube ads are delivered in video stream.
Honestly, it varies. Businesses are starting to get wise to DNS adblockers, and are serving more ads from their primary domain (this is part of why you can’t block YouTube ads with a DNS blocker anymore - you can’t block them at the DNS level without blocking all of YouTube).
You’ll see a noticeable downtick in phone ads from web browsing and ad-sponsored games, but something like a TV or fridge will probably be unaffected because the ads will be served directly from the same host as the content. You’ll see fewer ads but far from zero.
Also why are you connecting your smart fridge to a travel router? Do you travel with a smart fridge?
No XD i was just wondering what kind of ads it could block. It will be my dedicated VR router when not in my main setup and i’m wonder what else i could do with it.
Depends on how they’re served but mostly, yes
But, topically, will not block YouTube ads
Not youtube ads, sadly, if they are blocking based on domain names. For YouTube, you can use pipepipe, which do block ads as far as I have seen.
I don’t want to upvote this because at the time of this comment its 69 upvotes, which is the correct amount of upvotes. But I do think this is funny.
I’m just imagining how spammy it would be to see this reply on every comment that has more than 69 upvotes.
Yup. At one point that number was 69 in order to get to where it is now. Good job.
Thanks.
I recommend turning off the device completely when an ad starts. This not only works, but has improved my entire life.
Or use a different front end on mobile or unlock on Firefox. I haven’t seen a YouTube as in years. Also smarttube for Android tv.
“unskippable” laughs in ublock/revanced
Firefox with ublock origin for desktop and mobile. Grayjay for mobile (integrates Nebula too so you can get both your feeds at once). Android TV with FCast and Smart Tube Next for your TV. Never see ads again.
I run both those and I see ads every time google breaks ublock which is monthly now. Grayjay is broken more than its not at this point and requires like 10+ tries with various ciphers.
I think the day of these ads becoming unblockable is coming soon.
Are you running Ublock on Chrome or Firefox? It works significantly better on Firefox. I’ve never seen an ad get through it.
A/B testing is showing they are going after people with ad blockers: https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-is-apparently-punishing-ad-blockers-by-hiding-comment-section-3320581/ But your specific combo seems good.
They keep trying. The adblockers keep winning. I’ve had my fair share of videos sometimes not loading, or regularly needing to update apps to keep up with Google’s latest bullshit, but the minor glitches and headaches are worth it for all the time I don’t spend staring at a greyed out skip button.
Pretty sure several engineers from google itself might be contributors to some of them, fortunately.
That genuinely would not surprise me in the slightest.
All you have to do is close the window every time they try that bullshit and that shows up in stats. Get enough people doing it and they’ll back off
Wait, YouTube’s idea of punishing ad-block is removing the most toxic, worthless part of the site?
Nobody tell them. Not one fucking word. We might even get them to remove Shorts, too, if we pretend this is a bad thing.
I’m so happy they got rid of dismissing shorts and throw them in a feed more! Please don’t get rid of them!
Please Google don’t get rid of shorts! Especially the ones with the wonderful AI voice over and karaoke style closed captioning! Please don’t do that! Or else I’ll keep using adblockers.
Why would I ever want to see youtube comments? Literally zero impact for me.
was going to say, shoot I’m gonna install an adblocker just for that feature!
I mean, I intentionally block the comment section, but sure,
Are they really threatening us with a good time? No YouTube comments is a benefit, not a punishment
Hiding comment section? Oh no! What will I do?
Unless I’m missing a “freeze pane” option somewhere, scrolling down to read comments prevents me from actually watching the video.
If I want to see the comment section I use official app, and just pause the ad.
If I want to go blind I splash acid in my eyes
I’d recommend using lasers for that 🤣
Good call, a more targeted approach.
My friend told me recently about TizenTube which is a youtube app with adblock/sponsorblock for Samsung TVs
got anything for samsung tvs?
Someone else in this thread mentioned TizenTube, that sounds like what you’re looking for.
But personally I just grabbed an Nvidia Shield. It works great and if you swap out the default launcher you’ll never see a single ad on it (with the right apps). Plus the pro is beefy enough to run some decent emulators too.
Smart Tube is useless for me. Takes forever to load the video and usually craps in the process. Pass.
I set my VPN to Albania. Ads on YouTube are banned in Albania.
On the web, I be Albanian.
I often entirely forget that youtube and most of the internet is plagued with ads. It’s a shock to use a family member’s phone or laptop that does not have adblock
The Internet is practically unusable without adblock. Rawdogging the web you get a postage stamp sized amount of content bordered by flashing ads and video ads. No fuckin thanks homie
Nebula is pretty good these days, I can’t remember the last time I deliberately watched something on YouTube.
Yeah, Nebula is awesome.
Nebula doesn’t have the random crap I watch.
This is what I found.
With Nebula and CuriosityStream, most of the things I follow are still on YouTube.
Might just be my account but YouTube algorithms got so sensitive I’m afraid to watch random crap, I watch like 1 video about a topic then for a week that’s all I get.
But yeah it’s more for intentional viewing than watching random crap, but I saw that as a bonus feature as it led to me procrastinating less.
This is a real problem… Like I’m afraid to watch certain things knowing full well I want it to be a one and done, but if I click on it LITERALLY EVERY OTHER RECOMMENDATION IS A DUPLICATE OF THE RANDOM VIDEO for days or until I start interacting with it to stop seeing them.
Like WTAF, I shouldn’t have to manage my feed that hard. Maybe if I watch 3 or 5 videos of the same topic or from the same creator you can start recommending them.
But even then, 3-5 watches of a rabbit hole one random Tuesday does not mean I’m suddenly interested in fishing for the rest of my life !
What’s nebula? Where can I find it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_(streaming_service)
It has a bunch of popular YouTube channels.
It doesn’t really have a recommendation engine but if you already have a bunch of creators on there it’s a cheap way to go as free.
They also have a bunch of Nebula exclusive series, like the guy who makes Not Just Bikes going to cities and trying all their transit in one day.
Alright thanks, will check it out
Make sure to sign up via a creator’s link! (the ones they’ll put in the sponsored section of a video where they are “sponsored” by Nebula as one of Nebula’s creators)
Gets you a pretty good discount and drops it to about 30 bucks a year.
Speedrunners unfortunately use YouTube and twitch only. So it’s pick your cancer on that front.
That’s unfortunate for the content creators. I realize that majority of their revenue comes from ads, but this is probably going to drive viewership down. The average person doesn’t have that kind of attention span anymore.
Ads are already a nuisance, making them unskippable will turn people away from the video especially if they also decide to go down the route twitch went of you having to physically be present and not minimize the ad. Creators already resort to their own product placement in their videos, which fortunately can be skimmed through. I just try to buy THEIR products to show support, if they offer.
Also, nothing makes me want a product less than intrusive annoying ads. That’s a product I would steer clear of.
SponsorBlock let’s you skip a lot of product placement. Without uBlock Origin on desktop, Revanced on Android, and SmartTube on TV: I wouldn’t be watching YouTube.
This plus Enhancer for YT are a must have for me. Can’t stand the new UI and all the bs they lock down
And Unwatched for iOS.
I get what you’re saying, and these programs are great and all, but the average viewer knows fuck all about these apps or probably how to use them. Most people are turnkey users and basically vanilla. Then there are viewers that are morally conscience who think adblock might be wrong. I’m just saying overall this could knock viewership down a few pegs.
Absolutely. I truly feel bad for those who waste their finite lives being inundated by marketing and psychology professionals, whose only goal is hijacking the human conscience: instilling a boundless urge to consume. I do what I can to spread the information and tools necessary for others to escape indoctrination and never weep for the lost revenue of vampires. I also have faith the learned compliance to “drink a verification can” can be deprogrammed from my fellow man.
physically be present and not minimize the ad
That’s only a problem on mobile. Desktop browsers don’t disclose the state of the window to the JavaScript API. What this means is: YouTube can tell if you switch tabs, but it can’t detect if you open another browser window in the meantime and let the ad run in the background.
laughs in Invidious
I used to pay for premium a couple years ago because I still wanted to support the creators I watched, but ever since they started implementing AI everywhere and stealing peoples videos for training data I figured Google doesn’t deserve my money no matter how small. I’d much rather watch with uBlock and spend that $20 I used to spend on YouTube Premium on the various YouTubers Patreons.
You know that’s not a bad idea at all I think the cut is better for them that way too they probably make significantly more for an individuals watch time from a donation on Patreon vs that person watching their video once or twice.
