Use a vpn with exit node in albania. No ada and no forced sign in.
Ublock Origin, NewPipe, and Grayjay, haven’t seen a YouTube ad in over a decade. 😌
alt-left arrow, alt-right arrow
Last time I saw a youtube ad was probably 2009. Or it might have been 2008.
Android: https://newpipe.net/
Smart TV: https://smarttubeapp.github.io/
Computer: https://ublockorigin.com/
SmartTube is for Android, as is NewPipe. You need a Smart TV with Android TV. Other TVs do not have a way out.
Their way out is using an external device.
Of course, but it’s a bit misleading. I thought it might be helpful to add that comment.
The other day I was doing dishes and couldn’t skip the ad, so I let the whole 90second ad run. Guess what followed? Another 90second ad.
Easy, I’ll just switch to… Oh, right, it’s a monopoly, who would have thought they’d offer a shitty service for “free”?
It’s a good service actually. Just not free.
That is good is up to you, as the user. I wouldn’t use their service at all without avoiding those ads, so, it’s not a good “free” service for me.
Family member spends all day every day recording and editing videos for youtube. Never finds an audience. Never gets promoted. The service is too busy pushing AI slop. All that video storage for the long tail of content with almost no views must cost a fortune. Meanwhile big quality youtubers seem to not be growing for some time like they have hit a ceiling. I think Youtube has been in decline for some time. Instead of fix it, which would require investment and ideas, I think they pull the usual bad US MBA style management practice and attempt to maximise revenues on the way down until they finally kill it.
“unskippable”
I haven’t seen an ad on YouTube for years, with 2 simple browser plugins. Assuming you’re on a PC:
Ublock Origin Sponsor Block
If you’re using chrome, you already fucked up.
The same fucking comment every single time.
This platform is so predictable.
The problem stays the same, why should the answer change?
Mostly because the problem is systemic, so the response should be as well. Your answer was individualistic.
Individual change always places the blame on you. The real focus should be on the system that puts you under this pressure.
Its not like those are mutually exclusive. Long term vs short term fix.
It wasn’t my answer, but I’ll play the part.
I agree with you in cases where individual change is hard, costly and has barely any influence on the big picture (like your “individual CO2 footprint”). But in this case the individual solution is to quit using a terrible browser and install a free extension in the new one, and it has all the impact it needs because it makes the problem go away. I can’t take anybody seriously who will willingly put themselves through youtube ads when they are this easily avoided.
In your example you say reducing your individual CO2 print is hard. It’s not. It just has no real effect against the larger problem. The same thing is true here.
And that’s why the ads will always exist and people will always complain about them. It also funds them to eventually find ways around your individual solutions.
I guess answers like these misunderstand that you’re fighting a losing battle.
I dunno, I was just hoping for something more insightful.
Something more insightful than the obvious solution screaming in your face?
I was hoping for some comments that realized not everyone wants to go to such lengths to avoid watching ads.
Or that people use devices such as Chromecasts.
If there’s no solution to your device, then the only solution is a new device. At some point, it made sense for me to switch out my Chromecast (gen 1? puck) and go with a dedicated media pc. Now the Chromecast lives in the garage to stream music uninterrupted while I can still watch YouTube tutorials
That’s a lot more hassle than most people are willing to go through just to watch YouTube.
Grayjay
Edit: instead of making a snarky comment, I should probably do the right thing for fellow lemmings and explain:
I’m fucking old and I’ve seen this before. It’s the same model as it was with TV and Cable. Air tv becomes so ad ridden than when Cable comes “ad free” we all start paying and switch over. A decade later the “base” cable TV plan is so ad ridden that they come up with “premium channels”, so you sign up for that so you can watch a movie without 10 minute ad break in the middle or 4 minute ad breaks on series. Then channels start splitting into “base” and “premium” versions (e.g. Discovery or History). Base channel is now just RealityTV garbage.
I got fed up and started following creators on Google Video (then YouTube), Vimeo, listening to stuff on ShoutCast (that was winamp’s podcast/radio thing). Then Netflix comes out, decent service. Every other media company wants a piece of the pie. Slowly but surely every decent movie/series on Netflix gets moved to their respective production company’s service: disney, HBO, Paramount+… Netflix starts toying with ads, now disney…
Slowly YT starts adding ads on the sidebar, then in the lower third, then pre-rolls. Now there’s “premium bitrate” behind a paywall. At some point I said “fuck it I’m not playing ball anymore”. Why pay premium? it’ll be the same as it’s always been. Soon enough “premium” yt will be the only way to watch over 360p quality, they’ll lower a bit the cost of YT Premium, ppl will jump in and down the road they’ll add ads back.
I’d rather donate a buck to my favorite creators, it’ll be 100x more income that whatever they’d get off my views.
Ads on YouTube are a solvable problem. Why not spread the knowledge?
It’s a good reply even if it helps but one person
YouTube premium is so overpriced for a single user. Family however, dam that shits a deal when you take advantage of it.
No, I don’t see them and the day I cannot block ads anymore is the day I am going to stop using YouTube. It’s really not that important to life.
I don’t think they’d give a shit if you left, it’s not like they’re making any money off you.
… Why would I care if they miss me?
Why would I care about their opinions at all? I’m pretty sure we care about each other’s opinions about equally as is.
why wait? Give invidious a try, or see if any of the creators you follow also uploads their videos in PeerTube or odyssey or something… The creators, I do follow does that - its good.
I know of PeerTube and like the concept. Out of my 57 subscribed channels only 2 are available via PeerTube, 4 more are available on other sites. I hope this will improve. I’m not using the normal YouTube interface. I’ve customised it to my needs with injected scripts plus additional cosmetic blocking, e.g. I filter out unwanted search results and removed all shorts. For now it works well enough. Anyway, I’m already in the process of reducing YouTube consumption.
Invidious is developed really poorly. The documentation even recommends restarting the service hourly for what I assume has to do with memory leakage (they don’t actually mention the reason, but memory leaks are significant either way). I’d stay away from that project.
I just restart the video ~5 times until it starts without ads. I figure even if it takes extra effort and time if I don’t know what’s being advertised then I win.
I used to do this on Apple TV before I paid for premium. I wonder if they track that behaviour, because I swear they started showing me longer ads more often and no ads less often.
I used to back out and restart the video half a dozen times and I’d get it to play without ads. it went up and up until it seemed like I was doing it dozens of times and it would still play ads
It’s not just the unskippable ads but also the type of ads as well. I’ve seen some wild ones like ads to make you hard in the bedroom, but it never actually shows the treatment. I’ve seen ads for how to make “homemade” makeup to look younger, the ingredients are baking soda and honey? But I think the wildest one I’ve seen is an ad for a robot puppy but in the ad, you can clearly see it is a real puppy, but they keep saying that it is a robotic AI powered puppy.
Go watch the latest Corridor Crew video. They bought the AI puppy…
Thank you for your sacrifice
I keep seeing an ad about a magical banana. -Go figure.
So, slop it sounds like.
On screen ads, unskippable preroll ads, mid roll ads and multi hour long ads that never end, ads on the sides and underneath the videos, embedded AI to push up their numbers that bloats the webpage.
Then on top of that, double sponsors, hidden sponsors, scams and shitty merch.I used to think YouTube was the new public broadcast system but honestly that was never this garbage.
PBS was NEVER this garbage.
Hey YouTube? The endpoint of enshittification is this: I wipe my ass and flush you.
Keep going, YouTube. You’re not so important that we can’t just leave.
Nebula exists. Curiosity Stream exists. PeerTube exists. Odysee exits. The people I value on YT already have footholds on all four. More will arrive soon enough.
So keep at it.
Keep injecting unskippable ads, flooding the feed with AI slop, letting bots post porn, demonetising and hiding quality content, using DMCA like a digital SLAPP against content creators, and using the algorithm to warp reality.
Your value proposition is ubiquity. That’s it. That’s all you have. Without popular buy-in, you’re dead.
We proles? We have something better than loyalty.
We have spite.
So keep pissing people off - because watching you die on a very stupid hill of your own design will be entertaining AF.
For everyone else, see you on !selfhosted@lemmy.world and !privacy@lemmy.world. Come and learn how you can replace all of these pieces of shit.
And in the meantime - yt-dlp should still work to download what you actually want to keep, and SmartTube is black magic incarnate.
You forgot https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy
A vile den of scum and villainy :)
Nebula exists. Curiosity Stream exists. PeerTube exists. Odysee exits. The people I value on YT already have footholds on all four. More will arrive soon enough.
Exactly my thoughts too.
Yes. You will quit YouTube. But 99% of people won’t and they make YouTube more revenue via either watching more ads or giving up and subscribing
I finally gave up and subscribed, but only because the people I wanted to watch weren’t all available elsewhere and because I was lazy
but this year I will be canceling YouTube as my last subscription
All we can do is point the way. There are alternatives - we’re using one right now.
I’m for giving people choices. People should be empowered with knowledge.
Whether they choose the act on that knowledge is up to them.
None of those have all the creators and people don’t want to go between multiple apps.
This fight is lost. The way to win it now is legislation or blowing up data centers.
I disagree. The fight isn’t lost - it hasn’t even started yet.
People are apathetic and/or ignorant to alternatives. Some of those people can be appealed to - or on sufficient enshittification, motivated into action.
Spite is a wonderful reagent.
Additionally, the apathy of the masses has no impact on individual response.
Things already exist that marry disparate platforms (eg: Grayjay, Kodi plug ins etc).
We need not wait. And while I remain sanguine that YT will piss off enough people eventually, I’d sooner code my own app, that joins all my streams - and release it into the wild - than let others dictate what I can and cannot do.
None of those well ever compare to youtube. You think all the videos are going to stay on those platforms forever? You think they well scale to youtube levels of users?
YouTube is too big to fail” is not the flex you think it is.
No, I do not expect any one of those platforms to “become YouTube.” That is not the point. The point is reducing dependence on a platform that has spent years making itself worse because it assumes users have nowhere else to go.
Fuck that and fuck them.
Scale? Things do not need to match YouTube’s total global footprint to be useful.
They need to serve actual human beings well enough that migration becomes viable.
That is how this starts: not with 2 billion people moving at once, but with chunks of users, creators, and communities deciding they’re sick of eating shit.
As for “will the videos stay there forever?”
They are not staying on YouTube forever either. Videos get demonetised, geo-blocked, copyright-nuked, hidden by algorithmic sludge, or deleted all the time.
Centralisation does not guarantee permanence. It guarantees dependence.
I’m not for that.
That is why people mirror, self-host, archive, syndicate, and build bridges between platforms.
People imagine only one possible future: “Everyone stays on YouTube because YouTube is big.”
I am pointing at the much more obvious one:
“YouTube keeps enshittifying itself until more and more people route around it.”
It does not have to die overnight. It just has to become less necessary.
Soon enough, YT will block all the clever back doors we use with uBlock, Smartube, Revanced, Newpipe etc. Then what? Eat shit? Nah.
This thread has inspired me to roll up my sleeves and see what I can think thru. I already have a back of napkin idea for a basic MVP that joins all those services I mentioned into 1 front end. I will make it for myself and when its solid enough, throw it up on Codeberg for others to fork and improve.
it doesn’t matter, when people are fed up with that shit they will just go back to watch any other platform (tv, streaming, tiktok)
scale does not matter, these alternatives are not trying to scale like youtube because youtube is unsustainable in the first place
Like others, desktop I’m using Firefox with ublock origin. Android phone, Firefox with ublock origin. Android TV, SmartTube. Ad blockers have always outpaced Google in my experience though I use youtube maybe like twice a week and I don’t randomly browse reccomendations. Just there for specific stuff
Enjoy it while it lasts. With Google forcing developers to register their Android apps (or they’re not allowed to be installed, unless you’re a developer), it puts pressure on applications like Firefox (or ublock origin) to tow-the-line.
This won’t happen tomorrow or next year, but the writing is on the wall, unless people push back or the government begins to push back on Big Tech.
The removal of device owner rights has always been a soil boil.
You can still install them, they announced the rules weeks ago.
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You need to go into the phone settings and enable developer mode (this doesn’t mean YOU’RE a developer)
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Flip a setting to on that will allow it
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See some scary prompts and acknowledge no one is asking you to do this
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Reboot the phone (its intended to cut off communication with who might be scamming you). (edit: I think this reboot step specifically is a clever idea)
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Wait 24 hours.
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Install the app
From there you can keep the phone in the ‘unlocked’ state, or allow it to relock after 7 days.
I’m not saying this is good, but it IS still possible.
I understand and agree with your sentiment, but try explaining how ”developer mode" does not make you a developer to my Grandma.
It’s the same b.s. optics that invented “sideloading” as some technically shady practice, when it has always been: just installing the stupid app.
Maybe your grandma who doesn’t understand that, shouldn’t be installing unverified apps without someone like yours guidance? That’s not a hard concept if they’re going as far as installing something else not from a store.
Also, somehow preventing adblock would trigger the creation of a corporate competing product. This is a bigger threat to Google than people stealing their bandwidth.
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I’m hoping by the time googles Android goes to shit, GrapheneOS is readily available on more phones or PostmarketOS. Same with Linux with KDE Plasma Bigscreen running on a minipc rather than using an android TV box
