YouTube is testing server-side ad injection to counteract ad blockers

Looks like I'm testing not using YouTube.

Yeah, that'll be hard. I'm trying to use Peertube but network effect is big on YT (not sure if that's the right expression here, noone is using Peertube, everyone is on YT).
- I'm sending my videos on my Peertube and Youtube. I send the link for Peertube a few days before Youtube, so people following me would have more interest on looking at it on PT earlier but the numbers can't be beaten : between 5 and 20 views on PT against 1K / 2K on Youtube.
- try odysee, some creators mirror their yt vids there
- I watch at most 1 video a week. It's not hard.
- Yeah, that’ll be hard. I’m trying to use Peertube but network effect is big on YT (not sure if that’s the right expression here, noone is using Peertube, everyone is on YT).
  There was a time "noone" was on YouTube.
It’s past due that we need a new platform.
- We don't need a new platform. We need 20 new platforms, and authors can post on whichever ones are best for them. Have real competition and real incentive to be better.
- PeerTube?
Been using Nebula for a while now. Going to miss some YouTube creators, but I'll expect to get over it.

That'll make youtube disappear for me.

Over the years I watched less and less. I only seldomly have to look into youtube for things that are easier in video than in text.

Teens and many people don't know that there is a world without ads. They have to be educated that there are alternatives - not watching youtube is a real option. You do not depend on it.

I's a horrible world many people live in. Recently I saw someone browsing on instagram, each third post is an ad and oftentimes there are ads after ads. And people follow other people and watch their ads. Incredible!

Recently, I was browsing linkedin and there were 12 ads instead of real jobs in a row. in a row. Unrelated to my profession.

But the point is there’s always been a way to avoid ads, even while browsing sites with ads and browsing YT. Personally, if that ability entirely disappears, i hate ads, ad-voice, and the concept of advertising so much that I will stop and close a whole tab if an ad plays. I’m in the minority though. Because, I think you’re right, a lot of people just don’t even think about it and mindlessly consume. I can’t. When Reddit fucked us and showed us our opinions and feelings didn’t matter, I left. I will do the same to YT.
- I think I hate ads just as much. But I might cave in and start subscribing to premium again. I just stopped because they don't allow a family plan here in Korea.
I think many people see it as normal/expected.
A coworker showed me a video yesterday on their phone, I said 'holy hell what is this shit? This is what it looks like for you?' And opened it in Tubular. They had no idea such a thing existed.
I rarely watch videos because I prefer to read. The people I work with spend a vast amount of their free time watching YouTube and TikTok. They just seem to zone out, or be really interested when an ad comes on.
- I think many people see it as normal/expected.
  Yes, that's it. People born in the early part of last century (my grandparent's era) only knew over-the-air TV which in the US included commercials. It was just part of reality, like billboards by the highway.

This is where we could use a browser plug in that uses AI to learn what an ad is and skip it for us. Now we just need someone to start working on it.

Plugins can add controls and it can download videos, but plugins can't interact with videos directly I think.
Maybe use the Youtube API closed captions and figure out the patterns for ads that way?
- Of course they can interact with it just fine, look at "sponsorblock" plug-in. It would also solve this problem completely. It already exists and works well, it just isn't "AI" nonsense.

Thats fine. This just fuels developers to make more efficient ad blockers. Youtube wont win the long game and the more they try stuff like this, the more people find out about ublock and other adblockers.

uBO and other traditional adblockers can do nothing against embedded ads in YT vids, at least not those in the extension stores. YT won't permit extensions in the official stores to make useless it's new policy. The solution can only be in independent sources, that is the problem. In the stores you'll find only descaffeinated adblockers which blocks only traditional ads on websites. Install, Greasymonkey or Violentmonkey, maybe Tampermonkey and keep an eye on the script repositories.

Youtube is testing my fucking patience.

For a lot of things I already had changed to alternative sites, the best alternative to YT IMHO is Odysee, music of all kind you can listen here 24/7, or in Bandcamp, for movies there is PlutoTV and the pages of the local public TV for free, news are in the homepage of the prefered newspaper, etc..
- Stay away from Odysee unless you are a neonazi

YT has 2 posibilities

Hosting all videos doble, one with ads and the same vids without for premium user
Insert also markers which at the end also are exploited by adblockers and userscripts

I think they'll hit their teeth against a rock with this.

Meanwhile a lot of content creators a changing to Odysee

That's not true. The way their streaming works is basically a Playlist of shorter fragments. They can easily insert their own fragments without obvious visual tells if they don't alter other elements of the page to indicate that an ad is playing.
- But they will have to alter othet elements on the page. For example, scrubbing. It will either have to be paused at one specific timestamp while the ad is playing or the ad would have to be incorporated into the length of the video.
  In either case, it is detectable.
  The video chunks hash can be calculated and then blocked, in a crowdsourced way like with sponsorblock (but way more effective, because it will cover all videos)
Hosting all videos doble, one with ads and the same vids without for premium user
Not quite sure why, they simply could in the fly stitch those files together.
Twitch is doing that for a while now i think.
- Exactly this. It isn't even really "stitching" as YouTube videos are served as a series of short chunks anyways. So you simply tell the player that there are a few extra chunks which happen to be ads. There is no video processing required it is basically free to do it this way on the sever side.
Actually the videos get stitched together dynamically.
I think they'll hit their teeth against a rock with this.
Press X to doubt
Most people do not have an adblocker. Most people watch YouTube to varying degrees of frequency and duration. Most people will continue to watch the ads. I’d be surprised if YT noticed any amount of users leaving the site because of this. The privacy minded folk are few and far between.
Not precise. They can dynamically generate the video stream from the ad-free original.
Odysee is not an alternative
- Better than any other- Well, there are some selfhosted video sites like PeerTube and others, but respect content are not a real alternative, nor other proprietary streaming sites, like removedute, Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc. Front-ends or desktop clients (FreeTube) with the new YT policy will die. What other alternatives then?
one with ads and the same vids without for premium user
If it worked that way, which others have already explained it doesn't, that would break their business model of showing each person individually targeted ads.

Try to watch the video embedded, simply edit it's URL, using instead of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxx
this URL
https://www.youtube.com/embed/xxxxxxxx

I'm surprised it took them this long.

Honestly, I just pull videos from Youtube to watch later. I don't actually watch anything on Youtube. I do wonder if there's an upcoming replacement for Youtube like there was for Twitter.

Peertube

I'd just drag the time seeker though...

Would sponsorblock be a solution for this?

From what I read, this also breaks sponsorblock - as the ads are part of the video, it moves the time stamps of the video so it makes it not correct. The ads will also change I imagine so idk if sponsorblock will be a solution.
- So videos that reference timestamps in their own video won't work? And comments that reference a timestamp won't work?
No, not in it's actual form, nor the front-ends can't not longer cutting the ads with their current form. Or they change their script, or you have the alternative to use YT or using another streaming service. But I think that there will be other solution in the future to show the middle finger to YT.

Can we train a local AI model to recognise ads?

Not with the crrent ones, it's easier to difference ads by code than by content in most Vids, eg, divulgations, news, influencers, etc. YT, to not destroy the own business modell, also avoiding that there later also 5 years old vids with outdated ads, must use some kind of dynamic insertion, that means, it can be discovered and skipped by some userscripts, for sure not in the extension stores, but in Greasyfork or OpenuserJS, which are independent from Google influence.

That move would finally rid me of my addiction to YouTube. So much time, so many possibilities...

It depends on what the publishers publish for. If it’s money then Peertube is probably not attractive.

As said, some creators already had changed to Odysee, because there they also can monetize their work, but without all the YT crap and nags, apart Odysee is freemium OpenSource https://github.com/OdyseeTeam

What are the YT alternatives? I use it by default and I'm to exhausted to look for another landing place

Odysee ! I use a extention even so if I click a video on YouTube and it is also on odysee it opened odysee instead.
That is a good question

We'll see.At the moment I see any ads, nor nags in YT, using userscripts instead of extensions, but anyway I'm going to keep an eye on what's happening in Greasyfork and OpenuserJS regarding YT in the future, this in any case offers many more options than the castrated extensions that will be in the stores to be able to stay there.
- Don't be too optimistic, you probably haven't seen it because it's not being rolled out universally just yet; they like to A/B test their massive feature changes.

Anyone know if and how this might affect Grayjay or revanced?

If it ain't Foss it is a toss