YouTube isn't happy you're using ad blockers — and it's doing something about it
YouTube isn't happy you're using ad blockers — and it's doing something about it
Annoying.
YouTube isn't happy you're using ad blockers — and it's doing something about it::undefined
YouTube is WHY I have adblockers to this day. I was Ok with the ads at the beginning and end. When they started cramming 2-3 ads in the middle of a 10 minute video, that’s when I started looking for a solution.
Their greed is why they make $0 from me many years later.
I think it’s rich they aren’t happy with people using them when they’re the ones that made the standard viewing experience awful in the first place.
The thing is YouTube just can't be nice about it. It just cannot. In times that it was adblocker resistant, they'd add more and longer and worse ads until they pissed off enough engineers who collectively declared it a crisis and built the many anti-YouTube-ad solutions we have, from alternative YouTube mirrors to the Firefox packages.
We've seen this play out in the tech industry multiple times, and always the public wins thanks, largely to programmers who just get ticked off and spend a weekend on pizza to create a bypass.
The executives at Alphabet know all they have to do is allow concessions to be only mildly annoying and leave them. Five minutes of commercials for fifty minutes of content? That might be fair so long as it's pizza ads and not Jesus ministries telling us how sinful the LGBT+ are or Matt Walsh suggesting we make it illegal for some folk to vote.
But they can't do that. Shareholder Primacy means Alphabet must push for record profits, even if it means enshittifying all their services, including YouTube, and that means a 1/4 ad to content ratio and increasing that until it's intolerable and ad-based profit numbers go down due to failing viewership.
I'm torn because fuck ads, but also YouTube is probably the most expensive website on earth to run (just the website itself, obviously a shipping company with a website will cost more.) Video is just obscenely expensive to store and they let free accounts upload 4k and keep it private.
I honestly don't know the solution here because YouTube being free is amazing, but they've literally never made money. I think a business model like nebula is more sustainable, but it sucks for those that can't afford it.
(To head off any arguments, I'm pro piracy, I just can't blame YouTube to trying to stop people)
What is even more infuriating, I'm from one of the countries that had YouTube Premium Lite available. €6,99 for adfree YouTube with none of the 'offline' or YouTube Music nonsense that I wouldn't be using anyway.
My wife and myself have been subscribed for about 6 months now, totally seeing the value of it. Literally one month after signing my mum also onto it, she gets an email telling her that her subscription will end in a month from now.
Fuck that shit.
YouTube Premium Lite was perfect, affordable and removed exactly the main issue with YouTube: ads. Endless stupid amounts of ads.
I'll go back to Firefox with any amount of extensions that block ads and block the ad-block blockers. Google would have to burn the browser market to the ground before I'll consider subscribing again.
If people don't want to engage with your business, maybe you need a better business
YouTube can get bent with its biased algorithm pushing alt-right conservative crap to the masses.
Fuck you YouTube/Google I'm gonna use an Firefox + ublock origin till death do us apart. If there's no adblocker I'll just quit the internet.
Users are not happy with the amount of ads on YouTube and are doing something about it. What YouTube does not seem to recognize is that if you take their ads, plus the sponsored videos on the platform, it is all WAY too much. Like way way way too much and thus they are fighting a loosing battle here.
The core issue here is that there are many players involved in a video that all need to get paid. You have the YouTuber, YouTube, and most of all, shareholders who legally demand a return on their investment and will squeeze every last cent they can, even if it kills the company which seems to be the path we are on.
There are decentralized alternatives for video like Lemmy is for discourse, but like Lemmy, most rather use a big, “safe”, corporate service so here we are. How far will we have by to fall before we recognize that centralized services with shareholders are a dead end? Based on the stagnant price of Bitcoin for the past year or so, it seems we prefer falling and being exploited. Not the smart people here though as we are not seeing any ads on Lemmy. Decentralization is the solution, but far too many are spending time installing and maintaining ad blockers versus just leaving for less exploitative decentralized alternatives.
Oh well. Human gonna human and YouTube is gonna be a corporation to ensure shareholders get their return as they have no choice. Like literally they have no choice as directors legally need to do everything they can to drive shareholder value, not customer value.
That felt good to write. Rant complete I guess.
What about android apps like "revanced" which allow you to have all the premium features and ad blocking without having to pay premium. It is legal as well.
All a person has to do is google search for it and download a proper version YouTube apk and then patch it and they are off to the races!
I used to pay for YouTube family for years, but they got greedy and raised prices. Now after about 30 mins of getting it set up once I never have to pay again.
I heard about their plans maybe a month ago and i deleted all my stuff there and left youtube forever. I also already had deleted my gmail before that. I now use freetube on my pc and libretube on my phone.
It's tiring to have to take measures to make sure you can use the internet as it used to be, though. I feel like i have a digital armor with ghostery, encrypted email, foss software, etc, etc...
Greedy companies like youtube thinking tracking people is fine don't need my money. I won't end using adblockers.
Don't worry, I did something about youtube. That being uninstalled and only go there if I absolutely have to.
Youtube can go fuck itself. I was one of the few people who was committed to not using an adblocker - corporate assholes or not, I recognized that advertising was why Youtube exists for free.
3 unskippable ads on every fucking video broke me. Youtube can burn, I'm just burning bandwidth until it does.
I read that 2% uses adblocks...
I'd be down to pay YouTube to watch 2k - 4k videos, I'm shocked they allow people to upload videos on that resolution to begin with.
Now, if they start intentionally blocking adblockers, or have a way to force around them (like Twitch) I'd immediately stop using it (like Twitch)
I do find it a bit funny that their adblock-block is to my knowledge just client side JavaScript. Ya' know, the kinda stuff adblock is built to cutout.
Unless they're going to be splicing up videos to put the ads into the same file (which would be astronomically resource intensive) or only allow YouTube in app and in seriously locked down Web-Environtment-Integrity browsers it'll be impossible prevent a device from running or not running code as the user see's fit.
Well, we got to the point where it's too much so....
This may be a hot take but I think it's quite important for YouTube to be profitable because of how difficult running a video platform is already causing there to be no competition. Yeah, I would 100% prefer YouTube without ads (I pay for Premium) and I would love for there to be competition but considering the state of video streaming and how expensive it gets, I'm all for YouTube getting money.
A wild Peertube appears
Oh no!
Anyway.
Somewhat related, how has people's experience been with Viewtube?
Nerevar, dont scare me like that. What is it Nerevar? it's 4 am! i am not due for my daily skibidi toilet until 10 am.
Nerevar, you fool. What an intoxicating and grand irrelevancy. I pay the guild of google 12 bucks a month so they leave me alone with ads. Why would I Dagoth Ur(the god), care for such an issue. I am a god, Nerevar. I can pay whatever i want. No i will not buy girlscout cookies for you. Go back to bed. You're waking up the gnomes. I do not care for their nuisance.Good thing I avoid YouTube as much as possible.
Can't remember the last time I visited youtube.
I don't think third party apps and services are effected as if now.
We need an alternative