YouTube warns it might make your viewing experience worse if you don't turn off your ad-blocker

Sorry Google.

I'm gonna use YouTube ad free or I won't use it.

And I ain't gonna pay for it.

Hahahahaha, do they know that using it without the ad blocker is worse than whatever else they're going to do? I'd rather stare at 30 seconds of black screen than a 5 second ad, lmao.

They couldn't possibly make the experience worse than it already is without an ad blocker.

No adblock = No youtube

No YouTube. It is YOU that is stuck with ME and I will make YOUR experience worse.

Oh no, how unfortunate. Sadly, we don't have alternative YouTube clients like Invidious or Piped that can be used with LibRedirect to automatically redirect all YouTube links to these alternative front-ends. And unfortunately, you can't use LibreTube or NewPipe on Android, as well as Yattee with this guide on iOS, iPadOS and tvOS or SmartTubeNext on Android TV.

Can't possibly make it worse than shoving ads from hate groups. On my computer, I use Firefox with adblock, but on my phone and tablet I had been using the YouTube app until a few days ago. Google decided to show me a PragerU ad on mobile, so I decided to switch to Firefox mobile to watch YouTube. And the app either moved or removed the 'don't show this ad' selection.

...and your viewing experience will be far, far worse if you don't use one.

They had a long time to make the ad watching process less painful, or adding actual value to a premium subscription, but they are doing everything to make YouTube worse.

I remember what the internet was like before we had ad-blockers. I concur with others who have said turning the blocker off would make it even worse. There no fucking way I'm turning off ad-blocking under any conditions. I'd rather just stop using the internet altogether. I can not verbalize how much I hate ads. I stopped watching TV because of ads a long time ago. Never again.

Oh man, I wish I could get a pair of AR-glasses with ad-blocking in real life. No more ads polluting the streets. That would be great.

Wonder how much money they've wasted trying to block the blockers

I watch YouTube content on my tv, and get ads, next to using it on my PC where I block them. Generally I did not mind the ads, since it is part of the business model.

But frankly the experience on the tv is degrading quickly in the last 12 months:

From 2 skippable ads at the start (and end) of a video, I now get 2 longer unskippable ones, but regularly it doubles to 4 and a 5th that is either short or skippable. And if it's still 2 at the start then usually 1-2 mins in I see 2 more long ads ... If I have the gall to rewind or forward the video I get 2 more long ads, usually followed by 2 short ones a minute or two later... Some of that is probably ad-space tagged by the creators, but clearly YT overrules that and places its own ad markers.

Slowly I feel it's leaning towards punishment to watch content on YT, at least on the tv.

On top of that there is the annoying interface that blocks a full 30% of the screen, often blocking the one thing I wanted to look at. Then the ads that always break subtitles of the video, or somehow enforcing subtitles in a language that I can not read.

And don't get me started on the topic-bubble the algorithm captures the user in.

YT should have left it as it was a few years ago, but it is forcing more and more ads, making things unfriendlier for both the viewer and creator, all to squeeze the viewers for more and more revenue.

It's a shame it's all so detrimental to the wealth of knowledge on there.

So if a good and proper alternative is able to stand on its feet I will gladly follow the creators and watch the new stuff on there.

Can't be worse than the experience with the ads..

These shenanigans have me rapidly transitioning from “I don’t want to see your annoying ads” to “I don’t want you to make any money at all”.

The ads make it pretty bad. They’d have to work really hard to make it worse without ads.

I mean... it definitely will if you turn off your ad blocker.

I guarantee it's a worse experience with ads.

They still don't get it.

"Might get worse without turning of my ad-blocker" still beats "is definitely worse without ad-blocker".

I'm taking my chances.

I'd rather pay the creators directly on their Patreon then allow Google to pester me with ads.

Well, it'll also make my viewing experience worse if I do so...

I can’t believe the amount of bootlickers in this thread trying to justify google’s blatant attempts at capitalising on the monopoly it has aggressively acquired. Fuck Google. Fuck YouTube. Fuck advertising. Fuck sundar pichai and his shitty ideas about how to ‘make money’. Aww no boo fucking Hoo has the mega-corp decided it can’t run this huge monopoly at a loss anymore after literally years of doing just fucking that? Who the fuck cares? Eat shit and go bust I literally do not give a flying fuck and I hope they go fucking bankrupt if only for their obviously anti-competitive and clearly fucking incompetent business practices. Fuck off. All advertising is theft of time. Eat shit.

Oh no are there going to try to block the ad blockers but then the ad blockers block the ad blockers blockers? When will it end? They can keep on trying to make it worse but people will just keep figuring out how to bypass it.

Rawdogging YouTube today is a similar experience to what I had with a free trial of Hulu several years ago. The ads were so frequent and so lengthy that I cancelled several days before the trial was even over. I swear I was getting six minutes of ads for every two minutes of content.

There's a point where the greed makes the product unusable.

I watch a lot of Tubi on my TV, and I find the ads there tolerable. They don't just flood you with them. I'm totally ok with sitting through their ad breaks in exchange for a free watching experience.

(I don't know if Hulu has gotten better or worse. The experience was so god awful that I've never even slightly entertained the thought of trying it again)

And I warn Google that it would have to first find and suck my cock real good for me to consider allowing it to do that.

Isn't a blocked ad better than an ignored one for an advertiser? They don't have to pay for the blocked one. Google, of course, doesn't care if an ad is seen, only that they got paid by advertisers to show it.

I love how aggressive google is becoming. It drives more and more people into the arms of open source os and firefox

Suck my fat hog google

The more Google keeps going down this path as they inevitably always would, the more viscerally I will fight against it.

What holds youtube from blocking all videos to addblock users just as other sites do? Are they afraid of pushing youtube down the cliff?

I don't understand why self hosted videos aren't more popular

"Hey buddy, it would be a damn shame if something happened to your viewer experience. Oh, no, we're your buddies, eheheh. For a small fee, we'll make sure your experience will be safe."

YouTube made my viewing experience worse for the past decade already, and I'm not just talking about the fucking ads, which I don't see either way and never will be, regardless of what they do. If they think this is going to make me want to support them, then they should just drink the bottle of bleach as their next fabulous idea.

im confused. I use firefox and ublock and haven't noticed any change in the way youtube works for me.

And people will fight this even harder.

so little people use adblockers already, the few sheckles they'd get form those willing to turn them off, is that really worth it?

Or is it about power? its about power isnt it

That enshittification may continue until the ad revenue improves.

(aka never)

Youtube drove me away when they started autoplaying misogynistic and alt right nonsense.

Ironically, I cannot read the article because I use an ad blocker.

How could it get worse?

Bring it.

YouTube surprised at sudden lack of consumers

Not the vibe here by the look of the comments but for me YT premium is worth it. There's a lot of great stuff on YouTube and it's nice watching it all ad free in HD on my TV without ads. I realize hosting, streaming, and producing that content isn't free and I don't mind supporting it.

I pay for Youtube premium as a carry-over from Google Music (back when it was called Youtube Red). I let it run because I enjoy the screen off feature when I'm driving. On my desktop uBlock Origin still blocks 340 scripts/trackers even when logged into Premium. They not only want to eye-rape us with ads, but they want to track the fuck out of us across the web.

Youtube can eat shit and post it to 'shorts' before I turn my ad-blocker off.

ever since they've been getting so obnoxious and haughty lately i've deleted the app (which is barely worth having without premium; esp with them INTENTIONALLY DISABLING background playback on mobile which is a fucking joke and should literally be against the law) and honestly barely visit anymore. i don't think my quality of life has dropped at all

Fuck 'em.

Hey Google, you gotta remember that you won’t get any ad revenue from people who get fed up with your shit and just stop going to YouTube.

Hahahahahahahaha get fucked google

of course that's infuriating, but you want to know something else that's infuriating? I've been paying for YouTube PREMIUM all these years, and one of the perks has been that we could hear the audio from videos even when our screen is off, or while multitasking on different apps.

Well imagine my DISMAY over the last few months, that is no longer true for me. The video stops playing after exactly 120 seconds if my screen is off. I'm paying for YouTube PREMIUM! I should be able to hear the audio from the videos when my screen is off!

As far as I know I'm the ONLY one experiencing this because other people on Lemmy have told me they can still hear YouTube audio when their screen is off.

someone please help me. You know how there is no YouTube customer service.

I'll just start downloading the YouTube videos I wanna watch. Maybe even have it on my Plex server.

How about invest in actually using all the data you have on me to show me ads for products I would actually be interested in? I wouldnt hate ads so much if it wasn't so repetitive and for crap that is useless to me.

don't care suck my balls

I mean, it's already terrible.

Well, looks like I'll just stick to using Invidious.

It's not the first time I stopped paying for a service that use to be good. If it effects me I'll drop the service and stop using the platform altogether.

Would they make it worse than watching ads?

Mobile game ads are the worst now. I could not turn ads on and watch with others because its soo bad.

I am sorry but I don't have the money to pay for YouTube premium :( so I guess it's a goodbye for me Youtube!

YouTube is one of those sites that are so powerful.

Could they not just show less frequent ads but charge more for the advertising space? Surely they get decent click rates on their ads compared to the average web sites.

I noticed it's too slow these days

it's all fun and games until youtube builds a wall for unregistered users... ggwp

This is the best summary I could come up with:

YouTube appeared to confirm reports that people with ad-blockers installed were experiencing a multi-second delay before being able to watch a video.

The Android-based news website Android Authority reported that people who weren't using Chrome noticed the delays, citing Reddit users who said they've experienced this delay while using browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge.

"In the past week, users using ad blockers may have experienced suboptimal viewing, which included delays in loading, regardless of the browser they are using.

Users who have uninstalled their ad blockers may still experience a temporary delay in loading, and should try refreshing their browser," a YouTube spokesperson told Business Insider.

In June 2023, it began preventing users with ad blockers turned on from watching videos and reportedly experimented with pop-up warnings.

More recently, X users began complaining and sharing screenshots of YouTube pop-ups warning them to not use ad blockers.

The original article contains 403 words, the summary contains 146 words. Saved 64%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Oh, do you want my viewing experience to be worse? Well don't worry, because I'm doing my best so PeerTube has quality content in a weekly basis, while you also have the same content in a monthly basis.

I'll just take a piss break when an ad comes on, then

I honestly thought I'm on the wrong website when I loaded YT with adblock disabled...

lol fuck outta here. Goog is creating a market for competition.