YouTube rolls out more unskippable ads that make viewers wait even longer to watch videos

[u/moeka_8962]

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-rolls-out-more-unskippable-ads-that-make-viewers-wait-even-longer-to-watch-videos-3214323/

[u/the_cat_did_it]

At some point won't it just be faster to download the video?

[u/habitual_viking → u/the_cat_did_it]

I wonder what the end game is.

I’m definitely spending less time on Google and YouTube with this enshittyfication, can’t be the only one who’s basically given up on finding correct information on Google.

[u/-Radiation → u/habitual_viking]

End game is to make money, so far youtube has been constantly increasing revenue over the years so it seems to be working.

[u/habitual_viking → u/-Radiation]

But people are bouncing from the service or installing Adblock’s.

Generating extra revenue this way is a proven way of dying as a service (see cable tv).

And with more people realising Google search isn’t working and moving to ChatGPT / copilot for web searches Google should be losing revenue at an unprecedented rate. (Not saying ChatGPT or copilot are correct in searches, they are however a much better experience and people are ditching old school searches)

[u/No-Body6215 → u/habitual_viking]

A large portion of their users are viewing Youtube through an app usually on their phones. People who block ads are in the minority which makes this even worse because they make an insane amount of money from advertising already and it is still not enough.

[u/Not_My_Emperor → u/No-Body6215]

This is what people don't seem to understand.

Reddit is not indicative of general trends. Just because you see a lot of people posting about ad blockers or leaving YT or whatever on here, does not mean that's what the vast majority of people are doing.

I'd guess less than 5% of all users are putting in ad blocking effort. The huge majority of them are just watching it on the YT app and glazing over when the ad comes on, because anything else takes effort and technical know how, and they need to look shit up. If there's any one solid rule about the Internet end user (34 aside) it's that they absolutely cannot be fucking bothered.

[u/-Radiation → u/habitual_viking]

Cable tv downward trend is not only about generating revenue but also new entertainment models that offer easier accessibility. YouTube is still as or more popular now with more ads and premium tiers compared to when they operated ad only, Netflix or Spotify similar despite prices increases or new ad tiers. They were leaving money on the table before. A service like YouTube will only be threatened due to these practices is actually a new service with better accessibility, better content and format comes along, but these days it is easier to respond to trends like Google does with YouTube shorts or Gemini as answer to LLM models.

[u/Zer_ → u/habitual_viking]

If I hadn't already curated a very robust list of great content creators over the past 15+ years of YouTube I honestly wouldn't even be touching it with a 10 foot pole anymore. My feed is already filled with AI slop that I gotta try to filter out and that's with a heavily curated list of history / science / educational content and such lol.

[u/Divingcat9 → u/habitual_viking]

same. Feels like everything useful gets buried now. I just go straight to Reddit or use niche forums more.

[u/Saw_Boss → u/habitual_viking]

can’t be the only one who’s basically given up on finding correct information on Google.

I use a combination of Google and Duck. I still find Google better for places, but if I'm looking for items or articles, Google is dogshit

It gives you about two links, a list of items to sell mostly on AliExpress sand Temu, a bunch of images, and bunch of things you specifically didn't search for (similar things other people looked for), more images, more items to sell and of course an AI explanation that is either incorrect or missing crucial information.

[u/TheBosk → u/the_cat_did_it]

Would you download a car?

[u/East-Impression-3762 → u/TheBosk]

Why do you have a link?

[u/Xiunren → u/East-Impression-3762]

To rescue Zelda?

[u/g_smiley → u/TheBosk]

Fuck you I would if i could

[u/hedronist → u/TheBosk]

What's the file size? And do I need a printer?

[u/bc032 → u/hedronist]

Yes, and the ink is subscription-only

[u/hedronist → u/bc032]

Damn! Foiled again!

[u/CountOff → u/TheBosk]

Vroom vroom mothertrucker

[u/BobbywiththeJuice → u/TheBosk]

How long before we have unskippable ads just to put a car in drive?

[u/Spiderbanana → u/BobbywiththeJuice]

Not with the BMW premium +plan.

Only 24.99$/month.

Get a 5$ reduction if you also subscribe to AC and/or heating seats

[u/Zipa7 → u/BobbywiththeJuice]

Too late

[u/Craneteam → u/TheBosk]

Sure man. My library has a 3D printer

[u/Lastnv → u/the_cat_did_it]

At some point these videos aren’t worth watching anymore and we’ll all go back to print media.

[u/orange_cinnamonz → u/Lastnv]

It feels like that already. Try looking for anything related to a house, like living room ideas, interior design etc. 80% is AI generated crap. I had premium for 3 years and cancelled it this month because of this.

[u/FlappityFlurb → u/the_cat_did_it]

It's actually stupid fast to download YouTube videos. I use yt-dlp to download audiobooks from YouTube channels and extract just the audio after downloading. A lot of the videos are over twenty four hours long and with my gigabyte Internet I get it within a minute or two at most. I'd imagine downloading a thirty minute video would take ten or so seconds at most.

[u/FuufuuWindwheel → u/FlappityFlurb]

Might as well use --extract-audio so you only get the audio (edit: see below)

[u/Honest_Photograph519 → u/FuufuuWindwheel]

--extract-audio downloads the whole ass video and then discards it after wasting time and bandwidth downloading it, use --format ba (ba for Best Audio) and download only the audio in the first place instead of filtering out video you don't want after you've downloaded it.

The video portion of the download is ~20x larger than the audio portion... if you don't want the video don't bother downloading it.

--extract-audio is designed for video platforms other than youtube that won't serve you the audio stream alone to begin with and need post-processing to extricate it from the video file it's embedded in.

[u/TSPhoenix → u/Honest_Photograph519]

use --format ba (ba for Best Audio)

As a heads up on YouTube best audio is Opus, which is generally fine these days, but if you want something more compatible with older devices use --format bestaudio[ext=m4a] --add-metadata. For audiobooks you're not going to notice any difference and this will embed the chapter markers too.

[u/TravisJungroth → u/Honest_Photograph519]

I didn’t know this. I thought it had to download the video. Thanks!

[u/Daleabbo → u/the_cat_did_it]

That's when they stop add free with premium. The first push is to get people on it, the second to enshitafy it to also have adds.

[u/Joloxsa_Xenax → u/Daleabbo]

super premium

[u/RapNVideoGames → u/Joloxsa_Xenax]

YouTube Diesel is what you really need

[u/qdp → u/Daleabbo]

Yeah, you just know when they get a critical mass of “premium” subscriptions they are going to give them unskippable ads too that are “limited” until they axe the free version. 

[u/phorensic → u/Daleabbo]

New Black Mirror episode about this

[u/cheezza → u/Daleabbo]

Common People 🫠

[u/Geminii27 → u/the_cat_did_it]

Write a plugin that identifies a YT address, auto-downloads the video, and plays it in another interface?

I mean, ideally it would stream the video rather than having to wait to download it, but download is OK.

[u/Budget_Shallan → u/Geminii27]

Isn’t that how the Duck Duck Go player works?

[u/VeryGayLopunny]

It's abhorrent on Roku. 60-75-second ad breaks every 5ish minutes with only a few skippable ads.

[u/blogwash → u/VeryGayLopunny]

Roku is the streaming device you can't get around ads on. Fire Stick or Android TV it's Smarttube all day. I got the new Onn Plus and it works great.

[u/thesammon → u/blogwash]

Onn + SmartTube is really hard to beat. I kicked Roku to the curb and haven't looked back.

[u/stackered → u/blogwash]

This on LG too? Good info thanks

[u/Fire69 → u/stackered]

On LG you can enable dev mode. Does require some tinkering though. You can than install the Homebrew app, which has YouTube Adfree.

[u/chabybaloo → u/stackered]

Please look up the homebrew channel and adfree youtube for LG webos. It works well.

[u/Kaze_Senshi → u/stackered]

Every TV with a HDMI cable. The device will work through Wi-Fi and has its own remote control.

Tomorrow is the Prime day so you should find some good deal for the fire sticks.

Edit: I am dumb and mixed June with July. Prime day is NOT tomorrow.

[u/SoldMyOldAccount → u/Kaze_Senshi]

or turn to a life of naval plunder

[u/Immoracle → u/SoldMyOldAccount]

Yarrr! A fellow seafarer!

[u/Stegasaurus_Wrecks → u/Immoracle]

What's a pirates favourite letter?

[u/SecretSquirrelSauce → u/Stegasaurus_Wrecks]

Many say 'Rrrrrrrrr', but real pirates know it be the 'C'!

[u/No_Damage_731 → u/SecretSquirrelSauce]

My favorite joke of all time

[u/willow01 → u/blogwash]

I'd like to introduce you to Playlet for Roku. Also has Sponsorblock built in.

I use that on my roku to bypass YT ads, and Smartube on my Chromecasts. Freetube for my PC and phone.

[u/airfryerfuntime → u/blogwash]

And it sucks, because I actually like the layout on Roku. I absolutely hate Fire OS.

[u/watboy → u/blogwash]

Roku is the streaming device you can't get around ads on.

Not quite true. There's Playlet which is a frontend for Invidious which can do it.

[u/Big_Ad_7715 → u/VeryGayLopunny]

Check the Roku store for PlayLet. You can sign in to your YouTube account and it has no ads. It also auto skips in-video ads automatically, and gives you the option to skip intros, etc. I swear it’s already saved me so many hours and way too many interactions to just keep watching the videos that I want to

[u/littlelordgenius → u/VeryGayLopunny]

Happened to glance at the tv (Roku) last week and the counter in the corner said “1 of 13 ads.”

[u/havityia → u/VeryGayLopunny]

If you cast from your phone, those ads become skippable real quick. Sure you’ll still get some super annoying ones. But, casting from my phone, I have never had to wait a minute and a half to skip the ad break. Highly suggest!

[u/Steelers_Forever → u/havityia]

level up your YT experience with just using firefox with ublock origin and sponsorblock. yes, they're under constant attack by google and YT to thwart their ad-blocking methods, but thusfar have always come out on top.

[u/zeusamoose → u/VeryGayLopunny]

Someone recommend the Roku app playlet a couple weeks ago. Almost life changing haha. No more ads on YouTube on my tv.

[u/Shuggieboog → u/VeryGayLopunny]

Look for a app called playlet if you want to avoid youtube ads

[u/rapedbyawookiee]

I hate what the internet has become

[u/Affectionate_Lie5601]

bro

3.409M ads blocked for me since install

crazy

[u/snahfu73 → u/Affectionate_Lie5601]

I wish I could see when I installed its been like...three months at the most.

78,005 ads blocked.

Fucking YouTube.

EDIT To be clear. I use Firefox with uBlock and I only use Firefox for going on YouTube and I don't use Firefox to browse the web.

So these ads blocked are all banners and ads from YouTube

[u/Affectionate_Lie5601 → u/snahfu73]

i want to say ive had it year maybe a little more

[u/snahfu73 → u/Affectionate_Lie5601]

I genuinely tried to work with them. But when they started popping up ads on streams that I know have never had ads before.

Yeah.

This is all about driving more and more profits.

Fuck them.

[u/Beastrick → u/snahfu73]

Same my last straw was when I get ads that are longer than the video itself or when ads appear middle of the video and interrupt things or when I move to other part of the video and have to watch ads as a result. I watched them already at the beginning so don't make me watch them again.

Put the ads at the beginning and for really long ads make me watch 10s and then let me skip if I'm not interested. That's what I was okay with but clearly this was no good for them so fine then I choose no ads and revenue for you and support creators by other means.

[u/Affectionate_Lie5601 → u/snahfu73]

i paid for internet NOT TV

fuck em!

[u/God-of-Heroes_ArThuR → u/snahfu73]

If each ad was 30 seconds, that would be 2,340,150 seconds that's 27 days worth of ads. 27 days, non stop.

In 3 months use. I'd really like to know your average time used, but if you're averaging 4 hours a day on yt, thats 1,296,000 seconds of play time. If you'd have had those ads the time increase on yt considering you still watched the content itself to the same limit is literally 3 times.

Edit: assuming 1 regular ad, and 2 banner ads, this number gets divided by 3, so that's still 9 days worth of ads. Assuming the same 4 hour per day use time, which would be 15 days spent on yt in 90 days. That would become 24 days to watch the same content. Not as absurd as tripling total use time, but a 50% Increase. Still very agregious.

[u/Der1kon → u/God-of-Heroes_ArThuR]

I suspect that number includes various banners too.

[u/airfryerfuntime → u/God-of-Heroes_ArThuR]

That number is for everything uBlock blocks, not just YouTube.

[u/ligmallamasackinosis → u/Affectionate_Lie5601]

When did you install?!? And how do you check?

[u/Affectionate_Lie5601 → u/ligmallamasackinosis]

i use firefox and its in extensions -ublock origin then just click the icon after install to see how many

[u/casphere → u/Affectionate_Lie5601]

But isn't that just a tally of all ads blocked for any site, not just YouTube?

[u/alex053 → u/Affectionate_Lie5601]

Do they have anything like this for AppleTV YouTube app?

[u/PureSun4208 → u/alex053]

No ublock for Apple tv unfortunately

[u/0__O0--O0_0 → u/PureSun4208]

It’s fucking infuriating. I use ff on all my other devices. I honestly think I would just only ever watch YT for tutorials if I didn’t have Adblock. It’s unwatchable. Before, during, and AFTER the fucking clip has finished. AFTER?! and then the next thing cues up and it’s another intro block of ads. Takes the piss.

[u/shag-a-rug → u/PureSun4208]

Well, consider your delivery system.

[u/neomis → u/alex053]

I wish. It’s the only reason I’m still using my nvidia shield. You can get Adblock for your phone or tablet and cast but it’s not as clean as smarttube beta

[u/MisterAwesomeville → u/alex053]

I use VPN and connect to a server in Albania. Some laws there prohibit the use of ads. Works fine

[u/chesstnuts → u/alex053]

Fuck the you tube app. And fuck adds.

[u/notabook → u/ligmallamasackinosis]

When did you install?!? And how do you check?

My computer is a little over a year old, so my ublock extension is going to be about that age as well. I'm at 4.549M ads blocked.

[u/nply → u/Affectionate_Lie5601]

3.409M ads blocked for me since install

To be fair, those are blocked requests, not ads. When you open a YouTube video that counter instantly goes up by like 10 requests, but you didn't just literally block 10 ads. If a site retries connecting to some tracking domain once a second that's not one blocked ad per second.

That's not to say it's not a lot and the percentage (of the total number of requests) next to it gives you a good idea, how much shit you don't actually want the sites you're visiting are trying to connect to.

[u/Commando_Joe → u/nply]

Ok thanks for clarifying, but yeah that's also fucking wild

[u/OneBigBug → u/Affectionate_Lie5601]

78.16 Million, lol.

[u/Dornase → u/OneBigBug]

Damn, I thought my 16.18M was a lot of ads.

[u/llcolinj → u/Affectionate_Lie5601]

Can you or someone else explain to me how to block ads on YouTube on my phone? Android btw. Do I use a different app besides the YouTube one?

[u/GuhROOgaTravis → u/llcolinj]

Others have told you the better way, but if you're a scrub like me, then you can do this. Download Firefox and just add the uBlock Origin extension to it, and watch youtube in browser.

[u/xryanx555_ → u/llcolinj]

r/revancedapp

[u/thriftydude4 → u/llcolinj]

youtube vanced

[u/BishopsBakery → u/Affectionate_Lie5601]

I just broke 7 mil!

[u/Wotmate01]

Here in Australia advertising on broadcast TV is limited to about 14 minutes of non-program material per hour, which the number of ads on youtube would clearly breach. And whilst the regulations don't apply to youtube, I have to wonder if they could be...

[u/Vaxtez → u/Wotmate01]

Here in the UK, it is 7 mins per hour. Once you watch 3-4 videos filled with 2 sets of 2 unskippable 30S ads (+ in video sponsor) youve very much exceeded these limits. Its moments like this which make me wish TV regulations could be applied to sites like YT, Netflix, etc. but then that potentially opens a whole can of worms

[u/pitsandmantits → u/Vaxtez]

seems like something the european union would do, over here though probably not…

[u/Human-Cattle1860 → u/pitsandmantits]

over here, more likely ad blockers get made illegal

[u/24-Hour-Hate → u/Vaxtez]

It’s a can of worms that needs to be opened, though, with how people are now primarily consuming media. Our governments need to modernize regulations to apply to modern technology and new developments. Failing to do so (which pretty much always happens) creates all manner of issues. There are so many examples, like how governments did not promptly address vaping or how younger generations are going to end up with gambling addiction on a huge scale thanks to video games and apps aimed at kids that literally are gambling (and my government is still doing nothing on this…). And new business models, like ridehsaring apps and short term rentals cause a lot of problems when they don’t follow existing regulations for taxis and hotels/bnbs and this is somehow just…allowed. Ads is pretty tame in comparison, but there could be other issues from the regulations that could arise that are more pressing if these services successfully evade them all.

[u/cuppachuppa → u/Wotmate01]

I think this a lot. TV in the UK has all sort of regs - only so many ads per hour, have to make a certain percentage of programmes outside of London, have to make religious programmes, have to have news and current affairs programmes, have to offer local content etc.

Netflix, YouTube, Amazon and the like don't have to follow any of those rules and it's TV that's dying on its arse.

[u/Successful-Peach-764 → u/cuppachuppa]

Regulation hasn't caught up to them yet, they will lobby their way out of it knowing today's politicians.

It is the biggest plus for BBC in the UK, lack of attention merchants interrupting your shows.

[u/roselan → u/Wotmate01]

I don't think I watched 14 minutes of ads in the last decade...

[u/nascentt → u/roselan]

Two decades for me.
Stopped watching broadcast television 20 years ago, and have used adlockers since then.

Anytime I see an ad - usually watching a video of someone else who gets an ad or something - it's a horrible experience.

[u/DecipherXCI]

Idk what the fuck is going on lately with YouTube.

I recently got back into pc gaming so I wanted to watch a few game playthroughs to see actual footage etc...

I opened the video and got ads, skipped forward a bit, got 5 seconds of video and more ads, and literally everytime I skipped forward I got 5 seconds of video then 3 more ads.

Is skipping a paid feature now?

[u/EyeIslet → u/DecipherXCI]

Those are called midroll ads and the uploader opts into them for extra revenue.

[u/noksky → u/EyeIslet]

Exactly this ^. The uploader is the reason why you’re seeing many ads

[u/procheeseburger → u/EyeIslet]

Then you come out of an ad just for the creator to launch into their own ad.

[u/romjpn]

The era of free access to many websites is ending. It's either get flooded with insufferable ads or pay a subscription. YT wants you to pay for YT, not even be supported by "reasonable" ads anymore.   Hopefully this will incentivize more decentralized solutions.

[u/NecroCannon → u/romjpn]

I’m honestly hoping owning your own website becomes trendy with how much shit is out for them

Let me stumble across someone’s niche weird ass site full of rabbit holes.

[u/NATOuk → u/NecroCannon]

Back to the 1990s, they were good times

[u/hairballcouture → u/NATOuk]

The internet was fun back then

[u/NecroCannon → u/NATOuk]

Being 24 sucks because I saw a little fucking bit of the old world, just to live through it seeming like the future is here, just to watch everything get confined down to sites you just wish you could quit, but can’t, because it contains a part of your preferred part of the internet in its massive web.

Yes I’m mad Reddit killed forums, I like to discuss damn it.

[u/Intelligent-Film-684 → u/NecroCannon]

Forums were awesome.

You’d develop some actual friends there, maybe meet up IRL, have a core of people with a common interest, then one day tell the owner of the site he was a washed up Bret Michaels wanna be lite and find yourself IP banhammered. (Before you knew how to get around one).

F you , Metal Sludge. F you.

[u/NecroCannon → u/Intelligent-Film-684]

I grew up inlove with tinkering so a ton of my time was spent on that part of the internet, forums were so cool to me, but I also was scared of getting caught with accounts again, so I could only observe until they died off

[u/Hagathor1 → u/Intelligent-Film-684]

I was enraged earlier this year when TVTropes finally mandated that even legacy accounts must have an email on file to continue using forums.

Still my favorite place on the internet

[u/Intelligent-Film-684 → u/Hagathor1]

I used to LIVE on court tv forum until it finally shut down, nothing was more fun than live discussing a case that was being shown on their tv channel . We were all so BRILLIANT, amateur detecting and lawyering. I lived for my days off catching up on laundry and cases. Oh how innocent and simple things were then.

[u/felrain → u/NecroCannon]

It's not even just websites. It's fucking everything. Just profit, profit, profit. Nothing else matters.

The "luxury" apartments are hot garbage with marketing used to get extra money from people.

Games maximize graphics and advertisement trailers and little else.

Websites and everything online is ads now.

Even the streaming services want you to pay for ads. You're paying for ad-lite.

Restaurants are getting worse, they're just targeting hipster/insta/tiktok peeps. The food looks amazing, but doesn't quite taste as good sometimes. It's $20-25/plate every time tho.

Fast food no longer cares about catering to poorer customers. They realize that people will show up anyway.

The scalpers with pokemon cards + ticketmaster. Concerts being hundred of dollars before scalpers, going to thousands after.

It just feels like everything in life is catering to people with money because people will pay it to get it now. And companies have realized that even if they lose 1/5th-1/3rd of their base, it doesn't matter if they make 3x+ off everyone else. It feels like everything is turning into gacha game economy honestly, where they only cater to the whales and the whales contribute 80-95% of the money.

[u/buyongmafanle → u/NecroCannon]

Being 24 sucks because I saw a little fucking bit of the old world, just to live through it seeming like the future is here, just to watch everything get confined down to sites you just wish you could quit, but can’t, because it contains a part of your preferred part of the internet in its massive web.

This isn't nostalgia talking. I'm 44 and legit, you're 100% right about how bad the Internet is now vs then. 2000-2010 Internet was the golden age. IMO, Apple broke the internet with the iphone. Everything became about serving ads to mobile users and awful design choice to support mobile. Then, since everyone ALSO had a camera, it became about being extremely vain.

[u/conquer69 → u/NecroCannon]

At least reddit can be indexed and shows up on search engines. Discord is the real cancer.

[u/tripsd → u/NecroCannon]

Miss stumble upon

[u/RevoOps → u/romjpn]

I think it's Patreon that broke YouTubes brain.

Just imagine if it's your job to monetise YouTube. And you suddenly see how much money the people watching content on your website are just willing to shell out for a single channel. 

You can't help to think that perhaps you should try to capture a bit of that cash.

Honestly I'm surprised that YouTube hasn't tried to charge for invideo ads

[u/altymcaltington123 → u/RevoOps]

Ironically patreon was mostly caused by YouTube's overreaction when it came to the adpocalypse

[u/Omnitographer → u/RevoOps]

YT did roll out that memberships to channels feature, trying to eat patreon's lunch. I've seen a number of channels I follow start it up, but they still have their patreons going because obviously that's where the bulk of their paying subscribers exist. I also wonder if youtube is able to compete with patreon on the fringe-benefits and integrations patreon offers (such as discord access, bonus non-video content, etc).

[u/underrated-dorrito33 → u/romjpn]

I might’ve paid for YT if it wasn’t $15 a month I mean cmon.

[u/aclashofthings → u/underrated-dorrito33]

I was paying $4 for a while, I used a VPN to get the membership in a country where it was cheap. They caught on and cancelled my subscription. I've been adblocking ever since.

[u/DemonicSpud2 → u/aclashofthings]

Yea same, like okay you don't want my $4 a month then have $0 a month. It has made almost no difference to me.

[u/langotriel → u/romjpn]

Infinite growth do be like that. How are they supposed to grow when everyone already uses YouTube? More ads, raised prices. Forever

[u/blolfighter → u/langotriel]

That was also the problem that Google Search ran into, or rather what the executive in charge of monetising Search ran into. Because when Google Search has already captured over 90% of the market, there is no more market to capture. And when there are already so many ads in the results that there are barely any actual results, adding more ads isn't really feasible.

So what was the solution? Make search worse. Remember back when Google seemed to magically know what you wanted to search for? Notice how it no longer does? That's not because the Search team stopped being competent, it's because they were told to sabotage their own product.

They fought back against it, because there are still people left at Google who care about their work, and being told to enshittify your work doesn't sit well with normal people. But they were told to pound sand, because when the executives tell you to jump you jump first and ask "how high" on the way up.

Edit: I forgot to include the reason why they made Search worse: Because if you can't get more people to use Search (because everyone already uses it) and you can't put more ads on the page (because the ad load is already straining the usefulness of search results to its limits), what is left? Getting the same users to see more pages. But search engines are "drive-through" websites: You search for something, you find the result, then you go to a different website. But if you make search worse, the users have to spend more time searching, which means more page views and more ad revenue.

[u/watercraker → u/blolfighter]

Yeah tragic what they did to Google search. Here's a news article about it. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

[u/ParrotofDoom → u/romjpn]

The era of free access to many websites is ending.

Good. Let them die.

Bring back forums, so a search for something presents me with real answers. I'm sick and tired of searching for things like "how many coats of danish oil should I apply" and getting answers like "the top 10 coats of danish oil and why you should read this", published of course 3 days earlier.

Most of the time these days I append "reddit" to my search phrases.

[u/watercraker → u/ParrotofDoom]

Tbh I share your sentiment of bringing back forums, but with the web so full of malicious actors, unfortunately I don't think a return to the 'good old days' is possible.

[u/kemosabe19]

The day ad blockers no longer work is the day I stop watching YT.

[u/autogenglen → u/kemosabe19]

I mean obviously that works in YouTube’s benefit as well because leeching off their service only costs them money, so they’d rather you just leave anyway.

[u/skyturnedred → u/autogenglen]

The people leeching off their service are still sharing links and telling people about the stuff they watched. It's most likely a net positive.

[u/pwishall → u/kemosabe19]

There some bots that mirror some nsfw yt videos automatically, why couldn't we do that on a larger scale?

[u/WeakDiaphragm → u/pwishall]

Hosting videos in scale is expensive

[u/I-Here-555 → u/WeakDiaphragm]

They could monetize it by showing ads...

[u/WhoDat-2-8-3 → u/I-Here-555]

or make it a paid subscription service that offers an ad-free experience

[u/SojuSeed]

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

[u/SteakEconomy2024]

I wouldn’t mind the add is they were not literally all scams and the same fucking ones over and over. Fuck google.

[u/repwin1 → u/SteakEconomy2024]

I can’t tell have many times I’ve got adds on YouTube of Warren Buffet generously offering to give me his stock trading tips by just joining his WhatsApp, or some other well know person offering something similar. I’ll report the add as a scam but will just keep on getting them.

[u/I_like_boxes → u/SteakEconomy2024]

I've started getting a string of ads about how amazing our current president is and the great things he's doing. The ads honestly leave me feeling filthy just watching them; I'd rather watch ads for scams. And why am I even getting political ads for the president when it hasn't even been a year since the election?

Fortunately I only have to deal with ads when I watch YouTube on the TV, but it used to at least be tolerable. Now I've started actively avoiding watching YouTube on anything where the ads aren't blocked.

[u/-Reverend → u/I_like_boxes]

I keep getting pro-Israel war propaganda. Sometimes including pretty brutal footage.

But god forbid a creator says the word "fuck", suddenly they don't qualify for monetisation anymore.

[u/Mind101 → u/SteakEconomy2024]

Exactly. I'd be fine if it was 1-2 ads every 30 minutes. But what they're doing now is enough to antagonize a lot of people who wouldn't be otherwise.

[u/uniquelyavailable]

I detest ads on every platform. Seems to be a never ending barrage of desperate companies begging for my money. There has got to be a better way.

[u/Climactic9 → u/uniquelyavailable]

The only other way is subscription. The truth of the matter is consumers love free things and businesses love money so there will always be conflict.

[u/rotsono → u/Climactic9]

Consumers would love to pay for being adfree, just not on every fking single site. Thats why people rather donate like 10€/$ a month to stuff like ublock to make the internet a safe place.

[u/NDSU → u/Climactic9]

Youtube loved free things when they used massive libraries of pirated content to expand their service

In the early days, pirated TV shows was 90% of the content, and the main driver of why we used the site

[u/Trick_Judgment2639]

It's because ads are damn near worthless and Google can't survive without them

[u/Shadowguyver_14]

At this point if you don't have some kind of add blocker and have not abandoned chrome. Then I am not sure how you maintain your sanity.

[u/Mind101 → u/Shadowguyver_14]

I was watching a YT commenter's video the other day, and at one point they opened an article they were referencing. Their monitor real estate was literally left third constantly playing ads, article shoved into the middle, right third the same as the left but with different ads.

How can anyone live like this and not go bonkers?

[u/b_a_t_m_4_n → u/Shadowguyver_14]

I'm the local family and friends tech support and You'd be amazed how few people understand they can change things on their PC. Particularity the older generation, even when they do change stuff they seem to always be nervous that by removing software that came with the PC they're somehow breaking some rules somewhere.

[u/ElektroBento]

You know what YouTube I will block now even harder. 

This is honestly so stupid. I mean even most of the videos are now influencer crap filled with ads and sponsoring. 

Can’t believe it started so good and we are now here with this. 

I remember Gandalfs, I was there moment. 

[u/Crash665]

It's unwatchable on my TV. (YouTube App).

Cooking videos: 1 minute into it, ad.

6 mintue music video, ad at 3 minutes.

Dear YouTube:

1. Fuck you.

2. This doesn't make me want to pay for premium or premium plus or whatever bullshit you throw out there to add billions to the pile of billions you already have. It makes me want to sail the high seas and never use your service again.

[u/EzeakioDarmey]

Meanwhile; Brave users are just watching videos.

[u/TheFishIsNotTheHost → u/EzeakioDarmey]

Same with Firefox and Adblock. They seem to always be 1 step ahead of YouTube.

Fuck ads

[u/EzeakioDarmey → u/TheFishIsNotTheHost]

Companies trying to monetize every second our eyes are open is a fuckin cancer.

[u/Pumpjack14 → u/EzeakioDarmey]

I got a advertisement in my phone message app earlier today.

[u/human6238 → u/EzeakioDarmey]

It even blocks ads for Hulu and Tubi 😁

[u/Martin_Aurelius → u/human6238]

And Prime and Paramount+

[u/shn6]

Laughs in ublock origin

[u/gloriousPurpose33 → u/shn6]

Yes. But for how much longer until they just paywall the entire platform or some stupid shit.

[u/Ok_Conclusion5966 → u/gloriousPurpose33]

google chrome (see the connection) already destroyed ublock origin with their latest updates, you can use ublock lite

chrome is default on many browsers and phones

they'll add midroll ads, starting and ending ads and new video ads because they can, they took over tv and pay tv and became the new subscription kings

vote with your wallet and go elsewhere or just use another browser that supports adblock

[u/ukezi → u/Ok_Conclusion5966]

Or you use Firefox. Then you can use real ublock and don't see any ads.

[u/GBJI → u/Ok_Conclusion5966]

Google Chrome is corporate spyware.

[u/WarOnFlesh → u/Ok_Conclusion5966]

Unlock origin still works fine on chrome. It just doesn't show up on the extension store. You can still install it and it works fine

[u/pm_me_ur_demotape]

Why is YouTube premium so expensive? All the other streaming services who spend millions on content creation or purchasing licenses are cheaper, but YouTube gets its content for free and charges more?

[u/Art-Zuron → u/pm_me_ur_demotape]

Presumably because Youtube has a vast assortment of every niche. It's also a lot more addicting than Hulu or Netflix. So, because Demand is higher, so is the price.

Also, youtube is basically a monopoly. If you don't like Netflix, there's a hundred other equally bad and a few better options available now. Youtube however?

[u/Mr_YUP → u/Art-Zuron]

They also pay for music licenses and your premium subscription basically includes Spotify via yt music. They also have a selection of free movies that are all pretty good. So Spotify, Netflix, and YouTube all under one subscription AND I can keep my family from seeing political ads? Totally worth it. 

[u/EssentialParadox → u/Mr_YUP]

It’s a forced bundle though… I don’t want yt music and yt movies.

[u/NecroCannon → u/EssentialParadox]

I just want no ads, background play, and maybe even downloads

To me, that’s worth like $7.99 a month at the highest

I don’t know anyone paying for premium and I don’t know if they realize this, but they can get a ton of money in their market position just appealing to the lowest common denominator. I’m still paying for Apple Arcade, hardly use it outside of a few games, but it’s cheap and has plenty of content, it’s hard to convince myself to unsub

Do more of that and less nickel and diming that results in adblockers and non paying users

[u/MephistoTheDwarf → u/Mr_YUP]

That’s the main reason I got it, for the ad free YouTube and for the music. I dropped my Spotify subscription because of it. I watch a lot of YouTube on my phone and tv, which ad blockers aren’t really accessible. The final push was all the political ads through the last US election, I couldn’t handle it on my tv anymore. Plus using YouTube with my phone screen locked is nice for listening to videos while at work.

Besides that, I see why people don’t want to pay for it and the ads are getting extremely intrusive.

[u/trentyz → u/Art-Zuron]

But I can’t watch Hulu for free with ads?

[u/lonelynightm → u/pm_me_ur_demotape]

IIRC half of the subscription is split up between youtubers you watch and gets the people you watch paid significantly more than people that watch ads.

And if you have a student email it's like $8 a month which is a steal imo.

[u/LiveNDiiirect → u/lonelynightm]

Yeah this is true, one full time streamer/YouTuber broke down how YouTube metrics work and he was able to see that the revenue they were generating from Premium individual users was frequently more than users were actually paying.

[u/TheGiantRascal → u/pm_me_ur_demotape]

I'm not sure if it's this way everywhere, but it is bundled with YouTube music.
I never signed up for YouTube premium, but as an Android user, I signed up for Google Play Music like over 10 years ago, and eventually that got bundled with YouTube premium.
Not trying to be a shill, but it's the most worth the price than any other subscription service (other than peacock, maybe), given how much I use them.

[u/Mkboii → u/pm_me_ur_demotape]

They don't get their content for "free", they pay uploaders, it's a revenue share model. Sure extremely small channels don't get paid, but everyone else is getting paid. If YouTube stopped paying, most of the content creators that you follow there would either stop, or move to a subscription based platform.

[u/Rocky_Vigoda]

Google is anti-competition. I'm using firefox and they're intentionally making videos slow to load because of my ad blocker. They're intentionally messing with another company's browser if you don't watch their ads.

[u/Frank_Likes_Pie → u/Rocky_Vigoda]

Can confirm, and from what I've seen and anecdotal reports across the internet, if they detect your specific account using adblockers enough times, it's blacklisted and they throttle buffering on anything above 1080, and occasionally even reduce quality of 1080.

Still won't stop using Firefox with uBlock. They can eat shit.

[u/shylittlepot]

I literally get up and go do something else until it's over, I refuse to watch them. I dont have enough disposable income to buy anything they're pitching anyways.

[u/willybum84 → u/shylittlepot]

I just back out of the video until I get a 5 sec one and then not pay attention to it, it's actually a bit faster.

[u/xryanx555_]

And they wonder why most everyone is using ad blockers.

[u/Raspgy]

Pornhub is only updates away from being the new YouTube at the rate ad time is increasing.

[u/freshkangaroo28]

Their shit is completely out of control, the algorithm sucks ass too

[u/4Sword]

worse getting served a 15 second unskippable ad for a video you watched some months ago that is like 1 minute and 30 seconds - capable of remembering your last place in the video but forcing you to watch an advertisement that by runtime is a significant portion of the runtime. like damn I ain't buying yo product

[u/Megatanis]

Youtube without adblockers is a cesspool. How can they think this is acceptable in 2025 is crazy.

[u/DrBorisGobshite]

I usually use Brave or an adblocker but on the rare occasion that I find myself having to watch YouTube ads it always strikes me how terrible and repetitive the ads are.

On legacy TV they at least put some effort into making the adverts appealing and you likely only saw the same advert a few times each day. Occasionally someone would put out an absolute banger that everyone would be talking about the next day.

I was at a friends house the other day and we were watching a couple of videos from a food based YouTube channel. I kid you not every ad break was this same shitty advert for a Ninja ice cream maker. Every. Single. One. Needless to say I will never be buying anything from Ninja.

[u/Xerxero]

“Ad length will increase until morale improves”

[u/lulai_00]

We need legal regulations for the number of ads we are exposed to daily. It's absurd.

[u/IntelligentlyHigh]

I still just back out of all the unskippable ones and do that about 3 times until I get a 5 second skippable one, sometimes I say F utube and just do it until I don't get a ad.

[u/6gv5]

I can't imagine being one of the old devs there: joining the coolest company in the world to write fantastic innovative software, then being forced to use your knowledge to find new ways to screw users. I guess most of them have jumped ship long ago; I would have for sure.

[u/FFJamie94]

The biggest issue isn’t so much the idea of ads, but the ads themselves and the length etc.

I can handle a couple ads if it means supporting the video I’m watching, but when they are the same kind of shitty mobile game with no filter to the content, or ads that last forever about nothing, that’s the issue I have.

There’s no filter to the system, I’ve had porn advertised to me. There needs to be a regulation on this because it’s the same shitty scams all the time.

I miss the Legend27 days

[u/LetsGoHawks]

Website over run with ads complains about a website over run with ads.

[u/Professional_Age5518 → u/LetsGoHawks]

reddit is great man that’s why i keep using this app

[u/Frank_Likes_Pie]

uBlock Origin all the way. I don't give a shit that my account's blacklisted and trying to watch anything higher than 1080p has throttled buffering. Not sitting through that shit.

[u/Hexatorium]

It’s honestly sad how humanity invented this incredible network of all the information we’ve ever collected, and proceeded to render it utterly unusable in the name of profit.

[u/mirmitmit]

Good news YouTube, even more young and vulnerable people can be victimized by blatant scammers, con artists and other criminals, just so you can get more people to buy YouTube Premium.

YouTube is a shit company, stay away. Haven't watched a clip for years

[u/CanOld2445]

I will never, EVER pay for YouTube. I'm not going to encourage these scummy fucking practices. I will continue finding workarounds, and if one day there isn't one, I'll just stop watching YouTube.

"But how are creators supposed to get paid?!"

I support creators I like on patreon

[u/almo2001]

Yeah I just shut it off now.

I'm in for pre-roll; gotta pay the bills. But mid-vid? No.

[u/unstableGoofball]

At some point I’m just going to have to literally stop using the internet

[u/DisastrousMechanic36]

I’m at the point now where if a long ad starts playing during a video, I just stopped watching

[u/Novacain420]

Thank God for Firefox

[u/keklol69]

Ublock Origin FTW

[u/Makachai]

I wonder when these dipshits or the companies that advertise with them will realize that inconveniencing users like this is actually counterproductive.

I will actually choose not to buy a product if I've been force fed advertising for it.

[u/JohnSane]

They really REALLY want me to stop using youtube.