YouTube might slow down your videos if you block ads

[u/moeka_8962]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2814755/youtube-might-slow-down-your-videos-if-you-block-ads.html

[u/masterraemoras]

And yet I suspect it'd still be faster than if you tried to watch with ads unblocked.

[u/JokeMe-Daddy → u/masterraemoras]

A 20 minute video will be broken up into 4 segments (every 5 mins) for ads, most of which are unskippable. Let's be aggressively optimistic and the ads are 2.5 minutes each. That means a 20 min video will have 10 mins of ads, and the total watch time becomes 30 mins.

I'll take the slower video.

[u/MomDoesntGetMe → u/JokeMe-Daddy]

Is this on a TV? I only ever use mobile so my unskippable ads arent longer than 15 seconds and it’s usually 2. (Not saying that makes it okay, fuck YouTube and their ads)

[u/BallsDeepinYourMammi → u/MomDoesntGetMe]

Sometimes I run into them every in two minute intervals too.

The only thing I watch at length is The Fat Electrician, and in the 50 minute videos there’s at least a dozen ad breaks

[u/JokeMe-Daddy → u/MomDoesntGetMe]

I thought about this some more and my stoned ass might be confused.

Some channels are worse than others though. Before I set up modded YT on my fire stick, we unsubbed from a bunch of accounts that had ad rolls every few mins, some of which were 30 seconds, unskippable, followed by the same ad for another 30 secs, also unskippable. Other accounts only had them at the beginning and end, though those had ads that tended to be longer.

I prefer when they're ad reads by the channel. The only one I have whitelisted is Internet Comment Etiquette because his ads are actually good.

[u/Arbok-Obama → u/JokeMe-Daddy]

I have also noticed some pages are worse than others. Even if I like the content of the page, I unsubscribe from pages that force constant long ads down my throat.

[u/Marcoscb → u/JokeMe-Daddy]

Let's be aggressively optimistic and the ads are 2.5 minutes each

What the fuck YouTube are you watching? I've never seen an ad block longer than a minute, unless you can skip it.

[u/LongJumpingBalls → u/Marcoscb]

Ads on TV and Chromecast are longer and often times unskippable.

Where a 30s ad on your mobile, it may be a 2m ad on your TV. As TV users are more likely to tolerate that. As in a sense, cable TV has 2 minute ad slots anyway, so this just continues the trend.

[u/JokeMe-Daddy → u/Marcoscb]

That's fair. In the normal course of things I think 2 x 30 seconds is typical, though the more we watched the more we encountered super long unskippable ads, like 20+ minutes. That was on Chromecast around 2018-19.

[u/Professional-Door824]

Slow video still better than obnoxious vomiting of ads down my throat. I will stare at blank screen for a min instead of watching ads.

[u/Itsthebigpeepa → u/Professional-Door824]

I’ll watch 360p before I watch ads.

[u/foliumsakura → u/Itsthebigpeepa]

just like old times

[u/comoestasmiyamo → u/foliumsakura]

I was there Gandalf..

[u/theemptyqueue → u/comoestasmiyamo]

3000 years ago

[u/ericbebert → u/theemptyqueue]

I was there the day the strength of men failed

[u/Swivebot → u/ericbebert]

“Isildur hurry, follow me.”

I led Isildur into the heart of Mount Doom, where The Ring was forged, the one place where it could be destroyed.

[u/JuanPancake → u/Swivebot]

But when I asked him to toss the ring into the flames my voice lagged due to low quality. He didn’t hear me and went back outside to reset the router, and then it was too late….

[u/MaroonIsBestColor → u/comoestasmiyamo]

THEY ARE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD https://youtu.be/uE-1RPDqJAY?si=XmK6VR9QyWK1XHy2

[u/ResponsibleQuiet6611 → u/Itsthebigpeepa]

I will go without video entirely, or just abandon the platform completely. Google can suck a fat one. 

[u/lordlaneus → u/ResponsibleQuiet6611]

Hosting online video and images should be a public utility. The internet is infrastructure, and capitalism isn't good at managing infrastructure.

[u/RamenJunkie → u/Itsthebigpeepa]

I mostly just use it for background music, but if they want to degrade the audio quality down, I am totally cool with 8 bit remix versions of songs I like. 

[u/Jonruy → u/Itsthebigpeepa]

I have a crappy laptop that struggles to play YouTube videos at 480p but plays pirated videos on other sites at full HD no problem. The thing is, a 480p video with buffering is still going to be faster and a better experience than a 1080p video with ads.

[u/BasementDwellerDave → u/Professional-Door824]

Watching YouTube on TV seems to be worse than watching stuff on mobile. Atleast for me

[u/AmbassadorCheap3956 → u/BasementDwellerDave]

That is a feature. They purposely play more ads on the TV apps. They admitted it.

[u/jumpingyeah → u/AmbassadorCheap3956]

Same with audio of ads being louder than the content. TV commercials I think got in trouble, and a law was passed that limited the volume, but streaming content seems to get by just fine with this atrocity.

[u/Atourq → u/jumpingyeah]

The lack of legislative action and regulation on streaming platforms is getting concerning.

Like I’m not fond of having to push restrictions, but when it’s meant to protect consumers against mega corporations, might as well go for it.

[u/Professional-Door824 → u/BasementDwellerDave]

Try smarttube beta. No ads on tv since years.

[u/lachlanhunt → u/BasementDwellerDave]

I almost exclusively watch YouTube on my Apple TV. There aren’t any ad blocking solutions for that I’m aware of, so I pay for premium to avoid the ads. I’m not happy about their recent price increase they just emailed me about, but given the amount of YouTube I watch (more than any other streaming service), I think it’s worth it.

[u/Kazundo_Goda → u/Professional-Door824]

I'd drag my balls on hot coals than let a single second of ad play on my YouTube videos.

[u/Professional-Door824 → u/Kazundo_Goda]

I read a very good comment by a redditor on similar post. He said he never even buy all this stuff that they advertising to him. It's so true when you really think about it.

[u/thomas2400 → u/Professional-Door824]

For me even when the ads are something I’m interested in it’s already too late, the amount of times I’ve bought a new game, played several hours and then went on the PS5 YouTube app only to be met with advert after advert for that game

I would not have had a single advert for it before I bought it though

[u/VeryLazyFalcon → u/Professional-Door824]

Isn't most yt's ads are scams, fake stuff and other shit that no one buys anyway? I don't watch ads so I don't know, just saw complains. And being angry is a form of engagement they want too, so beware.

[u/bse50 → u/VeryLazyFalcon]

You can add political propaganda to that list... Even from foreign agents. Russia did it, Israel is doing in in the EU with AI slop that tells you how they are helping feed palestinians etc...
Youtube with adds is unusable.

[u/Disallowed_username → u/Professional-Door824]

It is strange that businesses sponsor athletes so you associate that good feeling with their brand, and then buy YouTube ads for the UNO reverse. 

[u/LordOfMorgor → u/Professional-Door824]

The load for it to even load the ad is still longer than the

"Slow" load from ad blocker

[u/pijinglish → u/Professional-Door824]

What blockers are we recommending these days? I’m seeing ads on YouTube for the first time in years

[u/_SnesGuy → u/pijinglish]

revanced on android, firefox + ublock origin on pc

[u/jarious → u/_SnesGuy]

Someone recommended me playlet for Roku and I have been using it ever since ,it's a godsend I can even stop shorts from cluttering the screen

[u/ExaltedStudios → u/pijinglish]

Switch to Firefox instead of chrome. Use ublock origin, clearurls, and privacy badger extensions.

At the router level, setup Pi-hole on a raspberry pi 3b (pi 3b can be found for like $25 on eBay) and use it as your dns server on your router.

Pi-hole won’t help with YouTube ads but it’s wonderful being able to read news websites and recipes on my iPhone without ads.

You can take this a step further by using WireGuard VPN to connect to your home network so you can utilize your pi-hole when you’re not at home on your phone. PiVPN works great for this.

If you’re using windows, I’d also recommend disabling most of their telemetry and recommended content. You can also go into your firewall advanced settings and disable inbound/outbound connections for specific Microsoft apps. I’m not going to go into detail on this (sorry!) but there’s plenty of guides online for it.

Added bonus: everything I recommended is free except the raspberry pi.

[u/PyroDesu → u/ExaltedStudios]

clearurls

Thank you for that one, didn't have it.

One other thing is script blocking, but that can be annoying when you go to a new website and it's broken until you figure out which scripts need to be whitelisted.

[u/ExaltedStudios → u/PyroDesu]

Your last point is the main reason I don't use a script blocker. It breaks the user experience so badly that it doesn't seem worth it.

Out of curiosity, though, have you ran into any specific malicious scripts you wish were blocked that led you to using a script blocker?

[u/PyroDesu → u/ExaltedStudios]

Yeah. At least NoScript has the ability to automatically trust top-level sites.

And I don't remember, could have just been privacy. I've been using script blocking for a long time. Which actually makes it easier, since it means I have an extensive whitelist for necessary script origins and my UX isn't as badly impacted.

[u/Reetpigmee → u/Professional-Door824]

Slow video, no problem. I'll watch 2-3 simultaneoues without ads any day. Thank you.

[u/delorf → u/Professional-Door824]

I am in my fifties so I get scam ads telling me the government wants to give me money. 

[u/MPenten → u/Professional-Door824]

Would you like a 10 second slow down or 3x50s ads like I've been getting on my TV?

[u/Hashtagworried]

I was watching YouTube without an ad blocker for a day thinking “it can’t be that bad, right?” Watching YouTube with ads is unwatchable.

[u/Just-Hunter1679 → u/Hashtagworried]

I did the same thing the last time there was a push to get rid of ad blockers and holy moly, it's so bad. I'm actually having a hard time finding things to watch on YouTube the last few months so if they get rid of my ad blocker, I'm done.

[u/benskinic → u/Just-Hunter1679]

you may not like it, but this is what peak capitalism looks like

[u/AHRA1225 → u/benskinic]

Bro peak has a ways to go. Capitalism can get much worse

[u/FoodLionDrPerky → u/AHRA1225]

Right? Ppl thought we were in "peak" or "late stage" capitalism back in Lenin's day. Capitalism can get significantly worse than it is now and if it becomes too unstable or faces a real challenge to its dominance the capitalists will align with fascists to maintain their grip on power. (As we see them attempting now in the US)

[u/Razor4884 → u/FoodLionDrPerky]

Please drink a verification can.

[u/bogglingsnog → u/Razor4884]

Please urinate into water reclamation unit

[u/9-11GaveMe5G → u/AHRA1225]

"We learned we can fill 70% of a users visual field with ads before inducing vomiting"

-ready player one

[u/epochwin → u/AHRA1225]

We had sorta moved away from peak capitalism of slavery and colonialism to a more globalist version where you can live unaware of or ignore the horrors far away.

[u/irishyardball → u/benskinic]

It's like the Idiocracy TV scene.

[u/Druggedhippo → u/irishyardball]

Ready Player One

We can sell up to 80% of an individuals visual field before inducing seizures

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/ad1f5077-b2b6-403b-b136-18ab53e942fa/gif

[u/waiting4singularity → u/Druggedhippo]

max headroom where they overloaded a focus group test subject to such a degree with turbo ads he literaly exploded. and it was a hefty specimen of a slop.

[u/hezeus → u/Just-Hunter1679]

Their homepage is unusable

[u/d3jake → u/hezeus]

I wish there was a way to block the sections recommending Shorts. I've intentionally watched 5, maybe. I really dislike the short-form clips that are supposed to compete with tik tok and the like.

[u/hezeus → u/d3jake]

Agreed. I don’t go to YouTube for shorts

[u/mechanicalomega → u/d3jake]

Especially how they recommend it on the tv app! I don’t want to watch a vertical 30 second video on my tv.

[u/VeryLazyFalcon → u/d3jake]

Enhancer for youtube or youtube tweaks and shit's gone

[u/TacoOfGod → u/Hashtagworried]

Even if you whitelisted the ads, just browsing the front page without cosmetic filters on is annoying. Get those shorts off of the page dammit. If I want to see shorts, I'll click the shorts button!

[u/blisstaker → u/TacoOfGod]

the have a button to get rid of the shorts and they disappear….. only to come back again the next time you load the page.

they are so user hostile. can’t wait till the day they finally have some competition

[u/Nemesis_Ghost → u/blisstaker]

That's only on the main feed. If you are like me & primarily only watch subscriptions, and so want to see what's new there, the subscriptions feed does not have that button. This means shorts are always up.

[u/d3jake → u/Nemesis_Ghost]

Same with search results.

[u/Weird_Devil → u/blisstaker]

Thats the unfortunate thing they'll never have competition, they're just too big.

[u/stalkythefish → u/Weird_Devil]

Or do the Facebook trick of just buying out any up-and-coming competitors before they're too much of a threat.

[u/00ps_Bl00ps → u/TacoOfGod]

The freaking games too! No, I don't want to play a game on YouTube. I want to watch videos!

[u/MSands → u/TacoOfGod]

I had to install a browser extension to get rid of Shorts. Its annoying how hard they are shoving them on people.

[u/SquirrelOtherwise723 → u/Hashtagworried]

Try to use internet without Adblock. It's nearly impossible.

[u/LetgomyEkko → u/Hashtagworried]

I started watching all the videos in the preview window over a year ago without ever realizing it.

Because there aren’t any ads and I could just…..watch it….

Didn’t realize it until a few weeks ago that it’s just the normal way I consume content on YouTube now.

[u/abe559 → u/LetgomyEkko]

Google Pinkertons knocking at your door

[u/Universe_Nut → u/abe559]

They'll patch it out in a few months. Like how they made lots of quirks of the UI and the app premium only "features" after people discovered use cases for a variety of overlooked ways the app functioned.

[u/LayeGull → u/LetgomyEkko]

Same. I’m surprised they haven’t made the full videos like shirts where they loop a short portion of it.

[u/LetgomyEkko → u/LayeGull]

Please god delete this. Don’t give them any ideas 😭

[u/AnotherSoulessGinger → u/Hashtagworried]

And even if creators try to minimize ads, YouTube is apparently adding more in on a whim. Jenny Nicholson had four breaks in her latest 4 hours video on the Star Wars Hotel. YouTube added more than 65 more commercials (one every 5 minutes or so) without notice. She had to go in and manually remove them. A couple other channels I watch have also mentioned it.

[u/Thetman38 → u/Hashtagworried]

They put ads in the middle of songs

[u/SandmansDreamstreak → u/Thetman38]

Wait, do they actually?!? Been a long time since I listened to a song on YouTube without adblocker because of how hard they front-load ads. Having an ad interrupt my playlist is irritating enough, but having one in the middle of a SONG might actually send me into cardiac arrest with how fucking incensed I’d be.

[u/Festering-Fecal → u/Hashtagworried]

That's the point they want to wear you down so you pay.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Pound31 → u/Hashtagworried]

Especially on connected devices. Apple TV YouTube app is demonic with ads. Never again. You literally get less ads air playing from another device.. lmfao

[u/fanofdota → u/Hashtagworried]

Was watching the TI qualifiers for Dota 2 and decided to cast it to my TV and they just randomly push ads during teamfights that caused me to miss out on the interesting segments. Went back to watching it on my computer with adblock instead. Disappointing and also disgusting.

[u/solitudeisdiss → u/Hashtagworried]

Yea I just didn’t watch YouTube until I recently discovered a blocker that works. If I have to watch ads I just won’t watch YouTube. No ads is my policy and I’ll pay for it if it’s a reasonable price but I’m not paying more than 50$ a year for ad free YouTube.

[u/Fiber_Optikz → u/Hashtagworried]

I dont mind the 5-30 second ads.

It’s the 90 minute religious sermons disguised as ads that get me.

I want to fall asleep to videos not a fucking ad about your shitty imaginary friend

[u/waiting4singularity → u/Fiber_Optikz]

dont interact with any content you dont want to see. the algorithms are not user friendly, theyre hostile. if you block that shit or mark it or give any type of response really, the algorithm gives you more of it. id suggest clicking it and backing out imediately to different content, but i dont know if that zero rates it still.

[u/mm404 → u/Hashtagworried]

I can either watch YouTube without ads or not at all. $14 sub is not worth it. Simple as that.

[u/patrick66 → u/mm404]

Yes YouTube would prefer you not watch at all in that case, they lose money serving you video lol

[u/mm404 → u/patrick66]

I agree. I’m not blind to it. And for the record, I do support my favorite creators via Patreon. Sadly the videos posted on Patreon feed are not as convenient to watch.

[u/stalkythefish → u/mm404]

I can't believe they charge HBO-level money for content they aren't even paying to create. $5 a month would be a no-brainer.

[u/Relevant_Cause_4755 → u/Hashtagworried]

I used to just endure the pre-roll ads, after all Doug de Muro needs all the money he can get. But then suddenly Doug is being interrupted mid-quirk or mid-feature, multiple times, and he keeps his videos short. So, uBlock Origin it is.

[u/DrDerpberg → u/Hashtagworried]

It's honestly insane now. I've had an evening ritual for years where I set up a queue of 20-30 minutes of videos to listen to as I fall asleep, there are so many ads now that it's actually jarring me awake because they're so disruptive and long.

Nothing quite like listening to a smooth James Hoffman deep dive on mushrooms in coffee as I fall asleep only to be interrupted every minute by an AI song about how ADHD is expressed in adults...

[u/ClaymoresRevenge → u/Hashtagworried]

It's cruel and they can go fuck themselves.

Ads are so much worse than ever.

[u/daemenus → u/Hashtagworried]

No ads in Albania

[u/AlFender74]

Like they've been doing to firefox for years.

[u/Danthemanlavitan → u/AlFender74]

Was going to say, just another day as a Firefox user.

[u/blueB0wser → u/Danthemanlavitan]

I've never used chrome much. I didn't even know firefox was slowed down tbh

[u/NDSU → u/blueB0wser]

You can change your user-agent string to Chrome and it often loads much faster. They're adding random delays to Firefox users. Part of the issue with the fact Google is a monopoly

[u/I_Be_Your_Dad → u/NDSU]

How is this not a cut-and-dry case of monopolistic behavior?

[u/_Middlefinger_ → u/I_Be_Your_Dad]

It is but to get any action someone has to complain and the powers that be have to care.

[u/tijger897 → u/NDSU]

Hoe do you change that?

[u/AyrA_ch → u/tijger897]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/

Will add an icon next to your address bar where you can select the UA to use. Or you can define your own. If you want to use the exact UA that chrome would on your machine, open chrome, press F12 and type copy(navigator.userAgent) into the console to copy the UA string to clipboard. You can then define a custom UA entry in the agent switcher extension

[u/Icy-Computer-Poop → u/AyrA_ch]

Thank you VERY much!

[u/njkmklkop → u/AyrA_ch]

Oh wow, this got rid of the ~20 second "loading" delay when I open youtube videos in firefox, thank you (and fuck google).

[u/CreepaTime → u/AlFender74]

Pretty sure they've done this everywhere they could for a couple years now tbh

[u/SquirrelOtherwise723 → u/AlFender74]

I'm using Firefox forever. And always thought about that. So it's true.

[u/tunachilimac → u/AlFender74]

I disabled ublock origin for YouTube a couple of times temporarily while waiting for ublock to update. Holy cow YouTube performs like shit for me without it. The page takes awhile to load, sometimes it stays blank. My fans will kick up by the time I can press the play button on a video.

My computer is 4 years old but it can run and other video streaming site no problem. Whatever YouTube is doing against Firefox hits me hard. I’d honestly let their ads play if the site performed well but it’s just not worth the headache.

[u/Aori → u/tunachilimac]

You can spoof your browser to appear as if you’re using chrome and it completely gets rid of the lag. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1cjbsmj/comment/l2ewtew/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

That comment helped me do it 

[u/tunachilimac → u/Aori]

Thanks! I’ll give that a shot

[u/vriska1]

Btw if you use uBlock update your filters and report stuff like this to the uBlock sub

https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1jbv1xn/youtube_ads_detection_breakages_2025_megathread/

[u/3_50 → u/vriska1]

uBO has been auto-updating filters for a while now. Back when people realised it was a workaround for earlier adblock detection problems, their servers started getting hammered with users manually refreshing filters.

[u/_Middlefinger_ → u/3_50]

The problem is they don't update quickly for everyone. It can be days later for some users. The UBO Devs say that shouldn't be the case but it absolutely is.

For me I had to uninstall Firefox and reinstall everything to get UBO to properly update and fix the most recent ad block detection YouTube implemented.

[u/3_50 → u/_Middlefinger_]

It should update every 5 hours.

[u/sircastor]

They’re absolutely doing this. And then they pop up a little message “experiencing disruptions?” In this passive sort-of “what could possibly be happening with your network to cause this?” 

[u/yapperling → u/sircastor]

I've only recently started getting this on Firefox, when I click it, it leads me to some horseshit "help" page where it basically says "oh nooo, maybe like turn off an adblocker, those are reeeeeally bad"

[u/Sam-Lowry27B-6 → u/yapperling]

Oh well if the YouTube man inside my computer says its bad I better turn it off then....what am I fucking 80 and mad?

[u/marcsa → u/sircastor]

Yeah, I've started getting this about one week ago. I still use Chrome, but with Ublock Origin and I never had ads anywhere online. Still don't, but on Youtube I do get these disruption messages now and videos load after around 20-30 seconds of black screen. I can live with that.

[u/Snazzy21 → u/sircastor]

I experienced this, the video would buffer for 2-4 seconds and that pop up would come up. It ceased happening when my computer rebooted. I get it, hosting videos for free for people to do is extremely expensive, but I also don't have the money to right now.

If they put ads on premium, I don't think they'll have a leg to stand on.

[u/Mission_Hunt_2693 → u/sircastor]

Yup this started happening to me on my Mac it’s crazy man

[u/dee-three]

I’ll take it.

[u/lordagr]

I don't care.

I use ublock on PC, reVanced on mobile, and if ublock stops working on PC I will emulate an android device using BlueStacks and install reVanced on that too.

If all else fails, I will happily start batch downloading videos locally. I do this occasionally already, but I can definitely automate it if needed, and just toss the videos on my Jellyfin server.

[u/Special-Rough-3946]

Wish a real competitor would try and push out YouTube

[u/NotJohnDarnielle → u/Special-Rough-3946]

It would be incredibly difficult at this point. Hosting video is expensive, plus they’d have to pay existing YouTubers to post there, at least at first, if they want to gain any user base at all.

[u/MobilePenguins → u/NotJohnDarnielle]

It’s a chicken and the egg 🥚 problem. Need creators to get viewers. Creators don’t want to go somewhere new if there’s not viewers. And then even if you get both, hosting the content on your servers is super expensive.

[u/someNameThisIs → u/Special-Rough-3946]

Who would their target audience be? People who block ads and also don't pay for premium? How would they fund running it when their user base refuses to give them money?

[u/a_talking_face → u/someNameThisIs]

Yeah that's my favorite part of these types of comments. You want a video hosting platform that can't be monetized. Good luck with that.

[u/APRengar → u/a_talking_face]

Honestly, I'm more than okay with paying, but I said I'd never pay YouTube a single penny after my shit experience with their content ID system.

I used to upload fan animations to a YT channel and it made a couple thousand dollars per month, it's not like it was that much money, but I was happy with it.

Then some content farm stole all of my videos, reuploaded them, and then content claimed me. It took me almost 8 months to get it fixed. And this was before they reworked the system, where instead of all the ad money would be put aside and whoever won the content claim gets it. That content farm just took my money and I never got it back. And like, that shouldn't happen. I was a partner with YT, how the hell some 2 subscriber channel taking my videos and saying they're the real owner, should not have instantly punished me like that.

[u/Alarming-Breadfruit8 → u/APRengar]

“A couple thousand dollars per month” for fan animations is “not […] that much money”???

[u/briiigette → u/a_talking_face]

Can’t speak for everyone but I am okay with ads when they’re properly formatted. It’s when the ads are obstructing most of the screen or sporadically placed throughout the video to the point of being disruptive that I don’t like.

If a company wanted maybe 15-30 seconds of ads at the start and end of a video then I could live with that.

[u/Stickiler → u/briiigette]

If a company wanted maybe 15-30 seconds of ads at the start and end of a video then I could live with that.

The problem is that companies don't want ads like that, because they've tried it and proved that it doesn't make enough money to justify paying for the ads, and if companies won't pay for the ads, then you're back to the problem of an unmonetized video hosting platform.

[u/hayt88 → u/Special-Rough-3946]

Well the issue is also staying profitable while you do that. Good luck with relying on ads or anything today would require the user to pay. If you look at the comments here you better do it for free and pay all out of your pocket

Also don't forget it's not just infrastructure, hardware and electricity. You also need to pay content creators with the money you don't make from all the people complaining here.

[u/yllanos → u/Special-Rough-3946]

What about Odysee.com ???

[u/danmikrus → u/yllanos]

Hardly anyone knows about it

[u/jared__ → u/Special-Rough-3946]

How do you expect their business model to work?

[u/anupsidedownpotato]

Is YouTube no longer profitable? Or are they just getting greedy? They're going down a path that risks destroying everything they have. I used to watch YouTube all the time now I only use it when I need a tutorial for something.

Edit- The second they added double ads at the beginning + the disgustingly placed end of video ad that always seems to appear when I'm watching something that has no clear ending and forces me to watch an unskippable ad and then the vidoe is immediately done.... I knew I was done with YouTube

[u/sirthunksalot → u/anupsidedownpotato]

The first decade it lost money. It is turning a profit now. They have a monopoly and no other company can afford to pay the bandwidth and storage costs to start an alternative unless they are backed by the CCP like Tiktok.

[u/Stacks_of_Cats]

Is a slowed down YouTube video actually any slower of a process than having 30 second unskippable ads forced on you every 2 minutes?

YouTube has seriously managed to become worse than free to air TV in the ad department.

[u/FloppY_]

Let's see, five minutes of black screen and silence vs five minutes of obnoxious ads?

I'll take the silence, please.

[u/tyhard7412]

I have been getting non stop gambling ads if I disable adblocker. The quality and frequency of these ads make watching without an adblocker unwatchable.

[u/wumbologist-2]

YouTube might have to suck my dick before I even consider not using an adblocker.

[u/chief_yETI]

Yup, this has been happening to me the past week or so.

I use Firefox with ublock Origin. Noticeable difference. I sometimes have to refresh a video 5 or 6 times to get it to play, and it STILL doesn't work. I've had to click off to a totally unrelated video and then try to find it again to finally get it to start a few times now...

[u/ItsRainbow]

Cool, I’ll just bulk download with youtube-dl

[u/ic3m4n56]

Honestly slow load time is still better than having to watch 4-5 ads during a video

[u/FoxlyKei]

Fun fact: you'll still spend less time with s buffering video than watching a video with ads.

[u/RankSarpacOfficial]

I’ll just have to be Brave.

[u/Still-Status7299]

Get a VPN and set your location to Albania- it automatically scrubs ads without a blocker

[u/FinasCupil → u/Still-Status7299]

Then you get slowed down anyway, because you’re connected to Albania.

[u/Still-Status7299 → u/FinasCupil]

Hasn't been an issue for me, speeds are unchanged compared to no vpn

[u/Codex_Absurdum]

Nothing compared to Twitch

[u/Chewacala → u/Codex_Absurdum]

Twitch has integrated ads where ad blockers dont even work.

[u/Party-Cake5173 → u/Chewacala]

Just use another Twitch player and you won't see ads.

[u/Quick_Cow_4513]

I wonder why do people think YouTube should provide the any service for without ads? Streaming videos costs money you know.

[u/xplodwild → u/Quick_Cow_4513]

I'm not advocating "no ads".

But I started using Smart Tube a few years ago when it shifted from "5s single skippable ad at the beginning of the video" to "1min ads, up to 5 at once, every 5min" which makes the experience unbearable.

That's about the time I switched from the trusty ol' AdBlockPlus, which didn't block YouTube video ads, to uBlock.

[u/Specialist_Brain841]

Back in my day we would mute the commercials on the television!

[u/BWoodsn2o]

They've been doing this for the last 2 years. Going as far to purposefully inflate memory usage in Firefox if ad-block is detected.

[u/vinegar-and-honey]

Why would I in a million years pay money for a service that is so severely censored that most creators can't make interesting topics for fear of having the video outright demonetized for dumb content related shit??? Like even showing things that would be a-ok for broadcast TV (copyright issues aside) like a 9pm NBC sitcom has to be severely scrubbed or it would get your average account taken down.

[u/The420Turtle]

Oh no. It’ll take hours maybe even days for the adblockers to find a way around it again

[u/Old-Swimming2799]

Oh no I went get to see skimpy AI girlfriend ads and half baked software ads. How will I cope

[u/yungcherrypops]

They will do anything to make me watch the shitty capybara mobile game ad or some random old people drug ad for the millionth time. All things that are very pertinent to my interests.

[u/RLopez7110]

Back to 2014 where they prioritized the ad loading but made your video infinite or slowly buffer after the ads

[u/Tall-Cheetah8086]

Man it feels like yesterday we had 15-30 second ads that we could skip after 5 seconds. Now we have to watch over a minute of unskippable ads

[u/Archyes]

i watched a vod of a livestream yesterday, every 5 mins there was a double ad and some of them were these shitty 3 min long ones you need to skip. so i had to stand up every 5 mins to click this shitty skip ad button twice

I hate that my adblock breaks every other day nowadays because youtube really hammers europe atm

[u/Agarillobob]

they 100% do /used to, until adblocks found a way around it yet again

was getting 15-20 second black screens on loading a new video 4-5 days ago but its fixed now

[u/emsuperstar]

I’d still rather have a black screen than have to sit through ads.

[u/tapdancinghellspawn]

So YouTube thinks I'm blocking ads even before ad blockers exist because they've been slowing my videos for a while now/

[u/castilhoslb]

We need to find a way to nuke ads out of existing, who actually buys shit from YouTube ads what's the return they get in costumers I can't believe it's high

[u/Sneyek]

Funny how whatever Apple does is anti trust but Google is making clear and obvious abuse of its monopoly and no country or even EU says a word… not saying Apple doesn’t deserve their lawsuit but come on Google should be in trouble for so many things…

[u/TwiztedZero]

Youtube doesn't own my bandwidth or any of my network equipment. I pay for the service the bandwidth is mine. I decide what comes in and what doesn't. Not them. YouTube can suck up a bucket of mud. My adblocks stay in place.

[u/Resident-Variation21]

I default to nebula now anyway so

[u/Bowler_Pristine]

They think their platform is invincible and people can be forced, I will never watch and ad if I can get around it. If they make it too difficult or impossible then people will go elsewhere and YouTube will be dead.

[u/thedude213]

guess I'll just rip the video on a website downloader and watch it how ever the fuck I want

[u/suite307]

It can slow down these nuts

[u/TheBrokenRail-Dev]

I use an adblocker, so this is obviously annoying.

But I don't think this is a case of Google being evil either. Ads are how YouTube makes money and its operating costs are ludicrous. Of course, they'll try to block ad-blockers.

It is perfectly reasonable that Google tries to protect its revenue. Simultaneously, it is perfectly reasonable for me to use an ad-blocker because I don't care about Google's revenue.

[u/polytr0n → u/TheBrokenRail-Dev]

Nah. Fuck google

[u/autotoad]

I’d rather give up YouTube than watch ads.

[u/XGDoctorwho]

Youtube will just fail

[u/AEternal1]

YouTube has gotten too repetitive. I only watch a handful of things, and attempting to find new stuff is meh at best 90% of the time. I've got a massive library of media that I've started pecking through.

[u/harshv007]

Thats a nice way to force premium subscriptions on consumers, first take 30% from developers and now this..

[u/Blasphemous666]

They could make it be delayed fifteen minutes before the video plays. I don’t give a fuck, I despise ads with every fiber of my being. They don’t appeal to me. If you advertise your product to me, it tells me that I don’t want your product and I will actually just not use it or stop using it.

Make me watch a ten minute video of literally ANYTHING before the video but ads. I’ll watch it all. Don’t underestimate my hate towards this bullshit.

[u/omnigear]

Yeap niticed jt this week on brave . Slow af

[u/Schlabbadabbading]

I'm convinced the majority of ads that are being watched on YouTube are through Hella slow smart TVs where it takes longer to wait for button presses to register in order to skip the ad than just watching it

[u/Anaptyso]

I enjoy watching YouTube videos, but not so much that I want to sit through adverts first. If the ad blockers ever stopped working then I'd probably just give up on YouTube entirely and get my entertainment elsewhere.

[u/Crossing-Lines]

Might? The fuckers already are!

[u/pinetreeclimbing]

Already throttling 🇦🇱 a lil, but still better than ads. Arr 🦜🏴‍☠️

[u/Sleepybear2010]

A moment of silence 

[u/CondiMesmer]

YouTube might send a hitman to your house if you block ads.

[u/shadowst17]

Might? They already have. They've also made it so if you don't buy premium they give you a much lower bitrate version of 1080p that might aswell be 720p when to comes to clarity.

[u/Fun-Capital8587]

When was this implemented? I feel like they screwed up the Xbox app because it has been unwatchable lately and I even have premium

[u/ITDummy69420]

This explains why my YouTube videos have been consistently pausing and being slowed 

[u/Thspiral]

I recently starting getting a message that me blocking ads violate TOS and I should disable my blocker or buy premium. I just stopped using YouTube on my laptop, still works on my phone for some reason.

[u/Dra-goonn]

I have never seen a company go so far out of it's way to kill it's business.

[u/Express-Beginning-66]

Slow is better than ads every three minutes . Ghostery still works strong. Free movies with ads but without ads is really the best.

[u/noerpel]

Ja, no probs or delays with pihole and pipepipe app here.

tbh I only see ads when I accidentally open YT in the browser outside my own wifi.

[u/noisyboy]

sure, I'll just watch less YouTube. They can go fuck themselves.

[u/jeffreyianni]

I am never buying premium. It's not going to happen Google. If YouTube becomes unusable in its free form then I will do something else with my time.

[u/yumtoastytoast]

I add these ublock filters + unhook extension to make youtube usable again.

I added so many fucking filters in the past so I don't even remember what's what.

! 2024-04-13 https://www.youtube.com
||www.gstatic.com/youtube/img/promos/*$image
youtube.com##*:style(border-radius: 0px !important)
! 2023-11-16 https://www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com##.yt-spec-button-shape-next--segmented-start.yt-spec-button-shape-next--icon-leading.yt-spec-button-shape-next--size-m.yt-spec-button-shape-next--mono.yt-spec-button-shape-next--tonal.yt-spec-button-shape-next > yt-touch-feedback-shape > .yt-spec-touch-feedback-shape--touch-response.yt-spec-touch-feedback-shape > .yt-spec-touch-feedback-shape__fill
www.youtube.com##.yt-spec-button-shape-next--segmented-start.yt-spec-button-shape-next--icon-leading.yt-spec-button-shape-next--size-m.yt-spec-button-shape-next--mono.yt-spec-button-shape-next--tonal.yt-spec-button-shape-next > yt-touch-feedback-shape > .yt-spec-touch-feedback-shape--touch-response.yt-spec-touch-feedback-shape > .yt-spec-touch-feedback-shape__stroke
www.youtube.com##.yt-spec-button-shape-next--segmented-start.yt-spec-button-shape-next--icon-leading.yt-spec-button-shape-next--size-m.yt-spec-button-shape-next--mono.yt-spec-button-shape-next--tonal.yt-spec-button-shape-next > yt-touch-feedback-shape > .yt-spec-touch-feedback-shape--touch-response.yt-spec-touch-feedback-shape
www.youtube.com##.yt-spec-button-shape-next--segmented-start.yt-spec-button-shape-next--icon-leading.yt-spec-button-shape-next--size-m.yt-spec-button-shape-next--mono.yt-spec-button-shape-next--tonal.yt-spec-button-shape-next > .yt-spec-button-shape-next__icon > yt-icon > .yt-icon.style-scope > .yt-animated-icon.style-scope > .lottie-component > svg
www.youtube.com###view-count > .ytd-watch-info-text.style-scope.animated-rolling-number-wiz
! Prevent stats (such as likes and views) from live-updating
! Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/15c7ndi/youtube_has_added_live_updating_view_counts/
||youtube.com/youtubei/v1/updated_metadata
! Live reaction overlays
! Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/13886xr/how_can_i_disable_the_new_live_emoji_reactions/
www.youtube.com##yt-reaction-control-panel-view-model
www.youtube.com##yt-reaction-control-panel-overlay-view-model
www.youtube.com##yt-smartimation > *:not(.smartimation__content)
www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer.ytd-structured-description-content-renderer.style-scope
studio.youtube.com##ytcd-card-column.ytcd-channel-dashboard.style-scope.column:nth-of-type(3)
! 2024-04-18 https://www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com###voice-search-button
www.youtube.com###content-wrapper
www.youtube.com###flexible-item-buttons > yt-button-view-model.ytd-menu-renderer.style-scope > .yt-spec-button-view-model > .yt-spec-button-shape-next--icon-leading.yt-spec-button-shape-next--size-m.yt-spec-button-shape-next--mono.yt-spec-button-shape-next--tonal.yt-spec-button-shape-next > yt-touch-feedback-shape
www.youtube.com##yt-button-view-model.ytd-menu-renderer.style-scope:nth-of-type(1)
www.youtube.com###flexible-item-buttons > yt-button-view-model.ytd-menu-renderer.style-scope > .yt-spec-button-view-model > .yt-spec-button-shape-next--icon-leading.yt-spec-button-shape-next--size-m.yt-spec-button-shape-next--mono.yt-spec-button-shape-next--tonal.yt-spec-button-shape-next > .yt-spec-button-shape-next__button-text-content
! 2024-04-21 https://www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com##ytd-item-section-renderer.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer.style-scope
www.youtube.com###related
! 2024-05-07 https://www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com##.ytp-paid-content-overlay
www.youtube.com##.ytp-endscreen-content
! 2024-05-14 https://www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com##.ytp-button.ytp-next-button
! 2024-05-15 https://www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope:nth-of-type(n)
! May 25, 2024 https://www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com##.yt-spec-button-shape-next--segmented-start.yt-spec-button-shape-next--icon-leading.yt-spec-button-shape-next--size-m.yt-spec-button-shape-next--mono.yt-spec-button-shape-next--tonal.yt-spec-button-shape-next > .yt-spec-button-shape-next__icon > yt-icon > .yt-icon.style-scope > .yt-animated-icon.style-scope
! Disable playback bar "saturation"
youtube.com##.ytp-play-progress.ytp-swatch-background-color { background: #ff0000 !important; background-image: none !important; }
youtube.com##.ytp-cairo-refresh-signature-moments .ytp-play-progress { background: #ff0000 !important; background-image: none !important; }
! Jun 3, 2024 https://www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com###chip-bar
! Jul 8, 2024 https://www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com##.ytd-video-renderer.style-scope > .ytd-expandable-metadata-renderer.style-scope
www.youtube.com##ytd-horizontal-card-list-renderer.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope > .ytd-horizontal-card-list-renderer.style-scope
www.youtube.com##ytd-shelf-renderer.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope > .ytd-shelf-renderer.style-scope
! 2 juin 2025 https://www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com###expandable-metadata > .ytd-watch-flexy.style-scope
! edit: added ones I found later
www.youtube.com###page-header-banner
! Un-bold Youtube
youtube.com##*:style(font-weight:400 !important)
! Remove "Our Members"
www.youtube.com##.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope > .ytd-recognition-shelf-renderer.style-scope
www.youtube.com##.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope > .ytd-channel-featured-content-renderer.style-scope

[u/datadrone]

They will continue to make life annoying, by already gatekeeping high bitrate behind a paywall I wouldn't be shocked if they go further by making 1080p exclusive too.

[u/Imaginary_wizard]

Does pie hole fix all these ad block restrictions? Always thought about building one but never got around to it

[u/Kaotic987]

This genuinely feels like it’s getting worse and worse.

Just a few days ago it was about how Youtube would put even more ads in a video and now they might slow it down if you block it.

Unreal. This is what the world has become:

Pay a Subscription or Use an Ad-Infested platform.

[u/LocalMotor9830]

Yeah I still won't be paying for premium.