There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

PSA To people watching YouTube with AdBlockers

You might have noticed that even on Firefox (depending on your lists) YouTube may detect uBlock Origin on Firefox now

There’s already a workaround (found, again, here), but I figured I would use this opportunity to tell people that projects like Piped and Invidious exist, which both allow you to watch YouTube without loading their ads, with improved Privacy and (in the case of Piped) even Geoblocking-Circumvention and SponsorBlock out of the box.

They’re both great tools, and using something like LibRedirect you can even automatically go to Piped or Invidious when clicking/opening a YouTube link (and more).

Both don’t load ads, but unless changed in the settings Individous may still make connections to Google/YouTube to load the video(s) themselves.

Bit of a shameless plug for these projects, but I figured this is a really good time to show these projects as I often see people asking what they are in threads on here

forensic_potato ,
@forensic_potato@lemmy.world avatar

I’d like to add to the sentiment of this post by saying that if you ever used any of those amazing websites, I’m sure the developers will highly appreciate it if those with the means could consider contributing to their projects.

We all know how greedy and shameless YouTube can be, and yet those developers give us incredible products for free. And if you ever saw the entitled requests of some users on their projects’ pages whenever YouTube implements some changes, and they have to rush to fix their code, I’m sure you would appreciate them even more. I’ve personally seen quite a few projects being abandoned because of the sometimes thankless job of being a developer, and I would hate it for any of these to suffer a similar fate.

So if you can and are willing, feel free to join me in contributing to:

porksoda ,

I was about to say add uBlock Origin to that list but apparently they don’t accept donations per the bottom of their homepage.

I will not accept donations or sponsorships of any kind.

That’s some fuck you energy right there.

ryannathans ,

Not uncommon, the project I am maintainer of doesn’t accept donations either

vlad76 ,
@vlad76@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

What a King.

forensic_potato ,
@forensic_potato@lemmy.world avatar

Lmao serious ‘fuck you’ energy.

Out of curiosity I went to the project’s page and saw more info on why they don’t take donations:

Free. Open-source. For users by users. No donations sought. If you ever want to contribute something, think about the people working hard to maintain the filter lists you are using, which are available to use by all for free.

deweydecibel ,

The irony of these smalltime maintainers asking for donations when their own software is purpose made to hurt the income of smalltime creators. Particularly if they include Sponsorblock.

Hominine ,
@Hominine@lemmy.world avatar

lemmy.ca/comment/3988439

WeLoveCastingSpellz ,

Its crazy all my piped server stopped working which sucks, if anyone is willing to share a server that works or a self hosted one they could let me in. Hit me up

rush OP ,

Late reply, but piped.adminforge.de is my server of choice, with piped.smnz.de and piped.lunar.icu as alternatives

WeLoveCastingSpellz ,

lunar.cu was one of those that went down at the time. I am now using freetube since it keeps my subscriptions locally I can switch instances without having to worry about transfering anything when my instance goes down

code ,
@code@lemmy.world avatar

How long until Google says “fuck it” and outright starts banning adblock users? Considering how deep a lot of people are into the Google ecosystem, this is potentially devastating. Imagine losing access to you email, photos, etc., with no way to appeal. Good luck if you want to actually speak to anyone human at Google.

ilikekeyboards ,

Losing access to your banks. Banks in England send you an email link to confirm your access.

Usul_00_ ,

Set u a forward from the Gmail address to the new one, and maintain the account at least minimally. As a reference, I have an account created at least 14 years ago still forwarding email. Should be enough time to change the profiles.

shneancy ,

in case of a bank Im sure you can just walk to a physical office and get your account linked to another email

things will get hard with things like steam

ilikekeyboards ,

În uk there’s many online only banks

mister_newbie ,

I migrated my Steam library off Gmail last month. You’re allowed to change email addresses.

BaardFigur ,

I’m already in the process of decoupling from gmail for this exact reason.

I’ve decoupled the most important things, but there’s just so much stuff that is still using my gmail.

JasSmith ,

It took me a couple of years to migrate away from Gmail but it was completely worth it. People lose their Google accounts for any and no reason at all. People don’t realise how many important accounts would be lost without access to their email. Now, with my own domain, I can move hosts at any moment.

whereBeWaldo ,

Any email services you recommend?

JasSmith ,

Fastmail and Proton. Don’t shoot me but iCloud is actually a good option if you’re already in the Apple ecosystem. Personalised domains are included if you’re paying for any iCloud tier, even the very cheap one. That will support personal email domains for the whole family. For families I think it’s the best value. iCloud also includes other things like cloud storage/backup, “hide my email,” and private relay.

JasSmith ,

I don’t think they’d ever ban users, but this game of cat and mouse will continue forever. They’ll make the service worse and worse, while alternatives like Rumble and Odysee will get more and more users.

That said, back up all your Google data, and migrate to your own email domain. Millions of people all over the world lose access to their Google accounts each year for any and no reason at all. All it takes is a capricious algorithm. They don’t have any customer support at all.

mister_newbie ,

I had this exact thought. I’ve since bought a domain name, moved my email over to tutanota, did a takeout request, and installed DeGooglified LineageOS. I went nuclear. Fuck Google - remember when their motto was “Don’t be evil” ? Ha!

darkkite ,

unlikely especially if they’re paying for other services. they’ll most likely prevent playback

code ,
@code@lemmy.world avatar

There’s plenty of stories online like this one. It’s all automated and if it decides you’re bad, you’re out. No questions asked, no appeals.

Google search it up and you’ll find many more.

flop_leash_973 ,

In my opinion anything that is just a frontend for Youtube is just a bandaid, and if they get to much attention Google will make using them increasingly untenable.

The real answer is moving to competing platforms outside of Googles control.

newIdentity ,

That’s not possible though. There simply is no content on other platforms and they generally aren’t as good as YouTube and probably never will be.

The only platform I could see to rival YouTube in the future is Twitch

AProfessional ,

YouTube is insanely large in size and scope but…

The key is just a platform that actually pays creators.

Nebula is one I expect to succeed for its niche.

Something like Floatplane with direct subscriptions is an option too.

newIdentity ,

Yeah haven’t thought of that, but they aren’t really YouTube alternatives. You don’t use them instead of YouTube, but as an addition.

AProfessional ,

Absolutely but I think it’s a good start. Alternatives have to start growing somehow.

euphoric_cat ,
@euphoric_cat@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    newIdentity ,

    They aren’t as good as YouTube though and that’s the problem. YouTube isn’t great. It’s just the best platform like this that we have.

    euphoric_cat ,
    @euphoric_cat@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    newIdentity ,

    You’ve never uploaded a video to YouTube have you? Their creator tools are actually incredible and their stats are a good way to tune their videos. Of course you shouldn’t completely rely on them.

    Also it isn’t just the content. I rather use YouTube over Odysse, even if it’s the same content. It’s such a better experience, especially on mobile. Odysee is on the level YouTube was 10 years ago.

    Also making a free video streaming site isn’t really profitable. I don’t know if YouTube still isn’t profitable, but I’ve read reports from 2015 that it still wasn’t profitable.

    It makes sense that they now try to push things that make them money. They wouldn’t push ads so hard if they weren’t desperate.

    euphoric_cat ,
    @euphoric_cat@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    newIdentity ,

    But most people aren’t you.

    euphoric_cat ,
    @euphoric_cat@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    newIdentity ,

    Most people want a great discovering and viewing experience and a good looking and smooth UI.

    Odysee is buggy as hell.

    spader312 ,

    Nebula at least for educational content

    clb92 ,

    Nebula has about 10.000 videos, from only select creators. Youtube has around 1 billion videos, and everyone can upload. Nebula is not actually a Youtube alternative unless you’re in one of two specific target audiences:

    1. Already established educational content creator looking for alternative platform
    2. Person watching educational video content and not much else

    I don’t see Nebula opening up their site to everyone and letting anyone upload content any time soon, and for that reason I don’t see them as a Youtube competitor at all. They’ve found their niche with curated quality over quantity.

    Fun fact: The difference between 10.000 and 1 billion is… around 1 billion.

    Double_A ,
    @Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    I wouldn’t really mind a smaller pool of videos, if it’s guaranteed to have a standard of quality.

    I’d even pay for YouTube if they offered such a service, where they curate their creators. E.g. I sometimes like to watch repair channels where someone tinkers with something. I have a handful of channels that I like for that… but what if there are many more that I just can’t find?

    HerrLewakaas ,

    Lemmy users are just delusional in that regard. You can’t just switch away from Google, its not the tech that makes in great, its the content. It’s the same with messengers, if your friends arent there how useful is that foss messenger really?

    Thankfully the only creator I regularly watch that does non-educational videos uploads them on their own website. For everything else nebula actually is an alternative, although I’m not subscribed to it at the moment

    Kevnyon ,
    @Kevnyon@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s the same with messengers, if your friends arent there how useful is that foss messenger really?

    This is so difficult. How many people would be willing to switch to Signal or Wickr for one friend? And then what if none of their friends don’t want to switch? And then the friends of those people, etc. Trying to switch workgroups, family, friends and all of their friends as well is a lost cause, it would never happen.

    octochamp ,

    that’s why what we really need is guaranteed service interoperability!

    pca.st/…/d79ca535-186c-4ee0-b658-165a148dcca5

    Kase ,

    Maybe it’s unlikely for this to happen, but I wonder if it’d be possible for yt to go down like reddit did. Yt makes a series of bad decisions, so a lot of people move from there to similar platforms. The other services don’t have much content right now, but from what I here, neither did Lemmy before the “exodus.”

    I get that reddit and youtube are very different types of platforms and that the whole reddit thing happened because of pretty specific circumstances, but idk, maybe something vaguely similar could happen.

    SoBoredAtWork ,

    “go down like Reddit did” … But did Reddit “go down”? It definitely lost users and content quality dropped, but still, everyone I talk to (that isn’t a total nerd like us lemmings) still uses Reddit and has no idea what Lemmy is.

    UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT ,

    I was going to try and contradict you, but I guess most of the people I know well IRL are also total nerds

    SoBoredAtWork ,

    Yeah. I introduced my wife to Reddit (she knew of it but didn’t use it until I kinda showed her how great it is (was)). Now her family and friends use it too. They all heard about the drama but didn’t seem to care or understand and they all still use Reddit.

    fosstulate ,
    @fosstulate@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

    You should refer her to Cory Doctorow’s writing, namely his concept of enshittification. He’s one of the most effective political communicators alive today. If anyone can get her to understand the import of the issues surrounding Reddit’s Simple Jack routine, it’s him.

    SoBoredAtWork ,

    I’m going to check it out. Thanks!

    Kase ,

    Y’know, good point. I haven’t actually been on reddit since the blackout, so I probably shouldn’t be confidently basing any theories on just what I’ve heard about now-reddit from other people, lol. Thanks for the correction.

    I guess my idea of how much reddit “fell” and how much Lemmy/Mastodon grew is a bit inflated, probably because I spend all my internet time here now.

    SoBoredAtWork ,

    (copy/pasted my response to another comment)

    Yeah. I introduced my wife to Reddit (she knew of it but didn’t use it until I kinda showed her how great it is (was)). Now her family and friends use it too. They all heard about the drama but didn’t seem to care or understand and they all still use Reddit.

    reinar ,
    @reinar@distress.digital avatar

    Yt makes a series of bad decisions

    It’s not like it’s making any bad decisions right now. Pretty calculated, I’d say - they feel safe market-wise, so they can increase amount of ads/fight ad-blockers/push people to buy subscription.

    Kase ,

    Oh yeah I don’t disagree. The wording was unclear, but I meant that more in the future/hypothetical tense. It just seems like that’s what all the big social media sites have been doing lately, so I was assuming that yt’s quality will take a nosedive sooner or later, but I guess it’s unfair (and hopefully wrong) to assume that. Thx for the correction

    reinar ,
    @reinar@distress.digital avatar

    I get where you are coming from, however it’s important to remember that big players are not equal - they have really, really different people in the leadership. Elmo is just a too-big-to-fall clown with insane ego, spez is a manchild who took VC money like there’s no tomorrow and in the end had no idea how to provide ROI, but youtube is ran by very competent people with solid track record and deep pockets.

    Maybe they are not too innovative business-wise recently… but they are good at catching up (except live streaming - screen layout is dogshit and nobody wants to get hyped in their tiny chatbox from a fucking google account with family photo as an avatar) and at leveraging what they already have, which is quite a lot, tbh.

    Double_A ,
    @Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    First reddit didn’t go down, despite having an user base which had some kind of a brain.

    While YouTube has everyone as users. Even like the most normie, boomer, zoomer users that think YouTube is the internet. No way they are going to switch for ideological reasons, unless the app just stops working.

    sphere_au ,

    The alternative exists, but it costs money. Most big YouTuber accounts (at least the ones I’m subscribed to) post on either Nebula, Patreon or some platform like that. It would cost quite a lot to subscribe to them all, but still less than YouTube premium in my country. So in the worst case scenario where YouTube really blocks all ad free interfaces except paid use, that’s my answer. I don’t like it as I think a lot of the content is overpriced for what it is, but it’s better than having $$$ swallowed up by some mega corporation that is just interested in screwing authors and viewers over as much as possible.

    rush OP ,

    Currently that is quite hard, because despite YouTube being an utterly insane business model it has prevailed so far.

    I would love for an alternative, I personally really like PeerTube and the Fediverse in general, but mass adoption ain’t there yet :(

    BrioxorMorbide ,

    Unless people mass-migrate away from Chrome-based browsers (basically everything expect Firefox) Google will at one point enable their Web Environment Integrity thing, force all other browsers to enable it too because otherwise a lot of websites will stop working in them, and no alternative frontend will have access to the video streams anymore.

    Martembrte2 ,

    They need to have majority of browsers and smart devices share. Otherwise both apple and Samsung can do something similar.

    spark947 ,

    Perhaps, but eventually there will probably ba a certificate authority alternative to Google. But I agree, we need regulation to determine to ensure that programs calling themselves web browsers will have to adhere to standards, and not be based on features that make certain websites work only on their browser. I think the backlash reaction to implementing “integrity” as a standard was really healthy. But there is still a lot of action to take on the regulatory front.

    BrioxorMorbide ,

    eventually there will probably ba a certificate authority alternative to Google

    Which won’t matter (for access from third-party apps), because to be accepted by websites they need to prove their trustworthiness, so you can’t just use a different one to circumvent it.

    spark947 ,

    It can be very similar to the TLS scheme we use today, where certificates are signed by regulated CA’s. The only difference is that currently there is no regulation to ensure that Google will build chrimium to trust other authorities for browser integrity other than itself. That is definitely a major concern. Fortunately, I don’t think that it is long term viable. First, Microsoft, Mozilla and Apple would be extremely unhappy with this scheme. That’s right off the bat. So there will definitely be resistance on that front because eventually it would do something like break youtube compatibility with Firefox.

    Now, I do think that it is plausible that these organizations could come to a agreement that is still ultimately bad for web browsers. There fore, this should be considered by government regulators as something to pay attention to. I’m not too pessimistic about them doing this. There us political will to preserve the open internet, especially in the EU. It looks like the US is also set to re-adopt net neutrality rules. So, im just not as pessimistic about it.

    The only issue is that in the short-term, alot of these services that are free are going to degrade. This is what we are seeing with youtube. That is too bad, but I am hopeful and optimistic that it will lead to a more open internet. The fact that we are having this conversation on a decentralized social network is a positive sign.

    BrioxorMorbide ,

    It still doesn’t matter. A website can choose which attestors to trust (if they had to trust all of them the whole thing would be useless), so Youtube can just deny access to the video streams to anything that isn’t a trusted browser environment, and anything third party like Invidious, Piped, Newpipe, Freetube… won’t be able to work anymore.

    spark947 ,

    Well yeah. But those clients could ultimately just say they are firefox if Mozilla is open enough, which they tend to be. It ends when Google decides that stuff like YouTube should only work on chrome. That would be bad, and I think regulators would treat it as bad, especially the EU.

    BrioxorMorbide ,

    IIRC the proposal includes some crypto-handshake verification to make sure the attestor is who it claims to be, so no, apps can’t just fake it. Or, if some of those secret keys leak and apps use it, sites won’t accept it anymore.

    spark947 ,

    It’s a question of trust. Google will select the certificates they trust for the services they provide, and the entities that own those certificates will decide what do to with them. If they trust a certificate from Mozilla, and Mozilla agrees to make that certificate open to everyone for instance, than Google’s only choice is to stop trusting it. But if Mozilla decides that is the certificate Firefox will use, than Google has to choose kicking off Firefox as well as other third party apps. Same with Microsoft and Apple, but I think Mozilla is more likely to oppose this kind of standard rather than try to reach some kind of agreement with Google.

    The other way that this could play out every browser dev makes some kind of arrangement. Very unstable when we are talking about competitors.

    At the end of the day, it requires a level of co-operation with the browser developers and internet service providers that I don’t think a lot of people will go for, for various reasons. Especially not regulators. I guess I am just more optimistic about the open internet.

    sphere_au ,

    Web environment integrity is a non-starter because it offers avenues for bad actors to enforce “integrity” that forces malware to be loaded as well as legitimate page elements. However, that doesn’t mean Google won’t keep trying to stop ad blockers, alternative interfaces etc in the future.

    filister ,

    It is also possible to install libredirect if you are using Firefox Nightly on Android mike.sg/…/how-to-use-libredirect-on-android/. You can disable the YouTube app and this would force your device to open the YouTube links in your default browser.

    clanginator ,

    If you’re on Android why not just use YT Vanced or Newpipe? Both are excellent and I haven’t had issues with YT Vanced since this change.

    filister ,

    I am using Newpipe, but libredirect can redirect more websites, not only YouTube.

    clanginator ,

    Ah I see, ty

    xnileap ,

    Could also use Fennec or Mull on f-droid instead of Firefox Nightly with less telemetry from Google and other vendors

    DeathsEmbrace ,

    I use noscript don’t have this problem.

    Omega_Haxors , (edited )

    Everyone should use script blockers. Flat out only way to reliably block the boatloads of malicious scripts that litters the internet.

    iminahurry ,

    Do any modern websites run with no script? I figured with most websites based in JS frameworks like react and Vue, hardly anything would work with noscript

    TalkingCat ,

    You enable the minimum necesary for the website to do what you need.

    Rolive ,

    Good idea. I will soon as well.

    rush OP ,

    well duh, the detection uses JavaScript.

    DeathsEmbrace ,

    I don’t get it you guys are all about privacy and this or adblockers but you still willingly allow Javascript?

    rush OP ,

    please read up on threat models. If you need that amount of privacy/security that’s fine, but many don’t.

    yum13241 ,

    Because LITERALLY EVERY WEBSITE THAT HAS A WORKING BUTTON THAT UPDATES ITSELF requires JavaScript.

    BenLeMan ,

    Thank you all for the great suggestions. I’ve been using NewPipe on my phone for a while now. Do any of these YT alternatives come with support for 1440p resolution? I noticed Invidious is capped at 1080p and sometimes struggles to maintain a stable nitrate at high resolution.

    stardust ,

    On newpipe if you go to settings > Video and audio there is an option for show higher resolutions.

    BenLeMan ,

    Thank you for your response, but I was thinking more about the desktop implementations. Resolution is fine on my phone but I would like to max out my 37" WQHD screen.

    stardust ,

    I haven’t found a good alternative to going directly to YouTube when it comes to resolution offerings on desktop.

    rush OP ,

    Both take resolutions and streams directly from YouTube, my guess is that it may vary a bit depending on the settings the instance host set.

    p000l ,

    mpv and yt-dl user reporting in. What ads are we talking about?

    Churbleyimyam ,

    What is your process for watching a video? For me to do it like this I currently have to copy the link, open a terminal, download the video with yt-dlp, navigate to the file, open it and then watch it. And then usually delete it. I’m curious if there is a faster or simpler way…

    gkpy ,

    mpv has an integration with ytdl (and forks), which should let you just open the url and stream it directly

    akrot ,

    Isn’t the speed limited though? Last time I checked it buffered for so long, the watching experience was not continuous.

    bort ,

    yt-dl has a speedlimit. yt-dlp has not.

    sounddrill ,

    Even vlc does this iirc

    Churbleyimyam ,

    I got it working with yt-dlp. I had to reinstall mpv as a flatpak from flathub; it wouldn’t work with a package install from my repo or a flatpak from fedora. I think at least as of yesterday it needed to be a very up-to-date release. Posting in case this helps someone else.

    p000l ,

    There are many browser extensions to choose from.

    dangblingus ,

    Using FF with UBO, absolutely no problems. “May detect”? I’m pretty sure they either can or can’t. They’re not going to detect some FF with UBO and not others. The only thing that may affect whether or not you’re detected is if you’re using a VPN or other encryption.

    filefly ,

    Congrats, you’ve managed to make a post in which nothing makes sense

    turbowafflz ,

    Well it detects it for me and I am neither using a VPN nor any additional encryption. I’m guessing it’s just their normal thing of slowly rolling out changes instead of to every user at once.

    rush OP ,

    uBlock Origin’s default lists with both Firefox and uBO being on their latest is currently undetected. By that I mean they’ve already released fixes.

    rush OP ,

    They will actually, as they’re looking for specific things to be blocked/altered using JavaScript that is easily affected by enabling certain custom lists. In case you don’t believe me, you can look on uBO’s official statement regarding this.

    deweydecibel , (edited )

    I will gladly accept my usual downvotes to remind people Sponsorblock is only hurting the content creators, not Google, and given there’s absolutely no threat of malware or tracking from a sponsored in-video ad, you have no need for it besides entitlement and a disrespect for the people that are already getting fucked over by Google in the first place.

    librecat ,
    @librecat@lemmy.basedcount.com avatar

    I don’t know about you, but when I watch a video I’m not there to watch an ad.

    Also don’t forget about the bad companies and scams (example: Established Titles).

    xtremeownage ,

    Sorry… watching a sponsored video for world of tanks for the 10th time, or simply safe, or whatever other garbage is there isn’t going to make me want to purchase it.

    I value my time… If I didn’t use sponsor block, I’m still going to skip right past it… This, just does it for me.

    macaroni1556 ,

    Not being a youtuber I don’t know, but do sponsors even know that you’re using sponsorblock? How could they tell?

    Morgikan ,
    @Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

    I don’t think they can really. I don’t work in that stuff, but skipping isn’t included in YT analytics from what I’ve read. I would bet they rely on something like average view percentage to just make assumptions. For example, if a content creator places the sponsor bit in the first 10% of the video, and average view percentage for that video is 80%, then it is assumed the sponsor bit was watched. I wouldn’t be surprised if sponsors require some form of transparency in analytic reporting for content creators to get paid.

    I also would figure that YouTube, as it has no bearing on their revenue, is probably not going to add in analytic features for Skip just for the sake of some third party.

    SnipingNinja ,

    Pretty sure you can see the parts people see more on average (otherwise I assume the viewer interest graph on the track bar wouldn’t be a thing)

    DrVerlocher ,

    And I still don’t give a damn! There are two scenarios in case of sponsors.

    1. The creator already got paid for the ad before the video. or
    2. The creator is payed by percentage of their affiliate link.

    It doesn’t matter if I skip for number one, obviously. Number two could be an argument. But 99% of those sponsors are borderline scams anyway, so I really don’t care, because I will never buy something off a sponsorship like that. Not NordVPN (which still tracks you btw…), nor Raid, nor any other crap.

    Additionally, SponsorBlock also gets rid of those annoying reminders to “like and subscribe” barely a second into the video, and other such annoyances like fillers or those dumb spoilers that show the best parts of the video right at the start.

    SponsorBlock isn’t the issue. It is a symptom of Googles unfathomable greed and the creators/consumers collective Stockholm Syndrome. I value my time more, than hearing the same five sentences about World of Tanks, Raid or any other braindead “game” repeated 500 times.

    The only sponsors I don’t skip are the ones from InternetHistorian. He at least puts effort in and makes it fun to watch.

    seyrine ,

    Agreed. If any content creator makes an effort in their ad spots (Jay Foreman, How to Drink, and the aforementioned Internet Historian) then that automatically gets whitelisted on sponsorblock.

    And often the ads for stuff like Raid or similar stuff can be jarring, with the audio louder than the actual video or beginning with some random sound that “captures your attention”. Thank goodness for sponsorblock.

    mayo ,
    @mayo@lemmy.world avatar

    Before I found sponsor block I would just lazily skip large sections of videos. The app is just more convenient.

    CileTheSane ,
    @CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

    YouTube: makes ads more and more intrusive.

    People: block annoying intrusive ads.

    This guy: “YoU’rE jUsT hUrTiNg ThE cReAtOr!”

    Companies will keep making ads worse and worse until people stop putting up with it. I’m not going to put up with their bullshit so that the content creator can get 0.0001 cents from my view. If you want to support the creator that’s what Patreon is for.

    Auli ,

    I mean people don’t have to watch Youtube. Also all this shit about ads and then blocking them but still watching Youtube does nothing. People actually not using the platform might make a difference.

    Psythik ,

    SponsorBlock is useful for more than just skipping sponsored segments, you know.

    I use it mostly to remove the “hey guys” and “like and subscribe” bullshit that is in literally every. single. video. It’s irritating and I’m tired of hearing it.

    Also, the “skip to highlight” is useful for those of us with ADHD. It keeps the less interesting videos interesting. Not everything needs a 20 minute intro before they get to the subject of the video.

    HonorIsDead ,

    Sponsor block says it’s skipped about 18hrs since I started using it. No way I’m going to stop using it when I have a choice.

    hottari ,

    You are entitled to your own opinion but it’s because of Google’s content monetization strategies that user-generated videos now include native content ads. Content creators are following the money. I don’t have to agree with them, Google or your nonsense opinion.

    Rukmer ,

    It’s good to keep in mind, but I mean do you sit there through 1-3 minute ads not skipping forward? I don’t watch much television, I mostly watch YouTube. So I watch a lot of it. What good is watching an ad going to do if I’m never going to buy anything from them? Once or twice, I’ve needed or wanted a product or service I thought might be promoted on YouTube, I went and looked for a creator to get a link/code from. But I think I did that two times in the past 9 years of being an avid YouTube watcher, and those times I was not buying the product due to ads, just thought I’d support a creator since I was going to make a purchase. I don’t have sponsor block (I use NewPipe and I don’t feel like learning a new app), but I just skip all the ads by tapping the skip button a bunch. They’re often 2 full minutes.

    rbits ,

    I’m going to skip the sponsor anyway, SponsorBlock just makes it way easier. I don’t have it on auto skip though, because 1: Sometimes they mark segments as sponsored that still have interesting stuff, and sometimes they do good sponsor segments, and 2: Maybe sometimes I’ll be willing to watch it. For example, I always watch the end segment of Jet Lag.

    So it ends up being not very different from skipping the sponsor. And besides, I never bought/used anything from a sponsor segment before SponsorBlock.

    randint ,
    @randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz avatar

    Hello there fellow Jet Lag enjoyer.

    Thorny_Insight ,

    When the sponsor is baked into the video itself, there’s no way for the advertiser to know how many of the people who watched the video, skipped past the sponsor. The only way they know wether their ads are working or not, is by seeing how many people used the discount code from said channel. If you’re the kind of person going thru the effort to install additional software on top of adblocker to get rid of this sponsored content aswell, I think it’s quite safe to assume you weren’t going to buy their product anyways.

    Also if you’re still feeling bad about it, just donate few bucks directly to the content creator. That’s way more than they’re ever going to profit from you watching ads anyways.

    rush OP ,

    I use sponsorblock not for sponsors, but for things like non-music parts of MVs or interaction reminders tbh

    yuunikki ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    grumpyrico ,

    Watching Videos without adds and keeping your data private is the point.

    Glad i can help

    yuunikki ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    grumpyrico ,

    Just get premium then … Sorry to tell ya

    yuunikki ,

    As if I’d pay for YouTube

    grumpyrico ,

    You’re funny

    rush OP ,

    me when I loose my downloads — locally saved downloads from YouTube — after 3 days of inactivity

    rush OP ,

    No, but subscriptions can be imported manually.

    The point is to not load tracking tech YouTube ships with as well as staying relatively anonymous.

    worsedoughnut ,
    @worsedoughnut@lemdro.id avatar

    I’m all for this post, but I feel like someone needs to ask: What features from Youtube am I losing out on by using these alternate front-ends? (instead of just continuing the cat-and-mouse game between uBlock Origin and Google while at leat preserving the same features and UI that we’re already very mu ch comfortable with)

    rush OP , (edited )

    You lose:

    • Your existing YouTube account, which can only be manually imported (subscriptions)
    • Account-Based/Algorithmic Homescreen recommendations
    • Some higher resolutions (e.g 4K) (very dependant on instance, I don’t have a list of instances with their max resolutions)
    • The UI will be somewhat different, but not necessarily hard to navigate
    • probably more random stuff idk
    brax ,

    Your link to “Piped” doesn’t work for me on mobile. I think you accidentally put some asterisks at the start of it.

    rush OP ,

    weird, my formatting might be messed up

    Try again in a bit, I’ve tried to fix it :)

    brax ,

    Yeah, it’s good now 👍

    bufalo1973 ,
    @bufalo1973@lemmy.ml avatar

    I wish PeerTube gained enough traction to be the competition of YT. I hate that Google think they know you better than yourself and uses that broken algorithm to send you thing you don’t want to see. If I tell 5 times I don’t want something a correct algorithm would say “I’m not sending you any more of this” instead of trying other 100 times to make you swallow the videos they want.

    Mio ,

    Youtube is just the database with video. Just use a different frontend. The problem is if I actually want recommended videos but without Google knowing about it, then it is hard due to the massive amount of videos. Only Google have the money so scan everything.

    bufalo1973 ,
    @bufalo1973@lemmy.ml avatar

    And Google can pull the plug on the database whenever they want, just like Reddit or Twitter did with third party apps.

    Mio ,

    Yes, they can, like any other company or organization can. But they can’t remove the humans producing. That means the humans will just go anywhere else. Youtube is a standalone product that they probalby want to keep as I think it pays for itself with that amount of ads.

    rush OP ,

    Absolutely agreed, I would love for peertube to take off

    TheWozardOfIz ,

    Do these work for live shows?

    pineapplelover ,

    Yes. I use piped through libretube and it works for live videos.

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