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.

kadu , (edited )
@kadu@lemmy.world avatar

YouTube’s argument is the same as Linus’ from LTT: if you watch a video without ads, you’re failing to comply with your side of the transaction, thus essentially pirating that content and stealing the revenue source.

Regardless if we agree or not with that statement, I’ll absolutely side with adblockers always for a deeper issue: it’s my screen, so I get the ultimate say on what content gets rendered. Quite literally. It’s my network, my cable, my screen, my graphics card, my web browser running JavaScript on my CPU - you do not, ever, get to overreach and decide what pixels show up or not. If I don’t want your obnoxious ad for an AI girlfriend to show up, there’s no moral argument to be had here.

EDIT: I think some of you are missing the point of this comment. There’s no reason to reply to me countering the argument in the first paragraph, as it is not my comment, in fact, I specifically mentioned how it’s YouTube (and Linus’) argument.

warm ,

I was happy with an ad at the side of the video. Then they started popping up over my video, then they started appearing before my video, then they started appearing throughout my video. Companies shot themselves in the foot with online advertising, banner ads and such weren't much of a problem, but once ads start disrupting the content we visit a site for, then we look to block them ads. More people blocking ads is less revenue, so they make the ads more aggressive... and the cycle continues.

And on a side note, Linus can fuck off.

Evilcoleslaw ,

That and the large ad networks even on sites like YouTube and Facebook literally are advertising scams. Every time I browse shorts on either I get ads that are obvious scams of the “There’s a new $6400 monthly health credit see if you qualify.” variety. On one of Meta’s apps I got an ad that was for male enhancement that was straight up clips of uncensored hardcore porn. Not just nudity but full on PIV sex. If they can’t even do the work to properly screen their ads they can get fucked, I’m blocking all of it that I can.

forgotaboutlaye ,

Yeah I don’t mind ads if they’re relevant - I scroll through insta reels from time to time, and am always getting ads about concerts I’m interested in, restaurants I haven’t tried and sales at shops I go to.

I honestly don’t mind so much, and if it’s not relevant to me I can scroll past without having to watch.

AWittyUsername ,

In order to get relevant ads you have to opt in to give them your data. Do you do that?

forgotaboutlaye ,

In order to use the platform in the EU, you either opt into personalised ads or pay a monthly subscription. So yes, I’m aware they’re using my data for the ads.

Google does as well, but they don’t seem to be able to offer me even relatively relevant ads based on my interests.

Johanno ,

Non disruptive ads were meant to advertise.

Slightly annoying ads were meant to be seen more, since people just ignored banners by default.

Hidden ads (like an ad in an article which you really could tell it was an ad) were meant to increase the image of a company.

Disruptive ads like in YouTube or Spotify aren’t meant for advertising. They don’t really care about the advertising money, they want to force you to buy premium. The more annoying the ad is the higher the chances you pay 20€ a month for them to go away.

warm ,

These days maybe, but disruptive ads started way before subscriptions became a thing.

OtherPetard ,

Yeah, the pre-ads (unstoppable) and the massively increased loading times of the basic Youtube page makes it impossible to successfully Rickroll people

wreckedcarzz ,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, the argument falls short when YT (or LTT) spew literal garbage. I might have a hint of sympathy if it wasn’t a dumpster fire of decaying babies.

The few people I sub do and do yt as a monitory source, I support elsewhere. Fuck YouTube acting as a sleezy middle-man and simultaneously playing the victim.

SaltySalamander ,

Fuck YouTube acting as a sleezy middle-man

A sleezy middleman that happens to foot the YT infrastructure bill.

Captainvaqina ,

They’re hurting real bad lemme tell ya. If only you understood what they’re freely extracting from you.

wreckedcarzz ,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

Nobody is forcing YT to exist, so…

vithigar ,

I mean, the argument falls short when YT (or LTT) spew literal garbage.

The fact that you don’t like the product doesn’t really change that their expected transaction is “watch an ad to receive it”. Every argument against the idea of not watching the ads being piracy seems to be, essentially, either “the product isn’t good” or “the price is too high”, neither of which is relevant to the fact that they’ve put a “price” on it and you’re skipping the part where you “pay”.

Quality of the videos is irrelevant. Intrusiveness of the ads is irrelevant. The ads are the price, the videos are the product. You’re getting the videos without seeing the ads.

I agree that the “price” is too high, the ads are awful, and the videos are frequently bad. I will continue to block those ads as long as I am able, but I’m not going to delude myself into thinking that I’m not skipping out on the cheque, as it were, when I do so.

I might have a hint of sympathy if it wasn’t a dumpster fire of decaying babies.

Literally no one is asking you to have any sympathy. Why get so defensive when it’s pointed out that skipping ads is skipping on your side of the transaction when using an ad supported service?

wreckedcarzz ,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

I liked the service up until ~2016 and was a yt red family subscriber. Then they upped the prices, then they started pushing more ads + more frequently, then they got butthurt about third-party apps, then they raised prices again…

My “expected transaction” is to host decent-or-better content (not shovel clickbait disinformation nonsense) in a fashion that is palatable to me, and they are failing miserably on the first and are fighting to fail miserably on the second. If you go to a restaurant expecting decent food but are served actual shit, are you going to be like ‘thank you sir may I have some more’? We have been the frog in the pot of boiling water for the last 15+ years of bullshit like this, where a company makes a compelling product, then makes it shit but incrementally so ‘it’s not so bad compared to the last update’ but compared to a few years ago it’s completely garbage. And they want more money for a worse experience? Are for fucking shitting me?

Quality of the content is relevant. I guarantee you aren’t going to the movies to watch something that scored a 4% on RT. Everyone wants to be like’ poor yt/alphabet, they only got 63 billion this quarter 'but if it was a real issue they’d be doing stuff like charging fees to upload content (goodbye 9 year-olds screaming about fortnite skins) or something else to curb the amount of content they host. Google knew what they were getting into when they bought yt - at least they sure as fuck should. Nobody has ever made a profitable video service afaik. There’s what, yt, vimeo, and… liveleak is dead, uh… crickets.

I’m not even pretending to skip out on the bill. I’m screaming from my table “this is fucking terrible and you should all feel awful about it” before proudly walking out.

Also I’m not asking for sympathy? I’m saying “this service has turned to shit”. Also none of my above comment, or this, is defensive; it’s being pissed off that a company is fucking people on both sides of the transaction and still complaining that they don’t get enough of a cut, while actively making their service worse for their customers and doing nothing to save it themselves. They are a sinking ship complaining that they need more help chucking buckets of water overboard, while they simultaneously poke additional holes in it.

vithigar ,

I don’t really disagree with any of that, and it’s all a great argument in favour of just not using YouTube. Hell, it might even be a good argument in favour of using it as much as possible while blocking ads just to consume bandwidth on their dime while denying them ad revenue.

None of it really counters the idea that using it without viewing ads is skipping out on “paying” for that usage, which is the entire “argument” being presented, which you claimed falls short. The content being bad doesn’t change the fact that they expect you to view ads (or pay) to see that content, and we’re not paying.

Aeri ,
@Aeri@lemmy.world avatar

TBH I’m just so fucking tired of ads overstepping, back in the day there’s be a little banner on the side of a page advertising a truck or whatever, I’m sick of seeing like, enormous length ads.

One day I had a 3 hour minecraft let’s play uploaded as an ad, you think I should have to watch all of that youtube?

And the frequency is getting crazy.

Evilcoleslaw ,

When YouTube Red first dropped they were putting hour-long pilot episodes of their shows as pre-roll ads. Now I notice ads on shorts are full of obvious scams related to “new monthly health credits”. Still better than getting an ad on Facebook reels that was uncensored hardcore porn.

Aeri ,
@Aeri@lemmy.world avatar

I’m almost thinking of breaking down and buying YT premium because god, I watch a lot of youtube (I’d go so far as to say it’s my primary entertainment stream at times) but I’m already paying so fucking much for cable that I don’t even want.

Cable’s 80, Internet’s 80, somehow extra fees bring it up to nearly 200, and I can’t convince other members of my household (who watch a grand total of four fucking channels, MSNBC, Weather channel, sports, etc) that we should ditch cable, absolutely miserable.

Evilcoleslaw ,

For Android on phones and tablets look up Revanced. You have to download the YouTube .apk from somewhere like apkmirror, then use the Revanced manager to apply patches to block ads and change functionality. Then you log into your account with their own version of MicroG/gmscore. It was briefly affected by the issue in the main post but was working again in a few hours.

For Android-based smart TVs and streaming devices there’s SmartTube (SmartTubeNext). Not sure how well they’ll do if YouTube goes cat and mouse though.

And for a wider variety of devices (including Apple TV and now WebOS) there’s also Kodi which has a YouTube addon although logging in with it is kind of a pain as you need to get API keys, etc.

& finally on a desktop browser uBlock Origin alone handles all the ads pretty well, and you can optionally add Sponsorblock.

Oh. And check out some of the over the top TV services and see if there are any cheap ones that might meet your needs to replace cable. Though the way the cable companies do their bundling even that might not save you much as the net might jump up to more than $80 standalone.

Usually_Lurker ,
@Usually_Lurker@lemmy.world avatar

Nvidia Sheild pro + smartTube Next. I see 0 ads. The app also bypasses the self promotion/hit the like and subscribe button crap as well.

Smart Tube Next

Aeri ,
@Aeri@lemmy.world avatar

You can put custom apps on the Shield pro? neat.

JDPoZ , (edited )
@JDPoZ@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    BeardedGingerWonder ,

    First off, I couldn’t care less about ad blocking and I’m not here to moralise what anyone else does.

    I do however think your point is somewhat undermined by the fact YouTube have an ad free option. You can legitimately make the ads disappear and YouTube have no issue with it.

    Resonosity ,

    I fucking hate billboards man. Get them OUT.

    RobotToaster ,
    @RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

    By that logic using a VCR to record television and fast-forwarding adverts is piracy.

    SlopppyEngineer ,

    And you see digital tv providers trying to implement fast forward blockers without chasing away their customers too much

    Transporter_Room_3 ,
    @Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website avatar

    Any time I fast forward and have to wait for a commercial that interrupted my fast forwarding, it’s an immediate cancelation of the service and I’m on the phone with customer support to try and get my couple of bucks for that month back.

    Fuck your shitty service, I’m grabbing my hat and sword.

    StrawberryPigtails ,

    That argument was in fact made when VCRs first came out. I don’t remember how exactly it played out but in the end the courts here in the US said that VCRs were fine.

    Evilcoleslaw ,

    At least a few TV service DVRs stop you from skipping ads.

    pirat ,

    Some even from forwarding at all through the actual content…

    Chozo ,

    The agreement isn't that you watch the ad, but that you allow the ad to play on your device. That's it. Whether or not you see it or hear it doesn't matter; the "cost" for this type of content is a few moment of your device's time, not your attention.

    Kid_Thunder ,

    The problem is that there is that ad networks and ad placements are just bad actors in the consumer space. Not only has malware been passed time and time again with ads but also false ads to malware. When that happens suddenly the content creator/website/whatever 'isn't responsible' for it. Then there's the issue of ads being placed everywhere slowing down websites but even worse, getting in the way with auto play audio and video, videos autoscrolling over the content you're trying to read or whatever, etc.

    As a consumer, I should not and ethically do not need to worry about another's business model. If the business model fails simply because I don't allow something that model depends on to traverse my network then it is on them to figure it out. If the ads get in the way of the content, then I just want consume the content anyway.

    Some news websites use Ad Admiral or whatever it is called and I haven't bothered trying to bypass the adblock wall for them. I just simply consume the content elsewhere.

    If ads were ever responsibly used or perhaps could be argued that there is compromise where consumers wouldn't mind, then there'd probably be a lot less ad blocker usage. It's like anything else. When it takes less effort to install an adblocker to have an OK experience, then ad blockers will be popular.

    I was around before ad blockers were very popular and even before pop-up blockers were around. Ads kept getting worse which is why ad blockers became more popular and more sophisticated. The Internet had ads for years before ad blockers were the norm.

    captainlezbian ,

    Yeah I wasn’t using an Adblock on YouTube when this all started. Then the ads got so intrusive it was seriously hindering content. These days I don’t watch much YouTube, but it’s with Adblock

    grue ,

    TL;DR: my property rights trump Youtube’s business model.

    MakePorkGreatAgain ,

    if a content creator doesnt want people to be able to skip the ads/demonetize the content, then they should post on a platform that makes ads mandatory.

    problem is that no one will watch crap on that sort of platform

    Chickenstalker ,

    Linus Short Sebastian is an asshole. I like his channel and even bought a water bottle, but he is an asshole nontheless. His opinions are always 5 years outdated. He used to hate reddit but now liked Reddit. Probably a contrarian too.

    TheBat ,
    @TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

    Cool, let’s body shame people.

    Bookmeat ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    kadu ,
    @kadu@lemmy.world avatar

    I don’t see how that’s relevant. If you want to engage in the paid YouTube subscription, go for it, it’s an entirely different thing though.

    My computer requests from YouTube’s server a video, the server gives me a stream of data - I didn’t steal it, I didn’t hack it, the server provided me this because it wanted to - and this stream contains an ad and a video. What I do with this stream is only my concern, you can’t force me to watch the ad. That would be like walking in the street and somebody says you’re unethical because you didn’t look at an outdoor advertisement banner, and that you will be forced to either pay a fee or look at the ad.

    Bookmeat ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    kadu ,
    @kadu@lemmy.world avatar

    I have no social contract with YouTube. The whole “if you access this site, you agree with this ToS” isn’t even legally valid here.

    TORFdot0 ,

    I’d agree with that logic if YouTube kept up their end of the bargain and actually vetted their ad buyers. Instead they show ads for fake stimulus scams, fake news, and blatant malware.

    I manage a large network and ads are blocked at the edge of the network. Not using an adblocker is a security risk that is not acceptable for my company. I pay for YouTube premium because it’s in my means and I get value from the subscription but I don’t blame anyone who takes the same approach

    Syn_Attck ,

    I manage a large network and ads are blocked at the edge of the network.

    You must MITM all traffic and do some magic with stripping/injecting JavaScript then? Because every time I’ve tried with pihole, its just threads and threads of people saying its not possible with DNS blocking because the ads are served from the video servers.

    TORFdot0 ,

    We also deploy a browser extension via GPO/Intune to catch those and protect endpoints when they are off net.

    I actually wasn’t in favor of that but the rest of team was so after risk assessing it, we determined that trusting a vendor with the permission to rewrite webpages was less of a risk than drive-by malware or phishing/redirection from a malicious ad

    WldFyre ,

    They said they pay for YouTube premium so they might not have to block YouTube ads

    Zagorath ,
    @Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

    You know what, I actually agree with YouTube’s argument. Ad blocking is piracy. In fact, no, it’s worse than piracy. If I pirate a movie, Disney makes no money, but it costs them nothing at all. If I watch YouTube without an ad blocker, I’m depriving YouTube of its revenue source and I’m costing them money. Morally, ad blocking sits somewhere between piracy and actual theft.

    The thing is? I don’t care. I ad block YouTube all the time and feel not a lick of guilt. The reason: Google brought this on themselves. I used to happily pay for YouTube Red. But they have continuously, both before and after that point, been actively hostile to the people actually producing the content they make. Their willingness to bow down to copyright trolls and complete inability to properly apply fair use. They extremely harsh policies on acceptable content, stopping people talking about sex education or mediaeval weaponry being able to reliably makes money.

    And the straw that broke this camel’s back was when they changed the requirements to be in the Partner Program, locking out all the smaller creators from ever being able to make money on YouTube. I never considered myself a “creator”, but over the 5 years prior to that I occasionally uploaded stuff I was doing anyway. I had amassed almost $100 over those 5 years. Not an impressive amount, for sure, but having that taken away from me made me feel unwelcome. I don’t think I’ve uploaded anything public since, and I’ve been blocking ads on the site since then.

    Even worse, not long after this change, they decided to start showing ads even on videos from non-partnered videos, so you can get ads on my videos even though I don’t see a single cent.

    So fuck YouTube. Ad blocking is worse than piracy, and I say good.

    TheBat ,
    @TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

    Google: You’re pirating our content!

    Us: Yeah, so what?

    Draegur ,

    Google: You’re pirating our content!
    Us: AND THE BEATINGS SHALL CONTINUE UNTIL YOU LEARN YOUR FUCKING LESSON.

    JDPoZ ,
    @JDPoZ@lemmy.world avatar

    My god… are you… me? Same exact shit. Created my YT account 14 years ago. Made some vids… some got some views… eventually I got a few dollars deposited like for 3 years. Probably totaled the same $100 you mentioned then boom. Shut down.

    Zagorath ,
    @Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

    I uploaded what I think was the first tutorial on how to use Photoshop’s then-new “Content-Aware Fill” to help create panoramas, and also a tutorial about…something, I forget what, to do with the music engraving software Sibelius. They were things I was doing all the time, but there didn’t seem to be any guide on how to do it, so I thought I’d help out. And I got rewarded with a little cash and a few tens of thousands of views. Felt good.

    There are much better, higher-polish videos that deal with those subjects now, I’m sure. But still, it didn’t feel good getting that ripped out from under me, and being told I was no longer welcome.

    pop ,

    My guy, that’s why there is DRM. Your screen are loading pixels, because they let you. Those third party apps and frontends work because they let the users have a little freedoms.

    If you steal something off the mall and bring it to your home, it doesn’t make it yours. People thinking all that code, infrastructure and labour to run something on the internet should be free because they have an internet connection are entitled as the sovcit bunch. Just cringe.

    Advertisers, Malwares and Ad blockers are all to blame for the current state of the internet. We’re heading for paywalled internet and entitled basement dwellers are going to complain you miss the “old internet”

    Seriously, I use adblockers but the rationale people make up for this like countless others are just plain stupid.

    tfowinder ,

    If something allows it then it’s morally justified. You can’t be naked intentionally and ask me to not look at same time.

    CileTheSane ,
    @CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

    Advertisers, Malwares and Ad blockers are all to blame for the current state of the internet.

    So the thing that blocks the first two is equally to blame?

    I remember the day I started using an Ad blocker. I used to not care at all about ads on sites, “it’s how they make money. I can live with it.” And then I encountered a banner ad that screamed “HELOOOOOOO!” every time my mouse went over it. I couldn’t download an ad blocker fast enough.

    Advertisers and Malware are to blame for Ad blockers. Advertisers will get more and more annoying and intrusive until people reach the point that they won’t put up with them anymore. Seeing as the internet is one big bucket and I can’t block some ads, then I will block all ads.

    Eccitaze ,
    @Eccitaze@yiffit.net avatar

    Fuck that victim-blaming nonsense. The entire reason ad blockers were invented in the first place were because ads in the 90s and early 2000s were somehow even worse than they are now. You would click on a website, and pop-up ads would literally open new windows under your mouse cursor and immediately load an ad that opened another pop-up ad, and then another, and another, until you had 30 windows open and 29 of them were pop-up ads, all of them hoping to trick you into clicking on them to take you to a website laden with more and more pop-up ads. Banner ads would use bright, flashing, two-tone colors (that were likely seizure-inducing, so have fun epileptics!) to demand your attention while taking up most of your relatively tiny, low-resolution screen.

    The worst offenders were the Flash-based ads. On top of all the other dirty tricks that regular ads did, they would do things like disguising themselves as games to trick you into clicking them. (“Punch the monkey and win a prize!” The prize was malware.) They would play sound and video–which were the equivalent of a jump scare back then, because of how rare audio/video was on the Internet in that day. They would exploit the poor security of Flash to try and download malware to your PC without you even interacting with them. And all this while hogging your limited dialup connection (or DSL if you were lucky), and dragging your PC to a crawl with horrible optimization. When Apple refused to support Flash on iOS way back in the day, it was a backdoor ad blocker because of how ubiquitous Flash was for advertising content at the time.

    The point of all this is that advertisers have always abused the Internet, practically from day one. Firefox first became popular because it was the first browser to introduce a pop-up blocker, which was another backdoor ad blocker. Half the reason why Google became the company it did is because it started out as a deliberate break from the abuses of everyone else and gave a simple, clean interface with to-the-point, unobtrusive, text-based advertisements.

    If advertisers and Google in particular had stuck to that bargain–clean, unobstrusive, simple advertisements that had no risk of malware and no interruption to user workflow, ad blockers would largely be a thing of the past. Instead, they decided to chase the profit dragon, and modern Google is no better than the very companies it originally replaced.

    daddy32 ,

    MY hardware and infrastructure was not free either and I and ONLY I get to decide how it is used.

    kadu ,
    @kadu@lemmy.world avatar

    My guy, that’s why there is DRM. Your screen are loading pixels, because they let you.

    When I ping YouTube’s server it provides me with a stream that contains an ad and a video. What I do with that stream is my problem, and if I want to chop it up it’s something I can freely decide.

    Your server can send any data it wants, but it can’t decide what I do with it, are you nuts?

    starman ,
    @starman@programming.dev avatar

    Another argument proving that Linus Media Group is a bunch of morons

    net00 ,

    The same Linus who can’t be arsed to spend $500 of various people’s time to properly test a product is now telling us what to do?

    cerement ,
    @cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

    “because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership”

    not like Youtube rewards creators for viewership either (and then lying to the advertisers as well)

    queue ,
    @queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    I think YouTubers make fractional pennies from Ads, and mostly only if its fully watched and sometimes clicked to go to the website. So if you get a 15 second ad, and skip to the content, you didn’t give the creators any money.

    Also, shout out to those ads being horrible. My first time ever installing an adblocker was during a rapid anti-smoking campaign, that had body horror. 15 year old me didn’t want to smoke, nor wanted to after, but it was so disturbing that I learned how to avoid them.

    Not even going into the disturbing or weird ads. One time I got an ad for a “Ching Chong Fing Fong shirt company” as a way of mocking Chinese people because their government sucks. Another time, I got a full 12 hour video by a Vietnamese couple just grilling in their backyard. No subtitles, not even sure if they were aware they enabled their videos to do that, or didn’t fully understand the process of uploading videos.

    Anytime I see actual ads on the internet, not just YouTube, it just makes me go “I am perfectly justified in not seeing these weird ads.” I don’t give them any money no matter what I do, so why not have my eyes saved from bright flashing colors and scam artists?

    RobotToaster ,
    @RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

    My first time ever installing an adblocker was during a rapid anti-smoking campaign

    Those ads made me want to take up smoking out of spite.

    Maeve ,

    Ouch. Cutting off the nose to spite the face.

    AutistoMephisto ,
    @AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world avatar

    That was the purpose. You see, Big Tobacco actually sponsors the anti-smoking campaigns, which does give them some creative input. They tell the writers to make them as annoying as possible.

    Maeve ,

    They started messing with me on YT. When Piped began giving me errors last week, YT suddenly started behaving, but nagging me to try YT again. Google is truly evil, and dasterdly to boot .

    Maeve ,

    If it hadn't been for ublock origin, I'd not be on YT this long

    dustyData , (edited )

    If I recall correctly, ever since videos could be called up as ads you can just pay for any video to be an ad, as long as it’s on YouTube, and it doesn’t have to be yours. I don’t know if this has changed, but an essays channel figured out that that’s the fastests way someone could target a competitor’s channel. Paying to have someone else’s video as an ad tanks that video ad revenue and discoverability instantly. Ad views count as views to the video and skipping an ad counts as a skip on the video which signals the algorithm to think that nobody wants or likes to see that video. Do it to enough new videos and you can entirely kill a previously profitable channel in a couple of months.

    far_university1990 ,

    TheSpiffingBrit did video on that.

    Maeve ,

    They could probably retain users simply by running ads every 10 minutes, rather than every 3 minutes.

    Gullible ,

    Money/s is the more used metric. Retention is secondary or even tertiary to money/s. Behold the algorithm, great and terrible, sheathed in robes of black and grasping sickle white.

    theneverfox ,

    Ah, but you’re one layer off. Projected/potential money/s (in the next 1-2 quarters mainly) is what is truly king.

    It doesn’t have to be a good idea, it can be a terrible one - but good sounding words in the board room are what matter

    “Hey, so we’ve decided to see if we can run 10 unskippable ads back to back. Simultaneously, we’ve launched a war on ad blockers. This time it will surely work because we found out you can ignore your customers - Elon Musk has shown us the way, he only lost bots with all his innovation. We expect people to get over it in 3 months and estimate we’ll lose 4 users. Between 10x more ads and half our users off ad blockers, we project 20x ad revenue next quarter!”

    -Words of a future CEO, probably

    dojan ,
    @dojan@lemmy.world avatar

    Oh but they don’t care about anything but short form content. If they could ditch supporting long form content today they would.

    Maeve ,

    The cold, hard steel of the sword of truth.

    BubbleMonkey ,

    Such a fantastic series :) (the books, not any of the garbage adaptations)

    Maeve ,

    This reply makes me so happy. The books are always better.

    Krauerking ,

    Nah they want lots of short form and also like 10 hour long videos that can play 200 ads in it that you forget is on in the background. They want tiktok and broadcast TV.

    They really just want to show you ads.

    Kowowow ,

    At this point id rather see youtube die than watch ads

    Croquette ,

    I was watching a long video on chromecast today and I had ads every three minutes or so. That’s a two hours video. The amount of ads is disgusting.

    YouTube is unwatchable without an ad blocker.

    InternetUser2012 ,

    My kid would watch his videos with ads and I offered to set him up with an alternative with no ads. He said no, I like the ads. I said ok then. That was two years ago. Last week he was losing his shit because of all the ads that made it unwatchable. I set him up with the ad free alternative and I get thanked every day for it.

    Youtube is tanking their own platform.

    TitanLaGrange ,

    This is why I pay for YT Premium. No way in hell am I watching ads, but I do want to be able to use the platform, and the money has to come from somewhere. So far it’s been pretty good value, although SponsorBlock is of course still required.

    Moghul ,

    I would like to pay for YT Premium, but I think the service is bad. The product is good, and the service is bad.

    If I say I don’t want to see this video, I don’t want to see this fucking video again, youtube. I said don’t recommend this channel, and you said I won’t see it again, but I just refreshed, and there it is. I am not dutch, I don’t speak dutch, I’ve never even been to the Netherlands. I shouldn’t be seeing videos in dutch.

    Routinely, I have to go through my home page and try to train the algorithm but I’ve just given up. I got an extension now that just permanently removes channels and videos I don’t want to see.

    The thing is… the product is the videos, and youtube doesn’t do the videos. Youtube does the service, and the service is bad. I understand that the ads pay the youtubers but the truth is I don’t care. That pay is trash, and if they want my premium money, youtubers should unionize and force youtube to improve the service.

    Edit: I watch the youtuber’s sponsor spot and I buy merch.

    Draegur ,

    Hell YEAH they should unionize!!! YouTube has m effectively NO system in place for recourse when their shitty system fucks up and decides to nuke someone’s channel - Such as, when “supporting subject a” is against YouTube policy, a channel may make a video criticizing others who support “subject a”, YouTube’s stupid algorithm will punish them FOR AGREEING WITH YOUTUBE and never actually manually review their shit when it fucks up. A union can grab YouTube by the nuts and FORCE THEM TO LISTEN and that is painfully needed. Unions force power structures to listen to democracy and I like democracy. MORE UNIONS! the people DOING the fucking work need to be heard!

    Kowowow ,

    Nope bankrupt youtube and rebuild from the ashes

    Draegur ,

    Yes - AND I like that being a premium subscriber compensates creators I watch EVEN WHEN they are otherwise “demonetized” - like, if they cover news and the news contains upsetting information, YouTube will reduce their ad exposure. But my views still award them as much credit as ever, and count for, like, dozens of ad-supported views under normal circumstances.

    cmnybo ,

    I haven’t seen an anti adblocker popup on youtube for a couple months now, I though they gave up. It looks like the uBlock developers and block list maintainers are just doing an excellent job staying ahead of whatever youtube is doing.

    50MYT ,

    Revanced update fixed it on their end about two weeks ago also.

    rar ,

    Bless the Revanced guys. They made my mobile youtube binge watches as smooth as my desktop firefox + ublock setup.

    FrostKing ,

    Personally, I don’t think a service is in the wrong for trying to protect against ad block, especially when their revenue comes from ads. However I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with adblockers continuing to innovate to circumvent that. I’m rooting for Ublock Origin lol

    KillingTimeItself ,

    they also fucked themselves over with the ad skill issues they’ve had over the years. Advertisers now find it to be more worthwhile to advertise directly with creators, though that also means they make a lot more money, so.

    They kinda dug their own grave, to be honest.

    force , (edited )

    What made me and I imagine a large chunk of other people convert to revanced/similar apps is the super aggressive advertising, it’s impossible to use youtube when you get a double ad before and after every 5 second video and get 30 second midrolls every like 3 minutes. You can’t skip through a video to find the part you want to see because you’ll just get an ad. It’s extremely infuriating and time-consuming, it used to be where I was willing to deal with it but they fucked it up. Now I can never go back to ad-riddled YouTube, even if it has a “reasonable” amount of advertising (I am now in the belief that no amount of advertising is reasonable anymore though).

    GCanuck ,

    Yup. I was willing to watch one or two short ads before I watch a video, but the mid rolls and unskippable 30+second ads just made me say “well that’s enough of that”. Now I haven’t seen a YouTube ad in a long time.

    Renorc ,

    Exactly. They lost their minds and went too far. Now I’ll never go back either.

    SendMePhotos ,

    Yes. Same. I was OK with banner ads. I was OK with intro ads. Started to get pissed off and annoyed at mid way ads, double ads, and unskippable ads. This is my nightmare. I hate this world and ads are a part of my pyramid of hell.

    lorkano ,

    Aaand now we have also sponsorblock to barely ever see ads in videos

    KillingTimeItself ,

    oopsies.

    bcron ,

    Not only monetization but also the whole sorting/ranking algorithms. Youtube is a bit better than Facebook reels and instagram due to the thumbs down button, but some people go out of their way to make nonsensical garbage because viewers will then comment, and there’s no way to tell if a video is good or bad based solely on engagement. Those videos where people have some DIY hack to clean a toilet bowl and they just pour random condiments in the toilet for 3 minutes and cut the video before any conclusion, those types of videos

    KillingTimeItself ,

    they don’t have dislikes anymore, god forbid you dont like something.

    r3df0x ,

    This is what Louis Rossman said. Youtube is completely in their right to kick people off for blocking ads. At the same time, it’s also not a pissing match that’s worth getting heavily invested in, because ultimately Youtube is going to lose unless they can start coercing people into installing proprietary apps which they already have for mobile devices.

    r3df0x ,

    This is what Louis Rossman said. Youtube is completely in their right to kick people off for blocking ads. At the same time, it’s also not a pissing match that’s worth getting heavily invested in, because ultimately Youtube is going to lose unless they can start coercing people into installing proprietary apps which they already have for mobile devices.

    rasakaf679 ,

    One 10-15 sec ad for an 5-10 mins video would be fair. Because if you calculate the ad shown in Cable TV it was similar I would watch them no problem. But NOOO these greedy fckrs want 3-5 ads of >15secs unskipable ads shoved down our throats. They have record profits. In a business if you are in profit then it’s a good thing. But these fcks want to increase profit year by year, not stable profit for the number of users. That want infinite growth and profit from a finite source and they crazy or what? So if anyone says blocking ads on YouTube is piracy, then fck you and those greedy fckrs. They crossed the limit long time ago and they are reaping what they had sowed.

    Ginger666 ,

    No amount of ads are “fair”

    I’m done wasting my life for other people.

    Go ahead tho, you do you boo

    zarkanian ,
    @zarkanian@sh.itjust.works avatar

    I’m done wasting my life for other people.

    I do enough of that at work as it is. I’ll be fucked if I do it during my downtime, too.

    Ginger666 ,

    AMEN BROTHA

    lledrtx ,

    How do you propose YouTube should pay for infrastructure costs (servers, Internet etc), staff costs (engineers, designers, moderators) and the content creators?

    Ginger666 ,

    Have a paid service that doesn’t have adverti…

    Oh wait…

    RaoulDook ,

    Google Ads on the webpages of all the webpages on the Internet, similar to their status quo.

    I don’t think any of us should be concerned about Google’s cash flow. It’s their job.

    lledrtx ,

    Are you saying that the ads shouldn’t be video ads but webpage ads, instead?

    It’s their job.

    Yeah, exactly why they are enforcing anti-adblock rules…

    r3df0x ,

    If this is how Youtube advertised, I wouldn’t block the ads. I refuse to sit through ads when I’m searching through videos and I don’t even know if the video is the one I want to watch. It’s going to take a three minute search into a 10 minute search.

    Iceblade02 ,

    I would’ve been fine paying if the price reflected what I was actually paying for (not being advertised to) which would be <$0.005 per viewed video (let’s be generous and call it 1 or 2$/mo) but noo they have to ask for 25$/month like greedy little shits.

    lledrtx ,

    That price wouldn’t even begin to cover it. Infrastructure is expensive at that quality. Engineers to maintain such infrastructure are also expensive. Content creators make a ton of money too. Their profits are much lower compared to peers - mannhowie.com/youtube-valuation

    Also, 22$/month gets you a family plan for 5 people so wtf are you talking about?

    I don’t give 2 shits about YouTube, I use ad block where I can too. I’m just saying that people who complain about YouTube’s anti-adblock stuff are being unrealistic, you can’t fault them for trying to block people from stealing from them.

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@fe.disroot.org avatar

    stop paying executives and shareholders. liquidate assets. I don't care.

    piskertariot ,

    Television shows are 22-24 minutes, because cable TV should show 6-8 minutes of ads every half hour. 30 second ads in blocks of 3 or 4, multiple times per show.

    15 seonds ads are almost too short for a trip to the kitchen. I’m not saying they’re good, but if you want to compare to cable TV, you need to remember the dark times.

    NutWrench ,
    @NutWrench@lemmy.world avatar

    Star Trek TOS episodes (1 hour show) were about 52 minutes long, with 8 minutes for commercials. By the time of TNG, episodes were down to 42 minutes. I regularly see ads every 5-6 minutes on YouTube.

    Businesses never understand that it’s THEIR obnoxious, sh*tty advertising that kills something profitable, and when it finally dies, it’s surprised Pikachu faces all around.

    EncryptKeeper ,

    They’re publicly traded, they have to. Thats not an excuse mind you, but if you ever like a service and they go public, just understand the end users are no longer the focus.

    exanime ,

    Being publicly traded does not force companies to become greedy, immoral scum… Stop spreading this piece of misinformation

    nytimes.com/…/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-…

    PS: this goes hand in hand with the “you got to be an asshole to succeed”… You don’t, the problem is that most people can’t find anything else to imitate

    EncryptKeeper ,

    It doesn’t force them legally, but it does effectively guide their behavior. There are a lot of things in this world we aren’t legally forced to do, but still have to do to participate in society. It’s not misinformation, it’s just the reality. It’s true that you don’t have to be an asshole to succeed, but it’s also true that you don’t have to go public to succeed either.

    exanime ,

    Not even… If the entire point was to maximize profit for shareholders, we would see you he obscene compensation packages for C-suite execs or ridiculously luxurious perks for board members, etc

    This has just been the excuse to do away with ethics and morals… And repeating this is “the way it has to be” just makes it easier for them

    RageAgainstTheRich ,

    I refuse to use the official youtube app. Its so trash… I use newpipe and its amazing to just have all my favorite videos bookmarked locally in different lists.

    If they take that away from me i will just stop using youtube.

    Hamartiogonic ,
    @Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

    Better start preparing for the coming exodus. Try Odysee, Peertube and Nebula and see what works for you. Once the enshittification hits critical mass, you’ll be ready to let go of that sinking ship.

    KneeTitts ,
    @KneeTitts@lemmy.world avatar

    Odysee

    ewwwwww… 99% far right garbage, zero moderation there last time I took a look.

    Hamartiogonic ,
    @Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

    Yeah, there’s garbage too, but I don’t subscribe to any of that. Just watch Linux and electronics tinkering videos instead.

    0xblaze ,

    Try Tubular, newpipe + sponsor block combo!

    jBlight ,

    I’ve never tried that one. Can you share a safe link please? Thanks!

    gunpachi ,

    Here you go -

    github.com/polymorphicshade/Tubular/…/v0.26.1_r3

    jBlight ,

    Great! Thanks so much!

    Kedly ,

    Since the initial push, I have not even had to reset my ublock… stop using Chrome

    MonkderDritte ,

    The web should have had a Terms of Usage from start. Something like

    “If you broadcast content on the internet, expect people to download it.”

    hightrix ,

    This. I always say this exact thing.

    If you provide content for free, expect people to take it for free.

    Malfeasant ,

    Even if you don’t intend to provide it for free, if it’s possible to, expect it. No different from Walmart complaining about increased theft after replacing cashiers with self checkout - tiny violins.

    umbrella ,
    @umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

    everything still fine here on firefox + ublock origin

    altima_neo ,
    @altima_neo@lemmy.zip avatar

    Wish I could say the same.

    I’m also using firefox + ublock, but Ive noticed when I’m watching shorts, I’ll occasionally get an ad that’s disguised as a short. There’s no like/dislike buttons or anything.

    CrowAirbrush ,

    Just block shorts alltogether, it’s a win win.

    BitchPeas ,

    But… my doomscroll :<

    cyberpunk007 ,

    BitchPeas.

    TheBat ,
    @TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

    Just read climate news.

    dditty ,

    How do you block shorts entirely? I used to be able to x them away in YouTube Desktop for 30 days but I can’t find that option anymore. And can they be blocked in ReVanced as well?

    CrowAirbrush ,

    I found some website that had a line of code that could be added to my adblocker to completely remove them.

    Haven’t seen them since.

    I think it was this: letsblock.it/filters/youtube-shorts

    Balthazar ,
    @Balthazar@sopuli.xyz avatar

    That’s intended. Even to premium subs youtube pushes adds which try and promote engagement. Its fucking awful.

    Does get me out of the loop sometimes though, so I guess Im thankful for that.

    lost_faith ,

    Sometimes I have to reload the page when using these 2. the page will load but just have a youtube icon in the centre of the player or the spinny circle until i hit f5

    merthyr1831 ,

    Yup same here, on android

    treefrog ,

    New pipe and inner tune still work fine.

    Gormadt ,
    @Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    For now

    metaStatic ,

    exactly, it would be trivial to have a whitelist server side and now only ad friendly apps can access the videos. they only still work because it's worth keeping those viewers in the system for the time being.

    mp3 ,
    @mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

    Technically NewPipe simply parses the website and is seen as a web browser from YouTube’s point of view.

    That how they bypass the API’s TOS, they don’t use it.

    Feyd ,

    Trivial? What information does this whitelist hold that can’t be spoofed? It’s not like apps have to tell the truth about what they are.

    passepartout ,

    This is what current implementations like Revanced do. The endgame will be fullblown DRM. Until then, it will be a cat and mouse game.

    wreckedcarzz ,
    @wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

    People do that? Just have their code go on the internet and tell lies?! This is a Christian internet!

    (yes it’s /s)

    eluvinar ,

    exactly, it would be trivial to have a whitelist server side and now only ad friendly apps can access the videos. they only still work because it’s worth keeping those viewers in the system for the time being.

    It’s not trivial to make sure over the network on a device you don’t control that you’re talking with an app you think you are talking with. Just look how multiplayer games fail to combat cheaters and resort to kernel anticheats, and then still fail to assure the players are actually using the legit application. It’s actually pretty much impossible in any open ecosystem, maybe possible on something like chromecast where you get to control almost anything (as long as someone doesn’t hack it to run custom firmware, like they do with every console ever).

    Not only is this impossible, it always makes the experience for your legit users worse (but hey, if they are fine with the level of ads on yt today they probably don’t care if google were to mine bitcoins on their phones).

    Chee_Koala ,

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c38a1784-7a8e-440a-8ec8-1917f691dd34.jpeg

    huginn ,

    Same with revanced right now.

    can ,

    If they ever manage to kill it I’ll simply quit YouTube and be better for it.

    huginn ,

    I’ll be very sad to quit it but I will too.

    I can’t live without sponsorblock

    can ,

    It would pain me to scrub through a sponsor without being to submit it to the database.

    HexesofVexes ,

    Somewhere out there a CEO thought this was a good idea. All it seems to be doing is pushing people to other platforms (the younger gen moving over to tiktok and the older gens moving 3rd party or just offline).

    dinckelman ,

    While I agree, the amount of people who’d do this is negligibly small, compared to their total userbase. Obviously a bunch of people use ad blockers, but only a tiny amount of them have modified apps, followed by an even tinier amount of those people with fully custom frontends. For YT it might work out as a net positive, because the annoying blocks and reminders will just pressure people into paying for Premium.

    At the end of the day, I could just stop watching youtube entirely, if this trend continues. I have nothing to gain there

    Maeve , (edited )

    Yes, been thinking I've just been substituting YT for * TV, and while the consumption can still be customized, it's still a habit that can be kicked. I bet I'll get more sleep and productivity.

    • Lol autocorrect
    theneverfox ,

    Several months ago, fresh off the high of following through on my resolution to leave Reddit forever, I made the same decision with YouTube. Once ublock stopped working, I’d try out peer tube, or maybe sail the seas

    But ublock never stopped working. I watch more YouTube now than ever before, I got totally addicted as I binged in preparation to leave

    At this point, I don’t know if it’d be good for me, or send me in a desperate arms race to get my fix

    webghost0101 ,

    I guess what there really winning is all those non tech-savvy people who currently have an adblocker installed because their friend helped.

    pennomi ,

    Good. Let their stranglehold die.

    RonSijm ,
    @RonSijm@programming.dev avatar

    YouTube is bringing its ad blocker fight to mobile. In an update on Monday, YouTube writes that users accessing videos through a third-party ad blocking app may encounter buffering issues or see an error message that reads, “The following content is not available on this app.”

    Yea, noticed that last week. Is already fixed again in latest revanced.

    Rustmilian ,
    @Rustmilian@lemmy.world avatar

    Revanced will never die. Stand against the Goliath.

    Yawweee877h444 ,

    Vanced died. If revanced dies we’ll just get rerevanced. Ad infitum.

    passepartout ,

    Vanced died because they tried to generate revenue from it and made themselves vulnerable.

    Also, unlike Vanced, Revanced doesn’t distribute modded youtube apks themselves.

    sincle354 ,

    Oh this? It's just a binary of assorted diffs and plugins to a yet unspecified target apk. Why yes, I will use the end product for personal, non-commercial use.

    passepartout ,

    Kind of funny if you read it like that, and while it certainly doesn’t make them immortal, it at least may make them last a while longer i hope.

    sincle354 ,

    It kinda comes out of the experience. There's an outstanding Github issue that notes that a specific version of YT Music is broken past a certain version. Most of the patches fail to apply and you just get the minor ones. You can use the version just before with no issues. How can you litigate against lines of code that don't even work? This is similar to the vulnerability that Yuzu gave up since they offered Patreon-exclusive updates to support a leaked BOTW:TOTK .iso. Easy to prove your intent there.

    baldingpudenda ,

    Didn’t know about the update. Thanks, just did it.

    KpntAutismus ,

    yup, noticed that revanced wasn’t working a week ago.

    went into revanced manager, patched the recommended version, installed gmscore, done.

    suck it youtube, i’m not paying a subscription to watch low effort vtuber edits.

    kratoz29 ,

    Oh, I definitely have experienced “The following content is not available on this app.” Before, but I thought it was just a thing of my Revanced version outdated because I rarely update it… Which I’m gonna do just now 😁

    I hope this doesn’t bring too many issues to Smart Tube, which is where I do 99% of my YT usage (and I have yet to be bothered with any bug).

    viking ,
    @viking@infosec.pub avatar

    Never had any outage in SmartTube either, unless they pushed a faulty release (I’m on the beta channel), but even then they have reacted super fast with fixes.

    So far I’m using NewPipe x Sponsorblock on my phone - apparently it has been discontinued & archived, but still works just fine as well. Only the comment view is broken since a couple weeks, but I really don’t care about those to begin with.

    Bebo ,

    Nowadays I’m using tubular which is newpipe with sponsor block and youtube dislike incorporated.

    jjlinux ,

    Smart Tube in TV and Tubular on phone (plus Grayjay, but but I’m not fond of their UX).

    sugar_in_your_tea ,

    Grayjay

    Yeah, it kind of sucks, and the performance on my phone is worse than NewPipe, but I haven’t found anything else that combines feeds from other sources (Odysee, Nebula, etc), so I still use it.

    There are also some missing features, like browsing channel playlists.

    jjlinux ,

    It has a ways to make it go, for sure. That UX reminds me of WinAmp way back in the day 🤣

    sugar_in_your_tea ,

    WinAmp was awesome! I loved having it as a floating bar to control my music.

    But honestly, the UX is mostly okay for me, except the settings, that really needs some cleanup. Also, rotation is completely broken.

    jjlinux ,

    WinAmp was awesome! I loved having it as a floating bar to control my music.

    Tell me we’re old without saying that we’re old 🤣

    And in Grayjay, I the one thing that’s flawless for me is the screen rotation.

    100% agree that the menus and settings need a serious overhaul.

    https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/ff1e2175-1c6f-4c78-a005-7fe6010e1338.jpeg

    sugar_in_your_tea ,

    the one thing that’s flawless for me is the screen rotation

    Really? So you can watch videos horizontally without the video randomly flipping to vertical and back?

    I’ve tried messing with the settings, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. See this bug report, finding that setting was a nightmare, and it didn’t even do anything. If it was open source, I’d probably go make a fix, but it’s not, so I guess I’ll just complain about it.

    And yeah, that menu sucks as well. I hope Futo hires a UX person because it could be so much nicer to use. I’m impressed at how well it works though, so that dev is doing a top notch job.

    jjlinux ,

    Yup, rotation just works out of the box. Tested on Graphene, Calyx and Stock Pixel Android on a Pixel 7 Pro. Also, what I love about it is that it just works (other than the eventual YouTube captcha) for every instance enabled.

    sugar_in_your_tea ,

    Weird. Mine works a lot of the time, but then randomly flips vertical and then horizontal. I can be holding my phone super stable, and it still does it.

    My phone is kinda old and crappy though (Android 11), so maybe it’s less of an issue on newer phones, but I don’t have this issue on any other app.

    jjlinux ,

    That thing is still in beta, so it stands to reason that it’s not able to do everything right all the time in all devices. My suggestion is that, unless you’re watching on peertube, Odysee, rumble or something like that, stick to Tubular.

    sugar_in_your_tea ,

    I’m really trying to ditch YouTube, so yes, I’m trying to find alternatives on Odysee, Rumble, Nebula, etc.

    viking ,
    @viking@infosec.pub avatar

    Oh good to know, I wasn’t looking for alternatives as long as it still works, but that’s going to be the future then. Thanks!

    Ginger666 ,

    Did they fuck up revanced again?

    Nope, it still works…

    i_have_some_enemies2 ,

    Again implies they fucked it up once to start with…

    Ginger666 ,

    It was patched within a couple hours…

    sodawithoutsparkles.github.io/…/00-first-start/

    discord.com/invite/revanced

    i_have_some_enemies2 ,

    Strange i have been using it last 8h non stop and it’s ok

    Ginger666 ,

    Dude you should prolly gtfo YouTube

    And it was down a couple weeks ago, it hasn’t been down since and this was the first time this has happened since they added the anti adblock popups that were also patched the same day in ublock

    i_have_some_enemies2 ,

    It’s my radio man but as I said, no problems here. I don’t change my version since a couple of months

    Ginger666 ,

    Oh that’s not nearly as bad as watching YouTube 8 hrs straight. Music is good for you

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