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YouTube's server-side ads resulted in a black screen for ad blocker users

Mashable reports that users ran into a black screen on YouTube, and that it stayed for about 6 seconds before the video began playing. The reports indicate it affected several browsers including Firefox, Edge, Vivaldi.

Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad. While that’s certainly a better experience, it does waste precious seconds of our time. A simple workaround for the black screen on YouTube is to just refresh the page, hit F5 as soon as the page starts loading. uBlock Origin’s filters were updated with a patch to resolve the problem, the add-on updates its filters automatically. If you are still experiencing the black screen issue, just open the extension’s dashboard and manually update the filters. This tug-of-war is getting annoying, but it appears to me that Google’s efforts are actively promoting the use of ad blockers, instead of attracting new subscribers.

CosmoNova ,

Yeah I know. Youtube tested them on me for only a day and yes of course I would rather see a black screen than an ad. I am not that needy for background noise that I would want to listen to an ad of the millionth MLM scam this month.

sunzu ,

This is my book case and I love to read. Don't mind the lambo, focus on the books!

GoOnASteamTrain ,

Thank you for reminding me of this!

It’s wasn’t that long ago that I was in a little lamborghini, and sleeping on bookshelves.

Teknikal ,
@Teknikal@eviltoast.org avatar

I think this is going to continue to the point we have AI adblockers that edit the files free of ads for us in real-time. Then hopefully the technology jumps to Televisions etc.

Google’s really helping it along in that direction.

LainTrain , (edited )

Before Sponsorblock I had an idea of abusing YT’s auto-generated subtitles to auto-skip sponsor spots in a very rough manner

themoonisacheese ,
@themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works avatar

Someone has apparently toyed with the idea of using AI to detect sponsor segments in subtitles to generate sponsorblock segments. I don’t think it went anywhere though.

lemann ,

The community is ridiculously fast at submitting segments IME, especially on tech-oriented channels. Tubular even allows you to submit segments right from within the app which is really handy.

I feel the benefits of automatically detecting them (AI or otherwise) would be easier to realize at a larger scale - sounds really interesting though. Training such a thing probably wouldn’t be too difficult seeing as we have a massive library of timestamps in Sponsorblock’s database

Usernameblankface ,
@Usernameblankface@lemmy.world avatar

Well, I’d rather see blankness than another ad.

solsangraal ,

it’s nuts that no one likes ads yet advertising wouldn’t be a billions of dollars industry if they didn’t work

Sibbo ,

No one likes being manipulated. I like ads that promote healthy living for example, if they don’t secretly promote any brand or product. They are pretty rare though, almost only in some public health care facilities.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I’ve seen a few ads recently that are just random as hell, don’t say a product name and don’t even have a website or link to find out what it is even advertising. They always make me wonder how they’re working, if they’re working. They seem like just a waste of money and time for everyone involved, including the advertiser themselves.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

The people that do spend the time trying to find out what it is for will remember the eNgAgEmEnT from needing to find out what it is and that correlates with future sales. Just like “rewards” programs that are designed to mentally lock someone into the store/product while harvesting their data.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

I use adblockers but my parents don’t. Visiting my folks and seeing the ads they get served is just bizarre. They get served ads in Spanish even though there’s nothing about the account, device or geolocation that would indicate the audience is Spanish speaking, they get very long ads for medicines, which…you know how they always list an increasingly long and concerning bunch of side effects? Well the last one I saw ended with a full reading of the drug’s MSDS. They get ads from car dealers half a continent away, campaign ads for a different state’s legislature…Why was there ever a television advertisement even made for General Electric power plant turbines? Who’s watching Zeltik, gets a mid-roll ad for gigawatt generator components and makes any kind of decision based on what they saw?

Kolanaki , (edited )
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I also get ads in Spanish often when watching on my TV (no adblocker)… Dunno if that’s just because I am in California or if my phone or other devices picked up my Spanish speaking neighbors and assumes I also speak Spanish. I mean, I do, but not well or often.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

This is on a Smart TV specifically. I haven’t seen this behavior on a PC or phone…again because it’s my parents’ house, they watch videos on their smart TV. So I don’t know if it makes system language available the way a web browser does…? I will say Spanish is the second-best guess in this area.

crimsoncobalt ,

I think you’re giving companies too much credit. Freakonomics did a series called “Does Advertising Actually Work?” and the tl;dr was ¯_(ツ)_/¯

freakonomics.com/…/does-advertising-actually-work…

freakonomics.com/…/does-advertising-actually-work…

solsangraal ,

i think human psychology is too nebulous and qualitative with way too many factors to definitively “measure” how effective ads are. all they really know is (most of the time) buy ads, revenue goes up.

but there’s a reason your personal data is so coveted by advertisers. if they can parse that you’re an avid hiker from the millions of data points they collect from you (websites visited, geolocation data, other purchases, etc), then they can sell ads for $400 hiking boots specifically for you, that people who never leave their couch and order delivery from hungry howies every day would just ignore

Ilovethebomb ,

I suspect that’s why Facebook makes so much money, they have a lot of information on you like that.

In a weird way, this is actually quite handy, as you get ads for things that are actually relevant to you.

solsangraal ,

dude, ads are bullshit. you should never buy anything based on the seller’s ads. and i used to say a good way to research products was go to the niche subreddit, or even amazon reviews, but those are so full of bullshit shills anymore it’s hard to know.

HelixDab2 ,

Beat me to this.

Advertisers tend to be strongly opposed to measuring advertising effectiveness, because if they’re not effective, then they’re out of a job.

Lost_My_Mind ,

What I’ve found is that advertising only works if I already wanted that product. That advertisement doesn’t have to be these huge ad campaigns that they currently do. It could be as simple as showing a still image of a twix bar, and saying “Hey! Go buy a twix!” Yeah, ok.

But if I wasn’t already planning on buying that product? Well that ad time may as well have been some archival footage showing the inside of a 1940s concentration camp in use.

That is to say, both are things that you find offensive to have to be watching, and neither are going to entice you to buy the product.

munches on a twix bar

…what?

un_owen ,

The main purpose of ads isn’t to sell you a specific product immediately, their real purpose is to expose you to their brand to make the brand more familiar (and therefore more trustworthy) to you.

For example, recently, I needed a new insurance. So of course I went to the websites of the 5 insurance companies that I knew from advertising and compared their offers. Then I went to a comparison portal, which again I knew from the ads. The best offer was from a brand I didn’t know so I went with the second one which was from a well known brand. I trusted the second offer more, simply because the brand felt more familiar to me.

Here’s another story: there is this big online clothing store. I always hated their ads, they were really annoying, and at that time I didn’t understand why anyone would buy clothes online. So guess where I went, 5 years later, after a disappointing offline shopping tour, in desparate need for new clothes?

PixeIOrange ,
@PixeIOrange@lemmy.world avatar

The sad thing is: ads dont need to be liked to work. Making enjoyable ads is expensive, making annoying ads that still work is cheaper

bionicjoey ,

That’s because they are psychological warfare. They don’t need to be liked because the goal isn’t to create a positive association with the product, it’s to brainwash people into thinking they need the product

eronth ,

Or sometimes just remind you the product exists. They don’t have to make you like <insert snack here>, but when you see it you end up thinking “man it’s been a while since I’ve had <snack>”. Next then you know, you’re grabbing <snack> at the grocery store because you’ve been thinking about it lately.

AbidanYre ,

Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!

barsquid ,

That was certainly memorable but also I did not buy any.

solsangraal ,

Yum Yum, Bumblebee, Bumblebee Tuna!!

FiskFisk33 ,

well, as long as the companies buying the ads think they work, we have an industry

solsangraal ,

i am also immune to ads lol

Gullible ,

Until they subtly inject them into other social media platforms, whereupon they’ll trickle into Lemmy like so much piss from an overflowing toilet. Mark my words, we’ll be up to our eyes in piss by 2026.

KillingAndKindess ,
@KillingAndKindess@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Luckily for me, I have the new AntiAdAssAdapter™, so I don’t have to worry about that kind of stuff at all. Finally! I have the time to do what I want like take my grandkids to their school performance, or sit and nod at my clearly pregnant daughter while we look over a baby crib catalogue! Thanks Quadruple A!

tabular ,
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

Can you think of something you may have bought which you saw an advert for it years ago? Does or doesn’t have to be the first time you became aware of it.

solsangraal ,

lol i was mostly being facetious, in reply to the number of people in this thread expressing extreme skepticism about whether ads work at all

for myself, i’m sure they have worked and probably do work, but i can tell you that i make every effort to avoid even seeing them, because i fucking hate them. i use ublock origin. i don’t watch tv. i torrent movies. i pay for tidal. that still doesn’t eliminate billboards and other forcibly shoved bullshit into daily life

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

I have enjoyed the content of creators on YouTube, content that perhaps wouldn’t have come to exist without adverts, but if I could press a magic button to make it so anyone could easily prevent adverts then I would.

A simple reduction in copyright term (say 10 years) would allow authors to be creative with existing works - newbies need not start from scratch. After 10 years users could choose a copyright work from who they’d prefer created it, rather than who currently owns the “IP” trading card to a work/franchise for the next ~150 years.

terminhell ,

I can’t think of a time I’ve seen an ad and thought, ya that’s exactly what I need in my life.

Fermion ,

My wife worked for a company that was heavily reliant on generating leads from ads. They had lots of real time monitoring of conversion rates to make sure they were actually making more money than they were spending on the ads. They would have to turn ad channels off all the time because the return on ad spend went negative.

So my conclusion is that ads can be somewhat effective for companies, but if they don’t actively monitor and control the performance of their ads, they’re probably just burning money. A lot of companies seem to advertise because they think that’s the only way to grow.

meco03211 ,

Was it a niche company/product?

Fermion , (edited )

No, the company is publically listed with around 1 Bil market cap.

MonkderVierte , (edited )

Or they work somewhat, resp. in some cases and the rest is make believe in execeutives, a waste of money. Let’s say 50/50?

Crismus ,

The problem started when they went from a basic preroll ad, to unskippable and then the large amount of mid-roll ads to push people into buying premium just as they increased the price.

solsangraal ,

the real problem is that people will complain about it for a minute, then buy it anyway

warm ,

People accepted unobtrusive ads, it's once they started taking over the actual content that they became a big no-no. The ad companies and ad-reliant websites fucked themselves.

thehatfox ,
@thehatfox@lemmy.world avatar

Apparently there are some people that like ads, and a larger amount who may not like them but are willing to tolerate them.

Those of us who will make proactive choices to not engage with advertising are the minority.

Lost_My_Mind ,

My mom (mid 70s) says “Oh I don’t mind the commercials. It gives me a break to go pee.”

And when I say “or you could just get a dvr, and pause for as long as you want, any time you want.”

Her response was “Yeah…but who wants to do all that???”

Um…boomers are weird.

Ilovethebomb ,

Lemmy users typically vastly overestimate the amount of hassle people are willing to put up with to deal with technology.

It’s why we have so many Linux evangelicals.

Lost_My_Mind ,

Granted I agree with the overall spirit of your reply, I don’t agree with it in terms of hitting the pause button on a remote. She’s had VCRs before. And DVD players. She knows how this works. Hitting the pause button and hitting the play button has to be THE easiest form of technology I can think of.

But for Linux? Yeah. The platform has been around something like 30 years, and STILL only has 4% of the overall userbase, despite the fact that only the rich can afford a Mac, and Windows is so trouble ridden these days, that it’s actively like living in the book 1984. Yet, nobody is switching to Linux, because it’s Linux.

But if you try to point out the problems that average people have with Linux, you get told “Then YOU create your own fork. It’s open source!”

Like, c’mon. I don’t even know how to USE Linux. You think I know how to program???

Because overall, I think Linux COULD BE superior to windows…if it were easy to figure out what the hell I’m doing. I tried to unmute my speakers. On windows, down in the task bar is a speaker icon. Right click it and get some options, or double click it and get a slider bar.

Took me 3 days to figure out how to get audio. I should not need to go into terminal and mess around with 30 paragraphs of copy/paste/troubleshoot to figure out why my speakers aren’t getting audio. This is just one example, but I’m sure SOMEONE is going to chime in, and tell me that I’m wrong, and that Linux is the best, and I’m an idiot.

Ok, I’m an idiot. Sure. Guess what. So are 80% of the userbase. Linux has 4% of the userbase. The reason it’s so small is because Linux doesn’t cater to the idiot. You got people a month ago before Biden dropped out of the race who were undecided voters. Its not like either of the choices are some unknown. I would venture to guess that 1 month ago trump and Biden were two of the most well known people on earth. Their policies and what they stand for are and were well documented. There were still undecided voters.

Those are the people Linux needs to cater to. The people who forget how to tie their shoes. The people who don’t have a thought running through their heads, and then get distracted by a butterfly.

I’ve used an Android phone for 10+ years at this point. Android is written in Linux. Android doesn’t have this problem. Any idiot can use Android. I would venture to say that 100% of Android users have no idea what Terminal is. If you asked them to use terminal, they’d say “Terminal? Are you dying?”

So, I see Linux as this potentially great thing…that’s utterly useless because it’s developed by elitists who hold the mentality that if they had to suffer, so should all of you. Problem is, instead of advancing Linux, they’re just holding it back from what should be a much bigger userbase. Just so they can say “Ha ha, I know how to use it. It’s easy for me! Now YOU learn.”

Not taking into account that people like me will still keep using a Windows 7 PC that’s not been updated in about a decade. And I genuinely don’t know if the firewall is even on. Or even how I’d access that.

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

I like to read a catalog when I’m interested in discovering something I may want. An advert on the internet is like a door-to-door salesperson staring through my window.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

This is my impression.

My partner doesn’t care about ads at all. I installed newpipe on her phone but she prefers the yt app, with ads.

Usually in these threads someone starts espousing the virtues of “responsible” or “appropriate” ads.

A common argument is that its the most efficient way to pay for online content. I strongly disagree.

Suffice to say, I think ads are so normalised that most people don’t see them as intrusive.

eronth ,

I legit strongly suspect they don’t work, at least not as well as it’s implied. Like, everyone thinks they work because they used to work really well or something.

ianovic69 ,
@ianovic69@feddit.uk avatar

It’s all much more simple than people think it is. I hate ads, I know I hate them and I generally ignore them. But if I need something, the ads with that in are the ones I notice. Like when you buy a car and start seeing the same car everywhere.

That’s all the general stuff ads, some are crap, some are funny, etc.

Then there’s the top level brands, the big guys with the huge budgets. They advertise to say to the world “we are the biggest and best and don’t you forget it!”

If they stopped, it wouldn’t take long for their biggest competitor to take the lead in market share. And getting it back is almost impossible unless the ground is once again conceded.

So yes, advertising does work. But not really in the way we think it does. Which is why I despise it so much, because it wouldn’t work if we weren’t so busy and preoccupied with all the day to day stuff we are forced into.

We are lab rats, scurrying around trying to get to the end of the maze having finished all the tasks thrown in that become more and more so there’s less time to think and we’ve never been taught differently argh!

You think they don’t know this?

Because if we raised the level of education, the base standards of living, the sense of empathy and kindness we have for eachother, advertising would just look like this -

https://feddit.uk/pictrs/image/869b0117-e0b1-4b46-bbec-6f7e810d5b64.webp

Grimy ,

A lot of people don’t mind ads, they even say they don’t see them anymore, that their brain just tunes them out. Then you look at their spending habits and it’s quite clear they are seeing them.

A big part of the population doesn’t mind being constantly manipulated.

metaStatic ,

This reprieve from modern life brought to you by the colour Black

umami_wasbi ,

Or better, use FreeTube and NewPipe.

original_reader ,

I get a feeling their time will be up soon. I hope I’m wrong.

AceSLS ,

This is the same cat and mouse game hackers have been doing with game-/anticheat developers since multiplayer games became a thing

Are people still cheating? Yes

So unless google manages to pull of their device certification fuckery for PCs it will never work out in their favor

Hazzia ,

NewPipe had to update a couple of times in the past month because YouTube made changes that broke the 3rd party playback. First time it took a few days, but so far it seems they’ve been able to keep up with YouTube’s bs.

I worry for a day when YouTube figures out how to make ads an unskippable part of the video itself so that they’re present with or without adblock, while also maintaining the ability to update them as needed.

circuscritic , (edited )

Piped apps have been broken at least 6 - 8 times in the past couple of weeks.

It’s the biggest Google effort I’ve seen to crack down on 3rd party YT clients.

I actually used to pay for YT premium, then they removed my discount AND raised the price to over $12/mo.

Sometimes I do miss my algorithm feed, just not enough to watch YT ads, or pay $12 - 15/mo.

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