For context I’m in the US. The last time I used YouTube without an ad blocker, there were 2 ads back to back, and way too frequently. I tried watching on my PlayStation tonight, and not only are they more frequent, they’ve increased in quantity by 150%. It’s also very common for the last ad to last 2 minutes to over an hour long. What the actual fuck, why would anyone watch YouTube without an ad blocker at this point? It’s literally unwatchable
Edit: the amount of unsolicited advice in the comments is unreal. I don’t get ads on my phone or on desktop, I’m very aware of how to block them. I simply won’t watch YouTube on my PlayStation anymore. I’m not looking for suggestions, please stop with the recommendations.
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Geez, so many entitled people in this thread. If Google didn’t get their yearly revenue growth, their poor execs wouldn’t be able to afford their 3rd yacht! Stop being selfish and subscribe to premium already! /s
Yeah yeah, can’t afford rent and food, whatever. Have you tried not being poor? Give Google their money you selfish pricks
Wasn’t that something Paris Hilton said? 😆 “Have they, like, tried not being poor?” I may have added the “like”. But it’s very plausible it was there!
What about the content creators? I don’t care about Google, but I want the people who make the things I enjoy to get paid.
Sure, you can subscribe to patreons, but you can’t subscribe to everyone’s, and frankly, 99% of people don’t subscribe to any.
I guess we can all just say ha doesn’t matter I got mine and try to not think about it. I guess that is the plan.
It’s not your responsibility to make up for Google’s shortcomings. They’re a ~5 trillion dollar company now. They could easily change their payment structure if they wanted to, but they don’t because their shareholders are more important. If a company with >10^8 times more net worth than you isn’t going to bother, then don’t make it your responsibility.
It’s sad, but unfortunately, the creators made a deal with the devil, and it’s not regular people’s responsibility to get them out.
And don’t forget, there was a time when nobody made any money for posting things on youtube - it was just a site for sharing things people found novel and interesting, with no expectation of remuneration whatsoever. I would even argue that it was a much better time to be there than it is now - back before they had recommendation algorithms pushing people to all kinds of deplorable content and pushing the biddings of far-right dictators. Rewarding Google for this kind of behavior only makes it worse.
The majority of people that uploaded their video on youtube never see those ads money because they don’t meet the criteria to receive ad revenue, and those that do, get so little and earn most of their income from other sources (endorsements, paid review, etc). Those minority who blocked ads don’t really affect content creator’s bottom line in a meaningful way. Subscription is another matter though because it pays higher rates, though still pretty low compared to other income stream.
If you truly care about a creator you can buy their some of their merch. The profit from that will out-value watching every one of their videos with ads for the foreseeable future.
An hour of YouTube ads is simply apocalyptic
IDK why the hell it’s allowed, but a lot of times people will buy adspace and just put an entire video in it, or worse, a company buys the adspace and puts the entire pilot to a TV show in there. I’ve seen both things happen more than once. Who in their right mind clicks on a YouTube video, sees the pilot to a show they’ve never heard of or a random clickbait video and thinks “Oh, I wanna watch this!”
The ad driven internet needs a severe correction
The net worth of tech giants also needs a severe correction.
Not just tech giants of course, pretty much all large >billion dollar companies need it too. But tech is a great place to start.
the first time i watched the lego movie it (the full film) was an ad played during the trailer for the second movie. and it (the movie) didn’t have ads in it.
This is wild haha I wonder if it was just someone trying to piss off the studios by popping that in there for free or something? I guess that way it’s guaranteed to never have ads for anyone, ad blocker or not.
We watched that ad too. Hilariously enough it was on a video for the trailer for Lego movie two or whatever.
The worst part about those is
When the ad is actually something I want to watch, there is no way to open it as a seperate video. Once I click off it’s fucking gone forever. It’s such backwards design. The few times I have interest in an ad I can’t even properly check watch it!
the first time i watched the lego movie, it (the full feature) was an ad played during the trailer for the second movie–and it didn’t have any ads in it either.
They didn’t want you to spoil the first movie, so they made sure you had the chance to see it. That’s a hundred percent something LEGO would do.
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Thanks for grounding me. That make sense
‘Sir, would you like some video with your ad?’
OP, I know exactly what you’re talking about.
I was visiting relatives this Christmas and wanted to watch some of my YouTube videos on their SmartTV. I have watched YouThe with ads on occasion throughout the years…usually when watching some video on a relative’s device or school or work computer or something. They are annoying, but mostly fairly manageable. So I started up a 20 minute vid from a youtuber I like.
I shit you not…within the first 5 fucking minutes of the video, there were 5 separate ad breaks. And each ad was going to play for minutes on end if I never hit the skip button.
Yep, you read that right. One ad per minute. I am NOT exaggerating. I counted them and watched the video timestamps.
I almost could not believe what I was seeing. My mind was fucking blown. Never have I ever experienced that egregious level of ads. It made the content I was trying to view literally unwatchable and I switched off the video.
To OP, I’d highly recommend getting an Android tv device like a modern Chromecast (not the old models…needs to run android). They are relatively inexpensive and make viewing content on TVs a sane experience. I think I maybe got mine for $40 or something. Install SmartTube Next and you’ll have no ads. Works fantastic. You set it up once and never worry about it again.
I really appreciate your response
I don’t even use my tv for a tv. I just hook up my laptop to play games. If I wanna watch movies, shows, or videos I got my jellyfin client and youtube is ad free with ubo and firefox
Zero ads is the norm for me.
Also, zero YouTube.Zero ads and all the YouTubes for me so long as that isn’t possible anymore.
The same here. I know ublock Origin still works with the update but I just stopped and I am streaming my own content.
This should go in “VeryInfuriating”. I agree YouTube has become unwatchable without any kind of ad-block or cheap Premium
It’s become unwatchable with ad-block, too.
For me it still works (Germany, Linux+Firefox+ublock), but page loading takes forever, and knowing that that’s intentional just makes me not want to use it anymore. Feels like there’s a bouncer telling me to wait in line for watching a video.Have you tried this extension? https://add0n.com/useragent-switcher.html
iOS: Video Lite Android: Vanced Android TV: Smart Tube
Stop watching YouTube ads. Use a third party player.
And for everything it works on: just use Firefox with ublock origin!
Add SponsorBlock for in-video sponsors while you’re at it!
Oh yeah duh. I just sometimes disable it because it can be wonky and skip important pieces with how tagging works.
That takes actual money away from the actual creators though (instead of just the exec’s fat bank accounts), so use with some consideration. Don’t drain money from youtubers you enjoy.
No it doesn’t; the creators have already been paid for their sponsorship. Sponsorblock just skips it the same as you would.
Actually that’s not quite how it works from my understanding. Youtube is able to provide detailed metrics that can provide information like “how many people actually watched the sponsor segment?” and base the payouts on that. The payout will either be based on estimated views in advance (meaning if it’s lower than expected they’ll pay less next time) or they’ll pay after the video has been live for some period of time.
Where are you getting this insight from exactly?
You…don’t believe it works like that? Ultimately a sponsor isn’t going to pay much if no one watches the spot. Advertising has always involved getting as much data as possible on how your ads are doing.
I don’t have any one definitive link that will tell you “this is how it works”, but I’ve picked up a few things from the various discussions I’ve seen some youtubers have.
Also, if you watch a video you like, do yourself a favor and download it. Save it. Archive it. It’s only a matter of time before they either take it down or derank it because they want to push you to some other more profitable video stream. Bonus points because it doesn’t give them analytics information on it when you go back to watch it again, or watch a specific part again.
I’ve started doing this for all kinds of content - technical videos, music, funny clips, games, etc.
Congrats, you didn’t read anything I wrote!!
why would anyone watch YouTube without an ad blocker at this point
You answered your own question in the actual post I think? Or what is your question? Do you have a question? There’s a question mark in your title. Do you want tips or to just rant?
I read your edit and thought “how bad could it be?”
I started reading the comments and it was way worse than I thought.
The most upvoted comments all display a great deal of “I only read 2 words of your original post” energy.
I didn’t bother with an adblocker until recently myself because I was okay with a couple of ads or mentioning sponsors.
Then, one day, the ads just multiplied on every video. It was that sudden for me. After a couple of days, I downloaded apps for my phone and TV and it’s been wonderful.
I’ll watch YT in all its horribleness on my consoles if I’m looking for something game-related and I don’t want to get up and grab my phone.,
I really appreciate your comment, and thank you for sharing your experience
Newpipe
Newpipe on phone
SmartTube on TV
Firefox with adblock on computer
Holy trinity of YouTube delivery.
On PC you also have Invidious and Piped
Firefox mobile has ad block and sponsor block now
Revanced for now until that gets shut down
Newpipe is also an alternative to consider
Why would it get shut down?
Vanced got shut down, thats why there’s Revanced.
Of course Google is going to do everything in their power to hit it. They’re well within their rights to disable accounts associated with these apps, too, btw, they just haven’t yet. It’s always an option if they feel like it though.
I have a theory that they want you to get so annoyed that you suck it up and pay for premium.
Instead, I decreased my YouTube consumption, turned on my adblocker for low-quality content, or content from an unmonetized creator, or content showing something technically illegal (game OSTs or a motorcycle review involving going 2x the speed limit), and donated to some patreons and purchased a year of Nebula.
Quick PSA: they don’t currently block VPNs, so you can sign up for an account in a cheap country (I picked Nigeria) and use a foreign currency debit card (I use Revolut) to get Premium for like £1.50 a month for my entire family.
If they close that loophole then I think I’ll be done with it, the ads make it basically unusable these days.
I think YouTube is dying.
Already, I see many of my favourite channels being restricted (one Ukrainian blogger) whilst the completely moronic, yet dangerous conspiracy theory/Flat-Earthers flourish.
Meanwhile, the most common thing we see is the push to sign up and pay them - yet with all the censorship (not simply censored for non-paying customers to allow the advertisements) it is not a viable option.
Thankfully I still use a Desktop - with Firefox and decent extras the actual ads are still not affecting me at all, but YouTube’s policies really are.
They are completely above the law - they don’t need to respect their own TOS (the reasons many people are blocked is more related to some secret narrative, and it goes against their own stated terms).
There is no way to appeal outside YouTube, and good luck with any idea of taking them to court for removing your income stream, or censoring a very useful source of information whilst spamming you with algorithms that treat you like Spongebob, and expect you to watch completely moronic content.
I suggest YouTube is a conspiracy to destroy the world, starting with the world population’s ability to think.
Convince me I’m wrong ;)
the reasons many people are blocked is more related to some secret narrative
Source?
There seem to be many ‘sources’. Youtube have a policy where you can show explosions, you can show guns shooting as long as you can’t see the targets - it’s clearly written. Yet several people are demonetised for showing clips related to Ukraine for a start - and YouTube doesn’t respond to requests to explain, it’s a secretive policy that doesn’t follow the written policy.
It’s also very easy to find other videos which would more clearly break the actual rules as they are written. Basically, they do have an agenda - it applies to many similar channels - and they keep very quiet about real reasons for doing so, instead quoting some bullshit rule which isn’t true, and doesn’t apply, both at the same time.
It could also be that their algorithm is shit.
Is that EeOneGuy? I haven’t heard about the guy leading the Russian-speaking YouTube.
ReVanced 👍. Or any other app that gets rid of them.
Dunno, I haven’t watch a single add in the past 5 years or so.
Won’t someone think of the trickle down economics?? How will creators get paid!!
They creators already moved to patreon since YT doesn’t pay off.
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