What are ‘ads’? 🤷🏼
I dunno. Some strange relic from the 1980s?
Kidding aside, it’s shocking how bad raw YT is. We watch it via Smartube (or PipePipe as needed). I can’t believe people watch “raw” youtube…it’s unwatchable.
If they ever quash SmartTube and PipePipe…well…I imagine Peertube, Nebula, Libby and Curiosity stream will suddenly become a great deal more popular.
I don’t think the powers that be fully grasp the (very delicate) knife edge they walk. They only stay in business so long as they aren’t annoying enough to be replaced. Actually, who am I kidding - they know that exactly and play the delicate “gently gently” boil frogs in a pot game like grandmasters.
The ads seem to be pretty variable depending on usage so I suspect not everyone is seeing the same thing. I rarely use YouTube in any form. When I do and I’m rawdogging it for whatever reason, it seems like I get a few short ads, like 30s or less. They’re annoying but not awful.
A friend keeps YouTube running constantly on his TV in the background while he works. He gets so many ads and they’re so long! Like several minutes of ads, mostly unskippable, over the course of a 15 minute video. I don’t know how people deal with that shit.
Man, they must LOVE people like him!
Surely, he must know he’s actively contributing to the issue. No?
I would be shocked if he cared. It’s just not amongst his concerns.
If they just made the ads unintrusive people wouldn’t bother installing adblockers. But sure make the ads longer and see what happens.
Exactly, people used to love ads. They would sit down and watch hour long compilation videos of the funniest and weirdest ones. People would get hyped for shit like Old Spice and Skittles and never skip it. Even the Superbowl was less entertaining than the ads it had and that was a mainstream opinion.
It’s the exact same as the boomers who keep crowing “Why doesn’t anyone wanna work?!” but now it’s “Why doesn’t anyone want ads?!” lmao
If they made ads unobtrusive they wouldn’t be able to charge as much for them.
Also changed how ads are served so they wouldn’t be a known security issue. Intrusive or not I will block all of them until security improves.
I have said it before, and I’ll say it again.
As an IT guy I consider an adblocker an essential part of my computer security suite.
I will not reconsider until there are laws in place forcing website owners to take legal and financial responsibility for any damage sustained to my computer when visiting their site, and loading their ads.
IF the laws are changed like that, I would reconsider getting rid of my adblocker, ai still wouldn’t but I would reconsider the issue.
Scariest ads are the ones if you accidentally click redirects and opens up another site on your browser.
Wrong. Still would.
Nah, take a look at the stats of the number of people who tried out an adblocker for the first time when Youtube attempted to ban them several months back. Streisand Effect in action.
It’s like you don’t care about stonks and shareholder value.
I care about those things.
I want them to go down faster >:)
Time to double down on the adblocks, then. I get it conceptually, but I still don’t understand this need for infinite growth at everyone’s expense.
Right? If I don’t otherwise pay for the service then sure, some ads are fine. Problem is that at this point I’m seeing ads every few minutes, and if the video restarts in a weird spot and reloads funny after I reopen my laptop I might even get the same ads looping after literally two seconds of video.
Also, I was paying for the service and then they gave a fuckload of support to Israel to spread propaganda so I stopped.
I clearly need to up my adblock game. But do y’all also use PeerTube, Nebula, Curiosity Stream? Happy to vote with dollars if there’s a good candidate.
I like freetube for desktop and pipepipe for Android. Both, block ads, block channels, let you subscribe and make playlists locally, skip sponsors, download videos.
More reliable than browser and adblock. Only when it breaks due to some youtube change do I use browser, but the app still functions like a rss providing you with your subscription feed to launch it in browser.
My issue with those sites is that since they’re not direct mirrors, they don’t have a dedicated archive. And since archive.org has stopped saving youtube videos, that could lead to a lot of lost media. It’s a cultural cornerstone that’s been around for nearly two decades. If I can’t access 15 year old YGOTAS videos then it’s just not a viable replacement to me lol
I’ve been using grayjay lately and when it needs to play an unskipable add you just get a nice looking blank screen to look at instead.
Nebula is pretty good and I’m happy to support creators making quality content.
UBlock Origin on Firefox murders all YouTube ads. Works great. Would recommend.
I support Iran striking Google offices and datacentres
Nothing is ever enough
Line must go up!
Good thing YouTube itself is skippable.
Am I bad because I pay for YouTube? I watch it so so much on different devices and also use YouTube music instead of Spotify. The paid teir hasn’t undergone enshittification yet (it always does). Thats when ill stop.
Nah, nothing wrong with that. The problem isn’t users, it’s what the company expects from users.
I’m long past the point of even considering paying Google a dime for other people’s content.
I’m getting sick of titles like these “… this changes everything…”, “scientists are mystified”, “…nobody knew…”, or some ridicoulus question as title. Majority of creators are hinting lately that yt “suggests” how to title and organize the topic for maximum visibility and monetization. In effect mandating their enshittification features.
Nvm, the moment NewPipe stops being able to play a video in a normay way is the end of yt for me. Just like I left reddit for lemmy.
Yeah damn I refuse to click on that stuff. I like the slow content which is what I’m subscribed to and is all ill watch
I sure like it. “Free” YouTube is like using a browser without an blocker now - I forget how bad it is and I can’t believe people live like that.
Being able to cancel Spotify was a nice bonus too.
“Free” YouTube is like using a browser without an blocker now
What do you mean? UBlock Origin kills all the YouTube ads. Not giving money to Google is perfectly fine.
That’s why they invented adblock lol
I too pay for youtube because i also use music and use it in 3 separated place. Honestly it worth it for me, and it’s not as expensive even after the price hike recently. Until it gone to the shitter i’ll keep using it.
Nothing wrong with that. I pay for YouTube premium. Tbh I got fed up with all the hoops on mobile so I just started paying for it and honestly, its been a good fit for me.
I watch a ton of YouTube content so paying for it to support creators and not having ads is fine with me.
How much do they actually get from that?
You’re not bad, google is bad.
I’d suggest already exploring alternatives now. There’s front ends, alternate links, … all with pro’s and cons.
I will say though, once you stop using an account and cut out the feed/algo out of your diet it becomes apparent very quick how much of a grip they hold on our attention just by the layout and such. Now I just check 2 channels every few days and even that’s losing my interest.
Yeah you’re literally part of the problem lol
You’re actively funding enshittification, at least the rest of us are innocent
Gen X made 90 minute cassette recordings of their favorite music. Back then you could lower the volume to ignore ads and wait for the DJ to trigger your recording. Today I just use the mute on the remote and have my other device handy to watch some other content while waiting for show to come back to the main content. It’s always good to have a mantra about adverting by associating it in your head as indoctrination “Poison” which is what it is essentially.
WATCH THE ADS OR IT’S PIRACY!
The private yt-dlp/ffmpeg/python3 webapp I made to download YouTube videos just got 10 threads wider, and YouTube is gonna pay for it
I know this is a joke but you can get more throughput with async I/O for this use case. It lacks a good punchline though
Share it dude!!!
I built it mostly for my mum and dad so that dad could download MP3 music and mum could download her sewing videos and play them in VLC.
Thing is, the domain is registered to me, hosted on my own metal, and run in my own house. I don’t really think I’m smart enough to fully secure and obfuscate my site, but also not dumb enough to let the public go ham on it while exposing myself to legal action from one of the most powerful companies on earth.
If I get time soon, I’ll try to spin up a clone with some layers of protection and anonymity, and share that.
opening up the instance is very risky indeed, but I think they meant the source code
Freetube works great. You’ll get IP blacklisted, VPN fixes that.
Unpopular opinion but youtube + music is good value.
But my journey here was unique.
I grew up during the era when ipods / mp3 players incentivized having personal libraries of music files. After itunes became hostile towards that I switched to Google Music which allowed you to upload music files and stream them to your devices. It was great because I had some obscure remixes and indy band albums that I’d lost the CD for years ago.Ended up paying for Google Music after a 3 month trial.
Eventually Google Music became Youtube Music and with it came Youtube Premium. Tried Spotify but it didn’t have some artists that I can’t remember now anyways. So I just kept paying for youtube music and not seeing ads on youtube.
… Not to be a Dick to you, but imagine paying money to Google. Wow.
Maybe youre too young to remember when iTunes charged $15 for a digital album in .AAC
Thanks more making lemmy just a little bit redditer.
I am talking about ethics here. Not your favourite method of listening to music.
Paying money to Google is one of the worst unethical decisions you can do.
Hate me as you want, but this is just the raw truth.
We need to pick our battles. I don’t see much difference in paying Google for a service than having a Spotify family plan like I do. I know spotify has its own problems and my money would be more ethically spent on some other service, but with everything else going on life I can’t be arsed to switch to anything right now. For me it gives enough value for the money spent and that’s good enough for now.
For the ppl who didn’t read it properly: Its an unskippable ad feature, like we have in cable tv, but ONLY for TV audience. Don’t think it is going to be implemented on browser based sessions.
What’s the best way to avoid the ads if you can’t just block them with your router anymore?
Ublock origin has been working for YouTube for me, they’ve had some rough patches where YouTube updated and then they had to update, but it’s been smooth for the past couple years.
That works fine on my pc or phone, but it’s not a viable solution for a tv.
Hook an old PC up to your TV and use a wireless keyboard to control it. Don’t use the TV’s software.
Grayjay has been working well for me lately. I expect I’ll just see more “waiting for media to become availible” screens soon.
Download the videos with yt-dlp and watch them locally. If you have a home server, you can set it up to automatically download new videos from specific playslists or channels and add them to Jellyfin.
The simple answer is to not use YT, coming from someone that uses YT. Also, if there isn’t already, there will be something developed that will do the trick. It’s a game of cat and mouse. If they can feed them, then there will be a way to detect them and block them. At least that’s my expectation anyway.
What’s the end game with YouTube? Will it eventually cut all videos and show nothing but ads?
Ahhh, so similar to Facebook then. I don’t bother with that site either.
The ironic part is that there was a time where I’d watch hours long compilation videos of funny ads, and even now I watch 90s nostalgia ones set to vaporwave mixes. Hell, every person and their grandmother I knew at one time watched the Superbowl “just for the ads”.
At some point, the goal of marketing shifted from “How do we keep your attention/whimsy” to “How can we force unwilling participants to comply?” Fuck that fascismo shit.
That’s always been the goal of marketing.
It’s called enshittification.
Demolition Man becoming increasingly prescient.
