YouTube's 'Ad blockers not allowed' pop-up scares the bejesus out of netizens

YouTube has begun showing a pop-up to some viewers warning them that "ad blockers are not allowed" on the video-sharing site. The banner, which you can see below, appears if the Google subsidiary reckons you're using some kind of content blocker that prevents videos from being interrupted by or book-ended with adverts. …

[claimed]

This will be a fantastic lesson in just how little people give a fuck about the ‘content’. The only reason we go there is it’s “free”

There is plenty of margin to be had with less intrusive adverts when the users flock from YouTube to the next platform.

I can easily cut YouTube out, it’s literally a last resort for entertainment as most of the videos are crap or have some dickhead talking over the top of the original clip I want to watch

No way will I pay. Once in a blue there is a must watch, or I need to watch something for work - fine, sit and wait or be paid by employer for that. On my time? Next!

[VoiceOfTruth]

I don't agree with the sentiment of your post but...

-> it’s literally a last resort for entertainment as most of the videos are crap

It depends. If you want old music vids, where else is there to go? I don't know. Just try 'Prince concert live', for example. There is good stuff on YouTube. I would not go to YouTube to get free content just because it's free. I don't use or go to TikTok because I understand nearly all of that is crap. I could be wrong though as I've never looked.

[msknight]

The easy answer is to download the video using yt-dlp or something like that. Then watch it locally. Problem sorted ... for now.

[Piro]

I have yt-dlp to download videos all the time using scheduled scripts, good tool

There's also freetube, a desktop programme that allows you to browse youtube but bypassing youtube's ui

Of course newpipe×sponsorblock on android can't be recommended highly enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The easy answer is to download the video using yt-dlp or something like that.

unfortunately, yt-dlp is slowed down by youtube (somehow recognize it). There are other, faster download options, free... for now.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: The easy answer is to download the video using yt-dlp or something like that.

"unfortunately, yt-dlp is slowed down by youtube"

Is it? I never noticed. I only just "rediscovered" it recently as a replacement for ytdowloader or whatever it was called and queued[*] up about 20 short videos just the other night and seemed to be downloading at close to 100Mb/s, pretty much maxing out my bandwidth. (Technically, I get 120Mb/s, but I never got around to upgrading the NICs in my firewall box from 100 to 1000Mb/s)

* or is it cued? I'm never too sure in that specific usage. I suppose they are queued for download, not cued and ready to play :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The easy answer is to download the video using yt-dlp or something like that.

yt-dlp has different downloaders.

--external-downloader=aria2c

in yt-dlp's config or as an argument should fix any speed issues.

Concurrent fragment downloading (with -N #) should help too.

[Anonymous Coward]

RaspPi

PiHole

Enjoy watching ad free videos.

Got pissed at listening to an hour long trance video only to have a female hygiene commercial interrupt 4-5 times. The ad pops up for a half second and is gone.

[Scott 26]

>RaspPi

>PiHole

Pihole can't block YT ads

[The Travelling Dangleberries]

DuckDuckGo might be your friend...

Or search for videos via DuckDuckGo and watch them from the DuckDuckGo results page. No ads. Just don't click into YouTube at the end of videos. I tend to use yt-dlp for most videos though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: DuckDuckGo might be your friend...

Probably won't last once people catch on. DDG problably isn't going to play whack-a-mole. They also may have cut a deal in the background as they make you agree to consent to Google pointing the eye of Sauron at you if you play YT content from the search page. Most other hosts are blocked now, forcing you to click through to the hosts site.

[tip pc]

blinkered thinking?

I don't use or go to TikTok because I understand nearly all of that is crap. I could be wrong though as I've never looked.

instead of taking other peoples views on it why don't you go check for yourself?

i see TikTok vids people post on whats app but don't go out of my way to engage on the platform, just like i do with facebook, InstaGram etc. I especially steer clear of FB & IG as i don't like the incessant tracking that goes way beyond the site. But those are the choices i make by myself and not on what the fashionable narrative of the time is.

avoiding something because some randoms on the net make it out to be something to avoid seems like totally the wrong thing to do especially when these platforms attract billions of users, avoiding it because you've tried it and don't like it is totally the thing to do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: blinkered thinking?

So you don't like FB/IG because of their incessant tracking, but allow TikTok... an app/site being blocked by governments around the world because of security risks

I think you may be wearing your blinkers the wrong way round

[Anonymous Coward]

Trackers

Unless you are black holing request traffic, all three of them know when you viewed a page that contained an embed to their content. You don't need to engage, just scroll through the posts.

That said they would PREFER to know about the content you engage with actively, and also which ads you respond to, but they have been happily building a social graph of you and tracing you without your consent the whole time.

[tip pc]

Re: Trackers

Doesn’t work so well if they don’t know who I am because I’ve not logged in.

Also I blat the unique ad id thing etc.

I know it’s not fool proof but we can both pretend it’s ambiguous enough they can’t be sure it’s me.

[tip pc]

Re: blinkered thinking?

Me::

i see TikTok vids people post on whats app but don't go out of my way to engage on the platform, just like i do with facebook, InstaGram etc

AC::

So you don't like FB/IG because of their incessant tracking, but allow TikTok... an app/site being blocked by governments around the world because of security risks

I think you may be wearing your blinkers the wrong way round

Your the 1 with the ill fitting blinkers.

I treat TT/fb/ig etc the same, I only watch the TikTok crap as It doesn’t make me login to view. FB/IG insist on you being logged in to view content there, if I didn’t need to be logged I. Yo see fb/ig stuff I’d likely watch that too.

I don’t have the TT app, I don’t have a TT login, if my tech is compromised because of a TT video then I could likely be compromised by an ad on another site or unsolicited email purporting to be from tescos.

It’s my choice and I believe that the safeguards built into my tech are sufficient to make it safe to watch some crummy TT vids without my device succumbing to some vulnerability that the ccp will use to empty my bank account (already emptied on pay day) or god only knows what.

Hackers are a different kettle of fish, but the ccp state will be wasting their time trying to hack crap from my handset.

[yetanotheraoc]

Re: blinkered thinking?

"avoiding it because you've tried it and don't like it is totally the thing to do."

Sounds like a good way to get an std.

[Anonymous Coward]

Appeal to incompetence?

You "don't really know" about the multitude of legal places to get old music videos because you "never looked".

And you plug Youtube and TikTok, two of the three worst brain rotting cesspools on the internet, both of which are founded on pirating third party content and charging for ads placed over it. And because they are allowed to exist, despite their empire being build on revenue from rampany IP theft, no startup can hope to launch a competing service because the incumbents will strangle new entrants in the crib.

Stop propping up two of the worst companies on the internet and something that isn't both evil and crappy might have a fighting chance.

And semi-ironically several of the cures to your Youtube addiction are only a few clicks away on Google's own search engine...

[Anonymous Coward]

I watch more content on YouTube than TV and get great pleasure from what I watch. The cost of a monthly subscription is well worth it.

Anyone who watches so much content on YouTube that they feel the hurt by the adds, but isn't willing to pay a subscription, is wanting to both have their cake and eat it. You're consuming resource, yet not bringing in revenue. Why do you think YouTube cares if you stop watching?

The entitlement people feel they're due is amazing.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

[ChoHag]

Conversely, Google can only sell their advertising space because the site is full to the brim of users going there for the free stuff. Chumps like you aren't even a blip on the budget sheet. Your line entry is only there so that Google don't have to admit how much us unpaid leeches are actually worth to them.

But I'm sure giving your hard-earned cash to a faceless multinational corporation gives you the warm fuzzies so go on, add to Pichai's billions and feel up your moral compass. You help keep my free stuff free.

[sabroni]

re: Chumps like you aren't even a blip on the budget sheet.

"Late last year, YouTube said it had reached 80 million Premium subscribers, up 30 million from 2021. If you take that 80 million and multiply it by 12 bucks a month, that's $11.5 billion a year."

Yeah, maybe read the fucking article you're commenting on?

[ChoHag]

Re: re: Chumps like you aren't even a blip on the budget sheet.

Well done, Mr. Maths! Now multiply that number by 100 and divide by revenue.

[Piro]

Some fun you must be during an ad break on the telly.

No kids, you MUST glue your eyes to these commercials, no toilet breaks!

No! Mrs AC, don't make me a cup of tea, savour every second of this bog roll ad!

[CowHorseFrog]

Well Netflix added advertising to paying customers, and so have many others in the pay tv game, they have to get those millions for the executives.

The real answer is to kick all those parasitic executives...

[ThatOne]

Came here to say the same thing: The logical next step is showing ads to the paying customers, because of the "no profit is enough profit™" rule.

[Nifty]

"The logical next step is showing ads to the paying customers"

I'm one and have noticed lengthy ads that have to be manually skipped by scrobbling along, embedded by the presenters themselves. Nearly always it's yet another VPN or online 'education' thing. Google seems to be either tolerating or encouraging this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out "sponsorblock". It's available in many alternate youtube clients, and as a browser extension.

[MachDiamond]

"noticed lengthy ads that have to be manually skipped by scrobbling along, embedded by the presenters themselves."

Google is pretty timid when it comes to content so somebody that's even the slightest bit controversial is likely to get their videos demonetized. The only options they have are to do ads in their own videos or try and get support through Patreon (who's privacy statement should make one run away).

Since the ads are in 30 second increments, it's not hard to get past them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the people here who actively block youtube ads said they only did so after youtube went overboard with the ads.

Are you American? Americans have a much higher threshold for loads of ads. Google should note that people in the rest of the world won't tolerate that sort of advert frequency.

[TheFifth]

I tolerated the ads when it was a 5 second, non-skippable ad at the start and end, or a longer ad that allowed you to skip after 5 seconds.

Now though it's two non-skippable15 to 30 second ads at the start and end and if the creator doesn't deselect the 'allow YouTube to automatically place ads' option, then Google will place a 5 to 30 second un-skippable ad every 3-5 minutes. It's just too much. And every content creator is saying that their YouTube ad income is in the toilet. How can the number and length of ads increase by orders of magnitude, but the payout to creators plummet so much? I think we all know.

I mostly watch retro tech electronics videos and they are on the longer side, often 45 minutes and some over an hour. With YouTube auto-placed ads that can be 16 to 20 throughout the video and two at both the start and end. And they are always placed really badly, so the flow of the video is disturbed with ads constantly cutting in right in the middle of something interesting. Thankfully most of the people I watch do switch off the mid-roll ads, but if they forget to the content is unwatchable.

Maybe it's a European thing as we're not used to such incessant and frequent ads, but I just can't watch a video like that. It's too disturbing to the flow of the content.

Now I use uYouPlus installed via AltStore on my iPad (where I watch most YouTube videos). All ads and even sponsored segments within the videos are automatically skipped. YouTube is usable again.

And I'm not expecting the people I watch to provide free content. I instead pay them a small monthly amount via Patreon. So I'm actually paying more than I would for YouTube premium, but I'd much rather the money I spend goes to the people making the content I enjoy, not Google.

[Not Yb]

My dad was happy to just skip through the occasional short ad, even after I mentioned how a certain adblocker could take them out almost completely. Then they started the multiple mid-roll ad system and he got annoyed enough to install it and block all of the ads instead. This sounds like Google got too focused on profit, and is now considering making the experience worse until they start profiting enough again.

[OwnGoal.Gif]

[John Brown (no body)]

"Are you American? Americans have a much higher threshold for loads of ads. Google should note that people in the rest of the world won't tolerate that sort of advert frequency."

Like the relatively recent fad for banner ads during an actual show, after the real (frequent and lengthy) traditional ad break. I'm glad I don't live in the US and can see why streaming such as netflix took off in such a big way over there. The act of putting up with adverts in the US seems to be far more ingrained than in some other countries. They even invented "strip scheduling" so even changing channels rarely gets you away from the ad breaks on broadcast, cable and satellite. In my view, it's fall out from the much vaunted "free market" there which leads to monopolies or at best a very few giants in a market where there may not be actual collusion, but each will follow and/or copy what the others do if it looks like they are gaining an advantage. That makes for giant internet and media companies who then spread their methods around the world, sometimes ignoring local regulations or massive lobbying for changes in their favour (remember artificial DVD "regions"?). I feel the downsides of that model outweigh the upsides.

[-maniax-]

> Americans have a much higher threshold for loads of ads

Americans have been indoctrinated from birth that it's normal for programmes to interrupt their advert streams

I'm reminded of a, what to me, was a ridiculous situation when I was in Florida 20+ years ago

Had the hotel room TV on showing a news channel and there was yet another ad break after which the broadcast returned to the news where the presenter said "and that was tonight's news, good night".

They'd inserted an ad break no more than 5 seconds before the programme was going to end and that was on top of I don't know how many ad breaks that had already been shown during the "30" minute news program

[Not Yb]

My new "dumbest ad I've ever seen" is one for the show I'm currently watching, played during the show. Yeah, they do that now.

[Anonymous Coward]

I make videos. I'm not major, but I have 960 subscribers, and have amassed millions of views in total.

Youtube has never paid me a penny.

[MachDiamond]

"I make videos. I'm not major, but I have 960 subscribers, and have amassed millions of views in total.

Youtube has never paid me a penny."

They have been moving the goalposts further out as time goes by so you have to have many more subscribers and many more views for monetization to kick in. I know a few creators that were always on the edge and could never get over that line and just gave up. They'd invested a lot of time and money thinking that just a few more subscribers or views would lead to some payback and it never did so they cut their losses and stopped posting or cut way back.

[Jellied Eel]

Anyone who watches so much content on YouTube that they feel the hurt by the adds, but isn't willing to pay a subscription, is wanting to both have their cake and eat it. You're consuming resource, yet not bringing in revenue. Why do you think YouTube cares if you stop watching?

The entitlement people feel they're due is amazing.

Indeed. AB InBev spends millions on adverts, therefore you must watch them. No skipping out on this. Obviously this consumes resources on my end, ie the bandwidth consumed, CPU time, or just my time. If AlphaGoo offered to pay me $11.99 a month, I might consider this a fair compensation for the use of my resources.

But that ain't going to happen.

Again the problem is the contempt AlphaGoo has for it's customers, both on the ad supply side, and the viewing side. Despite investing billions in AI and algorithms, and being one of the world's largest privacy invaders and data rapists.. It's increasingly incapable of showing me stuff I want to see. So my usual example of why ad blocking. Two adverts. One was for Twix, with their 'Two girls, one factory' ad, complete with intensely irritating jingle. The other for Virgin telling me about cheap (hah!) train tickets London-Manchester. I don't live in London, I have no need or desire to visit Manchester. But for a time, those were the only 2 ads it was showing me. Often several times in the same video.

Obviously this wasted both my, and the advertiser's time and money. But AlphaGoo doesn't care, even though there are increasing numbers of marketing research papers that show online advertising is often an utter waste of money because it's both unpopular, and not as carefully targetted as marketing types have been lead to believe. Annoying and irritating your prospective customers isn't a way to build good will, or influence buying behaviour in a positive way.

There are however potentially simple solutions. Like actually give content creators and viewers some control and influence over the content and ads they might actually want to see. Anyone who's seen the results of YT's 'recommendations' knows the problem. The stuff that's recommended generally has no relevance to stuff you might actually be interested in. But once the algorithms have decided you might be interested in X, then X is all you'll get. And there's no way to tell YT that you really don't want recommendations for X ever again, so kindly FOAD. YT won't even take the hint when you hit the 'Dont show me content from this channel again'. There is no option to let YT know that I'm just not interested in the latest crypto scam, or make-money-fast scheme.

It's the same with adverts. Despite the data rape, AlphaGoo doesn't seem to know my actual or preferred gender, or lack of kids. So showing me ads based on those categories is just a waste of advertisers money. But AlphaGoo has their money, and doesn't care. It also doesn't care that showing the same ads ad nauseum isn't going to encourage me to buy something, usually it'll do quite the opposite.

[tip pc]

It's the same with adverts. Despite the data rape, AlphaGoo doesn't seem to know my actual or preferred gender, or lack of kids. So showing me ads based on those categories is just a waste of advertisers money. But AlphaGoo has their money, and doesn't care. It also doesn't care that showing the same ads ad nauseum isn't going to encourage me to buy something, usually it'll do quite the opposite.

if they don't keep bombarding you with adds about kids or stuff you think your not interested with then you will never be interested in those things.

If & when you do relent then you'll have all those ads in the back of your mind and know what to google and therefore the ads would have proven to work in the long run!!!

there are stats on these things but you may need to hear/see the same ad 30 times before your persuaded to buy.

Depending on what it is and how saturated the market for those things is you may need even more ads to buy from that brand.

If its warm and you fancy a beer what brand are you going to reach for especially when your preferred brand is not available? the one you cant remember the name of or the one you've seen endless ads for and is front and centre in the cab in the shop.

[Jellied Eel]

Depending on what it is and how saturated the market for those things is you may need even more ads to buy from that brand.

Perhaps I'm just a cantankerous old git that hasn't been properly conditoned in the ways of marketing. Or I read about Pavlov and the way we humans can respond with both negative and positive reinforcement. So if I fancy a chocolate bar, I can browse the racks, see a Twix, hear the bell.. I mean really f'ng annoying jingle, shudder and buy something else instead. It actually suprised me that one ad on heavy rotation succeeded in conditioning me with such a negative response. It almost worked with the Intel jingle, but there's not exactly a lot of choice for CPU vendors.

If its warm and you fancy a beer what brand are you going to reach for especially when your preferred brand is not available? the one you cant remember the name of or the one you've seen endless ads for and is front and centre in the cab in the shop.

Real Bud(weiser), if available. The Czech version is vastly superior, as are some of their dark versions. Real beer does not contain rice, which is best saved for sake. I think that's because I just don't tend to have much brand loyalty (except for Marmite!). So if none of the beers I've tried and liked were available, I'd probably try one that's new to me. That's more likely to be one I haven't heard of, because then I'd be less likely to have tried it before.

[David 132]

Heh. You’re not the only one around here. I think I might outdo you in the “cantankerous old git” stakes though; I am still maintaining a personal boycott of Mazda cars because of a particularly annoying advert campaign they ran in the late 80s. I fully intend to hand down this grudge to my children in due time, like a family heirloom…

[Jellied Eel]

I am still maintaining a personal boycott of Mazda cars because of a particularly annoying advert campaign they ran in the late 80s

Hmm.. That reminded me of "Everything we do, is driven by yoooo". Then I had to look up who inflicted that audio atrocity on us, and oddly a combination of Brian May and Fnord. I've never bought and rarely driven one of those, so that call to action didnt work either, even though it's become embedded in my brain. Then again, if I do move to the US, I would be tempted to get an F-450 or F-650, mainly as self-defence against self-driven EVs.

[MachDiamond]

"I would be tempted to get an F-450 or F-650, mainly as self-defence against self-driven EVs."

US Department of Transportation data shows that big/heavy vehicles are a poor choice when it comes to safety. Being more nimble and not nodding off while driving can be a better defense against FSD.

[Jamie Jones]

I'm with you there. My personal vendetta was against Mothercare.

As a kid in the 80's, no sooner had the school holidays started, but Mothercare used to flood the radio with their adverts containing an annoying jingle "Mothercare... go back to school"

I decided that I'd always boycott any company that talked about school whilst we were in the holidays.. Mothercare was the worst culprit by far.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I sometimes hate to agree with you

but I can't find a fault with your beer opinions here. I will continue to politely decline Marmite in all forms and at all times.

And beer is a terrible example, as when was the last time a beer ad conveyed any useful information about how beer tastes?

Refreshing isn't a flavor, neither are clean or crisp, and American Bud Light is none of those things.

My local has taken enough cash off of me that I can just ask the bartender for a taster if they are out of my usuals.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Ok, I sometimes hate to agree with you

I will continue to politely decline Marmite in all forms and at all times.

Damn those marketeers! Now I'm wondering what ads AlphaGoo would pitch in all the reaction videos of foreigners trying Marmite for the first time. I somehow suspect they would not be at all relevant. But Marmite's probably a fun product to market given the way it tends to polarise opinions. Love it, or hate it. There's truth in marketing sometimes I guess. The trick I supose is to get people to try it. It is, after all incredibly environmentally friendly and avoids food waste by recycling beer by-products. Even if one doesn't find it delicious, spread thinly on toast, it's umami in a jar and can work well in cooking.

Refreshing isn't a flavor, neither are clean or crisp, and American Bud Light is none of those things.

Rockstar got beer branding right in their GTA games. I think light or lite beers are also deceptive given they defy physics. A beer with a higher ABV should be lighter than a light beer due to alcohol having a higher specific gravity, alcohol being less dense than water. I guess marketeers decided that light tested better in their target market than diet beer. It has been funny watching AB react to recapture market share. Bud Light, the taste of America! Horse pish.. But everything else tends to come with experience. Stuff like 'dry', or 'crisp' can give a hint of what to expect, after all a higher ABV beer with lotsa hops should taste crisper than one where there's still a lot of unfermented sugars & starches. Or has been diluted to homeopathic levels of beerness to hit an arbitary 'light' target.

[MachDiamond]

"It almost worked with the Intel jingle, but there's not exactly a lot of choice for CPU vendors."

So there is little reason for them to do much advertising, but they do. It's the same thing with billboards advertising the latest US stealth bomber. WTH! They'd never let me buy one even if I did come up with a spare few billion to splash out on a new aircraft. I think it's just fluff feel good stuff so the employees can see some talk about what they aren't allowed to talk about.

[Not Yb]

My dad will not buy something new if he remembers the ad for it. Congratulate your friends in the ad business, etc...

[MachDiamond]

"If its warm and you fancy a beer what brand are you going to reach for especially when your preferred brand is not available? the one you cant remember the name of or the one you've seen endless ads for and is front and centre in the cab in the shop."

Not likely. I take beer very seriously and while I have favorites, I have backups several deep and a willingness to walk away if all that's available is complete piss. In a weak moment, I'm much more likely to take a chance on a local craft brew than anything coming from the largest swill farms whom I believe are putting exactly the same stuff into many different tins.

[ThatOne]

> The stuff that's recommended generally has no relevance to stuff you might actually be interested in.

Obviously they don't give a damn about what you might be interested in. What interests them is to sell you specific stuff, and they'll going to brainwash you into buying it, even if it kills you.

_{I've yet to see once an "suggestion" for something that either was relevant, or even remotely interested me. Not a single time, neither YouTube nor Amazon or any other merchant site (who should know me since I've an account there)...}

[yetanotheraoc]

not youtube but generally

I've watched maybe a dozen youtube videos over the years, the ads were annoying but I just waited them out. I don't care about youtube, but the problems here are not specific to youtube.

"The entitlement people feel they're due is amazing."

Another site I actually have a membership on (my _choice_), I sometimes use not signed in (my _choice_), and it is *unbearable*. Click, ad, close, click, ad, .... Pop-over, auto-play, you name it. So when not signed in I just use lynx, life is good.

It's not about entitlement, it's about being free to not be fucked over by someone else's need for money.

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't deny YT are taking the piss but it's equally taking the piss to expect YT to provide their service for free.

I say fuck freetards who think everyone else is here to serve them.

[deadlockvictim]

Subscription

I'd rather YouTube went down the Spotify route, charged a subscription for access with some videos being free to access and got rid of the ads.

[phuzz]

Re: Subscription

Isn't that what Youtube Premium is?

[Dinanziame]

Re: Subscription

It would make no sense for them to do that. It's much better to have a billion users who grumble about ads than a couple of thousands who will watch very few free videos.

YouTube is what it is because of two reasons:

1) all the users who use it

2) all the creators who use it

The first reason is more important than the second, because creators can easily be on multiple platforms, it's worth it for them as long as there are enough users. But if you lose half the users, the creators won't come anymore. If YouTube becomes subscription-only, the vast majority of users will leave, and YouTube will die.

[moonhaus]

Re: Subscription

"I'd rather YouTube went down the Spotify route, charged a subscription for access with some videos being free to access and got rid of the ads."

The problem with that is Spotify "buys in" music from commercial third parties. Youtube relies mainly on it's own users for content (paid and unpaid). If you put a paywall in front of those users, you've also cut off your suppliers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Subscription

You've basically just described the main feature of YouTube Premium.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Subscription

What are YouTube going to do about copyright strikes when they are the ones collecting $/month for you watching pirated content?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Subscription

Why would that change anything? They're already making money from YouTube Ads. They'll be making money from YouTube Premium. Same difference. Copyright lawsuits are more expensive than revenue from pirated content, and always has been, so they'll handle copyright strikes like before.

[Anonymous Coward]

A better alternative to a Youtube Subscription

is shutting them down for rampant IP theft and anti-competitive behavior.

They will keep undercutting the market just so they can continue to collect your interest graph and behavioral profile even if they are banned from showing ads and charging subscriptions.

The company was founded on crime, the empire they built is the spoils of that decade of strait criminal enterprise. YouTube's own employees were uploading pirate content en masse to draw eyeballs. Now they are the undisputed gatekeepers for music, tv, movies, and ton's of other media. The "Free" hosting has put most of the paid video hosting companies out of buisness, and YouTube will look the other way while putting ads on racist, extremist, and illegal content until the complaints pile up.

Burn them down(not literally, they'd just file an insurance claim) and clear the noxious overgrowth if you ever want to see a new crop of better video hosting options.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A better alternative to a Youtube Subscription

Well, tell us how you really feel (joking aside, I agree with you for a good part).

I found most decent companies now upload instructionals to Vimeo. I don't know if that is ad/analysis infested because my browser's plugins kill all of that, but it's a lot less dynamic. That's probably because it's for a different audience and uses a different, less criminal revenue model.

[MachDiamond]

I use YouTube all of the time. Just yesterday I couldn't figure out how to open an APC UPS and found a video that showed me where the three final screws were hidden and how to get to them. Another channel I follow is loaded with great tutorials on repurposing all sorts of gear (The Post Apocalyptic Inventor). Of course there's Dave Jones (EEVBlog), Big Clive, AVE, Juilian Illet and Bjorn Nyland that are good for wasting a bit of time. Common Sense Skeptic and Adam Something are worth a look.

YT can be a great resource for all sorts of things. In the last year I've lost two good mates that were my main resources for knowledge on how to fix engines (cars and fighter jets). At my age, it's just going to continue to be that way.

[JimboSmith]

I watched a quite short video (5 mins) for something recently and it had a combined total of advertising of 2:30 before the video and 0:20 afterwards. I found that a little excessive but I didn’t watch them as I went and put a coffee on then watched the vid. Think there’s supposed to be proportional advertising lengths based on the video length. What I did find annoying was one advert I watched I wanted to rewind and check something but you can’t and they hadn’t uploaded them anywhere else.

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't start blocking adverts until they completely took the piss, a year or so ago, when the amount increased 10 fold.

Also, 90% of the adverts I saw were for scam sites. Why aren't they held accountable?

I might have gone to premium, but due to their obnoxious tactics, that ship has sailed now. - besides, the only channels I watch regularly are available on other platforms, so... meh.

[saramakos]

Yeah I agree - I used to allow ads when it was 1-2 before a video. They started interrupting videos mid-view I started blocking completely.

[stiine]

Ads before a 4 minute video on yourube.com: Ad #1 - 15 seconds. Ad #2 - 28 minutes. Fuck Google.

If I'm watching on my TV, I'll press the back button, the play button, back button, and play button, which will cause Youtube to start playing the video.

[Anonymous Coward]

If your tv is compatible, try "smart tube next" (only use the github site, I don't think the "official" site is actually official)

https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext

[MachDiamond]

"Ad #2 - 28 minutes. Fuck Google."

I don't get the long form ads. They can often be longer than the video they interrupt and if they can't be skipped after 5 seconds, I'm just going to use my YT downloader that skips the ads and watch later. Every so often there is an ad for something that interests me but I skip the link and just open another browser window and type in the company name/url directly to avoid the tracking. It's a rare thing, though.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm watching on my TV

That's another area of crime IMHO. I know of places where the set top box now prevents fats forwarding or skipping ads. Given that you have to pay for them I find that reprehensible - either make it free or stuff it with ads, don't use your control to double dip.

That said, that's why I ditched the box - f*ck it. I rather pay a streaming provider, but they ought to cut out the region limiting crap. We're well past the age of DVDs and I like my subtitles in English.

[Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese]

I wonder how much of that extra increase in instrusiveness is directly attributable to YouTube and how much to content creators? The option for mid-video adverts has been available for ages. If monetisation is enabled on your YT channel then when you publish a video on YT, if you are able to select how/where ads are presented.

Personally, I always decline the option of any type of advert that blocks the viewing experience. For me it strikes the right balance between getting some (less intrusive) ads into my content to allow me to make an income, without impacting the viewers' experience too much. If I wanted to make more money at the expense of the audience's quality of viewing, then there are a number of other boxes I could tick...but I don't

[TheFifth]

I may be wrong, but something in the back of my head tells me that when mid-roll ads became a thing, Google automatically enabled it on all old videos and also pre-ticked the button on any new videos. So a creator with hundreds of past videos had no way to disable them on older content without going back through and manually deselecting the box on every video. Also, they needed to remember to deselect the box on all new uploads too.

That may have changed now, but I remember when every creator was getting massive amounts of hate for the number of adverts in their videos and they were trying to explain it wasn't their choice and it had been auto-selected for them.

[Anonymous Coward]

One creator I watched actually deleted one of their most popular videos, because youtube decided to require midroll ads on their videos.

[CowHorseFrog]

Theres no way advertisers are getting value from that many ads.

If all these platforms are showing hundred of ads a day, its not financially possible for the public to buy a fraction of any ads, which means 99.9% of the time they are getting billed for nothing.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

But now YouTube is targeting those of us with layers of brave browser, pihole and other magic. And we are exactly the high value customers that blanket ad buyers want to target.

[David 132]

Yes. Sadly you’re right.

Because Marketing Logic goes something like: “these people really hate adverts and go out of their way to block them. So if we sneak past their guard and get OUR advert in front of them, they’ll love it and be instantly sold on whatever we’re advertising!”

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really.

Or maybe just some of the really stupid ones.

Forcing ads in front of people running aggressive ad blockers isn't something the advertisers generally want to do. We have the lowest click-through rates, attention metrics, and a sales conversion rate that is actually negative(we don't buy stuff from companies that break our ad blocking even if we would have anyway. Spiteful really). The main exception being the evil ear-worm jingles, which they do try to drill into you until you are hearing it in your sleep. (Please for the love of god, never ever do business with a company that uses ear worm marketing...)

IT IS something ad slingers do constantly though, don't they? The ones who are in the business of serving ads DGAF if the person they served it too will never willingly buy something advertised in an "unblockable" advert. The just want to get paid for every crap ad they sling. The more the merrier these days. Eventually you will miss click on something and they will get paid.

The other place that is super aggressive are publishing companies, which I DO get, but only feel partial sympathy because they are propping up a very awful group of ad companies (googlebet, metaface, Clearchannel, etc etc) instead of running their own ad publishing platforms (which would also bypass most forms of ad blocking). They also refuse to let me pay them the same amount to view a piece of content as the Ad companies. Instead I have to create an account, give them a bunch in info they don't need including a phone number, a credit card they will happily keep billing no matter how many times I cancel and an email address they will not only spam themselves, but sell to every other spammer on the planet for a nickel to keep the lights on. And their monthly plan is usually about the same as a company that spends 100x what they do on producing content.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not really.

When the choice is "avoid ads on youtube, or subscribe to HBOMax 'with ads'[blockblockblock] for less" you do have to wonder about the corporate office at youtube...

[Anonymous Coward]

If all these platforms are showing hundred of ads a day, its not financially possible for the public to buy a fraction of any ads, which means 99.9% of the time they are getting billed for nothing.

But that's exactly the problem: because there are more and more ads with BS that interrupt us* and are totally NOT as targeted as Google wants advertisers to believe, we started filtering them out, and those who did not got desensitised to them, so now they have to increase the volume to keep a reasonable hit rate - at some point this progression means there eventually won't be time left for actual content.

It's a bit like having to scream louder and louder because your yelling made your audience deaf - at some point the game is over.

Personally I think this is starting to open opportunities for marketing companies that DO want to do it right. I have no objection to marketing if it's done well and are fun or interesting (for instance, the Guinness ads) and if it doesn't get too much in my way. However, because marketeers have totally overdone it you end up with a residual irritation, a sort of mental inflammation that then just wants to see no ads for a while, and Google et al keep stoking that irritation - and so less and less justfiy the massive charges they want for it.

We're in a f*cking arms race with advertisers, and it has to stop.

* _{At badly timed moments as well, shows have at least breaks engineered into them so it's not as jarring - not so with YouTube.}

[Not Yb]

Watching old shows that have ad breaks at the exact right time to allow stuff like "travel time" or "lab work time" or other specific things that can very easily happen "offscreen", with ads that just get shoved in anywhere is really annoying. The "travel" happens instantly, and the ad shows up mid conversation once one of the actors pauses for some reason.

Congrats!

[Headley_Grange]

..

I've noticed recently that some YouTube vids just seem to stop part way through. I had thought it might be my line, but I've checked and it's not, so maybe YouTube is trying to tell me off about AdBlock and NoScript is blocking the pop-up. Whatever it is, like the other posters here, I can live without YouTube.

[Piro]

Re: ..

ublock origin still delivers.

If you want to get rid of ads in the videos (as part of the video) then SponsorBlock

[Caoilte]

Re: ..

They run other experiments, eg lots of people leave videos running in the background so they will sometimes pause them if they think you're doing that.

[Grogan]

I absolutely refuse to operate a browser without ad blocking software.

You've all killed the golden goose with your flashing, annoying banners, embedded video ads and skyscrapers making it hard to find the text. All at once, too.

I am NEVER going back to that now. Hell, since I started doing it, I haven't had a single browser crash.

As for youtube? Fuck off... I block ads on the pages and in the video streams.

[TheFifth]

Agreed. I can't read a page that has flashing or moving elements around or within the text. My brain just can't cope. Maybe I'm getting old.

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw the banners and the mouse following objects

I'm pissed off about the world spanning face-hugger that turned the modern internet into cobweb of different spyware and tracking systems.

Ignoring ads is annoying. Tracking is dangerous, at least if you are a brown person (or I guess technically also a white nationalist if they are in a still functioning democracy).

Ethnocide and Genocide are bigger threats than banner ads, and all that tracking data has and continues to kill people. Keep your perspective locked on the bigger threats.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll stick with using youtube-dl no ads and no tracking cookies. https://yt-dl.org/

[Anonymous Coward]

"A youtube-dl fork with additional features and fixes" https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

[sarusa]

It's complete hell without ad blocking

It's fine with uBlock Origin, but two weeks ago I ended up looking at youtube app on a tablet (a friend wanted to show us something), and it's just gawdamn ridiculous. Two ads before, ads every 5-10 minutes (often at awkward times) and then it immediately tries to take you to another video so you can see more ads there. I can understand how this would just be normal for today's ADHD kids who've been raised to be ad whores (or ad surfers if you prefer), but I'd just rather not watch anything than put up with that shite. Or use yt-dlp if necessary.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Google for saving me time

The ad density on YT was getting to a point where it just wasn't feasible to watch anything, and THAT is what drove me to install ad blockers. So, if Google doesn't like that it should consider giving a bit more breathing room to the content providers, or I will indeed stop using YT. That will admittedly save me a lot of time :).

One of the most irritating current practices is that people put help and HOWTOs on YouTube that take 20 minutes (of assumed advertising revenue) to explain something that would have fitted on 2 sheets of A4. Now I can flash read two pages of A4 and immediately find the data I need on that, which I can't if I have to wade through 20 minutes of tedious grub which has not been made to help me, but to expose my eyeballs to the crud that Google serves.

So yes, Google, go ahead. It won't be a gret loss to me to abandon the platform altogether. And no, that's not my name you have as a login either..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Thanks Google for saving me time

Yep , videos instead of writing a couplevof paragraphs, grinds my gears too. Partly this is from search favoring YT vids over anything else

[Dimmer]

Re: Thanks Google for saving me time

I have started using chatgpt as my information source. About the same amount of incorrect or misleading info, but no ADs. No wonder google pissed their shorts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Thanks Google for saving me time

Oh, that's just to lock you in. There isn't a US based provider who can resist the call of marketeers for long, I'm afraid, because nobody cares about the actual customers. if you leave as much as a penny on the table you get shareholders complaining, even though the better user experience would keep people coming back. And, let's face it, ChatGPT needs even MORE computing resources than just a search engine that grabs as much personal data it can at the same time so it *will* need revenue at some point.

[Not Yb]

Re: Thanks Google for saving me time

"You can't really argue with this guy until after you've watched this 6-hour video" was one thing I heard about some pretentious idiot. Nah, I'm good, byeeeee!

[xanadu42]

Re: Thanks Google for saving me time

The attention span required to make a crappy video is significantly less that that required to write a decent explanation or step-by-step instructions...

Even though, based on my experience with clients, it is much easier for most to follow a decent explanation or step-by-step instructions than a crappy video...

The bonus for the likes of YT is a person stays on the site longer trying to digest the "good bits" ...

[Omnipresent]

Grab it while you can

I've seen this movie before, and the overseers are getting desperate. I'm grabbing all the music I can before what's left is gone. The internet is in it's death throws. Soon, there will be nothing left.

I read an article today about an influencer, I know, aren't they all (who knows if she's actually real), but she trained the damn AI to be her, and is selling time with her "AI self" to other despots with no life, and no connection to reality, for a dollar a minute. Has everyone lost their ever loving minds? You people are insane.

[ChoHag]

Re: Grab it while you can

Sounds like she's rented hers out. Smart girl.

[sabroni]

Re: The internet is in it's death throws.

It's "death throes".

[Steve Graham]

Re: The internet is in it's death throws.

Also, it's "its".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The internet is in it's death throws.

Also, is "wankers", not "despots".

[Piro]

Re: The internet is in it's death throws.

Sabroni's comment could be read both ways, to be fair. The original, not so much.

[devin3782]

Re: Grab it while you can

I think the term is Effluencer and they wanketeer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Has everyone lost their ever loving minds? You people are insane.

methinks it's just down to people having too much time and money. One world war, max two, and the survivors will quickly remember the essentials.

[Anonymous Coward]

While archiving good content in a safe place is the lords work

Your arm-waving of the doom of the modern internet is perhaps a bit hyperbolic.

And really the issue you raise is about your own personal convenience and access. With the exception of content streamed directly to YouTube, the original posters could just as readily re-post what they have on literally and other platform.

Nothing left but everything else everywhere else. And there would be a lot more of that if people stopped using YouTube, which siphons of the maximum amount of revenue and pays the minimum to content creators. Scrap the whole thing and replace it with a co-op that returns 100% of the take past operating costs back to the content creators and users.

[Omnipresent]

Re: While archiving good content in a safe place is the lords work

First, I'll address the spelling issues. Teach it to the AI, because I'm not, and it's no longer important to humans.

Second, Audio galaxy was the internet at one time. Ever heard of it? It was the best audio site on the web at one point. I got staches from that site, put that through your AI. The internet was as free as air travel at one point.

[Kev99]

For some sites a workaround is to turn off the ad blocker, reload the page, then turn the adblocker back on.

[Somone Unimportant]

It must be remembered that YouTube are like any business, they need to earn income to operate.

The question, of course, is how much income and how they obtain it.

I too used to be OK with the 15 second pre-run advertisements that were shown, or the single ad at the end of a video. I'd never try and skip, though I would often do something else for 15 seconds.

But as with others now, being forced to watch upwards of 45 seconds of two or more advertisements pre-roll and then being subjected to mid-sentence breaks so that YouTube can stuff more ads into their stream forced me to look into blockers.

And then reading content creators' stories of how little of the advertising revenue they get for their works and the ludicrously high thresholds that they must now meet in order to receive any of the funds that YouTube collects from advertisements shown over their content, well, I began to actively avoid YouTube advertisements.

Advertisements are necessary to help YouTube stay online. I get that. But perhaps they could charge fewer advertisers more for the ads and drop the volume of them?

[Tom66]

I'd be fine with text or still image advertisements next to the videos. Perhaps they should experiment with making those mandatory if you want to block in-stream ads - I wouldn't object - it would give them some revenue whilst keeping people on their platform.

I can say for sure I'd stop using the website and find some technical workaround to avoid watching ads, like a desktop client, if they started technical countermeasures against adblockers.

[T. F. M. Reader]

I also don't allow popups

What will happen?

[X5-332960073452]

Re: I also don't allow popups

See icon ------->

[Anonymous Coward]

I do feel for Google.... but...

Advertising revenue is $0.25 per thousand views. YouTube Premium is $11 a month.

I don't get where a lot of these companies get their prices to disable adverts. Even if I watched advert constantly for a month, Google wouldn't make more than a couple of bucks.

On the other hand, YouTube shows as many adverts as the uploader asks them to, so blaming YouTube sometimes feels like an excuse :)

[Solviva]

Re: I do feel for Google.... but...

Big Clive is just starting to introduce (mid-video) adverts in some content. He's be vehemently anti-ad interruptions, but having discussed with his Youtube 'handler' they recommended adding mid-vid ads to older videos as a compromise so the latest content can be free of interruptions but back catalog has interruptions.

Why even bother? Well, it gets more exposure for the videos with ads, so yes it's the content creator's decision (if they're monetising the video, else it's entirely YT's decision) to add more ads to videos for better exposure. So indirectly YT is forcing creators to add ads. "Put ads in and we won't hide your videos" kinda thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I do feel for Google.... but...

Yes, that's the fun thing about monopolies: you can blackmail all you want without anyone being able to do anything about it.

That's where Elon screwed up with Twitter: alternatives exist. Well, OK, he made it worse with helping Tucker Carlson..

[Dinanziame]

Re: I do feel for Google.... but...

The price is not set by how much they would make through ads otherwise, it is set to maximize how much money they make. They do a study of how many people would accept paying for $2, $5, $10, $15, $20, and they chose the price point which maximizes how much they make. There is no particular reason to think this would correspond to how much they would make from ads. It's like thinking that plane tickets are set by comparing how much it would cost people to walk instead.

This is also how are set the prices of chocolates, clothes, cell phones, cars, and pretty much anything in life whose price is not regulated.

[yetanotheraoc]

Re: I do feel for Google.... but...

I agree with you on how they set their price.

"It's like thinking that plane tickets are set by comparing how much it would cost people to walk instead."

I forget the book title, it was a best-seller about SouthWest Airlines. This was back when they were all short hops, Kelleher was advised to raise his prices to be more in line with other airlines, "to make more money". His response was, we're not priced against those airlines, we're priced against someone hiring a limousine for the same trip.

Sometimes pricing to maximize profit ... doesn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh, we know how capitalism and monopolies work

The point is that there is no reason we shouldn't push back at being charged a different price to access the same content, or charged even if we don't look at any content, or having them funnel the money to content we didn't look at, and don't support.

I know what they (AlphaGoogleTube) are doing. I don't like it and I have the ability to wrench their income stream a little. I am also happy to vote against them at every turn, support DA's that will drag them in court, and independent journalists reporting on their many misdeeds.

YouTube will charge you as much as you let them get away with. So don't. Pay creators you want to stay afloat via a side channel, block the ads, and nudge people to move off the ad and social media platforms for content hosting. They are just picking your pocket anyway. They chose to be awful in an attempt to get even richer, and kill any possibility of fair competition. Cut them off in every way you can. You don't need them, not for anything, and the only reason they are still around annoying you is that you keep engaging with them.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with most of that BUT

That last line has got to go.

Google is raking the cash and using the uploaders as a human shield, just like when they where claiming they weren't responsible for rampant IP theft and copyright infringement. (which in the early days were literally accounts created by YouTube staff and uploaded from work BTW)

Google sets the rate the uploaders get paid. They set it so low that the actual creators have to enable tons of ads to make up their production costs, unless the have a huge number of subscribers. The creators can't enforce their rights and block or demonetize re-posters unless they sign up to Google's program.

And most of the creators and all of the influencers are in it for the money. They may pose about it, but if they are running monetized, the number of ads they approve is based on the cynical metrics of what they can get away with, and if their subscriber numbers aren't crashing, they will like through their teeth and turn up the burner under the frogs till they start to jump.

[DS999]

I have never seen an ad on Youtube

When people started complaining about them I wondered what was up, but figured that between using Linux with Firefox and uBlock Origin it was blocking them on my desktop, and Safari + Firefox Focus was blocking them on my iPhone. I hope that won't change.

If I start seeing ads I can't block I'll just abandon without watching once I follow a link that turns out to be for a Youtube video where it is telling me I have to disable my blocker. There is no Youtube content there I want to see enough to do that, let alone pay fucking Google one goddamn cent. I figure I watch less than an hour's worth of Youtube content per month so it won't be much of a sacrifice.

Some of what I do watch is stuff friends upload to share, if this happens I will prod them to find another site to share telling them I will never watch at Youtube and be forced to watch ads. They aren't making money on that stuff, so they have no reason to make it easier for Google to serve ads.

It will be interesting seeing what happens with the people who make a living via Youtube. Obviously they don't want everyone blocking ads, but if people simply refuse to watch their stuff at all because of this it won't earn them any more money and will greatly reduce their audience. If they only care about paying audience they'll be fine with that, but a lot of them probably will be upset if they suddenly have half the views they used to while getting paid the same by Google. I have a Facebook friend who is always posting links to "journalists" who don't have text stories but are on Youtube telling you stuff, presumably because they make money. I always tell him and everyone else that I'll never pay attention to a journalist who expects to waste my time making me sit through a video instead of giving me something to read. If nothing else good comes from this move by Google, maybe it will kill of that brand of "journalism"! One can hope, anyway!

[Spazturtle]

Re: I have never seen an ad on Youtube

"It will be interesting seeing what happens with the people who make a living via Youtube."

They don't actually make much from the ads, and if somebody complains that the video is offensive then while YouTube investigate they don't get to keep any of the ad money (and they don't get it back if cleared either). That is why they all have sponsorship deals now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I have never seen an ad on Youtube

.. and Patreon subscriptions.

Which means that Patreon must be making a mint now as well - if Google doesn't own it yet they probably will soon.

[mpi]

> "One ad before each video was fine, but they got greedy and started playing multiple unskippable 30-second ads, that's when I went for ad block,"

This.

I am using the ad-block capabilities of brave-browser, haven't seen a yt ad in ages. I wouldn't do that if it was one ad per video, but having an interruption every few minutes, just so the bottom line moves ever upwards? Nope. If they roll this out, no problem, I can easily cut out using their site altogether.

> "and other publishers regularly ask viewers to disable ad blockers."

Yes, they do. And many of those are either out of business, or have nowhere near the traffic of offerings that don't ask people to do that. Guess why that is.

[Pantagoon]

Too Expensive

I'd happily pay for YouTube as I watch an awful lot of it. I don't have any traditional TV packages but I still have to pay for a TV license to watch BBC iPlayer etc.

£12 per month on top of that is too much for me. £5 and they've got a deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: £12 per month on top of that is too much for me. £5 and they've got a deal.

well, first they came for £1.99 and I said nothing, because it was nothing.

F forward 10 years and it's £29.99 a month and cause I got hooked up some time down up from £1.99, I can't give it up. Particularly as it just happens to be rather difficult to unsubscribe and untick all the consents, and...

[Hubert Thrunge Jr.]

I don't

I don't run an ad blocker on YouTube, I run it on my browser, so that's OK then.....

And I block pop ups from most sites.

£11.99/month - just not worth it when you consider I pay £7.99 for Netflix.

With the detritus that is on YouTube, £3.99/mo is the max I'd want to pay. Maybe £11.99/yr then....

Google/YouTube, load the Blunderbuss with grapeshot, take aim at your foot, fire!

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: I don't

The ads are better than the programs on netflix, and the former are terrible.

[Anonymous Coward]

YouTube ain’t mandatory

Other options are available.

Your mileage may vary.

[Zebo-the-Fat]

Why

Why should I be forced to watch an ad for some crap I have no intention of buying, letting it ruin the flow of the thing I actually want to watch?

I gave up on live TV years ago because of the ads spoiling the programs.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Why

Well if you'd let us track everything about you we can do more relevant ads.

So zebo-t-f wants FORTRAN debugging tools and a Hello Kittie themed jet ski

[MachDiamond]

Re: Why

"I gave up on live TV years ago because of the ads spoiling the programs."

I gave up on TV when there stopped being much of a difference.

[SundogUK]

https://www.4kdownload.com/-43

Nuff said.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I feel so sorry for Google. Revenue is down from x billion to y billion. Cry me a river.

[Paul Herber]

That's not a river, just a stream!

[Richocet]

Yes! They made billions which was great for them, and then it declined 3.6% and they adopted drastic measures that annoyed their viewers and content creators.

The scarcity mindset that they are entitled to all of that revenue is the biggest problem that Google face.

[mark l 2]

If you have an Android TV, Amazon fire stick then SmarttubeNext is your answer to ad free YT https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext

Its actually been designed from the ground up with no way to display the ads so the most Google could do is block the whole app if they wanted to stop people using it. You can install it on devices like Android tablets or phones buts its UI has been made to be used with a remote control so it doesn't work well with touch gestures.

I honestly couldn't could a flying fsck if Google are loosing money by me blocking ads, they started to take the piss with all the ads stuffed into a 5 minute video, and adding ads to videos even when the creators weren't part of the monetization program because their channels weren't big enough to join.

But I do appreciate that some of the independent content creators rely on the ads for their income, so I will regularly open a YT creators playlist in a tab in my browser with Ublock Origin disabled and play through their playlist for a few hours so the ads get shown.

I will also click on Amazon affiliate links from content creators if they have one and I know i'm going to be buying something from Amazon that day, as it doesn't matter if you don't actually buy the item they linked too, they get commission on anything you buy within 24 hours after you followed their link.

But I also recently watched a video discussing about what happens when a channel reaches a big enough size to start to get sponsors directly for their videos, that then brings in the majority of their income as sponsors often pay on how many views the video gets which is publicly available info. This can be thousands of dollars revenue for just one videos if it gets say 100k views. So the freetards like me watching the video without the Google ads are still likely to be contributing to some creators revenue by increasing their videos views and therefore their ability to get sponsorships.

[Greybearded old scrote]

Simples

Want us to stop using ad blockers? Stop doing this.

That will be a £100,000 consultancy fee, thank you.

[FlippingGerman]

Price

I’m currently in YT Premium’s free trial. I will not be continuing, because it’s inordinately expensive. I don’t care about access to YT Music - I just want no adverts.

[Anonymous Coward]

"go ad-free with YouTube Premium, and creators can still get paid

in plain English: and oh, yes, by the way, yes, the creators also get a penny or two. FEELING BETTER NOW?! HAVE A NICE FUCKING AD DAY!!!

[Richocet]

Re: "go ad-free with YouTube Premium, and creators can still get paid

What about the recent controversy of YT demonetising a large number of content creators for opaque reasons, plus errors or deliberate mis-administration of revenue payments?

[Sherrie Ludwig]

why I have solitaire in another window.

I watch a lot of cooking and other craft type Youtube stuff, and have a nice game of solitaire or other diversion in a second window. Wait out the blather, then on with the show.

[Jim-234]

Youtube is pretty much unusable without ablockers

I'm not sure how anyone can possibly stand to use YouTube without adblock and script blocking software?

The native Android YouTube app is pretty much just an all the time in your face ad machine with a bit of content tossed in every so often.

Killing their own product by making it a stupid annoying mess... Seems almost like a theme for Google.

[Blackjack]

So... how many people would stop using Google Spyware disguised as a Web Browser if it stopped people from blocking most ads? I remember the main reason I stopped using Internet Explorer back when it was King Of the Internet wasn't for safety reasons, but because Mozilla, that later became Firefox, had better options to block pop ups.

I haven't used Chrome in a long time, and if Firefox dies I have no clue what I would do.

People are willing to do many things to avoid being ad bombed, more so as ads with malware are not exactly rare, and a subscription won't stop all ads anyway.

It wouldn't be the first time and it won't be the last time a subscription to not have ads ended changing over time to have ads. Remember Cable TV?

[Zebo-the-Fat]

I used Firefox but switched to Vivaldi (with Ubloc origin) a few years ago, works well for me

[Blackjack]

I used Vivaldi a few years ago and it got malware jn less that a hour so I had to nuke it. Hopefully they have improved the safety since then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kill section 230 and let thousands of human curators bloom.

The best argument in favor of Section 230 is that it allows freedom of speech. However the articles published in the Register or any other online news journal don't get that protection - they are operating under the same rules as old print newspapers - see the recent case FOX vs Dominion. My feeling is that section 230 has, more than anything else, brought about the ugly inhuman industry of algorithmic promotion and dumbing down or viewer intelligence to the lowest denominator. It's absolutely ravaged journalism, and those that survive learn to go-extreme because that's the only way generate click count.

If section 230 were removed, there would be no choice but to revert to human curation. AI will not be able do it, at least not economically at scale in the current iteration of silicon computer hardware, although it might be able to help curators collate their information. Humans are a much better use of carbs than data centers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Kill section 230 and let thousands of human curators bloom.

Cool then I can sue Fujitsu for all the spam I get down the fibre they manufactured

[Anonymous Coward]

So many problems with that idea

The safe harbor clause IS being used as a shield by some pretty shitty companies, but is doesn't obviate their liability for content moderation. We just aren't holding them accountable for ignoring or draggin their heels on it.

And FOX and Murdoch stuck their own face in that bear trap. The rulings excluded a sec 230 defense because their own employees were instructed to post false and defamatory material they KNEW was false, by their own management. A nearly impossible bar in most cases, but FOX is so blatantly corrupt they actually were able to make it stick in court, because they left mountains of evidence that came up in discovery.

Stripping the save harbors wouldn't fix any of that, but it would however allow a landslide of harrasing lawsuits against anyone who spoke out AGAINST crap like Fox has been pulling. That's the point of the anti-safe harbor movement. To open a window where content creators can be sued out of existence for disagreeing with someone who can afford the lawyers. You may be right about the race to the bottom in journalism, but that has nothing to do with making a company liable if some wingnut posts something rude in an online forum. The save harbor didn't do that, the publishing industry failed to invest in online ad tech and gave the whole market over to Google, which kept it and gave them pennies. Instead of competing with Google to preserve a healthy ad market, the papers drained billions out of the publishing industry and then chased the pennies Google threw on the floor.

The only positive outcome of removing liability for third party speech would be cesspools like Facebook and TikTok going bankrupt overnight. We have other and better tools to make that happen that won't let bad actors game the system to censor dissenting speech.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: So many problems with that idea

>The only positive outcome of removing liability for third party speech would be cesspools like Facebook and TikTok going bankrupt overnight.

No it will mean only Facebook and TikTok will survive.

They have the engineering resource to have an AI ban any posts from S****horpe and the lawyers to file form 4096B to prove they have a process.

It will ban places like el'reg and your local football club fan forum.

Every little school and hobby forum site will have to move to Facebook or risk the moderators losing their house.

Remember who support prohibition - baptists AND bootleggers

[Not Yb]

Re: Kill section 230 and let thousands of human curators bloom.

Fox v. Dominion only worked because Murdoch could not afford to allow the discovery process to occur. It has almost nothing to do with normal defamation cases, really.

AC here, like most, has misunderstood what Section 230 actually does.

[Tanj]

They complain about security, too

You don't need to be running an ad-blocker. Just run your browser at secure settings and you will see complaints from YouTube and other sites running Google advertising.

Yeah, just turn off all your defenses. So you can be fed advertising. Makes sense, right?

[_Elvi_]

.. I'm NOT giving may cat a credit card ..

I don't care how much he winges about popup adds for Adult diapers when he's watching Hello Kitty Videos.. He's not paying for Premium..

Its an AD Blocker for us ..

[ben kendim]

what we need to do is make the advertisers hurt...

The ad blocking plug-in we really need is one that also examines the blockes ads and makes a list of the advertisers and products they advertise. Then, in addition to us not seeing the ad, we would know who tried to put an ad for what on our screen - so we can boycott them... You ask, who would pay for the servers and the creators? I don't really give a damn. If I like the content enough, I will donate directly to the creator (e.g. Tom Voelk of Driven fame.)

[navarac]

The Internet is one BIG advert

Personally, I use an ad-blocker and if a site asks me to disable it I always think "HELL NO". I have got immune to ads on the web, newspapers or TV, in that I instantly "turn off".

[Scott 26]

> Late last year, YouTube said it had reached 80 million Premium subscribers, up 30 million from 2021. If you take that 80 million and multiply it by 12 bucks a month, that's $11.5 billion a year.

But it's not $12 a month in every locality. It was about $12 a year in Argentina at one point. I didn't jump on it, but I know friends who VPN'd to Argentina, signed up, removed the VPN and boom! YT Prem for $1/month.

Starting to think they were the smart ones.

[Anonymous Coward]

Quality and Google's desperation

Ad frequency should be proportional to video quality used. Bandwidth is likely one of YouTube major costs.

I have an impression that Google is desperate to deliver on earnings, so they pushed heavily with ads. Before I used to hate Apple's non-skippables on Youtube. Now all of them are like this. Also scam, so much scam. Money doesn't stink, ah?

Worse is once you need some previously advertised product, it is impossible to search ad history to find it. I can also clearly see that YouTube content is targeted with my Chrome visits to other sites. This is creepy. I am not even logged in.

[Paskis]

Track me please if it helps the ads be useful

I wouldn't mind, honestly, if there were a reasonable number of ads and they were RELEVANT to me. I even let most places drop cookies and track me and STILL the advertising seems hopelessly untargeted. Find some ads for things I'll be interested in and I'll watch them and might even buy something but I don't remember the last time that happened. I bet for the majority of you who (understandably) block tracking the ad selection must be utterly worthless to you!

[Richocet]

Re: Track me please if it helps the ads be useful

It depends how you you define relevant. If you have some money you want to invest, then YT and the crypto scammers see you as the prefect audience for their advertisements. Own a windows PC? You should see ads about how your PC has a virus and you need to let 'Microsoft' technicians remotely access your computer to fix it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Track me please if it helps the ads be useful

The third party vendors must love you then !

Actually went into a cookie option thingy on a well known news website, and found almost a Hundred different companies that somehow were interested in this site and its visitor's data.

So along with marketing cookies, tracking cookies, and some other cookie for analytics, if you DIDN'T want to be tracked, you had to manually turn OFF each one !

Now that is just wrong. Isn't it ????

Note: I have various software and plugins to reduce tracking, but the easiest way was to not use that particular site !

[MachDiamond]

Re: Track me please if it helps the ads be useful

" I bet for the majority of you who (understandably) block tracking the ad selection must be utterly worthless to you!"

For something like a YT video, the targeting should be pretty dang close if it's aligned with the content of the channel. If I'm watching a channel devoted towards professional architectural photography, an ad for a tutorial on making great iPhone photos or getting into the exciting world of concert photography are not appropriate. Pros aren't using an iPhone for paying work and only a handful of people make money taking photos at concerts and often only as a side hustle. The overall keyword is 'photography' but that's too broad. If I were a landscape photographer and there were ads on a landscape photography channel advertising workshops and curated trips, I'd watch them and might even click through.

What I get the most of on YT ads are utter scams that Alphagoo should be sanctioned for. They're so obviously criminal that even YT should be able to see it and work to prevent them.

[The Dogs Meevonks]

Never gonna unblock youtube

It's not happening... and it's their own fault... the entire advertising industry got greedy and insidious... pushing the most invasive, obnoxious ads in your face by any means they could... adware, malware... so much crap that the only way to deal with it was to nuke it from orbit... it's the only way to be sure.

The fallout from that... is that the entire industry is forever radioactive to me. Untrustworthy, uninvited and unwelcome on any screen I own.

Firefox... ublock, no script, ghostery, privacy badger, video blocker are just some of the plugins I deploy on firefox... If you won't let me watch youtube vids because of that... I'll find another way to do so... But I will never... Never... NEVER remove those plugins. if your site is broken because of them... I go elsewhere, just like I do with every other site that tries to dictate what I am allowed to do to protect my privacy, my data and my eyeballs from fuckwits who think I'll ever be interested in watching 10 ads in a 20 min vid.

Also... follow creators who don;t use ads but instead used sponsor vids or sponsor spots within their vids... I can tolerate that just fine because you know what you're getting... interrupting memultiple times in the middle of something interesting for an unskipable ad about nothing I will ever be interested in from some toxic brand I would never buy from... will never win me over... EVER!!!

Call me a freetard if you like... you're an idiot if you think that. Actions have consequences and it's the ad industry that created this monster that will do anything to thwart them and block every single one of their ads... You created me... I'll die on that hill before I ever surrender.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only better answer

is if you just don't look. Then you don't need to block it in the first place.

and we all ignore it to death, all the content will show up somewhere else.

[Anonymous Coward]

My preferred browser is about as tightly managed as I know how

If that critically upsets a particular site I might visit, then I simply don’t consume their content.

[Richocet]

I predict a 90% chance that this message will come up when I use privacy blockers but not ad blockers. Most other sites present a complaint pop-up that I'm blocking ads when I do this.

To me that's damning of the industry when I'm willing to see ads while protecting my privacy, and the industry is not prepared to show me advertisements unless I permit them to intrude into my privacy as well.

I thought that the advertising is most important to their revenue, but maybe it is transacting in people's private data and advertising is second most important.

[MachDiamond]

L.C.D. Adverts

I could put up with a few ads if they were more appropriate. The spammers and scammers seem to be the biggest advertisers on YT and the ads are shown repeatedly over and over again. Dick pills, miracle patent medicines that help you poop, ancient Japanese methods for prostrate health, mini Chinese chain saws that can fell a large tree, blah, blah, blah. A professional photography channel I watch often has ads stuck in for "get this spy lens before it's banned" or how to use your phone to make great images tripe. My guess is that the cost to place ads on YouTube is so low that it's become the perfect environment for scammers and peddlers of super cheap kit now that email spamming is less effective. Solution, YT can charge more and insert fewer ads.

I'll still be using my downloader for longer videos that I tend to watch at a later time and for the ones with age verification that the downloader skips over. I have no intention of signing up with Google and agreeing to their terms to watch YT videos. That agreement boils down to a statement of how much spying their are going to do and that you have agreed to have your viewing history shared with anybody that wants it (Google's customers). If Google keeps bricking up doors into the YT compound, at some point people will go elsewhere like Odysee. Any creator that also post on Odysee I will watch via that service. It's not as good of a UI, but it's NOT YT.

[Anonymous Coward]

Used to find stuff on YouTube that I actually wanted to see.

Sure there was a 5 second ad, no biggie.

But recently, i e over the last year or two, when I"ve been with friends listening to their music, its advert after advert, and even though it was in the background, I found it annoying to the point where I was going and kooking for the Skip Ad button !!

Even on TV, the adverts are deliberately played at a higher volume than the programme, (honestly check it out for yourself). So years ago I wrote to Ofcom to query why. Believe I had a reply that went along the lines of, you must be dreaming love !

Adverts work, we know it, they know it.

You are listening to the radio, actual radio, in your car.

Where can you go ?

You're trapped.

You have no choice.

Online we have a chance, blockers or alternative players, that help us are one way.

Anyone seen Amazon's FreeVee tv stuff ?

You get a 'free' programme by watching an ad or three.

But wait, you have Prime, which said no ads.

Hmm.

There's more.

You watch an Amazon Prime original series, and between episodes you get an advert for another show or film. Their show or film.

Hmm. Monopoly much ?

That doesn't make it right, it just means that we will keep finding ways to stop or reduce the adverts or go nuts in the meantime §:-(

[RAMChYLD]

30 seconds long?

They're posting 5 minute long ads here in malaysia alongside 30 second unskippable ads. One time I even got a 4 minute long unskippable ad! It is getting real annoying.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Next

If YouTube follows through with this "experiment" people will start looking for the "next" YouTube. Users will flee in droves towards the new platform which doesn't have these draconian bylaws. The same holds for content creators.

It will be interesting to see how quickly YouTube's star will fall and Google's stock market valuation with it.

[stuartnz]

So I'm getting a bargain

I've been using YouTube Premium since it was in beta years ago as YouTube Red, and it's my only paid for media delivery service. For what I need, it's perfect - lots of language learning channels and howtos, all ad-free. What surprised me from the article was the price: I'm still paying the price I paid from day one, $9.99NZ - basically half the current US price. Good to know that, so far at least, AlphaGoogle has kept their promise not to raise that price.