Using Youtube without Revanced or uBlock is like using a phone without a case.
Eh, using a phone w/o a case is reasonable. I’d liken it more to watching live TV. Why do that in the era of streaming services when you can (well, could) avoid ads and watch exactly what you want instead of whatever slop the network decides you should watch?
uBlock Origin works wonders. I haven’t seen a YouTube ad since I installed it.
While the company stops short of directly saying as much, it sure feels like the preposterously long ads we’re seeing here are an example of one tool in Google’s arsenal for effectively disabling YouTube playback for violators of the site’s ToS.
That makes no sense at all. It isn’t like skipping ads results in a black screen for the length of the ad.
People with adblockers aren’t going to see hour long ads or black screens when they don’t see ads in the first place.
It’s hilarious that they think it would matter to anyone with an ad blocker. I haven’t seen an ad for years on youtube. Hell I haven’t even seen promotions in videos for a few months now that I found a sponsor segment blocker.
Both are available on pc and mobile. Love it.
What do you use?
On PC Firefox with the Sponsorblock extension
On Mobile (Android) NewPipe with the Sponsorblock Fork.
Awesome, thanks!
Greed.
I haven’t read the article, but surely this is an accident? I have almost no faith left in our capitalistic society, but surely even Youtube understands that nobody is going to watch an hour long ad, right?
The most mysterious one to me happened in 2015 or so. I was watching Zero Punctuation, and it served me an hour long computer networking lecture as an ad. Like, some Indian guy delivering a power point presentation. I was like, what’s the monetization strategy here, guys? Did this dude pay you to serve his lectures as ads? What?
At one point there was a period of time where YouTube was consistently serving me ads in Arabic, a language that I don’t speak and from a country I have never been to.
Their algorithm just breaks sometimes.
Edit: not sure why that was in capitals.
There was awhile there where my parents were getting ads for Pull-Ups Toddler diapers in Spanish.
I know there was that story about Google knowing about some guy’s daughter being pregnant before she’d actually told him.
So maybe I’m just really Arabic and haven’t noticed yet.
That wasn’t Google, it was Target. Based on the teen’s buying habits, that she suddenly started buying certain vitamins, unscented lotion, that sort of stuff with her loyalty card, their system put two and two together and sent her coupons for maternity and baby products, which is how her father learned he was gonna be a grandpa.
Google has similar power to know more about you than your friends and family, though.
I dropped all my subs and only have youtube premium. I hate ads and I watch a lot of tubes. I don’t feel bad about it since they share revenue with creators.
Ads on YouTube? I don’t know what ur talking about. If people are getting ads then as far as I’m concerned that’s a skill issue.
Ads in the modern world are an idiot tax. And those of us who don’t pay that tax need the idiots to keep paying our tab.
it’s a tax on all of us whether you personally see them or not. those ads control the idiots.
While their statement is entirely correct, they’re still wrong. YouTube is basically unusable without an ad blocker. Multiple 10 to 15 second long unskippable ads before the video even starts, and unless you watch videos all the way through you end up watching as much ad as you do content. It is damn near impossible to hop around between videos trying to find the one you want because of the pre-roll ads on every vid. On the other hand, with an ad block enabled YouTube is actually quite nice. The engagement algorithm is fucking trash of course but if you know what you’re looking for and you go directly to it it’s pretty good.
Do you habitually not watch videos all the way through, or am I misunderstanding your comment?
No judgement, you obviously should consume media in the manner you find most enjoyable, but once I start and enjoy a video - YouTube or otherwise - I tend to get invested and want to watch as much as is available.
When I’m ‘watching a video’ I watch it all the way thru. However often I’m looking for something specific, like how to do something, and a lot more tutorials are now in video form than written (which I don’t love but whatever). In that situation I’m usually looking for a specific piece of information which often requires scrubbing around in multiple videos. Same thing if I’m doing research on a product, while I might watch a review will the way through I’m more often looking for some specific things like video of the interface or does it have some specific setting or can I set it up without needing a phone app or cloud account. That requires scrubbing around in multiple videos to see bits of the setup UI. Unusable if each video has an ad
a lot more tutorials are now in video form than written (which I don’t love but whatever)
You’re not alone in that, and it seems neither am I
There are at least three of us!
And my axe!
a lot more tutorials are now in video form than written (which I don’t love but whatever)
One of my favorite Youtubers (Greg’s Airplanes and Automobiles) has excellent in-depth content mostly about WWII piston-engined aircraft with lots of detailed discussion and reference to original source materials. But it’s just him reading a written script while presenting still photos and excerpts from flight manuals and the like. It really would be perfect as a blog or in book form, but he has to turn it into videos in order to have any chance at making decent money from it. It’s just such a shame that this is how things are going now.
This makes no sense to me. It’s significantly more expensive to create and host video content, yet somehow we’ve gotten to the point where that’s the most profitable? It makes no sense.
It has nothing to do with the expense and everything to do with the fact that most people do not enjoy reading (any more, at least).
I guess I’ll just appreciate the fact that my books don’t have ads.
I read a lot of books on Kindle. It’s just a matter of time …
If you like that sort of thing you’ll like IHYLS
If you’re looking for tutorials or other immediately applicable information, you’ve often got to skip a LOT of bullshit before even determining if this video is relevant to you.
"Hey everybody it’s Mike from Mike’s the guy named Mike, it’s a snowy day out there, I got my coffee, took my dog for a walk, it’s been the morning of a day, and now I’m out here in the garage and I figured I’d make a video about a topic a bunch of you have been asking me about. You guys have been asking me a lot lately “Hey, Mike’s the guy named Mike, could you show us how to properly lick a drill press?” Well let’s find out.
10 second title screen because Mike thinks he’s making TV
“So a lot of you guys have been asking me “Hey, Mike’s the guy named Mike, could you show us the right way to lick a drill press?” Before we get into that, be sure to leave a like, drop a comment below and be sure to subscribe. It’ll really help me out more than you can think…”
19 minutes into a 21 minute video and there hasn’t been a drill press on screen yet.
Three weeks later Mike’s the guy named Mike along with his entire family is killed in a rock slide. The UN declares it an international day of celebration.
What was I talking about?
Brilliant 😄
The way I see it these folks don’t respect my time when pulling off shit like this.
You need to get sponsor block. Not only does it block all the sponsor segments because they are also ads, that the ad blockers don’t otherwise block, but they also block all of the other annoyances, like instructions to subscribe and intro animations.
yeah that’s really the key to an acceptable youtube experience. after google nuked UBO on chromeOS, sponsorblock is still there to do the heavy lifting. I’ll be switching to a windows machine soon, but for now all I have is my chromebook, which is still functional even without the real UBO-- but I’m sure they’re working on a way to fuck us out of the “lite” version of it and take away extensions like sponsorblock
Can you run Firefox on a Chromebook?
*Either you go with the Android build or you take one more step towards joining the cult of Linux.
technically chrome is is built on Gentoo.
Holy moly this is spot on 🤣🤣
19 minutes into a 21 minute video and there hasn’t been a drill press on screen yet
And that’s intentional. The algorithm rewards them for having people watch more / watch longer, and a 21 min video might have 2 or 3 ad rolls. If someone watches all the way thru, creator gets more money and higher placement in search results.
I like YouTube as a concept but the algorithms are totally enshittifying it.
I remember the early, pre-Google days of Youtube, when it was fail videos, that one particular kind of lyric video, lonelygirl15 and mememolly. It was about the time South park had run that episode where they had all the people who had become internet famous like Tay Zonday and the Star Wars Kid who were sitting around in a waiting room waiting for their “internet money” to make the point that there was no method in place for them to monetize their fame…
If you had asked me then what Youtube would look like in the year 2025 I don’t know what I would have said but I wouldn’t have guessed correctly. I probably would have said it’s not going to last that long. I would not have guessed that fifteen years of Google changing the algorithm, but not letting anyone know what they did or why, so there’s this constant game of trying to design video formats around what the software would promote would twist it into what it is…
Explanation: they weren’t using an (functional) ad blocker for some reason.
I didn’t have a problem with using YouTube Premium, but Google is doing a lot of shitty practices. The latest is purging Google Maps reviews in collusion with local authorities for private interests. Maybe don’t be part of a shitty monopoly while trying to push this sort of bullshit onto us?
Unhappy with the current Map statu quo? Join OSM contributors with the gamified app Street Complete (also available on fdroid)
Youtube when I use Ublock Origin on my Thinkpad and ReVanced on my Pixel:
Any reason for thinkpad and pixel?
Probably to let us know mobile and PC variants.
He’s rightfully displaying his dominance
I am wondering the same, mentioning the specific hardware makes very little sense, when it could just be mentioned as Linux/Windows/PC and Android/GrapheneOS/etc.
It would arguably be more informative too for people looking for alternatives for their device platforms.
Grayjay is my new hotness
We’ve launched a global effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience.
By drastically increasing the rates every 6 months. Raising it past the prices of actual production streaming services. And paying the people making the content less and less money, until they have to put their own ads and their own content.
They force paying customers ( yt music premium & yt premium ) to disable ad blockers, too. Why? If I accordingly to the contract shouldn’t get any ads why they would need to punish for blocking ads which shouldn’t exist :-)?
You aint getting the ads but they still need you to load the trackers mate.
It is for your own safety, taker your pants off, boy
Some Alternatives:
- Firefox + Ublock Origin
- Grayjay App
- Grayjay Desktop
- FreeTube
- NewPipe
Youtube ReVanced is flawless. It’s easy to patch
- LibreTube on Android
Firefox + Ublock Origin
This right here. No longer using chromium-based browsers is a really good start.
NewPipe stopped working for me two weeks ago, and it seems like Google won’t allow NewPipe to download Youtube’s content for free anymore. I don’t think Youtube/NewPipe will ever be usable again. I think we have to say goodbye to Youtube.
Youtube is like that bully that asks for your lunch money and when you say no, they slam you into a locker.
When you say no again, they start hitting you until you finally give that lunch money.
Once you do, they will show you the others are being abused harder when they demand more money from you.
I would love to contribute to the end of youtube.
To me, the value of youtube and it’s music is far below the €18 it costs to get me and my wife ad free. My internet costs roughly that and offers a lot of possibilites, so why should i pay double for a service that supplies about 1 millionth of what the internet itself has to offer, especially considering my wage has barely changed while i watch my rent and groceries triple in cost.
Y’all need to realize there is an end to my money, you can’t keep taking.
Youtube is like that bully
Except no one is forcing you to face that bully.
You can simply stay away.Most people are lazy and not willing to make their life less comfortable. If they were, a lot of problems in big tech would not even exist. That’s why people still buy apple, use WhatsApp and microsoft instead of the free alternatives - because its less comfortable.
They want change, but are unwilling to be a factor in causing that change.
Yeah, I don’t have much sympathy for this dork. You don’t need to watch YouTube.
It’s either this or cable, cable sucks.
So i’d rather adblock the hell out of them.
Look, I don’t disagree with you. YouTube has many flaws and they’ve rapidly enshittified to increase monetization. But YouTube is a far more complex* operation than your ISP. It took a decade to start making a profit on YouTube.
The amount of hardware behind it is insane. The amount of work behind it is insane. A lot of that work is performed by really expensive software engineers in the US and Europe.
It was never sustainable from the get-go. Not with a single pre-watch ad and no premium tier, anyway. They HAD to add more ads and a premium ad-free tier. Where I disagree with them is the amount of ads and the cost of the premium tier.
*The big cloud providers (including Google) have grown so big, they don’t use ISPs in the traditional sense to connect their data centers. They run their own subsea cables between continents to improve connectivity. Whether or not you like the companies, they put a LOT of work into keeping you on their platforms. Of course this is for Google Cloud customers, but YouTube basically IS a Google Cloud customer. Just an in-house one.
I’m laughing at
theirYouTube’s response. Obviously someone used a thesaurus to write it and didn’t know that “incalcitrant” is not even the word, no major dictionaries list it. It’s like using irregardless instead of regardless The wordtheyYouTube wanted is recalcitrant.And it’s very telling that
theyYouTube used that word because it shows they think they are King.Recalicitrant:
Stubbornly resistant to authority or control.
Unwilling to obey orders or to do what should be done.
Resisting authority or control; not obedient or compliant.
Edit: I’m laughing at YouTube’s response. I thought that was clear by context… I guess people who didn’t read the article didn’t get that? Maybe it was paywalled to them?
Words matter, and by using the one they did, YouTube is basically saying that they demand people obey them.
STFU
I’m laughing at YouTube’s response. I thought that was clear by context… I guess people who didn’t read the article didn’t get that? Maybe it was paywalled to them?
Or why are you telling me to STFU?
They’re an idiot. You taught me a new word! Keep it up.
Thanks :)
Length of post + laughing at vocabulary =/= laughing at article
Plus incalcitrant has plenty of current usage.
