YouTube blames ad blockers for slow load times, and it has nothing to do with your browser | The delay is intentional, but targeting users who continue using ad blockers, and not tied to any browser specifically.

[u/chrisdh79]

https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-blames-ad-blockers-slow-load-times-3387523/

[u/puffy_boi12]

I'd rather stare at a black screen for five seconds than an ad

[u/saynay → u/puffy_boi12]

The 5 seconds is a side effect. The real thing it is doing is checking if you load a small (3 second) video that is hosted like an ad. I’m guessing this is just step 1, and there will be a server side part later that blocks you from loading the video if that short video was not accessed, so ad blockers can’t just skip the 5 second pause.

[u/puffy_boi12 → u/saynay]

They can black out the screen and mute the audio though. These types of arms races generally result in better user experience because people can modify programs faster than corporations can determine solutions to those mods and implement said solutions.

[u/ithilain → u/puffy_boi12]

Heck, they can probably do all that while loading the file in the background like ad nauseum does so you the user won't even notice anything. This would probably be even worse for YouTube as instead of getting no ad data for those users, they get garbage data which is much more difficult to sort out from the good data,

[u/xhammyhamtaro → u/ithilain]

I like this outcome, makes it harder to identify if they actually have bad data with good data. They have to pay someone more to look through. I like this a lot

[u/Organic_Rip1980 → u/xhammyhamtaro]

This is usually my strategy with advertisers trying to get information from me.

I really try to baffle them with bullshit, they have no idea who they’re advertising to.

[u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In → u/Organic_Rip1980]

In this scenario they just start recommending fascist stuff to you.

[u/Jukka_Sarasti → u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In]

they just start recommending fascist stuff to you.

This appears to be what happens regardless.

[u/millijuna → u/Organic_Rip1980]

I used to get those survey questions from YouTube in place of ads (if I was viewing on a platform without an adblocker). It was often “which of these brands have you heard of?” With three extremely well known brands. I would always give a bullshit answer along the lines of that I had never heard of cocacola or never heard of Nestle or whatever else. Basically my goal was to poison their data.

[u/tiradium → u/puffy_boi12]

Yep that's how Twitch ad blocker works. I just see an hourglass with a prompt skipping ad and then the stream loads lol

[u/Wolfnoise → u/tiradium]

Which adblocker? I’ve tried so many things and it’s never worked for me so I don’t watch twitch anymore

[u/tiradium → u/Wolfnoise]

I use this one

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/alternate-player-for-twit/bhplkbgoehhhddaoolmakpocnenplmhf

But for firefox

[u/saynay → u/puffy_boi12]

We will see. Youtube doesn't need to find a perfect solution, they just need one that is annoying enough that a fraction of the users decide it isn't worth fighting it anymore. If even 1% of adblock users give up or switch to Premium, it will be more than worth the time they are spending combating it.

[u/squishyhikes → u/saynay]

Annoying? Sir, I was raised on 56k. I didn't know high speed internet until DSL was cheap enough to switch over.

Annoying? Seems more like a challenge to me.

[u/drrxhouse → u/[deleted]]

YouTube’s aim probably at the generations that followed us though. Those generations that never knew the euphoria of those dial tones at the dawn of the Internet.

[u/Weerdo5255 → u/drrxhouse]

Dang young kids. We had to wait for videos to load, I still remember QuickTime being amazing when it came out.

[u/BloodBride → u/Weerdo5255]

Watching an anime episode at 240p in six parts, waiting 5 minutes for each part to buffer, to watch that shitty video with tinny audio only to find part four is missing.

[u/Siberwulf → u/BloodBride]

Pretty sure my boob fetish is tied to slow internet and ADD. Never got to download that bottom part of the picture.

[u/Peter_Panarchy → u/BloodBride]

You open all 6 parts then go do chores for an hour or so. Once you're done all the videos have loaded completely and it's time to watch!

[u/Philo_T_Farnsworth → u/drrxhouse]

the euphoria of those dial tones

I could think of a lot of words that weren't "euphoria" to describe the connection problems endemic to the analog lines we had in the 90s where the phone company wouldn't even talk to you if you said you had a modem. "We provide service for voice grade not data grade" they would say.

A few years down the road from there it would be: "Our internet service is only meant to provide access to one computer at a time, we don't support routers"

[u/avelineaurora → u/Philo_T_Farnsworth]

A few years down the road from there it would be: "Our internet service is only meant to provide access to one computer at a time, we don't support routers"

And now I basically get that line from my garbage ISP even today, lmao. Only it's, "Our 100mbps service isn't meant to support smart devices like light bulbs and Google Home, please just connect your computers."

[u/Stick-Man_Smith → u/Philo_T_Farnsworth]

Oh man, you just reminded me of having to clone my PC's mac address to the router. Not sure what they thought they were gaining with that one.

[u/Philo_T_Farnsworth → u/Stick-Man_Smith]

Same thing telecoms always want. Control over the user.

[u/Aaod → u/drrxhouse]

That is why they love zoomers because zoomers love phones and phone apps which means the company can do more ads and data tracking without worrying about things like ad blocking.

[u/GoodAfternoonFlag → u/[deleted]]

i was pirating TV in the 90s on dial up. real player video files were like 1-2 megabytes a minute so i could download 1-2 episodes over 24 hours. needed special apps just to keep the download going.

[u/Crayonstheman → u/GoodAfternoonFlag]

I miss the dial up era of the internet but fuck dial up itself, especially being unable to use the phone (which somebody always would).

Rip the IRC days.

[u/procabiak → u/[deleted]]

Hours huh.

My PC couldn't handle playing an anime series that I spent days downloading on 26kbps (throttled from 256kbps after I used up my 250mb allowance). I burned them all into DVD format video in order to watch it on CRT TV.

That took me a whole month or so.

[u/Infuryous → u/squishyhikes]

Started with 14.4k myself... jpg pics loading line by line anyone? 🤣

[u/RFSYLM → u/Infuryous]

14.4 isn't far from text loading line by line let alone an image.

[u/dsheroh → u/RFSYLM]

I started on 300 baud. When I went to text-only BBSes, I didn't need a pager to scroll down the text because I could read it faster than it came over the modem.

[u/hemingray → u/Infuryous]

Started with 14.4k myself...

I started out on 2400bps with AOL 2.7 on an old Mac. Going from that to 56k in 97 was night and day.

[u/IAMATruckerAMA → u/hemingray]

I started out by yelling descriptions of content to whoever was nearby

[u/WitteringLaconic → u/hemingray]

Hark at Mr.Speedy and his 2400bps. I started out on a 300bps acoustic coupler modem on a BBC Model B connecting to BBSs like Prestel.

[u/Nickel_Bottom → u/squishyhikes]

Oh they think slowing the connection is their ally, but they merely adopted the slowness. We were born in it, molded by it. We didn't see 60+ kb/s download speeds until we were already grown; by then, it was nothing to us but an overindulgence! The slowing will betray them, because it belongs to us. We will show them that YouTube is not where we have made our home, whilst preparing to r/degoogle various segments of our lives. Then, we will break them. Their precious 'free hosting', laughingly rejected.

We don't need them. All that is left is finding that which breaks first - their spirit (vs EU law) or their body (viable competitor). We lived before YouTube, we will find other ways to share our videos and memes after YouTube.

[u/gnoxy → u/squishyhikes]

Getright. Queue up larger files all day, download them over night, and enjoy the content the next day. 5 sec black screen?!? Yea that will stop me.

[u/blindedtrickster → u/squishyhikes]

My internet experience as a child wasn't 56k, it was 28.8k and when I'd get a moment of privacy and look for dirty enticing images online, I'd have to decide if I was willing to wait for the image to load far enough to show anything explicit or not. That could take a while.

Now I have fiber internet and any time I hear the modem dialup sound I feel incredibly spoiled.

[u/SekhWork → u/blindedtrickster]

Remember people that would load jokes into those images because they took so long that by the time you waited for the full thing to load the person was censored with clown faces or something lol

[u/blindedtrickster → u/SekhWork]

Those people earned a special place in hell. xD

[u/bruwin → u/SekhWork]

My favorite was a 3rd of an image and then the rest of it would just load as black so you'd think the download had timed out. Specifically one Kathy Ireland pic.

[u/ExileInParadise242 → u/squishyhikes]

I started with a 2400 baud modem as a teen. You'd go to bed and wake up like it was Christmas morning, checking to see if your download of an ASCII boob had finished.

[u/BPbeats → u/squishyhikes]

“I WAS MOLDED BY IT! YOU MERELY ADOPTED IT!”

[u/idiot-prodigy → u/squishyhikes]

I downloaded a 30 second Simpsons clip over the course of 3 hours once back in the 56k days.

[u/BokehJunkie → u/squishyhikes]

I had dial up internet until I was a senior in high school (and that's only because we moved). I remember days where it would take 3-4 (or more) hours to download a song from napster.

[u/SpaceShrimp → u/saynay]

I didn’t start paying for TV when it got too annoying, I stopped watching TV altogether. I also know I am far from alone in that change of habits. And I probably won’t start, even if watching TV would become bareable again, because I won’t notice that.

But Google of course knows this, and if they start an annoyance war with its users it will be their way of doing a cash grab and then with time shut down the service when people have moved on elsewhere.

[u/Oxyfire → u/saynay]

Maybe they should try selling ad-free youtube for like 3-5$ a month, rather then the 12$ a month for premium which has a bunch of other crap most people don't care about. Pretty sure that'd get like a 1% uptick in purchases.

[u/saynay → u/Oxyfire]

I don't think they actually want people on premium. If the economics works out like how it has for Netflix, Hulu, etc. they actually make better money serving you ads. If nothing else, ads scale in revenue with the amount of content you watch, while a subscription does not.

So the subscription price is trying to target that breakpoint where people who would otherwise leave because of the ads will pay for it, and everyone else will suffer the ads.

[u/Oxyfire → u/saynay]

That surprises me for how little click-through ads tend to get. Like, I'm not going to say "ads don't work on me" but I can't really remember the last time I clicked through/pursued a purchases because of an ad?

But I guess people pay google a lot to get ads in peoples eyes and pay is metric based, rather then a flat fee to run ads?

[u/HomoRoboticus → u/Oxyfire]

If you allow them to track you, they'll correlate you watching a video for a product 4 weeks ago with your decision to purchase it anywhere online, or in-store with tracked credit cards or store "loyalty programs" - which are just snooping agreements.

[u/YOURBUTTISNOWMINE → u/Oxyfire]

I think we're just unable to relate to the kinds of people who would do that, so we assume no one would, but the reality is, many are. Ad blocker adoption is surprisingly low across the web (discounting non-human used devices, like IoT) even though it's pretty easy to implement.

[u/DrunkenBandit1 → u/saynay]

ads scale in revenue with the amount of content you watch, while a subscription does not

And more often than not, the people that pay for a YouTube subscription watch way more YouTube than people that don't subscribe to Premium.

[u/hackingdreams → u/saynay]

Here's the thing though: anyone with an adblocker will tell you, these arms races take place without 99% of the users even knowing it happens. A site might break for, oh, a few hours, maybe a couple of days at the longest while they figure out whatever clever client-side trick they've used and unravel it, but soon enough the blockers have a new fix, and the lists are automatically updated in the background with those fixes.

The minute the user actually gets annoyed, they just update their filter list and the problem goes away forever.

The only way Google can stop it is to start doing shit server-side that stops delivering content, or go back to their Palladium idea and verify the client, neither of which they're going to realistically be able to do. Even more realistically, Chrome's market share is about to see a cliff in six months, the executives are going to start screaming about it, and Firefox is going to have a whole lot of new users.

Google's declaration of war against the open internet has been on the horizon for a while now, but it looks like they've finally drawn a date line the sand. It's going to be a nasty war. Everyone start battening your hatches now.

[u/kapsama → u/hackingdreams]

One can only hope. Firefox needs to be much bigger.

[u/cthuluhooprises → u/saynay]

At least for me it’s made me petty enough to switch to an adblocker on my phone as well. I hope it backfires for them in every possible way.

[u/CarlosFer2201 → u/saynay]

If even 1% of adblock users give up or switch to Premium, it will be more than worth the time they are spending combating it.

I don't know if that's true. Youtube's audience is huge, I don't believe a high enough percentage of users had adblock to begin with (specially on mobile). And yet they decided to target them. Because they don't want 1%, they want everyone to pay or watch ads.

[u/mrhands31 → u/saynay]

But the user count is so vast that if YouTube inadvertently degrades the experience for 0.1% of non-adblocking users, the uproar will be huge. The adblockers have the advantage in this arms race as they can adapt much quicker to new defenses thrown up by Google.

[u/continuousQ → u/saynay]

If anything, they're pushing more people to use adblockers. And if they're not worried about losing ad viewers, if the ads are there to annoy people into buying a way around them, why have ads at all? Just tell people free videos start with a 5 second delay, premium videos don't.

[u/ghotiwithjam → u/saynay]

Not if 2% join me and start asking content creators to publish elsewhere as well.

I realize I will have to start paying for videos, I refuse to pay to a company that serves more and more utterly irrelevant ads just to annoy me into paying.

So I am open to paying somehow - to someone else.

[u/Gravuerc → u/ghotiwithjam]

This stuff with YouTube has annoyed me so much that I think I am going to pay for Curiosity Stream/Nebula as it’s a lot cheaper and less garbage to wade through.

[u/Extension-Ad-2760 → u/saynay]

It will be really impressive if they find something more annoying than their ads.

[u/TIL_IM_A_SQUIRREL → u/saynay]

Ad blockers have been working around this for years by downloading the resource, but never rendering it on the screen.

This led to advertisers using complex JavaScript to see if the resource not only gets downloaded, but is also rendered in the browser window in a non-hidden state.

It's a cat and mouse game.

Edit: a word

[u/Fizzwidgy → u/TIL_IM_A_SQUIRREL]

It's a cat and mouse game

the past, present, and future history of all security in a nutshell

[u/BasilBernstein → u/Fizzwidgy]

"sometimes I wonder who is the mouse"

Steve Jobs on the subject of jailbreaking

[u/ShadowBannedAugustus → u/saynay]

I am sure someone smart will figure out how to post the correct reponse to the server-side faking the load, assuming it is really that.

[u/hemingray → u/ShadowBannedAugustus]

Precisely. Everything has a workaround.

[u/frisch85 → u/ShadowBannedAugustus]

As of right now, you theoretically could do it already.

What the script does that causes this delay is the following:

1. A div-element is created an appended to the html

2. Then a video-element is created, the ontimeupdate-event of this element is hooked, then the element gets appended to the html and after that it's given the class "html5-main-video"

3. With javascript you should now be able to find that video-element using the class and then fire the ontimeupdate-event manually via code

But this is very fresh and will probably change in the near future, so personally I don't see much of an incentive to fiddle around with it right now because when they update how it works, you'd have to update your script too.

As of now, nothing in this script is done server-side, so we still have all the power to tamper with it and make it seem that the ad could be played. If it becomes a server-side thing tho, we'll be in bigger trouble.

[u/king0pa1n → u/ShadowBannedAugustus]

There's already a ublock filter

[u/tutankaboom → u/puffy_boi12]

Exactly! I don't mind slower load speed if it means I don't have to subject myself to these stupid fucking ads.

[u/rustylugnuts → u/tutankaboom]

A 5 second delay for a YouTube abuela to teach me how to make better Spanish rice is easily worth it.

[u/jenkag → u/puffy_boi12]

an unskippable 5 second delay is still better than a 30 second ad you cant skip, followed by a 5 second ad you can skip after 5 seconds.

[u/puffy_boi12 → u/jenkag]

Yeah, I've said it in another thread too. If it's a five second skippable that's one thing, but the longer you're on the platform the worse the ads get.

[u/con247 → u/puffy_boi12]

Or just let us pay the cost of individual ads.

I don’t watch $10/mo of YouTube. I watch like 3 videos.

Mr beasts data said he basically gets $1/1000 views.

I will happily pay $2 per 1000 videos I watch.

[u/GoreSeeker → u/con247]

I wish they had tiers of premium, because I use none of the premium features other than the no ads (though the enhanced bitrate is a nice addition).

[u/Dinodietonight → u/GoreSeeker]

Premium really only has 5 features:

1. no ads
2. enhanced bitrate 1080p
3. play videos on mobile with the screen off
4. download videos
5. youtube music

Most of these features are "things you can do already, but here's a way to do it easier for a fee". The exception is Youtube music, which is included because it's mostly just an alternate interface for Youtube and there's no way to let people do points 1 3 and 4 only on non-music, and because it helps appease music labels.

I pay for premium, and I consider it worth the money for me because I watch youtube about 4 hours a day. Basically all the video content I consume is on Youtube. My only wish is that the download function would allow you to properly download a video as an mp4 and not just save it for offline viewing in-app only, tho I know that it will never happen.

[u/CleverNameTheSecond → u/Dinodietonight]

Download videos not really. You still need to stay online too let them play or else after 3 days it will say you have to reauthenticate and it won't let you play your downloaded videos. Those YouTube converters do a better job than YouTube premium when it comes to downloading stuff.

As for playing with the screen turned off that is some BMW charging a monthly subscription for heated seats tier shit in my book.

[u/maybe_a_human → u/CleverNameTheSecond]

Especially since watching YouTube in the Firefox browser, like I have for over a year, allows background playback, its literally down to "use the YouTube app, or get a better experience with less effort"

[u/kaiiboraka → u/Dinodietonight]

play videos on mobile with the screen off

this one pisses me off to no end. I can distinctly recall the moment in time when this was taken away. I used to do this all the time on early versions of YT on my Galaxy S (the first one), and all of a sudden after some ridiculous update that core functionality was paywalled.

vanced is the way.

[u/Drict → u/puffy_boi12]

Exactly. Ads historically (and at present) carry mal-ware, are things that are NOT appropriate for the age levels of MOST of the kids videos, there are SO MANY that more often than not they are LONGER than the video you are trying to watch OR you are literally trying to watch an AD (see movie, game, etc. trailers).

I would literally not use the internet/web browsing if I had to look at ads constantly. I have so many games, own so many movies and tv shows, and have plenty of other hobbies/games that don't require electronics that I could keep myself entertained for YEARS without touching that shit.

[u/Khue → u/puffy_boi12]

I am not sure who dictates ads but I got one every 7 minutes on a 90 minute video i watched and it almost made the video unviewable. Continuity was so broken.

[u/[deleted] → u/puffy_boi12]

Even worse. If I have to watch the ad. I’m specifically not buying that product

[u/Broken_Doughnut]

I added:

www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), *, 0.001)

to my ublock filter. Negates the timer and videos load normal again.

Edited: added to a code block for easier copy pasta.

[u/checkmatemypipi → u/Broken_Doughnut]

Please put that in a code block, automatic URL stuff is adding extra characters

[u/ClipIn → u/checkmatemypipi]

This is what goes in uBlock Origin settings >> "My Filters" tab. Just paste all this at the bottom of list >> click "Apply Changes" >> done.

! 2023-11-21 per https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/17tm9rp/youtube_antiadblock_and_ads_november_12_2023_mega/k9i62zu/
www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), *, 0.001)

Note: The first line beginning with ! isn't necessary, it's just a note where this orig came from.

[u/jamtraxx → u/ClipIn]

This might be unnecessary from what I've gathered, they basically add these filters in updates.

All you need to do is go to your Filter lists, Purge all caches, then download the updates.

[u/SynthRysing → u/Broken_Doughnut]

So if there’s a timer in the script then it’s completely intentional right?

[u/LaurenMille → u/SynthRysing]

Absolutely, it's a deliberate 5000ms pause.

[u/SynthRysing → u/LaurenMille]

Fucking Google, went from cool to über dicks

[u/konq → u/SynthRysing]

Absolutely. It's been a long time since google seemed to be acting on behalf of users. They have been acting on behalf of themselves for quite a while now.

[u/Wickedtwin1999 → u/konq]

Give any publicly traded company enough time and they will eventually forgo any standards and ideals in the perpetual chase of increasing quarterly profits by 2%

Its built into the system

[u/Foreign_Pound2707 → u/Wickedtwin1999]

Give any publicly traded company enough time and they will eventually forgo any standards and ideals in the perpetual chase of increasing quarterly profits by 2%

That's what happens when the founders and engineers lose control to the MBA's that worked their way up the corporate ladder.

[u/thedarklord187 → u/SynthRysing]

Google removed the phrase "Don't be evil" from its corporate code of conduct in October 2015. That was the canary in the coal mine warning people but nobody listened.

[u/Pjpjpjpjpj → u/SynthRysing]

Like, many years ago. This is just step #87 of their “be evil to maximize profit growth” strategy.

[u/chaotic----neutral → u/SynthRysing]

Just wait. Next June, uBlock Origin will only work in Firefox.

[u/manolid → u/Broken_Doughnut]

Some people have reported that this breaks the home button or creates connectivity issues on Youtube. If you scroll down on the original post there is an alternate filter you can use that works as intended.

https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/17tm9rp/youtube_antiadblock_and_ads_november_12_2023_mega/k9i62zu/

[u/strongbadfreak → u/manolid]

I've been using ublock on both Firefox and chrome. If I didn't hear about this in the news I wouldn't even know this war was happening. Good job ublock.

[u/I-C-Aliens → u/Broken_Doughnut]

ublock is love

ublock is life

[u/TheKingOfDub]

As someone who made their living from ads on my content, I appreciated the non-invasive ads they used to put up, but things got out of hand pretty quickly with non-skippable ads

[u/LostInIndigo → u/TheKingOfDub]

I literally left a comment for someone I follow on YT the other day because I sometimes turn off adblock if I like the creator, but in like a 30 minute video there were 9 unskippable ads. They didn’t do it on purpose, they very obviously just used the ad breaks suggested by YT, but every single one was mid-word and mid-sentence and it was SO obnoxious I immediately turned adblock back on afterwards.

YT has made it so fckn ridiculous and clearly the company doesn’t care about user experience at all.

[u/ChicksDigTheWangbone → u/LostInIndigo]

User experience? Is that something the shareholders should be concerned about?

Anyways, here's Ad-wall.

[u/dd179 → u/LostInIndigo]

I watched a 12 minute video on my phone yesterday. I had two unskippable ads at the beginning, 2 skippable at around the 4 minute mark, 2 more at around the 8 minute mark and then 2 more at the end of the video.

It's a miserable experience if you don't have an adblocker.

[u/TheDewLife → u/LostInIndigo]

This isn't just a YouTube issue because content creators see where YouTube suggests the ad-breaks. So content creators should be quickly looking over where they're placed. I intentionally create breaks in my script for ad-breaks and only place them manually.

[u/Unlikely_Exercise_73 → u/TheKingOfDub]

I'll support the creators I like through Patreon, Ko-Fi, Twitch, Fiverr... whatever they've got, but fuck YouTube ads. They're the reason I got an ad blocker to begin with.

Plus, those sources of income are far more reliable than YouTube ever-changing rules.

[u/roman5588]

May the fleas of a thousand camels seek refuge in armpits of the executive that made this policy

[u/IrishWithoutPotatoes → u/roman5588]

May their beer be flat, their turkey dry, and their socks eternally damp. I condemn them to this existence until all wrongs have been righted.

[u/Hyperpoly → u/IrishWithoutPotatoes]

May your champagne not bubble

May your pino be sour

May that white stuff you snort be 96% flour

[u/Deranged_Kitsune → u/Hyperpoly]

Now that truly is a curse on the executive class.

[u/tobias_the_letdown → u/IrishWithoutPotatoes]

May their pillows always be hot.

[u/drrxhouse → u/roman5588]

Why just the one guy? They’re all in it. Get them And get the middle management too! And the guys implementing this…THEY ALL GO! ALL!

[u/londons_explorer → u/drrxhouse]

Maybe they get pleasure from camel fleas?

[u/The_Quack_Yak → u/londons_explorer]

That won't do at all. May the scooters of a thousand children smash into the ankles of those responsible

[u/madman1969 → u/roman5588]

May their balls turn square and fester from the corners inwards.

[u/ExplosiveToast19]

I wouldn’t even use an ad blocker if I could watch a 5 minute YouTube video without being subjected to 30 10 second ads throughout the video

I watch YouTube on my tv sometimes during my breaks and it actually blows my mind just how many ads they shove into videos now. It’s insane

[u/flightsin → u/ExplosiveToast19]

I regularly watch YouTube on my phone (official app) and there's been a noticeable ad ramp up over the last few weeks.

Yesterday I tried watching a 15min video and it was interrupted three times by 2x20sec unskippable ads. Like come on. They're really pushing it.

[u/TheInnocentXeno → u/[deleted]]

For iOS users read this https://www.reddit.com/r/lgbt/s/Lj7cdSnkG3

[u/IAmAWizard_AMA → u/[deleted]]

Newpipe with Sponsorblock is also really good, it combines YouTube with SoundCloud and Bandcamp (and also has tools to download YT videos as either video or audio, or play in the background in either format)

[u/Deadman_Wonderland → u/ExplosiveToast19]

Ads in general has gotten insane, If you watch Twitch streams, there are times where you can be forced to watch 8 ads in a row. Like wtf is this, cable television?

[u/DreamVagabond → u/Deadman_Wonderland]

I completely stopped using twitch when ublock origin stopped working there. I was watching a stream at an intense moment and suddenly 4 minutes of ads. Fuck that. Twitch can go fuck itself.

[u/Aiyon → u/DreamVagabond]

Yeah at least with YT you can continue where you left off. Twitch you just miss stuff

[u/Remarkable_Soil_6727 → u/Deadman_Wonderland]

Its far far far worse than TV, they at least dont play them OVER the content.

TV you're also getting condensed content with no down time, livestreams can be largely nothing/stalling and when something good happens after a few hours you can get hit with ads and miss it. A lot of TV services these days you can also pause and fast forward the ads.

[u/yoranpower]

And I blame Google for forcing me to use a adblocker. The internet is infested with ads and they are enabling it.

Edit: a good read for those that don't understand the problem of ads and tracking https://spreadprivacy.com/how-does-google-track-me-even-when-im-not-using-it/

[u/canada432 → u/yoranpower]

When Google's ads were just a couple links or boxes off to the side, I never used ad blockers. When youtube showed a single 5 or 10 second ad before a 30 minute video, I never used ad blockers. When youtube decided to start showing 10-12 minutes of ads split into 6 different breaks on a 29 minute video, and the top half-dozen search results are "sponsored" links followed by 2 pages of SEO AI generated nothing that will flood me with ads at best and infect me with malware at worst . . . it was right about then I started using ad blockers.

[u/Akussa → u/canada432]

It was malware on ads that made me block ads. Google does a shitty job at quality control on their ads. They're even letting straight up porn through lately, but heaven forbid your channel isn't kid friendly.

[u/[deleted] → u/Akussa]

but heaven forbid your channel isn't kid friendly.

I like some channels that talk about history and social issues, they get the demonetization hammer. Hard to say what reasoning Youtube will give to not split the prime money with them. Not to mention you now get to pay with money and data since they won't stop collecting either.

[u/Aiyon → u/[deleted]]

What’s so weird about that is youtube has a kids section now

They made a “for kids” side to the site, then punish creators on the non kid side of it for not being kid friendly

[u/DARKSTAR-WAS-FRAMED → u/Aiyon]

It's absurd. A lot of my favorite creators went to Nebula (which I can't afford) and barely post on YouTube anymore because talking about normal adult shit, like history or queer experiences or depressing stuff, gets you demonetized for not being sufficiently kid-friendly.

Parents need to actually parent their children by monitoring their internet and device use rather than crying to companies for not catering to them and their incredibly restrictive needs. It's contributing to the internet feeling like a fucking playpen

[u/GabaPrison → u/canada432]

Just reading this thread has made me angry lol. I’ve always hated advertisements in every form and people never understood why I’d get so upset. Well now they know.

[u/canada432 → u/GabaPrison]

It was the youtube ads that made me go full scorched earth. At one point I'd even paid for youtube red, but I was watching on my GTV Chromecast and started getting really annoyed at how many ads there were. Then I got annoyed enough that I started documenting them. When I found that a sub-30 minute video had 2 30 second ads before the video, a 30 second ad after the video intro less than 1 minute in, a 2 minute ad at 6 minutes, 2 30 second ads at 11 minutes, another 5 second ad at 17 minutes, a full 5 minute ad at 24 minutes. And then 2 30 second ads at the end of the video. The video was 28 minutes. Around 10 minutes of ads on a 28 minute video. That's cable levels of ads. But this is worse, because cable ads interrupt you twice per episode. YouTube ads interrupt you half a dozen times in the same span. That's when I looked into youtube adblocking for my phone and TV and stuff. It's absolutely insane what they think people will put up with.

[u/CleverNameTheSecond → u/canada432]

Also, tv shows on cable are set up with ad breaks in mind and the ad breaks run at those points. It doesn't cut off abruptly to play ads at random.

[u/Outlulz → u/CleverNameTheSecond]

But even that is less of the case now when they do stuff like speed up reruns of shows in order to wedge in another ad break where there wasn't one before.

[u/ashyguy1997 → u/canada432]

I listened to Zakk Sabbath's cover of War Pigs on YouTube the other day, and it played 2 ads before the video and then a second ad break with 2 more before the guitar solo, absolutely ridiculous.

[u/shmatt → u/ashyguy1997]

such fucking bullshit, shows no respect for the creator or the content, much less the user. A music song should be able to play all the way through period. Regardless of the service

[u/cpthornman → u/canada432]

I'd argue YT ads are far worse than cable.

[u/Blasphemous666 → u/GabaPrison]

I’ve dealt with adblockers in some form since the early 2000s when they were just pop-up blockers.

Ads are truly the bane of not just the internet but society as a whole. Look at Times Square..

So yeah, even when YouTube had 5 second ads and google had stuff on the side, I was blocking that shit.

I want to decide what products I buy when the need comes up and I can research it on my own time. Some ad on YouTube isn’t going to make me say “oh shit I need that” and since most ads are more about brand recognition, same thing applies.

The only time I will ever make an exception is if the content creator has a sponsor and it’s in the video. Even then I will only watch it if it’s a clever advertisement. One of the heavy metal guys I watch makes some hilarious shit for his sponsors and it’s really just an extension of his own personality and content.

[u/unforgiven91 → u/canada432]

the real kicker for me was ads on demonetized videos.

So you can't pay the creator for these ads, but you can still put them up in front of their content? fuck offffff

[u/Thefrayedends → u/canada432]

Yep, I hate ads, but I used to tolerate it because I could skip after 3 seconds, look away from the screen in that time, sip my coffee or something, but the very first time I got a 10 second unskippable ad, I went full thermonuclear war on ads.

Now I just need adblocker for all the fucking digital billboards up and down the freeway. It's especially annoying driving at night when you can't see the roadway because the screen are so goddamn bright.

[u/SiNi5T3R → u/canada432]

I started using adblockers when i was very confused at weird noises i kept hearing in videos randomly. I had zoned out the ads sidebar so much that i didnt notice for weeks that the noises i was hearing were from a soccer ad related to the world cup in africa and the weird noises were vuvuzelas.

It was just insane to me that a company like google who hosts such a massive service had so little quality control that they allowed ads with sound to play besides a video... and a really anoying ones too.

Been blocked since that day, everytime im forced to browse the internet on a machine without my extensions im reminded of how shitty it has become.

[u/mrbaryonyx → u/canada432]

I was honestly kind of a "the corporation needs ad revenue to pay its workers" kind of person (you know, a dork) for quite a while. For me, the final straws were:

• The YouTube CEO stating at a public shareholder event that the company's plan is to deliberately make ads more intrusive to convince people to sign up for YouTube Premium

• Certain creators (like Lindsay Ellis) deliberately opted out of putting ads on their videos and YouTube put ads on their videos anyway.

• YouTube would do that thing where it runs two ads, but the first ad is below the skip threshold which means you go right on into the next one.

• Ads, in general, become more interested in getting your attention in those first five seconds and so get louder and cringier and more irritating than ever.

[u/motophiliac → u/yoranpower]

Although not so much an issue for desktop, on mobile the issue is that's my bandwidth you're hogging.

I'm paying to watch an advert.

Do. Not. Like.

If I can block them, I will.

[u/Pauly_Amorous → u/yoranpower]

a good read for those that don't understand the problem of ads and tracking

That's not even the biggest problem with ads.

[u/Theemuts → u/yoranpower]

I really hate that corporations treat every fucking screen as an advertising column.

[u/Biduleman → u/yoranpower]

The funny thing is, the Google Toolbar, which released for Internet Explorer in 2000 for Internet Explorer 5, was the first widely available pop-up blocker, which was the predominant form of intrusive advertising back in the day.

They built their reputation on the clean search engine and ad-blocking capabilities, then Chrome had all of that integrated directly in the browser and now they're acting that way.

No wonder the "don't be evil" motto was removed from their employees training manual.

[u/Deranged_Kitsune → u/Biduleman]

Says a lot about the world and capitalism in general when a company can't create shareholder value without being evil.

[u/JoeyJoeC → u/yoranpower]

I'm sick of Temu ads. One was a dead chicken getting it's head cut off with some tool. It was gross. I don't want to see ads either.

[u/AtomicBLB]

5 seconds of nothing is so much better than two ads with one being unskippable and over 30 seconds. Talk about being bad at math over at youtube.

I grew up on dial up, my patience can't be challenged by 5 seconds of nothing!

[u/king0pa1n]

"Users may experience suboptimal viewing" they say that like you're using some out of date software that doesn't get updated, like it's just a byproduct, when in reality they go out of their way to fuck with us

[u/WillBottomForBanana → u/king0pa1n]

"Users may experience suboptimal viewing"

Are they confused about how their ads also create a sub optimal viewing experience?

[u/GodOfHotDogs]

Adblocker technology by the end of this saga is going to be state of the art.

[u/starserval → u/GodOfHotDogs]

This is the premise to a new Terminator movie. Skynet evolves out of the ever growing need to block more and more intrusive advertising and eventually decides that if there are no humans left to view advertisements, then all advertising will cease.

[u/porizj]

People who grew up using dial-up internet: “I can do this all day.”

[u/mrpanicy]

Spending so much time and energy on telling the world that ad blockers exist. And that they are terribly well supported by motivated people that want to defeat every attempt to bypass them.

All Google is doing is advertising for adblockers at this point.

[u/jj4379]

They literally have a 5 second wait code in the site that activates....

[u/sammy404 → u/jj4379]

They are admitting that here. They’re saying it activates if you use ad-blockers, not if you just use Firefox.

[u/ContainedChimp → u/sammy404]

I use firefox with adblockers. I made the pause disappear by making my Firefox self identify as Chrome. Installed User agent switcher extension and boom... pause gone.

[u/Hugokarenque → u/ContainedChimp]

I still haven't experienced the pause but I'll* keep this trick in mind when it rolls out in my area.

[u/HoneyBuu → u/ContainedChimp]

Installed that extension today and did that. YouTube works so smoothly on Firefox now. Before I did so, the page with the video would pause a few seconds on a blank screen with fading shapes that resemble the "adblock bad" popup. It wasn't annoying, I wasn't bothered by it. But when I knew it was intentional I decided to do something about it.

This is where I came across the information https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4gXhmzQztE

[u/SquisherX → u/ContainedChimp]

Not sure if you were logged into youtube or not, but it could be that they were running an A/B test, of which changing your user agent changed your identity, which caused you to not be in the test any longer. Try it again but in private tab on firefox and see if it still occurs.

[u/Spherical3D → u/sammy404]

I'm gonna call their bullshit here because I have YT Premium, never used AdBlockers before, and recently noticed a dip in performance, e.g. long waits before video playback starts and "please restart your browser" error messages. Edit: from Firefox usage.

I'm willing to bet they're just throttling everyone in their crusade to "defeat" AdBlockers. Edit: or mess with non-Chrome users?! Damn, that'd be nasty as hell.

[u/ABJBWTFTFATWCWLAH → u/Spherical3D]

Me too! Even with YT premium and using firefox sometimes I get ridiculously long load times.

[u/Nibedit]

Still better than ads lol. What's youtube ads at right now 30 seconds of non-skippable? fuuuuuck that.

[u/kreyul504 → u/Nibedit]

I'd even prefer 30 second delay to page load instead of ads, before I start watching video it sits in new tab for 5+ minutes anyway.

[u/milkq014]

Google & YouTube: Spams a lot of annoying ads to their users on their platform

Users: Installs Adblocker

Google & YouTube: You're making us bankrupt thanks to your greed!

[u/HandsomelyAverage → u/milkq014]

Google: incapacitates adblockers on chromium browsers to make money on ads again

User: switches to Firefox

GG google, now you’re losing ad revenue AND tracking revenue.

[u/histobae]

I disabled ad blockers to watch YouTube. I was trying to watch a 20 min video, and I was interrupted 4 times with 2 minute ads. I don’t mind having to deal with an ad or 2 but cmon, these ads are too much now.

[u/PhoenixUNI]

YT was my final “social media” site that I spent way too much time on. I’d go through all my subscriptions multiple times a day, and many nights I’d just let the algorithm give me content. Realized that it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve watched any of my daily subscription content; spending time to figure out a new ad block solution just killed any interest I had in watching the videos.

[u/DoxMachina]

Yeah sure Google.

Ad blockers have worked perfectly fine until you decided to fuck everything up

[u/Jmc_da_boss → u/DoxMachina]

Google is saying the delay is targeting ad blockers, not browsers

[u/contemptious]

Ads are pollution. Noxious stimuli that should be tightly regulated. On the internet, they are also an unacceptable security risk. You must be some sort of sociopath to work in advertising knowing that you're polluting human mindspace and making everyone just a little more annoyed and unhappy than they were before

[u/HotHeadStayingCold]

As a final resolution, I would prefer Adblock plugins to change the video of the ad, whether that be some random cached video downloaded by the adblocker or the DVD logo bouncing around the video player. Allow the wait time, just don’t make me watch the fucking ad

[u/gold_rush_doom → u/HotHeadStayingCold]

Or click on every ad the browser loads, this will drive down prices to the ground, and maybe it will also ddos ad providers.

[u/dbxp → u/gold_rush_doom]

That's sort of like what antiphorm tried to do. It would randomly visit sites to make it worthless for ISPs to target ads based on your browsing: https://www.zdnet.com/article/developers-launch-anti-phorm-noise-tool/

[u/Hail-Hydrate → u/gold_rush_doom]

Look into the AdNauseum addon, it does exactly this whilst also blocking the ads in question.

[u/HotHeadStayingCold → u/gold_rush_doom]

Every company that places an ad on YouTube should be bombarded with negative reviews on Google with all reviews referencing YouTube ad in some way. If it gets to that stage we may aswell torch the place while the ship is sinking

[u/TheCrowWhisperer3004 → u/HotHeadStayingCold]

And then the review bomb protections kick in and nothing happens

[u/illuvattarr]

Youtube is nice and all, and it's not like they will ever win this battle, but even if; I'd rather not use youtube than watch with loads of ads.

[u/th30be]

Well maybe if ads weren't so fucking annoying and aggressive, I wouldn't go out of my way to get adblockers.

[u/smallbluetext]

I will never stop blocking ads. I block them on mobile too. You can't make me watch your dogshit unfunny garbage.

[u/kmaster54321]

I pay for YouTube premium and use a network wide adblocker on my firewall. I noticed YouTube loads slow on Firefox.

[u/Aar0n82 → u/kmaster54321]

Same, pay for premium and have ad blocker. I thought it was my network at first. Pinged Google.com and got good response times.

[u/MonkeyCube → u/kmaster54321]

I have Premium and Firefox w/uBlock. I've also started noticing problems, but only on Firefox, not mobile or TV. Coincidence, I'm sure.

[u/PlanetaryWorldwide]

So pretty much:

Youtube: "I'm loading an ad now."

adblocker: "No."

Youtube: "I'm loading an ad now."

adblocker: "No."

Youtube: "I'm loading an ad now."

adblocker: "No."

Youtube: "I'm loading an ad now."

adblocker: "No."

Youtube: "Look how slow you made me load this!"

[u/Jellybean-Jellybean]

I tried to watch a music video, and I got a t-mobile ad immediately followed by another "ad" that was a music video from a different band. I can put up with a 5 second wait if it means avoiding that.

[u/ZitOnSocietysAss]

It's your fault for us intentionally slowing you down.

[u/The__Tarnished__One]

Google removed their old motto "don't be evil" just so that they would be able to slow down unapproved browsers.

[u/Timbo2702 → u/The__Tarnished__One]

No they didn't - They've moved it to the bottom, but it's still there

And remember... don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!

[u/ghotiwithjam → u/Timbo2702]

Aha, so it is still there, they just ignore it.

[u/bento862]

They will try every tactic they can to get people to pay for Premium

[u/Sything]

If you use ublock origin and add a tiny bit of code to your filters, this is entirely bypassed…

[u/Temporary-Mammoth848 → u/Sything]

www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), *, 0.001)

In case anyone needs the code

[u/bryan-050]

YouTube needs to understand that if they show us a 10 second ad at the beginning of a video, most will not care. It is the other 6 ads during different intervals that people dont want to see. We dont browse YouTube to watch more ads than actual videos we search for. But that seems to be the state they want their site to be in. We should all just stop using youtube entirely.

[u/ljog42]

Nebula, Patreon, YouTube in browser on mobile, Pihole, Wireguard, uBlock Origin. That's my response for now and it's not likely to change anytime soon.

[u/sbos_]

YouTube can get lost. We don’t want ads!

[u/killer_one]

This arms race will never end. YouTube should just accept that people who don't want to watch ads will always find a way and stop trying to drive us off their platform.

Edit: ads not adds

[u/ExxInferis]

>not tied to any browser specifically.

But only good if you use Chrome with no ad blockers. So therefore targeting anything not Chrome with no ad blockers. But nothing specifically. Got it.

[u/Souchirou]

Google/Youtube are basically blaming anti fire sprinkler systems for the wet floor after it extinguished the fire they started.

Or

Google/Youtube blame the anti-break in door system for the broken wall. If you just let the door open they wouldn't have to break it down!

Sure bro.

[u/DevBuh]

Hmm seems like their ad policy is so fragantly shit they're telling half truths? "Nono we arent targeting anybody 🤣😅🤪 your adblocker is the cause, yknow the thing that didnt have delays until we made one 🥺 why dont you turn that off" I guess they hope they can get away with it lets see if it plays out that way

[u/Turlututu1]

I've deactivated uBlock Origin and still got hit with the black screen from youtube. Turns out they want me to fully deactivate MalwareByte, including the scam and malware protection in order to watch videos.

Thank you no thank you google. That's not gonna happen.

[u/Cali_Sober]

I think I speak for most people when I say I'd rather my browser stutter for 5 seconds vs. watching a 30 second unskippable ad. Get fucked youtube

[u/MindyTheStellarCow]

Bullshit... Use Firefox with uBlock, delay... Spoof your user agent string to pretend you're using Chrome, no delay.