YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to Technology@lemmy.world – 1673 points –
YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users
404media.co

Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."

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Why? This is weird. Why not enforce a full 30 second delay or some length corresponding to the length of the ad? That would be a sure way to make people who can't circumvent the block turn off the ad blocker. That or they'd just do something other than watch youtube, which is also possible I suppose.

Doubtful. I'd rather see a black, silent screen for 30 seconds then an ad for some clone of a game.

They can't. If they make the wait period too long, people will just think YT is down. And experiencing constant downtime on a content delivery platform is really bad PR.