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."

402

You are viewing a single comment

I don't know how stupid YouTube devs would have to be to:

  • Tie the delay that was supposed to fight AdBlock to user-agent (changing it to chrome fixes the issue)

  • Ignore Youtube Premium users that pay for ad-free experience

For those reasons I think it's pretty safe to say that this goes beyond stupidity and into malice territory.

What evidence is there of this being user-agent based? I've heard people make this claim, but I have not seen evidence of it and when testing on my own machine there was no delay at all.

I'd wager Googles only releasing it to some users at first like they do with most things.