What the fuck happened to YouTube!?

ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 511 points –

I just tried to look up a specific video of a Nick Swardson stand up bit. All I searched was "Nick Swardson loitering". There were 5 fucking ads before an actual user posted video, then one real human posted video that barely had anything to do with Nick, then 5 more fucking ads.

I knew they were forcing ads into videos but clogging the entire search feed with ads is unfuckingbelievable.

Is this really what it's come to? Ads are more important than what I'm actually looking for? Are people really okay with this?

289

Better question is why are you not using an adblocker?

Because I don't know how to do all that shit on my phone 😭

I've had several people try to explain but I just can't fuckin do it. I'd need someone to sit down with me and show me while explaining every action.

Use your app store to install Firefox.
Install ublock origin Firefox extension.
Go to Youtube using Firefox.

This is literally all the steps.

You can also download and install Newpipe

You can then subscribe to your favorite channels through that app without subscription and view videos without ads and even download the video or audio to your phone!

In the last few days it stopped working. Well, more like google maked it stop work.

Google breaks Newpipe regularly, and then Newpipe always fixes it very fast. Sometimes I've been unable to use it for about two days or so. Totally worth it to not support Google.

Check for updates within the app itself. Those are more current than the app stores.

So... I guess despite it's name it doesn't work based on Piped then? How does it work?

Its the other way around. Piped uses the newpipe extractor iirc. As long as your newpipe is up to date, any breaking changes made by google are usually fixed in 1-2 days. For me newpipe (im actually using a fork called tubular which includes sponsorblock) is working right now tho.

Oh, interesting. Thanks for clarifying that. So in fact the Google crackdown was already worked around, it's just Piped who needs to update stuff I guess

Yeah, I know it sometimes breaks and I've accepted that. But holy shit google, alternative frontend' users are like .001% of your total users, are you sure you want to spend ressources on us instead of doing other things..?

Newpipe works like a treat for me on both my phones

Tried to import, Google doesn't let you have the subscriptions file anymore

Yes, it does, I just did it 2 days ago

I get nothing, maybe because it's a brand account attached to a Google account. It doesn't even have a password and it won't let me add one 😂😭

maybe because it's a brand account attached to a Google account

That's exactly why, actually. Your subscriptions are tied to the normal account, I actually had the exact same issue.

You should be able to find a screen that lets you select between the two by clicking your avatar, I believe

There's no sub file or folder when I do it that way.

It doesn't matter, I found one for another account and Newpipe didn't do anything when I imported it.

Revanced is nice

I tried it but it doesn't seem to work for me correctly or maybe I am doing something wrong. I patch the YouTube app and install it but as soon as I close and open it, all the changes made by the patch are apparently gone. Shorts that are hidden on the first start after the patch are visible again, ads seem to be reduced but still happen occasionally.

I disabled the default YouTube app, gave the patched version a different name, disabled auto update, repatched it but nothing seems to stick after opening it again.

And then the whole "I have to download the apk so that I can use it" because I don't have rooted my phone is just inconvenient.

I stick with my yt-dlp server and Plex instead.

From my experience, if you're on iOS then Brave is the only browser I know of that includes a built-in adblocker (although I have my own issues with Brave).

If you're on Android, should be able to just install Firefox (or a fork like Fennec), tap the three dots in the app > Extensions > uBlock Origin

If you're otherwise using the YouTube app, I don't have much to add in that respect as I usually use Invidious or NewPipe.

Does Vivaldi not have an iOS version? It's made by the original Opera founder that didn't go all crypto bro and paycheck advance scammer.

Plenty of adblocker extensions on iOS Safari.

For YouTube, I’d recommend Vinegar, although the more general adblockers will also work.

Yes! I happen to already have a good blocker but I use Vinegar Extract for some enhancement.

You can block YouTube ads with AdGuard in Safari as well.

This is what I use. Good to hear it’s not depreciated on more modern versions of the OS that my ol’ 6S Plus isn’t able to run.

Does iOS Edge not have the adblocker? No Firefox extensions for iOS either?

Orion Browser also has a built-in ad-blocker that also gets rid of Youtube ads. It even has some support for Firefox extensions, including uBlock Origin.

Brave has agreements with some ad services.

Just use a good paid ad blocker. I have Adblock pro for years as a Safari extension and I never ever see an ad.

iOS or Android?

Everyone is making suggestions assuming OP uses a certain OS but you are asking the real question here.

I mean, even or Symbian or one of those other simpler ones. Just need a place to begin right?

I hate to say this, but you're exactly the reason why Youtube and other services feel safe and comfortable enshittifying their services.

Realistically I don't use YouTube very often at all unless I'm searching for a video I already know the full name of.

After all this shit I'm just not gonna be using it at all.

Assuming you're on android, you can use this download link on your phone to download the .apk for NewPipe. This link is a direct download to install the app. (If you don't trust my link, you can got to newpipe.net yourself), so if you click it, it should immediately start downlaoading and you can follow the steps to install the app. It's pretty self explanatory.

It's a frontend for youtube that removes all ads. You can't comment or like, but you can subscribe to channels via NewPipe, just like you're used to in youtube. But no ads. You do not need to login, it is not tied to your youtube account.

Youtube doesn't like ad dodging frontends, so every once in while the app won't work and you'll need to go back to youtube (or a different alternative) for a day or two until the folks at NewPipe fix it again. It's kind of an arms race like that, but with advertising.

For Android, NewPipe is great. I think I prefer FreeTube now however. Mostly because of the ability to use the Invidious api, built in SponsorBlock, settings coss-compatibility with the desktop version, and a better way to organize and export data (IMO). However, freetube android does has a few rough spots that newpipe doesn't have, so ymmv.

I prefer ReVanced because it's close to the native YT experience without the bs (blasphemy)

Another revanced lover here. You're not alone. It takes away nothing and adds so much.

The internet with a proper ad blocker is a game changer. Take the five minutes to figure it out. You'll save more as free time than that on your first day.

Ironically, you could also YouTube how to install Firefox, then unlock.

Get GrayJay.

That's all. Just use grayjay. Either go to grayjay.app and get it, or get it off the Google play store. It's "Grayjay" from "futo"

Hmm Play Store? That app is not gonna last, trust me.

Op said he doesn't really know how to do jack shit with his phone, so I provided the easiest option l, as well as the better option.

Yes, you're right and I agree with you. If OP decides to download it from the Play Store, however, he/she's going to be disappointed when they remove the app and it stops getting updates, and then it breaks.

I used to run a public TLS DNS server that would do some hardcore ad/tracking blocking. I shut it down when I switched myself, friends and family to a private Tailscale network with VPN on the exit nodes.

It was a little janky to manage but I still have the files laying around; my point is I could turn it back on. Since it’s DNS-based it applies to all websites and apps running on your devices, and with TLS it’s also encrypted so your ISP wouldn’t be able to track your DNS requests. You would however be trusting me, a random stranger with your queries.

If you're on android, use AdGuard that blocks ads in other apps. Or use Vivaldi browser with built in adblocker.

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I want to upvote you, but you're at 69 upvotes....

Nice!

Feel free to upvote them now

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The ad industry is truly one of the most reprehensible and insidious things humans have ever invited unto themselves. It's beyond dystopian how much of our ability to move through the world is now contingent on us allowing our brains to be bukkaked with ads that are designed specifically to bypass our rationality and embed themselves in the very fabric of our beings like psychological rootkits.

I believe conspiracism is the root of all evil. But ads are gaining on conspiracism like they're Usain Bolt being chased by an angry bee.

I have to hand it to those soulless fucking devils though, they might have pulled off one of the most brazen but successful mindfucks I've ever seen: they convinced lots of people that seeing ads about topics they were interested in was some sort of concession from the ad industry, like they were begrudgingly implementing measures to make ads "relevant" to us, and that we were somehow gaming the system because of it. It was a "win" for us to have the ads being served into our eyeballs and ears be tailor-made for us. "I'm so sick of seeing ads for products I don't even care about! I wish there was a way to make the ads be relevant to ME" said no cunt ever. But they managed to convinced us that everyone else was saying that, and that we'd won some sort of victory against them to have their advertising have the precision of a sniper rifle, versus what it was before, like some sort of shotgun fired from 150 feet away in the dark.

An entire species of marks.

brains to be bukkaked with ads that are designed specifically to bypass our rationality and embed themselves in the very fabric of our beings like psychological rootkits.

and like 90% of people think they're completely impervious to ads lol

I have been using adblockers for decades already. And it’s been that long since I had to see ads. Occasionally some site will have some way of it getting through but even then I have the plugin scan and it sometimes can start blocking it. Essentially, my internet has been 95% ad-free and frankly I am surprised when I encounter anyone who doesn’t do the same.

I've used an adblocker for ages as well, though I do wish content creators on YouTube could get some passive non-membership revenue from me without me having to disable my adblock and look directly into the Ark of the Covenant. I could get Premium, but at that point, I feel like I've negotiated with a terrorist.

Most of them earn more from Patreon and merch, that's how you support them greatly, not by watching and clicking ads.

Like, even the creators themselves tell you you can support them on Patreon or through their merch, they never tell you to get Premium, Join or click ads, as they don't help much.

If they have a Join in addition to subscribe that directly gives them revenue (of course not until after YouTube has taken like 80%). Also always see if they have a patreon account. I occasionally contribute to some very talented people.

For sure, that's what I meant by membership. There's just so many different creators I watch, I can't afford to support them all directly. Maybe I'll make some playlists to play on the TV with ads while I'm out of the house.

Yeah I agree there are tons and it’s not your responsibility to support them. My personal approach is if I stumble upon someone I find to be extremely talented and who is clearly working very hard at something and has been persevering for a long time, I then check to see if they’re already being helped by people. If not that’s when I consider contributing a little.

I mean I have my own family to support so it’s just a little bit here and there but it’s something. Mostly I consider it when I feel that the world is better with their work in it than without.

Remember that time when YT started showing banner ads below the video? Yeah, that was like just after the dinosaurs were wiped out and before blockchains became a thing. I was a long time ago, ok. Anyway, that’s when I was about to quit watching YT, but then I suddenly discovered the wonderful world of ad-blocking. Turns out, YT became watchable again.

That and all the people who say shit like “But I have to watch the ads to support the creators”, like there wasn’t 70 years of TV advertisements preceding this generation. I know I’m talking to a kid when someone says that. No one thought they were stealing from Burt Reynolds if they didn’t buy a Chrysler or tampons. It’s absurd.

I feel your vitriol and agree with it 100%.

When politicians of both parties say shit like "Americans like their private health insurance"... I kind of die a little.

When a random podcast from somewhere else in the world has a local ad injected into it by the app I downloaded it with...same.

When the godamn fucking pitcher's mound has a CGI ad superimposed over it....same.

We're going to advertise and conspicuously consume ourselves into extinction. So there's that I guess.

My god that was well written. We should be friends.

The link between conspiracies and ads is way stronger than that. The ad industry really went into high gear following WWII when the people working on pumping out propaganda to drive their own side of the war stepped up the game by applying psychology, new media, and a bigger budget.

Those people and techniques then moved to the commercial market when the war ended and applied their trade to peddle us the crap their customers wanted to sell. Make us feel bad if we don't buy product X and go on an endless consumption treadmill to try to feel good and adequate about ourselves.

It is despicable and even worse with ads targeting children.

Sorry what exactly do you mean about conspiracism? As in the belief in conspiracy theories, right?

I'm curious what you mean when you say it's the root of all evil

I could not agree more with your eloquently-written poignant rant, but I cannot resist being an extreme pedant—a shotgun fired at 150ft has a very small spread.

Are you... raw dogging the internet without an ad blocker? You poor soul

It’s the latest fad challenge, navigating your way through cancerous web pages

Don't tell him, if too many people get ad blockers they're just going to keep evolving

Is that really how it works? I feel like the whole ad based economy is a sham anyway, I wouldn't mind if it collapsed and we funded websites through micropayments or gift economy

Would it be so bad if we want back to how it was before? Just people making their own sites about things they cared about? For fun or the love of the subject matter?

9 times out of 10 the ads have zero effect on my ability to search for things.

I'm not saying searches haven't gotten worse but until this specific thing or Google's ai search it's been easy to ignore if you know what you're doing.

I remember being that guy.
It never gets better, ads only ever get worse. If you are successfully ignoring ads then they aren't doing their job, and they will keep trying different ways to get your attention until you get sick of this shit and get an ad blocker.

You have found a specific thing that would improve, save yourself the hassle and get ublock now to fix this for you as well as a dozen other little things you are "living with" that will be much better when they're gone.

Ublock on Firefox. Remember Google just kneecapped adblockers on Chrome!

Firstly it hasn't actually happened yet, I guess you fell for the misleading windowscentral headline. Secondly it's not really kneecapped, but required them to rewrite, which the uBO author decided not to do (as a statement I guess). Other ad blockers however have made new MV3 compatible versions that are comparable to the MV2 ones, so it's clearly possible. Also don't forget there are other chromium browsers besides chrome, if you use Brave you don't even need to install an ad blocker because it's built in.

I'm not going to get into the technical details of manifest v2 and v3, as I think it's beside the point.

I think we can agree that given Google has announced the end of v2, recommending uBlock Origin on Chrome right now would be pretty mad, right?

Yes but that's not relevant to my comment nor the one I was replying to?

Ads aren't the only thing to worry about. You're leaving yourself dangerously exposed to malware for literally no reason.

Real homies don’t let homies view YouTube without proper adblockers turned on

I take it you haven't been paying attention. The term that has been it coined is called "enshitification" and the Google is running at the head of the pack in their race to the sewer.

We should probably stop using that word and just call it by it's proper name, "Capitalism”. The only way for an ad revenue based business to drive growth is to force more and more ads on users, and flood their platform with bots to increase engagement numbers.

No, the kids are scared to type scary-sweary words now too stupid to know when and where they need to self-censor so the term is ensh*ttification

OP has some catching up to do

No, the kids have learned that if you mention a swear word or something that could be a swear word on capitalistic social media, you get censored.

Capitalistic? Lemmy.ml does it too.

AuthLeft taking authoritarian practices from other ideologies? Color me shocked.

What the fuck? So if I'd comment this from lemmy.ml they'd delete that comment?

Don't they have better shit to do?

Not the whole comment, but the word would get removed. It also applies to any comments posted to communities hosted on the server.

So much for free speech, eh.

That's sad. But hey, I see my instance hasn't done anything yet!

I know Youtube, TikTok etc. do it only to be able to sell the content better to advertisers; if there's swearing in it, gullible children might not be allowed to watch it, so less ads sold.

I wonder why lemmy.ml does it?

No, I just don't; the profanity is part of the point. It's meant to convey the magnitude of the deliberate running of the quality of the things in order to feed the bottomless hunger of the capitalist abomination ruling over all of our lives.

What happened is that you forgot to install an ad blocker.

edit ad blocker won't help here

yes, but their results are trash now. shows you 5 results, then 10 or things you've probably already seen completely unrelated to the search, then random "trending" garbage.

This is not ad-blocking related. The search results on YouTube are literal trash and there's nothing we can do about it.

Oh right. How amazing that one of my highest upmodded comment is the one where my comment is objectively full of shit

Google knows the answer to this is: "What else are you going to use, Dailymotion?"

Which is why they're a monopoly.

I still try Vimeo, Archives, and even PeerTube and WikiCommons.

Not watching is actually an option.

Sure. Not watching your favorite show is always an option. But if it's your favorite show, that really sucks.

Yeah. It really does suck. You get over it eventually though. And, who knows, in a couple of years maybe someone releases all episodes in a single download and you'll be enjoying them on a whole new level.

If you really like something that is only available on a single platform, and you don't really enjoy that platform, and you also have zero control over the platform, get out of that situation. It will always end in frustration. Try to gain back control

It's called enshittification:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Enshittification is a re-prioritization pattern where online product and service providers experience a decline in quality over time. It is observed as platforms transition through several stages: initially offering high-quality services to attract users, then shifting to favor business customers to increase profitability, and finally focusing on maximizing profits for shareholders at the expense of both users and business customers. This process results in a significant deterioration of the user experience.

Though the concept had been recognized and labeled with similar terms,[1][2] the neologism "enshittification" was coined by writer Cory Doctorow in November 2022 to describe this phenomenon. The American Dialect Society recognized the term's relevance and impact by selecting it as its 2023 Word of the Year. Doctorow has also referred to this concept as platform decay, emphasizing the inevitable decline in service quality due to these profit-driven changes.

To tackle and diminish enshittification, Doctorow advocates for two fundamental solutions: upholding the end-to-end principle and guaranteeing the right of exit. The end-to-end principle asserts that platforms should transmit data in response to user requests rather than algorithm-driven decisions. Ensuring the right of exit entails facilitating user departure from platforms without data loss, which necessitates interoperability. These strategies aim to uphold the standards and trustworthiness of online platforms, placing emphasis on user satisfaction and encouraging market competition.

How have you survived this long without UBlock?

How do people not know about ublock origin/sponsorblock? Lol

Even with ublock, the search is completely useless always mixing barely relevant videos with ones that have nothing to do with your terms at all.

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i tried to find a clip of that olympics break dancing thing a week or two ago.

It was fucking impossible. I literally couldn't find shit, it was all AI generated videos.

That one is a Olympic copyright issue. Either NBC since they pay so much for the rights or the IOC flag videos immediately so all your left with is low quality videos.

It genuinely ruins trying to find Olympics content if NBC doesn't cover that specific event

why would you ever copyright video clips of the olympics though, nobody fucking pays for cable or has time to watch streams. And we're also only talking about like 2 minutes worth of content, I'm pretty certain that would be fair use.

The Olympics are less and less about the athletes and what the human body and mind can achieve and more an more about the sponsorship deals. These corps pay big bucks for exclusivity deals.

yeah but that's all pre broadcast shit, it's irrelevant to some 3 minute clip being uploaded to youtube containing that segment of footage.

If you want people to care about it, it has to be accessible, and clearly, it's not very accessible.

here you go https://odysee.com/@deniel22:b/raygun:1

Thank you for this. I watched the whole thing. It's undeniable that Raygun can do a lot of things I can't, but her performance paled in comparison with the other competitors. Three four times I got the goosebumps when the other competitors did truly amazing moves!

This is to be expected, Google does the same thing with their search engine; delay providing the most accurate and related results in order to get users to see more ads per search.

I tried that yesterday to show some dinner guests. 20 videos later, I gave up

this is why i keep a local archive, only my stupidity and inability to find shit in my horde make me look like a dumbass.

Raygun is the best, but I also failed to find it and I have YouTube Red (or whatever Google calls it now). The Olympics was on that feed like hoss on some slop.

yeah idk i thought some of what she did was pretty good, she demonstrates good control, i think she mainly needs to work on fluidity and transitions though, some of them were awful.

Get Firefox and install uBlock Origin

It's still pretty shitty even with. Can't search for shit, 5 items down they're showing you completely different results from what you searched for.

Gotta keep you addicted to the content they know will steal your attention.

Psychological dopamine abuse.

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The search results are still full of ai generated videos

ugh yes that is an issue. there might be extensions that replace yt thumbnails though

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Youtube is useless nowadays.

We need more content in PeerTube if we want that kind of website again.

How does peertube work exactly? If I host an instance do I need massive storage on my server to host all the videos or is it distributed amongst the other instances? Do I have control of what videos I host on my instance? I'd hate to be hosting and helping spread Nazi propaganda (or any propaganda for that matter).

Most peertube instances are isolated from most of the other instances to avoid hosting a ton of videos. Honestly, your instance doesn't have to federate with other peertube instances since most people leave comments from other fediverse apps

AFAIK if you open an instance videos are hosted in your instance, and may be replicated in other instances via Federation.

Also it supposedly can work p2p if mutiple users are watching the same video it distributed the download. In my experience nowadays it always end using http download.

Moderation an everything about ita users fall into the instance host and moderators. I don't know if you can do an approval system, I would suppose so, but I'm not certain.

Also, search on YouTube has been utterly broken for years. You get at most 4 or 5 results and then a random series of videos that are completely unrelated to my search query.

It's not a bug, it's a feature. If you have to click through 10 shitty videos before finding the one you're looking for, that's 10x more engagement to sell to advertisers.

Are people really okay with this?

No, thats why they use adblock. Either install adblock or just use Brave or Opera browser. Ads will be gone forever

Keep in mind that Opera is a shady company. Please avoid their products if you're able and willing.

You should not use anything from Opera. The company is chasing trends, and its most successful ventures in recent history have been ripping off poor people in developing countries and marketing to gamers with a meme social media account. The company's failed experiments have been abandoned without directly informing users, leaving them at increased risk of security problems.

I am debating between Brave or Firefix. Any arguments for/against?

Brave is run by some pretty shady people who do things like automatically adding affiliate links to your URL or collecting donations for content creators without their consent

As far as an actual browser goes, Brave is based on Chromium so its more likely to work on every site but it has a bunch of crypto nonesense added that you probably would want to uninstall. There are more extensions that will "just work" on Chromium browsers, for example I've had issues with the Postman extension on Firefox before

Firefox is based on Gecko, its pretty well supported and follows all the standards but there is probably a higher chance that a site might break (usually down to its pretty strict privacy defaults) there isn't really much bloat (other than a Pocket integration that you might want to turn off)

Mozilla also feel (to me at least) like one of the last groups of Good People on the web, you can reach their manifesto to learn more.

Invidious was created due to this, it’s an extremely light weight, ad free YouTube front-end. Most of YouTube’s attempts at blocking it out fixed within a week. Try it now: https://invidious.io/

Revanced for android. Not a single add.

I'll have to take a look at it. I've been using tubular which comes with ad-blocking and sponsorblock built in.

uBlock in Firefox for Android. Not a single ad. Anywhere. Add Background Play Fix and you can play audio from video even when you switch apps or turn the screen off. For any video platform.

I've got about half a dozen plugins in Firefox specifically for YouTube to make the front page even remotely usable.

Without them YouTube isn't even worth it.

Could you expand on those?

Behind the overlay

ClearURLs

Click bait Remover for YouTube

Disconnect

Return YouTube Dislike

SponsorBlock for YouTube

uBlock Origin (with WaterFox web browser - cannot stress this combo enough.)

Unhook - Remove YouTube Recommended & Shorts

YouTube High Definition

Privacy Bager (also super important)

If you get any of these, you block origin with waterfox is a very powerful combination for YouTube and general browsing on the internet. Couple all that with privacy badger and you'll be relatively okay.

There are a lot of other stuff out there. Just browse through the Firefox extension plug-in store or whatever it is and they'll all be there.

Aside from adblocking making youtube actually usable, there's been such a notorious increase in enforcement of DRM.

I couldn't watch jack anything related to Olympics because NBC got youtube to spam remove practically any footage, as if I'm going to spend cash money on their shitty streaming platform to find a 30 second clip. Same thing for any ICC highlights. Only 360p widened 2 minute videos get past the filter.

Almost no such thing as public replays, clips, montages, or highlights anymore. It all gets boxed up in some corporate ownership, never to be seen again aside from the live footage.

funnily enough I was able to watch olympic replays on one of my city's (Hong Kong) official broadcast YouTube channels, specifically HOY TV, but all the commentary is in cantonese. But it's also region locked (I just tested it by trying a US VPN) so you need a VPN to a Hong Kong server.

Odysee just removed all ads of their platform and seems like a great YouTube alternative. I've been using it and uploading videos to it and I'm liking it a lot.

The comments are also much higher in quality. I'd say it's comparable like Lemmy and Reddit. Much more positivity and people who actually add something to a video. You do ofcourse have a few Nazis hanging around, but freedom goes both ways and you don't really come across them.

Besides that just use NewPipe on mobile or an AdBlocker.

I noped out at “blockchain-based”

NFTs and every other cryptobro have destroyed its reputation.

If you use Odysee you don't even have to know anything about crypto or blockchains, it just works like YouTube.

Omg, it is full of ads... Futurama, 15 years ago...

YouTube is broke, but it was also deliberately punishing you for looking up Nick swardson I think?

If on a computer, install ublockorigin.

If on android, get revanced.

Enjoy not seeing ads at all.

PC user with AdBlock for YouTube on both Edge and Firefox. Game. Changed.

LOL, I was a little stunned going to YouTube when I moved to Firefox. "What is all this crap!?" thankfully they had the same extension.

Edge will loose it after the changes to Chromium roll out.

I started getting the odd server side injected ads. Refreshing the page usually works to skip it.

YouTube is unusable without ReVanced or (insert preferred method for adblocking here)

SponsorBlock (alongside an ad blocker) is great for skipping ad reads plus a lot of other annoying bullshit.

Grayjay is amazing. It also supports different platforms like PeerTube, Odyssey, Twitch, etc. Revanced hasn't been working for me for a while now.

It still works on android like a charm. Maybe update?

Short answer: money

Long answer: As more and more ad sales started rolling in, YT was like: “Yes please! Can I have some more of that sweet sweet ad money?” Advertisers were like: “Yeah, sure why not. That seems to boost sales, so how much money can we dump into this black hole?” Some users were like: “WTF! I’m installing an adblocker.”

Meanwhile, nobody was like: “Yes please. I want to see more ads. Who cares about the videos as long as there are lots of ads to watch. This is the best thing ever!”

It's more like... YT realised they would never be profitable selling ads and needed a subscription model. No one wants to pay for a subscription so to improve the perceived value of the subscription they need to make the free offering unbearable.

This is pretty much it.

YouTube Premium is only remotely worth it because regular YouTube is an absolute shitshow

YouTube premium is worth it because of YouTube Music. I've never been impressed with the music recommendation algos of other streaming companies, but YTM has pretty good recommendations (possibly because they kept some decent things from Google Music). I'm kinda surprised the regular YT music recommendations are so bad compared to that of YTM.

I’ve never been impressed with YouTube Music, the UI feels jank and it doesn’t work on half the devices in my home (compared to Spotify which just works on everything)

Interesting, I haven't had any issues across multiple phones/PCs/browsers for anyone in my family plan, but that's internet services for you.

Phones and PCs are fine, I’m talking more smart speakers like Amazon Echo or consoles like the PS5.

Ah, that would be why. Good to know I guess, thanks for the info stranger!

Some people intentionally watch mobile ads and if paying youtube boots sales, people are clicking the ads and some may like them

I never thought I’d say it, but I don’t even use YouTube anymore. I might go there once a month to watch a tute, but only if I absolutely can’t find help from any other website.

Same as Google results, they've decided we can't choose for ourselves and are now going to curated results.

Rumble and Yahoo are far better.

Honest question....I've given Rumble a couple of tries. Every visit it seems super right-wing. And I don't mean conservative viewpoints with which I disagree, but full-blown conspiracy lunacy, hard-right fearmongering titles designed to enrage the conservative mind. That's all that shows up in recommended/trending when I visit. I don't have an account and pretty sure it's not tracking my preferences. Is that just what it is, or have I fallen into someone else's echo chamber somehow?

For reference, title at the top of the feed right now:

  • Taylor Swift Worships Satan (my favorite)
  • The Deep State's New Plan to Steal 2024
  • Why is "Conservative" Fox News Covering for Kamala
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Yup. Tried Rumble once. It was all right wing or pro-Russia or other extremist trash.

I've been saying for almost 5 years now, ditch youtube. Everytime i say it I get the most butt hurt responses.

The tides will turn though. I've been denouncing google for years, and I've find it quite striking how the pushback has disappeared recently. It use to be that any negative comment about google was met by a small army of google fans. That just isn't the case any more.

The dream is dead but we are still clinging to the memories of the good times

I get it, some things are not easily replaceable. That doesn't mean we shouldn't take active steps to cut ties. The biggest steps for me was uninstalling the obnoxious default install on my phone and subscribing to an actual music service.

Going to youtube isn't taboo, for me, just with the app un-installed I have to make the conscious decision to browse the site. The site is also much less convenient; making the experience mostly untenable. People existed before youtube and will exist after. The point isn't to cripple them but to hit them hard enough so they can reflect on their dopamine pushing business practices.

I wonder what the ethical considerations are, given a choice between ad blocking on YouTube, and copying YT content to PeerTube. Is it sooooo much worse? Is it any worse?

Where do you go for random videos and passing time watching things you're interested in?

Playeur is alright, they need a few more big creators to join, but some of my favorite firearms channels have gone over there, and I discovered a botany channel on there I had never seen before.

It's like ad, four tiktok "shorts", carousel of unrelated games, another ad, actual video, repeat

Install Newpipe on your phone OP. That's all you got to do. Just use Newpipe whenever you want to browse YT.

Try invidious or other platforms entirely lol. Newpipe on phones. Also block ads in browsers and on networks as much as possible

An idea for YouTube: make a way to watch ads separately and earn minutes, and then to spend earned minutes on watching actual videos without ads, lol.

So that you can leave ads running on your computer while you go do other stuff? Doesn't seem like a good deal for Google.

Google doesn't care about eyeballs, just watch time, ad dollars, and click through rates.

It didn't work out so well for Perk when they paid you to watch ads. But then again I was making $100 a week from my phone farm back in the day. Had 30 phones earning points at a time.

Don't give them ideas. If they had a reasonable number of ads, it wouldn't be a problem, but they are absolutely out of control.

I'm on YouTube revanced android. I have no idea what how stock YouTube looks like.

Just joined the club this week. I can't believe I waited this long.

{does Nick Swardson loitering search} {scrolls...} {thinking face} "i don't see what their on about most of this looks relevant..." {looks at Ublock notification bubble} *** {66 blocked}*** "oh... oh my."

Use Firefox. Use ublock origin extension. Use sponsorblock.

On iOS Safari extension Adblock. Plenty available.

I have not seen an ad in years. Decades even.

I don't think adblockers existed in 2004 but ok. Extensions might have been a brand new concept...

lol yes they did.

The first one I've ever heard of was ad block plus, which initially released October 23, 2005.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus

But sure I'm sure you've been using adblockers since 1992

10 seconds of googling:

https://adguard.com/en/blog/ad-blocking-history.html

i mean the fact its called adblock plus is kind of a give away that it probably wasnt the first

I already looked this up because I was curious. The other person had no interest in an actual conversation so I didn't see the point in reporting back. Yes I was slightly wrong, but believe it or not I'm capable of questioning myself and spending a few seconds to check up on something.

I will say that despite being a lifelong computer nerd, I don't think I had even heard of anyone using an ad blocker until probably 2006 or 2007. To say "I haven't seen an ad in decades" is a statement that just sounds false. It cannot possibly be literally true, so that primed me not to believe them.

Everyone say to use an AdBlock. And while for now they work it's a lose battle.

Youtube ads vs adblockers does not have the happy ending of adblockers just always prevailing.

As now embedded serverside ads are a pain to deal with. I don't know if any adblock currently can surpass those.

But next step will be youtube just putting a fence up and not letting you watch content unless you are registered, and thus banning any suspicious activity, or even just becoming a paid service.

The only win here is moving to a open platform like Peertube. That's the only future we can ensure. Adblocks won't be able to always win.

As now embedded serverside ads are a pain to deal with. I don’t know if any adblock currently can surpass those.

But next step will be youtube just putting a fence up and not letting you watch content unless you are registered, and thus banning any suspicious activity, or even just becoming a paid service

Honestly, I have not seen youtube ads in ages. Every now and then, when I have taken sufficient leave of my senses after having imbibed, I may attempt to view something on youtube using a device without an ad blocker, and then I am quickly and sharply reminded of what a dumpster fire that is. But on PC - no sir or madam, no ads at all, thank you very much.

Personally, I think the much bigger problem of sites like youtube and tiktok are the unforgivably horrible "recommendations". You search for something innocent or even just open the website, and you are recommended random closetted or open fascism, misogynie, racism, or other garbage.

I know this is an incredibly unpopular take on Lemmy, but YT Premium is the best value subscription on the web by my reckoning. I watch an absolute fuck ton of content on YT, and I listen to an absolute fuck ton of music on YT music. And my partner does too.

If you don't use YT enough to justify the cost of the sub, I understand being frustrated with the ads but it's a free service. I can't imagine the amount of data that YT serves daily to free users.

Yeah I'm with you on this, I actually only got it for YouTube music — which really is like "here you can play any song from the history of humanity and also yt video audios." Well actually what happened is I was using Google Music and then the assholes shut it down and merged it into YT Music which is now roughly on par. I was pissed, but user retained

But I have been enjoying the fact that my subscription goes towards paying the ppl I watch, and I like that I'm unaffected by YT's server side ads concept (which I've always wondered why they don't do, I think it makes CDNs too hard to optimize while stitching ads directly into videos)

I'm the same regarding Spotify. Only service I pay for, but I'm happy to do so for now. Not even a big music listener, but it's damned nice to hear anything I want, anywhere I want, for a small fee.

My most frequent use case is off in the boondocks. I can download a dozen playlists to my phone and play them all offline.

And this is coming from a guy that used to download 20 song fragments off Usenet and compile them to get a single MP3. Also, I still steal all my video content.

Well they’ve successfully extorted you.
Most of us use ad blockers.

Extorted? Why are you so dramatic? It's a service I'm happy to pay for.

I use ad blockers too. But I also don't mind paying for a good service. The cost of the service is worth it to me for the conveniences it offers. If I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't pay for it, but I also wouldn't be complaining about something I'm not paying for.

Yeah if you enjoy some kinds of things that are only with it and it’s like more content there is nothing extortion about it. You kinda implied you pay for it so as to not see ads. My bad.

Honestly though I personally don’t think any of this stuff is worth paying for but I’m not typical. My wife and I pay for Az prime for the deliveries alone but we get tons of extra stuff with it such as streaming tv, grubhub+ and a few other things like hbo max and peacock I think.

We also pay for Netflix. With all that, I still often find I search for something and either nobody has it or Az has it but you have to pay extra.

I torrent everything I want and fuck the lot of them. We’re already paying them as it is. But then that’s how I’ve been doing most tv and movies since like early 2000s.

We pay Prime for the delivery options, and we buy a lot from Amazon. LOL, I even have Prime integrated on my Kodi server but my instinct is to pirate it first.

I mean… pirating gives you the content saved on your own system, in the format you’ve chosen from those available, on your own system that’s not subject to pruning at their whims. My wife uses the prime video and Netflix because it’s easier for her, as I have not yet setup anything like Plex yet. I just use a pc connected to the TV, which is more complicated for her. But I’m going to eventually get something setup on Linux and a media center system like Plex or more likely something simpler.

Sir! This is lemmy. You go with the hivemind or die in a fire.

"I pay for a thing because it's worth it to me and here's why."

(OK, I'd like to hear your take...)

"Idiot! Capitalist apologist!"

best value subscription

My problem with it is that it reinforces toxic monopoly, and I don't even know how much money goes to the creators.

Also they raised price multiple times lately

Same. I originally got it for YT music. I don't listen to as much music as I used to without a commute anymore, but my wife and I watch a ton of YouTube. And it's mildly more difficult to block ads on the Roku too. I know pi holes exist, but my wife plays those freemium games that give you currency for watching ads and blocking all ads will break shit for her and then I have to fix it. Someone will tell me there's an easy solve I'm sure, but honestly the subscription is just way easier and I really don't mind paying. $16/mo for a family plan is 100% worth it to just not deal with all of that.

I disagree on the value part. It's more expensive than most other streaming aervices. If it was less than $10/mo I would sign up in a heartbeat

Even without the ads, the algorithm is so crap that I doubt you would find what you were looking for. On an iPhone you either pay for Premium for a shitty service or try building and sideloading uYouPlus. Adguard + Safari works to an extent and Brave might work better but haven’t tried it.

Safari with ad blocker YouTube end of story. I watch YT videos ad-free for years. How doesn’t everyone do this??

The recommendation algo works pretty well for me, and I don't know why!

I'm a gun nut, watch tons of guntubers, so you would think I'd be overrun with right-wing crap, but I'm not. At all.

It's annoying to watch a single video outside my typical interests and get a bunch of the same. But having said that, those recommendations quickly fade. For example, I was watching outdoor survival videos for a bit, predictably got hit with plenty more. But those are long gone.

Watched several videos about choosing and using gas masks one night. Here comes the survivalist, right-wing shit! But it didn't really go that way. And again, faded fast.

Anyone have insight for me?

What I'm amazed about is that ads even work at all. Especially when they are white noise. I've never once clicked on an ad to go see more about the content because I'm here to watch a video.

Yeah, I've got to imagine as you cram more ads into a platform the effectiveness of the ads drops dramatically. Especially once users start leaving from being overwhelmed by ads.

unfuckingbelievable

if you want that without the "un" prefix, then youtube is maybe just the wrong platform for you.

and i strongly believe that youtube "wants" to force more usage of peertube, vimeo and others by enshitting yt every day a bit more. and they really work hard for that.

Have you not heard of “The Great Enshitification “ going on?

The tipping point for me to definitely use adblock was 2022 and the ads when forwarding in videos. It's absolutely nonsense.

I've got a friend who thinks his YouTube Red subscription helps his subs make a living... So yes, this is what people like my retarded friend are bringing all of us.

I'm sorry... I really am.

Are people really ok with this?

What are you gonna do about it?

If you use Brave browser, you'll get zero ads and you don't have to use an add-on. Give it a try.

I caved and subscribed during the 2020 elections. Got tired of seeing two old dipshits yell at each other in ads. Actually enjoyed it enough to keep paying $12 a month.

All these comments about adblockers - you’re truly naive if you think those are going to last in any capacity.

Chrome/Edge are already going to be neutering the majority of the functionality with manifest v3.

Firefox is already starting to see some commercialization/enshitification with this new exec. Adblocker days are numbered. Soon they’ll be streaming the ads in-line with the videos everywhere and you’ll need to have a special hacked up rig just to content filter and be forced to sit in silence for X minutes.

Just because the problem is at your neighbors house, doesn’t mean it won’t come to yours.

Ah what a very helpful and hopeful look into the future that totally doesn't ignore the present.

I just pay for premium. Hassle free YouTube is worth more money than any other subscription I have.

Jezus F Christ, Jimmy, just use Firefox and uBlock! Also works on the phone, by the way.

I got both of those. I've been with YouTube since it came out and was called YouTube red however many years ago. My family plan has 5 or 6 slots. Between YouTube music and the video side and how many other family get to use it it's an insane value. Plus half the money goes back to the creators I watch. I can't find a single downside to paying.

Many if not most creators have complained that what Youtube pays them is ridiculous.

The exact amount of revenue generated by YouTube Premium subscriptions can vary significantly and is influenced by factors such as the number of subscribers, the subscription fees, and the overall engagement of those subscribers with content on the platform.

Creators can track the revenue earned from YouTube Premium through their YouTube Analytics dashboard.

Source-ish

And I've never heard content creators mention YouTube Red/Premium aside from saying it's not as good a way to support them as subscribing to their Patreon or buying their merch.

It sounds like it doesn't pay them out much, and they know it.

You're doing exactly what they want you to do then. Why not try some alternatives for ad-free watching like Newpipe or Freetube or some such? Youtube is not worthy of your hard-earned cash...

I've been experiencing a ton of buffering issues lately trying to use YouTube with uBlock Origin. I'm pretty much on the brink of subscribing myself too. It's by far the most valuable online platform for me and I've used it for free well over a decade. It was a good run and I'm not even mad.

Not to mention a good portion of the sub goes back to all the creators you watch. People don't want YouTube to make money for hosting costs, and people don't want creators to make money for making video through ads. Really weird expectations.