• Thteven@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Hahahahaha, do they know that using it without the ad blocker is worse than whatever else they’re going to do? I’d rather stare at 30 seconds of black screen than a 5 second ad, lmao.

    • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Having a blank screen will make me less angry than seeing a long advertisement. Not to mention, I come from the days of dial up. I can wait a bit until I view the video.

    • decisivelyhoodnoises@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Well actually they can do much more, like for example decreasing quality to lets say 144p

      I’m not saying that adblockers will not be able to bypass it, maybe there will be a solution as well, but wanted to say that the blank screen waiting is not their only weapon

      • Thteven@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If it was really that little I wouldn’t be so up in arms about it. I put a video on yesterday and had 30 seconds of ads before it started and then another 30 seconds of ads after a minute and a half. Fuck that nonsense.

        • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Usually the only thing I find YouTube uses for is those short 30 seconds of a video I have searched for. Like how to DIY something or quick, visualdemonstrations of concepts.

          As bad as YouTube has gotten, it’s already super common for me to skip over the first four or five search results, which are usually YouTube links, and just go to like the 4th or 5th one down, and fine. It’s just as useful. If I was blind or couldn’t read, that would suck, but I can live without YouTube like, I mostly already do, and used to, too.

  • dalë@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    They couldn’t possibly make the experience worse than it already is without an ad blocker.

    No adblock = No youtube

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      To paraphrase a great philosopher: executives… uh… find a way (to make things shittier)

  • AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Can’t possibly make it worse than shoving ads from hate groups. On my computer, I use Firefox with adblock, but on my phone and tablet I had been using the YouTube app until a few days ago. Google decided to show me a PragerU ad on mobile, so I decided to switch to Firefox mobile to watch YouTube. And the app either moved or removed the ‘don’t show this ad’ selection.

    • HiddenLychee@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Right? Having an ad blocker means my video gets slowed down by a few seconds, not having an ad blocker means I get to watch a 30 second ad from a local politician telling me about how we need to get rid of fornicators. I think I know my choice lmao

  • einlander@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    They had a long time to make the ad watching process less painful, or adding actual value to a premium subscription, but they are doing everything to make YouTube worse.

    • _number8_@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      i could maybe start to swallow the actual tech getting worse (just like everything else is lately) but this arrogant, odious attitude they’re putting on lately is so obscene and anti-consumer. it’s like it’s their god-given right to serve us ads and our solemn duty to consume them.

    • Blue and Orange@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      YouTube premium should have built-in sponsorblock. That’s one of the ways that free clients are literally better than the paid service, mostly on mobile. Let me change the theme to different colours, let me show/hide the “shorts” and “create” tabs. In general, just give me the features that YouTube revanced has on the official app.

    • coyootje@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I know right? Executives just never seem to get that you actually need to provide value to have people want to sign up for it. Saying that though, there’s a lot of dumb consumers out there that just pay for it if needed.

    • stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      If the price was like $5 per month and it gave you no ads and 4K steaming it might be worth it. But at the current pricing it just isn’t good value since YouTube doesn’t produce content like other streaming services (and creators still have to rely on sponsorships for their livelihood regardless of whether the viewer is a premium subscriber) that justifies paying the higher prices for the service.

      Instead their attack on their customers rather than just making the service valuable enough to pay for makes me never want to give them a cent.

    • VelvetStorm@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I had the paid service until they jacked up the price for no reason at all. The second they announced the price hike for no reason I cancled my sub and have just been using a third party app to watch it on my phone or ublock on firefox

    • SuperSpruce@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      They should allow premium users to use third party YouTube clients using an API, like Reddit before Spez’s war on third party apps.

  • banazir@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I remember what the internet was like before we had ad-blockers. I concur with others who have said turning the blocker off would make it even worse. There no fucking way I’m turning off ad-blocking under any conditions. I’d rather just stop using the internet altogether. I can not verbalize how much I hate ads. I stopped watching TV because of ads a long time ago. Never again.

    Oh man, I wish I could get a pair of AR-glasses with ad-blocking in real life. No more ads polluting the streets. That would be great.

    • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      Pretty sure any AR-glasses from the megacorps will add ads to real life soon enough. Any AR-glasses not from megacorp will be bought out to shut them down. Not like there is functional antitrust.

      • banazir@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yup, that’s bound to happen, which is why I’ve written off actual AR-glasses long ago. Maybe if there’s an OpenSource solution, but seeing how slow Linux phones are coming along, I’m not holding my breath. But I can still dream!

        • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          OpenSource phones are crippled by the phone duopoly and apps for everything. Apps for some things you really need. My business bank now requires an app for “security” and that app won’t run on rooted or alternative ROMs Androids. Least I’ve not managed to make it do so. I’m going to have to get an insecure, Google owned, muggle phone just to use our business banking at all.

          We need the market regulating before OpenSource phones, or any alternatives, can thrive.

            • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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              1 year ago

              This is true of my personal bank. But the business bank we use need a security device, but they have dropped that and there is now an app for Android or iOS. That’s that does what is basically one time codes.

        • dukk@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          If there’s anything I’ve learned, some open source genius hacker will figure it out, publish an early demo with 99% of features, and then disappear off the face of the planet before they ever make it available.

          • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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            1 year ago

            That is because the technical challenge of making a prototype that is 90% of the way there is not the same as that last 10% and building a business around it. Those are very different skills. So you start needing a team, a business and money. It absolutely can be done, and there companies like Pine64 that do it. I’ve got a small one. Running a business is very hard. Running an open source business is harder as you are going against the grain of that world.

        • Keith@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          To be fair, when we have GrapheneOS there’s no need for Linux phones, as Graphene has the FOSS-ness, privacy, security, etc. So very few actually care more than “yeah linux phone would be cool”

    • Anon819450514@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I cannot stand ads anymore to the point that when I happen to watch TV stream and ad break come up, I put the TV on mute and go browse Lemmy on my phone.

    • makyo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m in the same boat and often wonder what right these billboard companies have to put their messages in my face

    • danque@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yesterday a site for image translation I was using didn’t load the image. so I thought maybe it’s the adblock and man that was a horrible experience. How can people Stand all those flashing bullshit.

    • TangledHyphae@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      It’s even more weird all that invested time into people who are going to find ways to block them either way, instead of focusing on their userbase that doesn’t use them. Seems like they are rummaging through the couch cushions for pennies at this rate.

      • 🖖USS-Ethernet@startrek.website
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        1 year ago

        Since this whole debacle started, they’ve just made ad blockers more prevalent to people who didn’t know about them. Ad blocker use is actually up now compared to when they started making this a big deal. So, in a way, they actually screwed themselves.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Considering they can use this knowledge to apply it to the entire Google ecosystem, I’d say they aren’t wasting money in learning about new ways to fuck us over.

    • dan1101@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, I’ve been on YouTube with ads and if it weren’t for the Skip Ads button I could not tolerate it. Try to watch a 10 minute video and it starts with a 3 minute ad. How is that remotely reasonable?

  • Dragomus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I watch YouTube content on my tv, and get ads, next to using it on my PC where I block them. Generally I did not mind the ads, since it is part of the business model.

    But frankly the experience on the tv is degrading quickly in the last 12 months:

    From 2 skippable ads at the start (and end) of a video, I now get 2 longer unskippable ones, but regularly it doubles to 4 and a 5th that is either short or skippable. And if it’s still 2 at the start then usually 1-2 mins in I see 2 more long ads … If I have the gall to rewind or forward the video I get 2 more long ads, usually followed by 2 short ones a minute or two later… Some of that is probably ad-space tagged by the creators, but clearly YT overrules that and places its own ad markers.

    Slowly I feel it’s leaning towards punishment to watch content on YT, at least on the tv.

    On top of that there is the annoying interface that blocks a full 30% of the screen, often blocking the one thing I wanted to look at. Then the ads that always break subtitles of the video, or somehow enforcing subtitles in a language that I can not read.

    And don’t get me started on the topic-bubble the algorithm captures the user in.

    YT should have left it as it was a few years ago, but it is forcing more and more ads, making things unfriendlier for both the viewer and creator, all to squeeze the viewers for more and more revenue.

    It’s a shame it’s all so detrimental to the wealth of knowledge on there.

    So if a good and proper alternative is able to stand on its feet I will gladly follow the creators and watch the new stuff on there.

    • x4740N@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Just buy or build a pc and plug it into the TV screen

      It’s more customisable than a smart tv and you can even set up something like kodi

  • tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    These shenanigans have me rapidly transitioning from “I don’t want to see your annoying ads” to “I don’t want you to make any money at all”.

    • vermyndax@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m already there, and I’m applying this thinking to every site - including the one hosting this article.

      • tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Same, I view the whole internet through uBlock and a pihole, so my value as an “impression” is virtually zero.

        I’m not against for-profit websites making some money (and I run my own website, which generates a whopping $0), but Google has jumped the shark with their sketchy malware bullshit, and I’m starting to root for that organization to die.

        • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          I mean what’s the difference between me not watching ads and me watching ads but still not buying their shit because I don’t need it? I go out of my way to not buy anything I get ads for, so all it does is waste my time. I’m saving the advertisers money because they don’t need to pay to show me ineffective ads.

    • Pinecone@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah. The current amount of unskippable ads means there cannot possibly be a worse experience. Any kind of ad blocking, even if it means learning to write and compile your own code is better than base YouTube.

  • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    The ads make it pretty bad. They’d have to work really hard to make it worse without ads.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Wait until they make it so you either have to wait 20 minutes to watch a video or turn off your adblocker.

      Because they can do that if they want and they will if they feel it’s worth it to them.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It could be that they don’t have any recourse. At some point, I think Google will decide that the data they can harvest from people blocking ads will not be worth the cost of the server time and bandwidth. uBlock Origin has been doing well so far, but Google has far more money and resources to throw into this than they do. They’re going up against a Goliath and in these cases, Goliath often wins.

          I’m not saying I want any of this to happen. I just know Google.

  • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I’d rather pay the creators directly on their Patreon then allow Google to pester me with ads.