Mashable reports that users ran into a black screen on YouTube, and that it stayed for about 6 seconds before the video began playing. The reports indicate it affected several browsers including Firefox, Edge, Vivaldi.

Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad. While that’s certainly a better experience, it does waste precious seconds of our time. A simple workaround for the black screen on YouTube is to just refresh the page, hit F5 as soon as the page starts loading. uBlock Origin’s filters were updated with a patch to resolve the problem, the add-on updates its filters automatically. If you are still experiencing the black screen issue, just open the extension’s dashboard and manually update the filters. This tug-of-war is getting annoying, but it appears to me that Google’s efforts are actively promoting the use of ad blockers, instead of attracting new subscribers.

  • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    What’s the endgame here for users?

    Do we just want a reasonable subscription price? Something we can genuinely afford?

    If youtube doesn’t play ads then they cant remain a service. At least not as it is today. Hosting costs money.

    Im not shilling for them, i dont want ads either. And google are a terrible company. But im trying to be realistic.

    Do we want cheap subscription?

    Or a reduced service that can be maintained without so many ads

    Do we just want 5 second skippable ads back?

    Im just seeing this fight progressing to the point were youtube becomes subscription only and the ad blocker users have to pay or lose the service they obviously want to access.

    • coldy@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I remember the days of tasteful ad banners on the internet. Those are long gone. Now everything has to be an obtrusive unskippable autoplay 30 second ad or cover half the screen.

      It is not reasonable to browse the internet without an adblocker anymore, regardless of privacy concerns…

    • DefederateLemmyMl@feddit.nl
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      4 months ago

      They’re already harvesting my data. The greedy fuckers can fuck right off if they think I’m going to pay a subscription for that. It’s not as if Google isn’t profitable as it is. They just want more, and it will never be enough.

    • sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      Do we just want a reasonable subscription price?

      Yay, basically. I paid for premium when I could afford it because I want the platform to keep working and I hate ads.

      Premium prices went up without a lot of value for me so I quit paying. Technically premium offers a lot but the core feature that I actually cared about (YouTube without ads) never changed in value. If I had the option of only paying for that, I’d do it. To me, YT is a higher priority than any other streaming service. But they don’t provide a way for me to only pay for the stuff I care about

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      My problem is that paying for premium doesn’t actually remove the ads. YouTube fucked creators so hard that they started running their own sponsorship segments and product placements. So with premium I’m still paying to watch ads.

      • Psythik@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Well thankfully SponsorBlock still works whether or not you’re a Premium subscriber. There’s also always YouTube ReVanced for mobile (which has SponsorBlock built-in). There’s no reason to ever have to put up with an online ad, no matter the source.

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Sure but I’m not gonna pay for something I still have to actively fight with is the point.

          • Psythik@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            That’s not an issue with SponsorBlock because all it does it automatically skip parts of the video you specify. Google isn’t going to war with SponsorBlock, and even if they did, I doubt there’s much they can do, given the nature of how the addon works. So there’s nothing to “actively fight with”. Just set and forget.

    • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Let creators choose: normal ads or sponsors. Not both. YouTube getting part of the sponsorship deal.

      If they choose ads, YouTube goes back to 1 shippable ad after 1 second.

      OR

      A subscription which is just “no ads”. No YouTube music, not Google drive, no nothing. Just a cheap “no ads” subscription.

      That being said, even if option 1 happens, I’m probably not uninstalling ublock. Once YouTube forced me to install it, it’s impossible to use the internet without it. Actions have consequences.

    • Coil@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’d seriously consider a sub that just removed ads if the price is fair. I don’t give a shit about premium, red or whatever it’s called.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      4 months ago

      There already is a subscription service, it’s called YouTube Red or Premium or something.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’m actually rediscovering YouTube right now. A few years back it seemed like too many attempts were a huge unskippable ad, for a short video. Ads were way too high a percentage. And even when a video was a bit longer, any attempt to scroll was met with more ads, and maybe getting reset to the beginning

      This time around, I typically see one ad, skippable after 5 seconds, then another every 15 minutes or so. While I’d rather not have ads, it’s not bad. Even better, content has matured enough in the years since I first tried it, that there’s actually longer stuff worth watching: the percentage of ad time is much lower, so I do get entertainment value rather than just be fed constant ads. I could watch that.