YouTube isn’t happy you’re using ad blockers — and it’s doing something about it::Annoying.

  • Zerfallen@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I actually pay for Premium at the moment, but still would need to sit through baked in sponsored messages, and YouTube Shorts or other internal YouTube big banner service advertisements. So i still have uBlock (and sponsor block) anyway to remove that stuff. At which point… Why am i paying for Premium again? They made their site awful to use regardless of if you pay, unless you use adblocking and other extensions.

    • JasSmith@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I am VERY close to giving up Premium. In-content sponsorship is becoming so bad I can’t watch it without SponsorBlock. Since I need third party apps to achieve a reasonable experience anyway, I’m not really sure what I’m paying for. Once the EU forces Apple to allow installing apps outside the App Store, I might cancel.

    • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I used to be grandfathered in to premium for years and I happily payed it because it was at a price point I thought the service was worth. Then they email me saying they will raise the price from $17 to $22. Now I use revanced and get it free on my phone. I would have happily been paying the original price but they decided to be greedy.

      • jbarr@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Thank you for the heads up on revanced. I’ve been using NewPipe, and while it works very well, I like that revanced provides a more genuine YT experience.

        • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You’re welcome. I hope it serves you well. If you run into an issue where it plays only 30 seconds of video that means it needs to be updated.

    • SuperSpruce@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I think the creators are free to bake in sponsored segments, but I totally agree with the rest of it. YT is treating us like lab rats and pushing tons of unwanted unnecessary stuff on us. I don’t really want to reward that behavior with a monthly subscription.

      This is a problem with so many monthly subscriptions: Instead of treating the continuously paying customers well to keep them in, they treat them as fat wallets that they can potentially milk more out of.

  • kalkulat@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    While YT is playing its games, I’ve found a half-dozen other ways to get at the videos. Very educational. I’m thinking they are learning a whole bunch about what people think of their way-too-aggressive approach … and how people usually respond to that behavior.

        • dependencyInjection@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          How does it work as I just copied five links from piped and five from YouTube directly into Yattee and got Failed Loading video - Operation stopped every time.

      • virtualbriefcase@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I’m not on IOS, but I’ve heard Brave browser on IOS has adblock so that might be a way to avoid ads. Sites like various Invidious instances run in any browser would also be a way to dodge ads.

        Any browser that accepts plugins would also work, but I’m not sure if they exsist or not.

      • 100_percent_a_bot@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Sure, throw it away and get something with access to 3rd party apps. Alternatively, wait a couple of years for the EU regulations regarding 3rd party apps to take effect on apple products.

        • dependencyInjection@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I can’t really afford to throw away a £1000 device that still have some time left on its contract.

          I guess my next phone can be a pixel with graphene OS.

  • aluminium@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m not going back to using Premium until in-video sponsorships are gone! I’m not gonna pay money and then still get ball shavers advertised to me.

    • Candybar121@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t advise you get Premium, but I do recommend you download the free extension Sponsorblock (works on android too). It auto skips in-video sponsored segments.

    • PrettyLights@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The egregious amount and length of in-video sponsorships are why I cancelled YouTube premium.

      Ad-free should mean ad-free.

    • astropenguin5@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In-video sponsorships are almost certainly never going to be gone for every channel, and definitely not as a part of premium since those sponsorships are done voluntarily by creators. As another said, the sponsorblock extension works great, find creators that dont do sponsors, or just skip manually.

  • danielfgom@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The big issue is this: Premium is too damn expensive so we all use adblockers.

    If Google were clever, they would charge just €1 per month per user for premium and virtually everyone would pay that not to see ads.

    So instead of having 10 000 people paying €10 a month they could have 500 000 000 paying €1 a month and make WAY more money

    • RandyC@lemmynsfw.com
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      1 year ago

      I just went into Google payments and changed my address to a made-up Philippines address and I pay 239 pesos or around €4 for premium family. I think the individual plan is 159pp/€2.66.

  • HexesofVexes@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Eh, the folks here are not the real targets of this.

    There will always be a way around ads, but it will take more effort for a while. It becomes a question of cash vs effort and the majority of the tech savvy are going to opt for effort.

    However, most people with a 9-5 are more likely to just pay up, especially as the messages will get more threatening (“accept adblock or lose your Gmail” seems like a natural escalation).

    The net goes through these periods of monetisation drive, it has happened before (the pre DMCA net was an amazing place). You get half a year of bad service, then someone finds a way around it. Best option to fight back is to support the folks fighting against it, if you want a faster transition.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, what they are doing is similar to throwing a temper tantrum because you won’t allow them to stab you with a sharp knife, at least in my opinion.

  • Betch@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Ok but what exactly are they doing about it other than show that pop up? I’ve been getting it for the past couple days and I simply press the X and my video continues playing. It’s annoying and I’m sure they’re gonna make it more and more annoying and more difficult to block but other than that. What are they doing?

    • SGG@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      At this point, think of the old “boiling the frog” fable.

      For now it’s warnings with an easy skip button. Next they remove the skip button and probably add in more mid-video checks, but if you find a way to work around that the video still plays. Finally if they think you are using ad-blocking, no video at all. Then it’s a cat-and-mouse game between the anti-adblock tech and the anti-anti-adblock tech.

      The end result of this, and the ads, and the premium options, is money and data (that they can use to make more money).

      • Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Then it’s a cat-and-mouse game between the anti-adblock tech and the anti-anti-adblock tech.

        My money (not literally though :) is on the anti-anti-adblock tech. That can be crowdsourced and generally adapts much faster than big companies.

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      It’s already been reported that one of the “final” steps is to just completely block you from paying videos. I believe it’s only happening for some, and only in certain countries, but it’s clear they mean to end as locking on the site completely.

    • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Mine started like this. Then they said I had three more chances to stop. Then they blocked me from watching videos.

      I updated my ad blocker and now I can watch them again without interruption.

    • SirStumps@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not the an ad but several lengthy adds. If they want to kill their platform they should just pull the plug.

    • Jomega@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You should look into how much YT actually does for its “partners”. It’s barely anything if you aren’t Markiplier tier famous, and if you do anything even mildly upsetting to the almighty advertisers (which can anything from using a curse word, to acknowledging the existence of death, to literally no reason at all in some cases) then they take away even that. That’s why everyone has Patreon accounts and sponsors. Because relying on Google to provide for the people who keep their platform alive is a losing game, so they need to seek other sources of revenue than their cut of the ad money.