Technology

It seems like we've all lost the plot. We'd probably be willing to view ads if the experience wasn't literally jarring. Try browsing for a day on a plain-no-extension browser. If you use other web enhancement tools kill those too. Straight-up internet is cancer, especially on mobile.

It's impossible to read a 250-word article without being interrupted 5-7 times. Two of those interruptions are likely a full page overlay with give me your email, and are you sure you don't want to subscribe, just give me your credit card number.

Then there are auto-play videos on the side, some with audio on by default. I mean I came here to read something, so of course we have things flashing and moving and making noise, it's the most conducive environment for thought, right?

Ad blockers and script blocking are essentially a hazmat suit that allows us to withstand a hostile environment. Remember when we said myspace pages with audio and [marching-ants] borders was a bad UX? At least we didn't have overlays back then.

Go back to basics and consider what makes a good vs bad internet experience. The reality sounds like someone with a minor case of severe brain damage. I think we've just become unashamed of greed as a society. It's clearly all just about money.

Those annoying customers/users generate content and we have to put up with them so we can monetize it. *Sadly, It's unclear if I'm talking about youtube, reddit, or nearly any other site.

Le sigh.

oh look, another web service who wants to strangle its users for money and ad views :D when's a peertube instance going to get some big creators on it supported by viewers? that'll do it, i bet

Wow the enshittification is at full throttle across silicon valley! Guess those investors gotta get those returns now that interest rates are spiking!

I imagine folks wouldn't have a problem with this if the ads weren't already so aggressive. Numerous ads before and during the content break it up too much. And if the content is extremely short form, it completely ruins the experience.

The number of ads and their length should be proportional to the length of the video. And any creator doing built-in ads should also not be able to inject a bunch of other ads. Burying content is an easy way to get avoided.

Print media had limits for advertisements, heck, in magazines they were premium real estate for the finest graphic designers to put together incredible imagery to get your attention. This level of care (not necessarily images or what have you) has yet to translate to the web.

That's funny, I'm testing YouTube alternatives.

I just stood up a selfhosted Invidious instance the other day, and I replaced YouTube ReVanced with Clipious (an Invidious client for Android) on my phone. No ads, SponsorBlock built-in, no need for a YouTube/Google account to create subscriptions, playlists, etc. And it's highly performant since I run it behind a reverse proxy with some custom caching configuration for things like thumbnail images, static assets, etc.

Clipious can also be installed on an Android TV (has an actual Android TV interface). I'm going to end up installing it on mine, but I'm also using SmartTubeNext at the moment, which does require a YouTube/Google account for subscriptions, playlists, etc, but does have no ads, built-in SponsorBlock, and a slew of other great features. I'll be keeping both around, since I do sometimes like to cast to my TV, and SmartTubeNext allows for that (Clipious does not, at least at this time).

Unless YouTube somehow starts somehow dynamically splicing in ads as part of the actual video stream, there's always going to be a way to block ads, unless they do something pretty elaborate. But that's probably not worth the effort on their end to go that far, since the vast, vast majority of people won't know what to do to get around that, nor will they probably care enough to try. But I think it's clear that DNS blocking using services such as AdGuard Home, PiHole, etc, are going to become less effective over time.

Yep, got selected for this test and I thought my network went down.

Had to do nearly 30 mins of debugging until I realized it was youtube actively withholding JUST the video. Took some effort but managed to get them to send the videos again after resetting a bunch of things.

I refuse to view ads and will go to the ends of the earth to make that happen.

Paying is most certainly an option, but only when that becomes the ONLY option.

I've been using an adblocker since ads starting becoming more intrusive and the internet has progressed so much that it's become generally unusable without one. I remember when a mobile ad popped up on my phone and it straight up startled me.

I would rather not watch Youtube again then be exposed to terrible ads. I accidentally went on Youtube on Chrome and one of the ads was a straight up scam. $7.54 Switch! Like maybe if they had humans vet ads like you used to do maybe I would have less of a problem with it.

We'll find a way around it, if not go to hell YT. Apart from posters in the real world, I am living a 100% ad-free life and I'm super happy about it.

The comments in here are interesting to me. Ads and Premium are a way for your favorite content creators to get paid for the content that they produce. I've listened to a number of creators talk about the YouTube revenue sharing model and most of them (LTT and Hank Green) says that YouTube is actually really fair with how they share ad revenue and how Premium is actually a good alternative that meets the needs of the platform, users, and creators. And YouTube, the platform, DOES need to get paid as well otherwise your videos can't get to you.

I also hate ads, like a lot, and I do whatever I can to get them off of my screen because I think they are intrusive and we have proof of how they enable tracking across the internet at large. However, for those platforms that I find extreme value in (YouTube being the example here) I see how and why ads/Premium pump value into their system. If your favorite content creator isn't getting paid for their content, they won't be able to sustain it long term.

One last thought about video streaming and the content we all love that is hosted by YouTube: if we were to say that we would rather our money go directly to our favorite content creators, we would end up with a very fragmented ecosystem akin to the Streaming Service MESS we are in with TV/Movies. I would LOVE to pay LTT directly through Floatplane, but then where would I be with being able to watch other content creators?

I have had this in my ublock origin filters for quite some time. Seems to do the trick:

!www.youtube.com
##.ytp-ce-element

I wouldn't mind ads if,

1. They didn't repeat the same 3 ads every few minutes on high ad videos (No It, I will not take it >:c)
2. Moderated and removed obvious scam ads
3. Remove ads that are disgusting or clearly inappropriate (I have seen some stuff that could be categorized as porn in youtube ads and no I do not allow them to feed me ads based on my interests)
4. If ads were still not being actively being used to spread malware/viruses (not sure if this happens on YouTube at all but I would rather be safe then sorry)

Alternate headline: Users test using only YouTube ReVanced to bypass this new system

and I'm testing Youtube Revanced on my phone for unlimited ad-free background play for nothing!

I do understand that if companies running ad-supported models, they need to make sure users are actually watching those ads. Seems logically to me - no ads mean no money, and no money means no sustainable business model.

On the other side, as a user, I just can't browse the internet without an ad-blocker any more. They just got so annoying and sometimes even break the actual website.

But to be honest, I don't see an alternative to ad-supported models except paying money directly via subscriptions plans etc. But this also will not work in the long term. I just can't pay afford to pay a subscription for each website I visit during the day.

This will lead to an increase of ad-blocker-blocker-blocker development.

I'll say something unexpected: I pay for YouTube. With money! Why?

• I use it every day and I'm a human who likes boosting the things that I enjoy
• I think YouTube's content recommendations are a genuine value-add and not easily replaced
• A cut of my subscription fee goes directly back to the video creators that I watch
• The "premium" encoding levels are actually a substantial improvement to video bitrates
  • Important: the premium bitrate is higher than anything previously offered and probably would not have been otherwise practical to serve for free

So yeah. I personally like YouTube enough to pay for it and I have the financial means to do so. Am I a clown for expressing personal appreciation towards a faceless megacorp? Yes. Yes I am. Constantly trying to win at every transaction in life is a drag though, so I think I'll continue to enjoy getting swindled.

If you serve me Ads that lead to scams and malicious websites, you don't reserve my ad revenue.

Honestly, others do have point when they say we are basically leeching off of the platform. I honestly don't think I'd mind paying for youtube, I currently don't because it kind of just got ingrained in me that youtube was "free". I think the ad supported model is fundamentally flawed though.

Platforms will always want to make it worth it for advertisers to work for them. With the huge trove of user data that sites like Youtube, Twitter, Facebook etc. have they will use that to leverage personalized ads that will feed your brain with garbage all day and coax you into buying shit you don't need or sometimes even falling for scams.

I'd honestly like it better if these sites just straight up charged you right out of the gate. Maybe on top of that we could have sites be interoperable, like the fediverse, so it's not necessarily what the site offers but how they offer it to you. Making you want to pay for an experience that you truly can't get anywhere else.

If they really block adblockers, I will subscribe. To Nebula. It's got everything I want, adfree (including sponsored segments), extra content and is cheaper. And the content creators get a bigger share of the money.

At least with my subscriptions I've been noticing an increase in sponsored segments. And you know what? I don't mind. It's much less jarring when the "host" is also doing the ad and pretty much just works it into the video. People have to make money, and this old-school approach works for me. Reminds me of ads in old TV/radio shows. And it doesn't suddenly change the scene and quadruple the volume along with seizure-inducing backgrounds.

Although not nice for people that can't afford or don't want YouTube premium, this makes a lot of sense. Hosting videos costs a lot of money, and I doubt the YouTube Premium subscribers pay even nearly enough to pay for the hosting of all these videos. Personally I just have YouTube Premium as this also gives more money to the creators that make these videos.

I think an Open Source alternative would also have a lot of trouble with receiving enough funding to stay up. It would require a lot more donation compared to hosting mostly text based sites like Lemmy.

This should go quite well for YouTube. popcorn gif

YouTube is going to have a lot of trouble enforcing this. Lots and lots of people out there are going to be immediately at work finding ways around this limitation.

Just get an adblocker-blocker-blocker. Easy

Oh, cool; more reason to use Piped and Invidious lmao

Fuck youtube anyway. Absolute sesspit of influencers, ads and stolen content.

The ad blocking arms race churns ever onward

God the ads are awful. If they start blocking apps like Vanced and Browsers like brave, i will make a PiHole. And they can never block it.

Unpopular opinion: I like paying for YouTube Premium to get rid of ads and still make it possible for creators and YouTube to get paid and survive an keep offering me entertainment.

In addition you also get YouTube Music so no need to pay for Spotify. It might not have as good features but I listen to music specifically so I only search for what I want to listen to and don't want any algorithms anyway.

I use YouTube a lot, both on my phone via ReVanced and my smart TV via SmartTubeNext, completely ad free. If Youtube manage to block videos unless the users deactivate their adblockers, even if I enjoy Youtube a lot, I'll just stop watching videos. The quantity of ad per video is just insane. No way I can stand watching all those ads.

Yet another platform to boycott? Excellent!

Translation: YT tests randomly pissing off users until they get fed up and leave for another site. if a site tells me I can't partake of their content with my adblocker engaged, I simply find my fix elsewhere.