this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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YouTube isn't happy you're using ad blockers — and it's doing something about it::Annoying.

all 22 comments
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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I do. But its wild that the free experience is better then the payed one!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

Ad-free should mean ad-free.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Yes exact same for me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months 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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

get premium with Indian vpn for 1€/month, get browser extension to skip all BS segments like intros, outros, sponsorships or whatever -> enjoyable experience

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

narrator: it wasnt really about the money

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I’ve had that setup for a little over a year now. They just emailed me last week that they’re changing my region over to US.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This just goes to show you that Google will do anything for money.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Insert surprised pickachu face here

Well that's out of character for Google

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They also got rid of my premium lite subscription... I was paying them and now I have to get back to adblock.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

They try it out every once in a while in every country to probably gauge how far they can go until users either swap to Lite or quit alltogether by watching with ads or nothing at all.

Banger is, that with Lite you still get limted^tm ads. The fuck?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months 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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

The AdBlock arms race is still going on - would have been more precise

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

So I only watch YouTube on my PS4 since I watch it on my gaming TV. Are these ads the two they want to show while watching a video, usually around 6 mins between ads, though that seems to change depending how popular the uploader is, maybe settings from the uploaders too, I dunno the specifics but have been curious. Many times can skip in the second one after 5 seconds, first one is usually 15, but they seem to play around with it, sometimes skip the first ad after 5 or sometimes have to watch 2 x 15 second ones, or is there another ad rotation on PC I'm not aware of? I'm just curious since I rarely do a PC one but they are annoying. Annoying to the point I mute and consciously don't watch anything on the screen except for the ad skip being available. Usually hit it but sometimes stuffing the vaporizer I miss the first one then have to wait for the second to become available.

Personally it's not horrible but it'd be nice if I knew ahead of time which format they wanted. I'm also older,I assume if something was done like this in the 90s we'd be seeing full ad breaks like that time in broadcasting so I've been beaten down by ad acceptance as much as I try and ignore them. Trying to say even if it bothers me I sort of got used to ads all the time anyways.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

Sail high on the sea mate

[–] [email protected] -5 points 11 months ago

At least they are not running YouTube for charity. Their move is completely normal, in a sense.