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[DragoonKain]

YouTube might try to block your ad blocker

New messages from the site are aggressively going after ad-blockers and pushing users towards YouTube Premium

www.pcworld.com

It's unclear whether this will be widespread or not, but honestly, I expected this for a while.

That's basically all big tech is today. Instead of offering an awesome product people would love to pay for with awesome features or new features, they just make the free experience intolerable and if you want your experience to get back to baseline, ya gotta pay. Instead if "You want these great features? Pay" it's "You want to not be annoyed any longer? Pay."

I'm sure ad block devs will try to stay on top of it though if this does roll out wide. We'll see.

 

[Spyxos]

Great, youtube without adblocker is not usable. They are completely overdoing it on Youtube. Not only that before, during and after the video advertising is played. The Youtuber himself still have sometimes 2 or more advertisements in the video.

 

[sedg87]

Clicks Youtube video
30 second intro
Hello. Thanks for checking out my youtube channel. If you liked this don't forget to touch my bell icon.
So onto today's video
Youtube Ad
Video resumes for 30 seconds
Have you heard of Hello Fresh/Raid Shadow Legends/Nord VPN

zzzzzzzZZZZZZZZ

 

[feynoob]

How to kill a service slowly.

 

[AJUMP23]

 

[Artoris]

This sponsor stuff is bad enough

 

[feynoob]

Clicks Youtube video
30 second intro
Hello. Thanks for checking out my youtube channel. If you liked this don't forget to touch my bell icon.
So onto today's video
Youtube Ad
Video resumes for 30 seconds
Have you heard of Hello Fresh/Raid Shadow Legends/Nord VPN

zzzzzzzZZZZZZZZ

I have 50 million power in rise kingdom and that makes me the strongest player in rise.

 

[wvnative]

 

[DKehoe]

I pay for a bunch of digital subscriptions at this point. I use Youtube quite a bit. Yet I never entertain the idea of paying for YouTube premium and I don't know anyone who does.

 

[DeepEnigma]

They should just change the name to AdTube, really.

Clicks Youtube video
30 second intro
Hello. Thanks for checking out my youtube channel. If you liked this don't forget to touch my bell icon.
So onto today's video
Youtube Ad
Video resumes for 30 seconds
Have you heard of Hello Fresh/Raid Shadow Legends/Nord VPN

zzzzzzzZZZZZZZZ

That's why I love me some SmartTube.

 

[diffusionx]

big tech's business model of giving away its product and spying on users to sell ads is collapsing. It only works in a world of easy money. If you actually hold any of these companies save for Apple (who still makes the bulk of their money by building and selling stuff) to any sort of reasonable level of corporate scrutiny it is insane. Like, just take a step back, from the point of view of a corporation trying to make money, Netflix telling its customers to just share their passwords to as many people as they want, who cares, is crazy. It only works in a world where shareholders have been duped into thinking fake numbers like "engagement" are more important than money, but that world is over. Likewise with YouTube, when it comes to allowing ad blockers, you're just letting peole use the content without paying for it, which doesn't make any sense on a service built on ads. It is lunacy, exactly the same thing as subscription newspapers giving away their content for free on the internet (which they have mostly stopped doing btw). Obviously YT has an incentive to keep people from freeloading, and it is going to have to do that for the business to make any sense whatsoever.

 

[Spyxos]

I already pay for Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ and sometimes even more. I might be willing to pay 2-3 euros for youtube, but with the 12 euro per month they are on a whole different planet.

 

[diffusionx]

I already pay for Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ and sometimes even more. I might be willing to pay 2-3 euros for youtube, but with the 12 euro per month they are on a whole different planet.

Yea, these companies are going to have to "earn their keep" to keep getting revenue from people instead of just relying on free, or shared passwords, or any of the other stuff. I think it will result in better services. Prime Video is an interesting one as it freeloads on the Prime service which people get for free shipping and at some point Amazon might have to do some form of tiering as they do with music.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

If it helps, I have this extension. I think it works most of the time with those canned 15 second intros. Of course, you cant avoid YT people who promote their sponsor's products by acting it out as part of their video. But at least those automated ones are less intrusive.

Youtube Video Skip Ad Trigger

A plugin for automatically pressing 'Skip Ads' button on youtube videos.

chrome.google.com

 

[TheInfamousKira]

SWEET. Now I'm FORCED to watch those ads that keep me from my premium Magic Spoon plugs, I mean, my premium content.

 

[DeepEnigma]

If it helps, I have this extension. I think it works most of the time with those canned 15 second intros. Of course, you cant avoid YT people who promote their sponsor's products by acting it out as part of their video. But at least those automated ones are less intrusive.

Youtube Video Skip Ad Trigger

A plugin for automatically pressing 'Skip Ads' button on youtube videos.

chrome.google.com

ShareTube beautifully eliminates those as well. It even sees shout-outs and unrelated to the video cuts (but still contextual). The latter I turn off, since those splices of other pics or vids that add context and/or humor to the video (like watching Donut Operator videos) are not ads, but still nice to see how powerful the app is now.

 

[Trogdor1123]

what’s the best way at to block ads on iPhone or Apple TV? Is there even a way?

 

[winjer]

This is a great way to make people stop using youtube.

 

[DeepEnigma]

what’s the best way at to block ads on iPhone or Apple TV? Is there even a way?

AdGuard and Pi-Hole.

 

[Trogdor1123]

AdGuard and Pi-Hole.

Pihole is pretty hard to set up I heard. Haven’t heard of adguard before. Is it an extension?

 

[DeepEnigma]

Pihole is pretty hard to set up I heard. Haven’t heard of adguard before. Is it an extension?

iOS ad blocker by AdGuard: remove all ads on iOS devices

AdGuard adblock for iOS is able to eliminate all kinds of ads in Safari, protect your privacy, and reduce page loading time.

adguard.com

 

[SJRB]

Classic Youtube strategy.

When asked for a comment, Youtube responded:

 

[22:22:22]

Tip toe apply where this is normalized in x months/years. Data gathering has been going on for decades. Social media was a huge win.

 

[Liamario]

I will never pay for YouTube premium. They make plenty of money. No matter how they try and compromise their service for the free user, I'll find another way.

 

[LordOfChaos]

It's fucking terrible without adblock

I was already thinking about premium, if this works without a workaround I guess it successfully got my money, I do use it a lot but the ads are too frequent

 

[LordOfChaos]

iOS ad blocker by AdGuard: remove all ads on iOS devices

AdGuard adblock for iOS is able to eliminate all kinds of ads in Safari, protect your privacy, and reduce page loading time.

adguard.com

DNS ad blocking doesn't for the youtube app since ads are served by the same video servers, I've tried Adguard Premium and all

 

[March Climber]

I pay for a bunch of digital subscriptions at this point. I use Youtube quite a bit. Yet I never entertain the idea of paying for YouTube premium and I don't know anyone who does.

Ever since they packaged it together with Youtube Music I started using it. I used to pay for Spotify and decided to make the switch. However, from saying all of that, they really screwed up with Youtube Red(shows and movies).

I could imagine a scenario where they not only had ad-free viewing and unlimited music streaming, but also exclusive high budget TV shows and movies to rival HBO or Apple TV. Instead, Youtube Red was nothing of the sort and was quietly rebranded as 'premium' due to how badly they fumbled things.

 

[DeepEnigma]

DNS ad blocking doesn't for the youtube app since ads are served by the same video servers, I've tried Adguard Premium and all

I use SmartTube myself on Andoid products/TV which blocks everything and very customizable, just going with what was last recommended on non jailbroken Apple/iOS.

With sideloading coming, I am sure we will see ShareTube for Apple products very soon after.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Suck my dick Google

 

[Kilau]

Pihole is pretty hard to set up I heard. Haven’t heard of adguard before. Is it an extension?

I setup Pihole and it worked for everything but YouTube. Ended up paying for baking soda and vinegar on the App Store and they work fine… for now.

 

[HoodWinked]

they solved adblock on twitch its very difficult to bypass now so its definitely doable especially since they own chrome.

surprised it didn't happen sooner, people that bought premium and users that didnt use or didn't know about adblock essentially subsidized all other users. The share of people that use adblock probably is extremely high now.

but also its probably a shift in attitude because of the change in CEO.

Wojcicki was more concerned with activism and growth, new guy seems the standard operator type so cutting costs, improving margins.

 

[Spyxos]

they solved adblock on twitch its very difficult to bypass now so its definitely doable especially since they own chrome.

surprised it didn't happen sooner, people that bought premium and users that didnt use or didn't know about adblock essentially subsidized all other users. The share of people that use adblock probably is extremely high now.

but also its probably a shift in attitude because of the change in CEO.

Wojcicki was more concerned with activism and growth, new guy seems the standard operator type so cutting costs, improving margins.

I don't think many use it. I've only heard of people who once had the 3 free months. But no one in my circle of friends pays for it.

edit: ah fuck...

YouTube Premium combines music streaming with no video ads, and is available for the same price as Spotify. It reached 50 million subscribers in 2021.

 

[Portman]

I'm fine for ads from sites to support them and that are unobtrusive but they got so bad from there a while back I keep Brave installed just as a dedicated youtube browser. Between the built in adblocker and sponsorblock it has become tolerable again. I find it funny that sites/companies are willing to spend more to attempt to prevent adblockers instead of adjusting their ad delivery or asking actual users for feedback. For example I wouldn't mind the ads from youtube as much if they didn't drop them in the middle of the video randomly or let you watch them before the video and then be able to view uninterrupted.

 

[Paltheos]

I haven't seen this just yet. I guess it was a matter of time? Here's to hoping adblockers keep up.

they solved adblock on twitch its very difficult to bypass now so its definitely doable especially since they own chrome.

An asterisk belongs after 'solved' imo. The solution involves frontloading ads every single time you click on a channel you're not subbed to. The effect on me at least is being disincentivized from trying out new channels since I can't be bothered to immediately see an ad shoved in my face blocking me from trying out something I might not even like (or I just open a channel in another tab and check back in like a minute but that's annoying).

As I was typing this up, I realized that... youtube does the same thing in its non-adblock form, right? The only time I go in not ad-free is when I browse on my phone and that's so rare.

 

[diffusionx]

This is a great way to make people stop using youtube.

Is YouTube really hurt if people who are freeloading stop using it?

 

[Trunx81]

I already pay for Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ and sometimes even more. I might be willing to pay 2-3 euros for youtube, but with the 12 euro per month they are on a whole different planet.

Pay in rupees. Indian VPN. 1$ subscription.

 

[Spyxos]

Pay in rupees. Indian VPN. 1$ subscription.

How does it work? And won't you be banned?

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

I've been living in fear of the day YouTube/Google came after Adblock on PC. The site is unwatchable without it. Hold me GAF, I'm scared.

 

[DragoonKain]

I've noticed it's kinda been this way already on Chrome on desktop. For some reason on Firefox I get no ads with ublock origin, but I have ublock origin on Chrome also and it sneaks in ads every now and again. I'm sure obviously related to it being a Google browser.

 

[gaming_again]

YouTube without adblockers is a genuinely enraging experience.

 

[Spyxos]

I've noticed it's kinda been this way already on Chrome on desktop. For some reason on Firefox I get no ads with ublock origin, but I have ublock origin on Chrome also and it sneaks in ads every now and again. I'm sure obviously related to it being a Google browser.

I use Ublock and Adlock in Chrome and so far no ads. Only one was no longer enough.

 

[Husky]

I don't use anything if I have to see ads. If a site finds out how to slip its ads past uBlock Origin, I completely lose interest. That's even how I stopped using Twitch. I'm not a big phone guy, but I even use hacked apps so I won't have to see ads. Hell, I'll go out of my way to avoid a product if I was forced to see an ad for it recently.
It'd really suck if YouTube successfully blocked me from using uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock, because I really can't stand ads. I'd just have to stop viewing (and it wouldn't even be a loss for them). It's a good thing I don't live in a city, because those places are packed with ads.

 

[Trunx81]

How does it work? And won't you be banned?

We had this discussion in another thread. It works. If you are scared, just make another YT account to try it out.

 

[Lasha]

YouTube is unusable without AdBlock and sponsorblock. I would stop using YouTube entirely if those add-ons ever get blocked.

 

[Nobody_Important]

The ad blockers will probably find a way around this. If not I just won't use YouTube on my computer anymore.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Watching YT on my TVs native app is an awful experience. They are worse than Twitch.

 

[Unknown?]

I use FreeTube on PC and LibreTube on mobile. No ads and uses sponsor block too.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Look, no one likes ads but why do you guys think it is free? The people losing money is really the creators that you are watching

 

[Unknown?]

Look, no one likes ads but why do you guys think it is free? The people losing money is really the creators that you are watching

Because they sell your data?

 

[Sleepwalker]

Is YouTube really hurt if people who are freeloading stop using it?

I dont think youtube themselves would be hurt but content creator metrics would for sure, which means less overall viewership, less appealing sponsors and what not. I think YouTube would like to keep their creators happy as the grunt of the work is made by them.