I came across a few days ago with Pipepipe, which is a Newpipe Hard fork with sponsorblock. It seems that it is better maintained than Newpipe ( Newpipe stops working sometimes ), and has more features. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/InfinityLoop1309.NewPipeEnhanced/
I haven’t read the article, but surely this is an accident? I have almost no faith left in our capitalistic society, but surely even Youtube understands that nobody is going to watch an hour long ad, right?
The most mysterious one to me happened in 2015 or so. I was watching Zero Punctuation, and it served me an hour long computer networking lecture as an ad. Like, some Indian guy delivering a power point presentation. I was like, what’s the monetization strategy here, guys? Did this dude pay you to serve his lectures as ads? What?
At one point there was a period of time where YouTube was consistently serving me ads in Arabic, a language that I don’t speak and from a country I have never been to.
Their algorithm just breaks sometimes.
Edit: not sure why that was in capitals.
There was awhile there where my parents were getting ads for Pull-Ups Toddler diapers in Spanish.
I know there was that story about Google knowing about some guy’s daughter being pregnant before she’d actually told him.
So maybe I’m just really Arabic and haven’t noticed yet.
That wasn’t Google, it was Target. Based on the teen’s buying habits, that she suddenly started buying certain vitamins, unscented lotion, that sort of stuff with her loyalty card, their system put two and two together and sent her coupons for maternity and baby products, which is how her father learned he was gonna be a grandpa.
Google has similar power to know more about you than your friends and family, though.
No problem with ads with https://smarttubeapp.github.io/ Or youtube revanced :)
Explanation: they weren’t using an (functional) ad blocker for some reason.
Some Alternatives:
- Firefox + Ublock Origin
- Grayjay App
- Grayjay Desktop
- FreeTube
- NewPipe
NewPipe stopped working for me two weeks ago, and it seems like Google won’t allow NewPipe to download Youtube’s content for free anymore. I don’t think Youtube/NewPipe will ever be usable again. I think we have to say goodbye to Youtube.
- LibreTube on Android
Firefox + Ublock Origin
This right here. No longer using chromium-based browsers is a really good start.
Youtube ReVanced is flawless. It’s easy to patch
They force paying customers ( yt music premium & yt premium ) to disable ad blockers, too. Why? If I accordingly to the contract shouldn’t get any ads why they would need to punish for blocking ads which shouldn’t exist :-)?
You aint getting the ads but they still need you to load the trackers mate.
It is for your own safety, taker your pants off, boy
The YouTube owner explains that normal non-skippable in-stream ads are limited to just 15 seconds in length.
This is bullshit. I don’t use an ad-blocker and often get a full minute of ad. And an extra minute if I happen to pause the stream for like 30 seconds and come back to it.
Watch Youtube on the Brave Browser and you’ll get zero ads.
Same. I get the whole range. Usually it’s short but occasionally it’s an hour long.
You’ve been here for two years and haven’t installed a blocker yet? That’s almost impressive
I wonder how they managed that, I’ve been here about a year and a half and I use Linux now, lol.
I also gave it another try after many years lol
Not using a real ad blocker (read: PiHole or UBlockOrigin, fuck AdBlockPlus) is a serious security threat this day in age. Do yourself a favor and get that set up ASAP.
What?! You are forced to watch an ad if you pause it for too long?!
Jfc i hate this gods damned timeline
You’re pretty much asking for it by not using an ad blocker. Want it to stop? Boycott the ads.
This is bullshit. I don’t use an ad-blocker
You should be kinder to yourself.
Using the internet without an ad blocker is like fucking every sex worker in Vegas without a condom.
Practice safe internet.
This message has not been sponsored by Firefox or uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger or Decentral Eyes, but if they want to throw some money my way I would accept.
I consider the internet unusable without an ad blocker, ESPECIALLY youtube. I can’t imagine life without it. It would be like camping without a tent, I guess I could get by but it can really suck depending on where you go.
Hey! Whoa! That’s not fair at all!
You can TOTALLY go camping without a tent. Just as long as you don’t camp in a mosquitto heavy area.
Just sleep outside.
Then you get wet from dew, investigated by various night creatures, etc. Mosquitoes aren’t active at night, so that’s not a concern at all.
Last time I slept outside without a tent I got fucked by a bear.
Now you know to bring lube and some candles.
This is bullshit. I don’t use an ad-blocker.
You’re right. It IS bullshit that you don’t use an adblocker. It’s kind of like saying “This is bullshit! I don’t use oven mitts as I take hot metal trays out of the oven! Why am I the only one getting burned???”
You’re misunderstanding. They are calling out the claim of 15 seconds explicitly, they aren’t necessarily complaining about the ads.
Don’t hand wave their statement by arguing against something they aren’t talking about.
There’s a chance ad blockers are eating up the ‘Skip’ button while also failing to block the ad.
A CHANCE?
Only trash adblockers like Adblock Plus and Adguard have that “chance”. uBlock Origin the goat fr frf
I don’t think Adguard is trash. It’s just not as good as UBO.
While the company stops short of directly saying as much, it sure feels like the preposterously long ads we’re seeing here are an example of one tool in Google’s arsenal for effectively disabling YouTube playback for violators of the site’s ToS.
I don’t get it. When my adblocker works, I don’t get to see this shit. Only if it fails I’llbe confronted with hour-long ads, so the incentive to find a better blocker is even higher?
They are trying hard to block all known adblockers. And if they ever do, this will become a serious problem.
It won’t, I’ll just go do something else with my free time…
So they effectively blocked the video then?
No, they just set the bar for watching it too high for my liking.
Arms races are rarely won by anyone.
They are won by arms dealers.
In this case though the arms dealers make the arms for free so I’m kind of okay with it
And all of it could have been avoided if google just audited/policed the ads it served. No sane person minds watching a 5-10 second add every 10-20 minutes to support the platform.
But rather than spend money expanding their ad department to audit and police the adds, they are spending gobs and gobs of money trying to force people to see view virus-delivering ads, racist ads, blatant misinformation, etc.
No one wants to be forced to spend 30 minutes watching a pragerU video on how the black man should be grateful for slavery and all the “good” its brought him
But that seems to be the world that google wants.
No sane person minds watching a 5-10 second add every 10-20 minutes to support the platform.
Fuck that. Ads are cancer. Willing consuming cancer is insanity.
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This is a war that was fought by broadcast TV and the makers of videotapes, DVDs, and blu-rays. In every case the Corpos failed. So no, this arms race is and will be won by the ad blockers.
Except all of those formats are now obsolete, no major company is even making Blu-Ray players anymore, and people have moved on to others. So did they fail or did they just find a different method? I’d say the latter. How many people do you know with a working VCR at this point?
no major company is even making Blu-Ray players anymore
Uh, yes they are. What are you smoking? They even still make DVD’s and straight DVD players. They even still make VCR’s.
While their statement is entirely correct, they’re still wrong. YouTube is basically unusable without an ad blocker. Multiple 10 to 15 second long unskippable ads before the video even starts, and unless you watch videos all the way through you end up watching as much ad as you do content. It is damn near impossible to hop around between videos trying to find the one you want because of the pre-roll ads on every vid. On the other hand, with an ad block enabled YouTube is actually quite nice. The engagement algorithm is fucking trash of course but if you know what you’re looking for and you go directly to it it’s pretty good.
Do you habitually not watch videos all the way through, or am I misunderstanding your comment?
No judgement, you obviously should consume media in the manner you find most enjoyable, but once I start and enjoy a video - YouTube or otherwise - I tend to get invested and want to watch as much as is available.
When I’m ‘watching a video’ I watch it all the way thru. However often I’m looking for something specific, like how to do something, and a lot more tutorials are now in video form than written (which I don’t love but whatever). In that situation I’m usually looking for a specific piece of information which often requires scrubbing around in multiple videos. Same thing if I’m doing research on a product, while I might watch a review will the way through I’m more often looking for some specific things like video of the interface or does it have some specific setting or can I set it up without needing a phone app or cloud account. That requires scrubbing around in multiple videos to see bits of the setup UI. Unusable if each video has an ad
a lot more tutorials are now in video form than written (which I don’t love but whatever)
You’re not alone in that, and it seems neither am I
There are at least three of us!
And my axe!
a lot more tutorials are now in video form than written (which I don’t love but whatever)
One of my favorite Youtubers (Greg’s Airplanes and Automobiles) has excellent in-depth content mostly about WWII piston-engined aircraft with lots of detailed discussion and reference to original source materials. But it’s just him reading a written script while presenting still photos and excerpts from flight manuals and the like. It really would be perfect as a blog or in book form, but he has to turn it into videos in order to have any chance at making decent money from it. It’s just such a shame that this is how things are going now.
If you like that sort of thing you’ll like IHYLS
This makes no sense to me. It’s significantly more expensive to create and host video content, yet somehow we’ve gotten to the point where that’s the most profitable? It makes no sense.
It has nothing to do with the expense and everything to do with the fact that most people do not enjoy reading (any more, at least).
I guess I’ll just appreciate the fact that my books don’t have ads.
I read a lot of books on Kindle. It’s just a matter of time …
If you’re looking for tutorials or other immediately applicable information, you’ve often got to skip a LOT of bullshit before even determining if this video is relevant to you.
"Hey everybody it’s Mike from Mike’s the guy named Mike, it’s a snowy day out there, I got my coffee, took my dog for a walk, it’s been the morning of a day, and now I’m out here in the garage and I figured I’d make a video about a topic a bunch of you have been asking me about. You guys have been asking me a lot lately “Hey, Mike’s the guy named Mike, could you show us how to properly lick a drill press?” Well let’s find out.
10 second title screen because Mike thinks he’s making TV
“So a lot of you guys have been asking me “Hey, Mike’s the guy named Mike, could you show us the right way to lick a drill press?” Before we get into that, be sure to leave a like, drop a comment below and be sure to subscribe. It’ll really help me out more than you can think…”
19 minutes into a 21 minute video and there hasn’t been a drill press on screen yet.
Three weeks later Mike’s the guy named Mike along with his entire family is killed in a rock slide. The UN declares it an international day of celebration.
What was I talking about?
Holy moly this is spot on 🤣🤣
You need to get sponsor block. Not only does it block all the sponsor segments because they are also ads, that the ad blockers don’t otherwise block, but they also block all of the other annoyances, like instructions to subscribe and intro animations.
yeah that’s really the key to an acceptable youtube experience. after google nuked UBO on chromeOS, sponsorblock is still there to do the heavy lifting. I’ll be switching to a windows machine soon, but for now all I have is my chromebook, which is still functional even without the real UBO-- but I’m sure they’re working on a way to fuck us out of the “lite” version of it and take away extensions like sponsorblock
Can you run Firefox on a Chromebook?
*Either you go with the Android build or you take one more step towards joining the cult of Linux.
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Brilliant 😄
The way I see it these folks don’t respect my time when pulling off shit like this.
19 minutes into a 21 minute video and there hasn’t been a drill press on screen yet
And that’s intentional. The algorithm rewards them for having people watch more / watch longer, and a 21 min video might have 2 or 3 ad rolls. If someone watches all the way thru, creator gets more money and higher placement in search results.
I like YouTube as a concept but the algorithms are totally enshittifying it.
I remember the early, pre-Google days of Youtube, when it was fail videos, that one particular kind of lyric video, lonelygirl15 and mememolly. It was about the time South park had run that episode where they had all the people who had become internet famous like Tay Zonday and the Star Wars Kid who were sitting around in a waiting room waiting for their “internet money” to make the point that there was no method in place for them to monetize their fame…
If you had asked me then what Youtube would look like in the year 2025 I don’t know what I would have said but I wouldn’t have guessed correctly. I probably would have said it’s not going to last that long. I would not have guessed that fifteen years of Google changing the algorithm, but not letting anyone know what they did or why, so there’s this constant game of trying to design video formats around what the software would promote would twist it into what it is…
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The funny thing is using a good adblocker and I haven’t noticed a single youtube ad, so if they’re to blame, they’re also the solution. I don’t see how this move functionally does anything other than punish those who can’t block ads.
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People that know what ad blockers are frequently use them. The act of punishing the group that isn’t aware of adblockers simply will drive more users to discover/make use of them.
Remember those unskippable anti-piracy DVD ads that only paying customers saw? The media industry has learned jack shit during the last 30 years.
You could skip them on PC, and they didn’t come when you rip them. So it was only paying customers using it in the expected way.
“We have to punish you because of what those other people are doing to legitimately evade punishment” is only a useful argument if the punished group can somehow cover for those not affected.
Exactly. It’s a tired argument that’s been made in a lot of different mediums. It’s not worked in any of them.
The only reason adblockers would be to blame would be because Google wanted to make up for lost revenue, similar to the myth of high end department stores having high prices because they expect their customers to shoplift.
While the company stops short of directly saying as much, it sure feels like the preposterously long ads we’re seeing here are an example of one tool in Google’s arsenal for effectively disabling YouTube playback for violators of the site’s ToS.
That makes no sense at all. It isn’t like skipping ads results in a black screen for the length of the ad.
People with adblockers aren’t going to see hour long ads or black screens when they don’t see ads in the first place.
It’s hilarious that they think it would matter to anyone with an ad blocker. I haven’t seen an ad for years on youtube. Hell I haven’t even seen promotions in videos for a few months now that I found a sponsor segment blocker.
Both are available on pc and mobile. Love it.
What do you use?
On PC Firefox with the Sponsorblock extension
On Mobile (Android) NewPipe with the Sponsorblock Fork.
Awesome, thanks!
I dropped all my subs and only have youtube premium. I hate ads and I watch a lot of tubes. I don’t feel bad about it since they share revenue with creators.
Youtube when I use Ublock Origin on my Thinkpad and ReVanced on my Pixel:
Any reason for thinkpad and pixel?
I am wondering the same, mentioning the specific hardware makes very little sense, when it could just be mentioned as Linux/Windows/PC and Android/GrapheneOS/etc.
It would arguably be more informative too for people looking for alternatives for their device platforms.
Probably to let us know mobile and PC variants.
He’s rightfully displaying his dominance
Grayjay is my new hotness
One solution to that problem is to close YouTube on your device and do something else with your time.
