YouTube intensifies fight against ad blockers showing pop-ups, and users are frustrated

Fuck YouTube
- I agree. YouTube can be very useful, but we really ought to be moving to other platforms at this point. Fuck YouTube.
  
  I’ve been using YouTube far more than any of my paid services for years. However I’m ready for a switch. If the YouTubers who I follow switched platforms I’d go with them in a second.
  
  Problem is hosting all the video. You either have one host or many (P2P). Both have issues.
- For sure! Which video site are you using instead?
  
  Xhamster
  
  there are a few but they're all filled with right wing nutters and i doubt their ability to scale effectively
  
  It's amusing to see how nobody is able to genuinely answer this question.
  
  yt.whateveritworks.org
- The reason while they have all the content, is precisely because they can generate revenue for channels. I much prefer payment through subcription and ad views to annoying in video sponsors and product placements
  
  But on YouTube you get both. If I could pay and not get in video sponsorship along with no ads, then I might consider it. But I will not pay to be advertised at.

I was using newpipe x Sponsorblock on Android exclusively, and now on desktop I've moved to freetube. Never did get the pop up telling me to remove Adblock but decided to make the jump early.
- still using Firefox and ublock and all seems fine to me
  
  Same. I'm wondering if it's limited to certain markets for the time being.
  
  I am using unlock and Firefox and getting hit by the anti-adblock
  
  I have never gotten a adblock popup using Firefox and ublock origin while my friend has gotten several on Chrome. I wonder if I'm just lucky that I'm not in the adblock block rollout on YouTube or if Firefox+ublock is working
  
  Same Firefox and unlock setup (also sponsorblock) but I got a pop-up about ad blockers the other day and I just closed it and the rest of the site works fine.
  
  Who asked? This comment thread is clearly about alt front ends yet here you are telling us still Firefox works for you. Okay, and????
- Freetube adopter as well. The experience is actually an improvement over using the yt site. I wish I had done it earlier.
  
  Also this seems to be the safest way as your account not linked to freetube. Yt looses all data like age, likes and comments. Only the number of views gives them any feedback. This will bring down yt. All we need is time to work out alternatives. Yt censorship and demonetizing rules are killing the platform anyway.
  
  The only issue I have with freetube is that I sometimes like to click on the recommended videos on YouTube's front page. If I switch to freetube entirely, I'll lose that. But if uBlock doesn't continue to work I will make the switch and the YouTubers I wouldn't normally see just won't get my views any longer.
- Using ReVanced and having a fantastic time. If they find a way to block a locally patched client that is only a few versions behind, I will be impressed.
- Why are so many of you alergic to paying creators to make videos? I get doing it on most sites, but buy premium of the sites like nexus mods or YouTube where people make content so they aren't making shit you enjoy for free.
  
  The insinuation that website users somehow have a responsibility to watch ads so that the website's 3rd party content creators can make money reads like a case of Stockholm Syndrome. YouTube are the ones paying the creators, not me, and can change the terms by which they calculate creator payments at any time. If YT decides that now, ads viewed during the hours of 7pm to 10pm result in higher creator payments, where is my role in that? Am I now obligated to prefer viewing ads during that time?
  Plenty of content is uploaded to YT by people who don't and never will get creator payments. Do I have to watch those ads?
  My contract with YT is that I control what data is downloaded by and presented on my PC, not them. That Silicon Valley has decided that everything is free, but with ads, is unfortunate. If they're unable to fund their business or their content if I use an ad blocker, then it seems to me like they're pretty fucking bad at business.
  
  I'm okay with paying for YouTube but I don't want a Google account. If Google ever reinstates having separate YT accounts then I will consider paying.
  
  Some of us pay for premium but still use Revanced and Freetube because they are simply better youtube clients. Sponsorblock, OLED themes, customizable UI, better performance, etc. The adblocking is just icing on the cake

They have pissed 4channers. You do not piss 4channers. The last time that happened, Trump got elected.
- Also they literally go on killing sprees.
- Lol

Use Firefox, update the uBlockOrigin extension, update the filters, remove any other adblocking extension in case you have it. Should work just fine then.
- I use Firefox with uBlockOrigin and haven't had to do any manual updates or anything. I still seem to be unaffected by the changes everyone is talking about. Is it a slow rollout or does uBO just silently keep up with it?
  
  It could be simply luck because it is a slow rollout, or it could also be that you got the filter updates on the background. In any case, you know what to do if you ever run into it.
- not working for me anymore, I have firefox + ublock and updated the filter, they are blocking now after 3 videos
  
  Same here. That's not 3 videos per day, but total before it stops playing.
  I wonder what tech and it creators say about this change. They will probably see a dip in views, engagement and number of clicks they promised their sponsors.
  
  Are you signed in?
  
  I was in the same boat, but cleaning out my cookies helped.
- For now. If YT really wants to end it, they can
  
  How exactly "can" they? They've been trying pretty hard for quite a long while now and nothing has ever worked. It's also pretty logical why they can't: they don't control your device, you can do anything with it. Whatever they implement, you can always fake being a normal user. Which is exactly why no one using Firefox + uBlock sees anything of what's mentioned in this article (as long as no other addons/settings trigger the adblock detection).
  Only the environment they do control is affected, which is essentially like "controlling your device": Chrome.
  
  Yes, they can, it will probably become a cat and mouse situation. The main idea is to put pressure on people that will not take the time to keep looking for alternatives or new solutions and will simply pay up or watch the ads.

Fuck it. I'll just say this instead. It's time to break up the tech monopolies. Google, Microsoft, etc.
- TRUST BUSTING: 21st CENTURY EDITION! FUCK YEAHHHH
- Of course most everyone here would agree, but the likelyhood of that ever happening is incredibly low.
- Well of course. Now what ?
- Yeah, good luck hosting a high quality video streaming service for free and eating up millions of dollars in losses.
  
  then don't do something for the benefit of humanity if you can't handle not having infinite line-go-up. Numbers aren't easily found but it looks like they generated north of a billion in profit, not revenue, profit.
  If a billion, after all bills are paid, is not enough. Give it to someone to whom a billion is enough.
  
  Youtube was doing it for years before Google acquired them.
  
  Breaking up big tech doesn't mean that we all have to host our own YouTube.
  
  They don't have to be dicks about it. Neither do you.

87.7% of the users watch on mobile, they are this mad about 12.3% possibly having access to an adblock.
- Do you mean 87.7% use the YouTube iOS/Android App or 87.7% use their smartphone to watch YouTube? Because in the latter case you also can use ReVanced, Firefox + Adblock, Invidious, etc.
  
  Invidious (and other front ends) wouldn’t be effected by this
  This is web and official app
- I watch on mobile and have all ads blocked. There are multiple options a ton of people use
- Insert smug "I run YouTube with Firefox with adblock installed" comment here. I've not seen any of the anti block stuff yet
- [Laughs nervously in NewPipe]

I was fine with ads a couple years ago, but the number, length and frequency of them keeps ramping up. This wouldn't need to be such a struggle if they just were reasonable about it.
- Me : clicks a helpful tutorial of 5 minutes. YT: here have an unskippable ad 5 seconds. Me: annoying but the creators have to make money somehow I guess. YT: and now here's your skippable ad. Me: I just want this to be over with. YT content creator: Hello guys this video is sponsored by Raycons. 10 seconds blabbering on the product, skip skip Me: closes video.
  
  Sponsorblock might be helpful for you on some of that at least.
  
  Does anyone else kinda miss when youtube was more informal, random, less edited, and more janky? Nowadays everybody has a title card, and a two minute intro greeting, high-end camera setup, and tightly rehearsed script. It's like they all decided to just recreate the unnecessary bloat and ceremony from classical television, for the sake of "appearing professional" or something?
  For example, a tutorial doesn't need to begin with a "Hey guys, it's your pal ASDFGHJKL. Have you ever got your foreskin trapped in a whatever and yada yada yada? Well today I'm gonna show you how to blah blah blah. Now let's get into the video. But first a word from our sponsor Lockheed Martin..."
  What's with the "today"? I'm always watching it "today" by definition. And I wouldn't have clicked it if I wasn't in that particular predicament. Why not just immediately start showing the solution?
- There is no being reasonable in a capitalist society. The only thing that matters is profit potential
- It was never reasonable. Not ever.
  If you're old enough to remember the original need for pop-up blockers you would know that. Just 30 screens pop-up in a cascading order filling your screen with crap. Auto play video, auto-installing toolbars (Thanks ~~Obama~~ Microsoft).
  
  I definitely remember those days, a lot of sites were just unusable, and I hear some places like the Fandom wiki are returning to that level.
  I believe there is a small amount of ads it's acceptable to live with, I do accept that content needs to be paid for somehow, but corporations can't seem to ever accept a limit for themselves. Even though YouTube is already perfectly profitable and has been for years, it continues to escalate. Not to mention the rampant data-tracking that there is all over the place that people just accept because it's invisible. Or that Google is working to weaken ad blocking and enhance tracking at a browser level.
- And injected in the most halfassed points of the video. Surely they have the technology to figure out a better way to time the ads.
  
  They definitely do and they did do that for a while, but apparently it changed.
- Unfortunately there's too many people that just roll over and take it at much higher levels than is reasonable. They'll stop when the normies start to walk away, and from what I can see that sits at about the Idiocracy TV scene level.
- I'm just closing the window when that happens. Same as I did when ads first came to the web. There was a long gap in between where I somewhat tolerated them but mostly annhialated them with ad-blockers. The few that got through were allowed because pick your battles.
  But if you're gonna get in my face and block content, I'm just gonna walk away. Get fucked. Find another way to make money. If that means no more free content, I'll pay. But I won't suffer abuse.

Lol look at me change to piped
- Cough invidious cough
  
  Took me all of 30mins to spin up a local invidious instance. Worth every second

I installed a userscript today that plays ads in muted embeds hidden behind the actual player so that it effectively and quite literally blocks them while still leaving actual ublock disabled on the site. works pretty well.
EDIT: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/477464-beta-youtube-no-preroll-ads-undetectable
- If I wanted to learn how to do that what should I search for?
  
  not on my computer at the moment so I don't have a copy of mine to send you but this one looks like a similar premise.

Revanced still going strong on mobile, which is where I watch YouTube 99% of the time.

Firefox and UBO still block all ads for me on YT and I'm not being blocked.
- Same. YouTube started detecting UBO for me, but a quick UBO cache refresh and it was good as new.
- I suspect it'll be as it usually is, where they only really go after the lowest hanging fruit.

....what? This headline makes no sense.
- They could have fixed it with 1 word: "YouTube intensifies fight against ad-blockers BY showing pop-ups and users are frustrated."
  
  For some reason headlines don't like to use prepositions.
  
  anti-lgbtq headlines smh

Users complain but 99% of the 0,01% that actually use adblockers will just continue, just like how internet "boycotts" always end, by going back to the dystopian status quo
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/351862/adblocking-usage/
  similar stats to elsewhere.
  you should probably not pull numbers out of your arse
  
  not only is this a seemingly random site that needs you to use an account to access part of the information, all you need to do is not look at a random site that pulls stats out of their arse like you say, they dont explain where the data comes from, they dont explain anything.
  I dont need to pull random ass data from that sketch site, this small amount of legwork is far more than necessary nor what you deserve for being a dick about it: (lets not forget you just say "elsewhere" without showing us, well, anything)
  firefox addon site users:
  ublock origin: 6.713.504 adblocker ultimate: 2.286.976 adguard adblocker: 991.481 block site: 518.605 adblock plus: 4.236.338 ghostery: 1.104.375 adblock for firefox: 1.166.799
  everything else is too small and inconsequential to mention, same with github, thats a total of 17.018.078, firefox usercount FROM firefox, about 188 million
  https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
  since webstore doesnt use proper numbers we can only assume but:
  adblock best adblocker: 10million+ adblock plus: 10million+ adaway: 2million+ ublock origin: 10million+
  thats again, only super roughly but 32 million users compared to chromes rough 3.3 BILLION users
  both of these may nto be exactly 0.01 % sure, but we are all inconsequential and mean nothing compared to the total count of uers, who barely know what a browser is, let alone what an adblocker is.
  
  When I read something like that, I don't think "hey those are actual stats, wow!". I actually think "hey those are actual stats, whoa!". Kidding.
  You're being pedantic for no reason
  It's a generalization and their point was not the numbers. It was that in the past people complain about this kind of atuff, Google ignores it and people move on. Google probably even still continues to grow.
  However, I think things have been shifting and that may not even end up being the case. Look at Unity.
- Yes. Remember when everyone would leave reddit because of the API tax? 😂 reddit, front page of hypocrisy.
  
  We’re here, aren’t we?
  
  I left after over a decade. Haven't been back and won't.
  
  I did fucking leave.
  
  Plenty of people actually did leave reddit, myself included. It wasn't the API tax though, that was just the beginning.....

Really hoping some IPFS alternative takes off. Youtube has already been tanking in quality but no one changes because its a monopoly on online videos.
And if Twitter has shown us anything, it's that people legitimately won't leave a crappy platform unless there's a significant popular and better alternative that can scale immediately to demand.
- Not sure how an IPFS option would work. I get the bandwidth issue slightly goes away as we'd all kinda share that cost but not really. IPFS isn't really free storage. Of all media shitty compression video is big and anyone who forgot to tune their torrent upload and accidently seeded something for too long knows you'll run out of monthly bandwidth allotments very fast.
- peertube is already pretty good. The commenting liking and sharing all work with activity pub. there is also owncast for live streaming. I understand peertube maybe implementing live streaming too.
  
  I may check out Peertube again. But it needs to have had a community group effort to crack-down on fascist content before I really adopt it.

I was annoyed by this. Check out FREETUBE which is a private youtube client for pc, mac and linux. No ads and 100% private - take that google

It appears YT is the new cable television. Let's see if it follows it to the grave.
I'll watch from the sidelines, enjoying my subscription to nebula.

Grayjay.app is the way forward
- downloaded it yesterday. looking forward to my lunch break to test it out

Anyone used Odyssey? Louis Rossman recently made a video where he said he had a channel on Odyssey but not many users use it
- It sadly has a very serious neo-nazi problem to a much worse extent than Youtube ever did.
  
  Same with Rumble
- You should see his most recent video about a video aggregator app.
  
  WoW! I just installed it. It works without any issues. Hope his 1.9m followers move to a different platform like odysee
- I have recently been experimenting with odysee for videos that I can embed into a web page or something, but the service itself doesn't have enough users to get you views just because you're there.
- Odyssey has always given me problems even when returning after some time so I don't use it.

If you have any stored payment methods on Google Pay, I'd remove them. Whose to say they won't try to sneak some clause in their TOS that says if you use an ad blocker, they will charge you for Premium. removes tinfoil hat
- That would be incredibly illegal and is pointless hyperbole.
  
  Exactly, they might get fined $300,000 for making $2,000,000,000 in profit.
  They wouldn't dare!
  
  Also completely believable. This is why I never enter payment info on Google software or hardware. Illegal doesn't mean shit to companies this big, ftc/fcc are toothless and we are cattle.
  A 6 figure fine for a 12 figure profit sounds accurate to how this would play out.
- Whose to say they won’t try to sneak some clause in their TOS that says if you use an ad blocker, they will charge you for Premium
  Meanwhile in EU: "Doom music intensifies..."

I'm still not seeing ads in brave browser, just in case anyone didnt know. On Android Newpipe also works and freetube for desktop too.
EDIT: I dont care about meaningless internet points but that being said. I have provided 3 options here. None of which have been refuted on technical grounds and have been hivemind downvoted.
If you have legitimate claims besides the usual "crypto scams" then please post the links. I'm happy to reevaluate my choices based on new information.
I would need to see evidence of data sharing between brave and third parties that I have not explicitly consented to or packet captures showing data being sent where it shouldn't, commits pointing to malicious code etc...
Something that holds water.
- Don't use brave browser
  
  At least tell him why next time ;)
  
  I personally stopped using brave a while ago, but simply telling someone, in an unrelated thread, not to use brave isn't constructive. Next time lay out the reasons why you believe they shouldn't use brave and let them decide.
  
  Thanks but respectfully I am an adult and can make my own choices. I also use Firefox too by the way. Having said that Brave is open source. They disable a lot of google shit and the built-in protections are pretty good. The BAT ads are opt in and when disabled you dont hear about them.
  I was simply making the point that YouTube and Spotify were adless experiences using brave.

For as many hours of YouTube I watch 4+ daily at least. I don't mind paying for Premium to avoid the hassle. Plus I get music with it.
Edit: haters can ligma. Down vote all you want!
- YouTube isn't gonna give you brownie points for shilling for them
  
  This is very possibly a Google employee, every big company in the world now has rooms full of people constantly astroturfing this shit and it works very well. It works so well that this comment will be downvoted to oblivion. It's also virtually guaranteed that it will be responded to with a condescending, paternalistic post about how "lol bruh everybody who thinks different than you do must be a shill" or something similar - also not unlikely to be paid for.
  Edit: Predictable, but not entirely unexpected. For anyone reading this, use LibRedirect browser extension to point all your YouTube links to a different front end.
- This is a controversial viewpoint on here. You have to be pirating everything and using Linux otherwise you are corporate shill and will be downvoted for having a different viewpoint. Talk about an echo chamber.
  I have used YouTube premium for years and years now, it is the best value subscription service I use. I haven’t seen an ad in years, I don’t have to find loopholes and I get to support the creators that produce great content. Also music.
  
  I used to have premium for $9.99/mo until I got an email about them raising their rates come December. No thank you.
  
  I don't, but I'm fine with paying for premium. I hate that a lot of content has sponsored content that your premium subscription doesn't remove. Even if I paid for premium I'd still need to have SponsorBlock to make it watchable.
  
  I pay for premium but I ended up installing revanced on my phone so I could disable shorts and it also skips in-video ads which is really nice. I didn't disable YouTube's ad blocking though because I don't need to.
  
  I'm wondering,.can you use sponsorblock with premium YT?
- Shit, dude, I was in your corner until the edit. It's supposed to be about choice. Those that wanna pay, pay. Those that can put up with ads, put up with them. Those that wanna say fuck YouTube, well, arr matey.
  So, you rock on with your choice. You didn't, as far as I can see, bitch at anyone else's choice, so keep on rocking.
  But ffs, never, ever whine about votes. Doesn't matter if they're up or down, they're just part of the forum. You say your peace, you get the votes you get (and if you check my user history, you'll see plenty of shit I've said where I did exactly that, so this isn't from someone that's all pristine or shit), and that's the way it is.
  
  I mean the free choice argument falls apart a bit when you consider that YouTube is essentially a monopoly.
- Same here. It’s nice to have high quality niche content from individual content creators and with premium I believe they get better revenue than ad supported users.
  Although YouTube music kind of sucks I’m using Apple Music for that so I kind of have redundant service
  
  I think the best way to support them is through donations.
  Most have links to them.
  Ads are out of hand, that is why many left cable and subscription based platforms are the next thing.
  Piracy is growing and that is good, it forces these greedy companies to inovate or to do better.
- That's a big "hell no"from me
  
  It is worth it for some.
  
  That's just only for you. :(
- I wish people didn't care about downvotes. Always hated the edits on reddit reacting to being downvoted. Would downvote comments I agreed with too if they whined about votes.
  
  Downvoting this guy complaining about complaining about downvoting.
  
  I used to care for about 2 minutes, it's just strange to worry about fake Internet points, but I guess humans like the endorphins or rewards for the brain.
  social media got a lot of their ideas from the gambling sector
  
  Its not relevant to this particular commenter, but ive made downvote edits when i get to -5 or -10 but have no replies. Especially when i felt like i had a reasonable take. My edit is usually asking for responses from those who disagree, rather than just a "edit: fuck you haters".
- For as many hours of YouTube that I watch, maybe 1 hour daily, I don’t mind setting my VPN to turkey and paying $15 for the year. I mostly use it for music anyway… I certainly wouldn’t pay the full price for it though.
- To your point, I watch YouTube more than Netflix or Disney plus. The only reason I’m not paying for YouTube is because I have it for free now.
  The ads are so annoying that I might subscribe for an add free experience if I didn’t have other means to block it.
- Agreed. I'm currently paying for streaming services that I get less value from than what I get from YouTube.
- Yep, same here. Premium is worth it for me too. I don't understand the entitlement on lemmy with YouTube, it's worse than reddit.
- From the article
  even if some users stop using YouTube, there won't be a loss of revenue because those users weren't watching ads anyway.
  Guys, YouTube doesn't give a flying fuck that you aren't going to consume their content without paying. That's the point. They're only rolling this out slowly to be sure they aren't impacting their actual customers.
  Lemmy felt like classic reddit for about a week, actual content that I wanted to see, discussions at an adult level. The amount of bandwagoning and "me too", "fuck corporations" comments has me signing on less and less.
- I'm with you, but I've found that any post here on Lemmy about YouTube, Spotify, or any other streaming service ends up the same: artists have enough money already, artists are paid better through merchandise and performances (no citation provided and the author acknowledges they don't actually do this), these services don't pay enough anyway, non-paying users are entitled to a better experience; all this is to excuse themselves of stealing content from creators they love by bootlegging it illegally.
- can you use sponsorblock with premium?
  
  Yes
  
  and I do!
- This guy gets it
- Go back to Reddit

I'll look forward to reading this yet again next week, alongside all the entitlement in the comments section that seem to think running YouTube is free and recommending trash alternatives which have less than 1% of YouTube's content and don't even work.
See you next week!
- Google is a multi trillion dollar company. They can afford to run youtube at a loss for decades, if not centuries to come.
  They don't want to because they are greedy and "need" to grow their profits yearly.
  Get the fuck out of here with your bullshit ass shilling for a corporate entity that would kill you if it was profitable enough.
  
  Why would google run YouTube if it's making negative profit? Seriously. Why would anyone do that?
  Am I greedy too because I expect my work to pay more than it costs me to live?
  
  Not to mention they were fine without ads and forcing content creators to spew the whole "like and subscribe or else the algorithm will hunt me down" bullshit. This is all because of corporate greed, it's so disgusting. They just want to get on the subscription gravy train because it lets them have their cake and eat it too, meanwhile content creators are left out in the cold even though they're the only reason people still use YT at this point.
- YouTube has a monopoly that is nearly impossible to challenge because of the network effect.
  Sure there are costs but it would be better if as many people as possible would be ready to jump ship to create an alternative
  
  Competitors would be great but there isn't another service that comes close to what youtube provides. You'd need it to be worth it for creators to jump ship or at least upload to multiple sites. There hasn't been any real competition in the space because youtube is so far ahead of everyone else.
- Fuck YouTube and fuck shills/simps
- Some alternatives are just front-ends to YouTube. Thanks to those, I haven't used YouTube the site or the app in three years.
- It's not even that.
  YouTube can do whatever the fuck it wants since it essentially holds a monopoly on video hosting thanks to the network effect.
- The problem I have is paying for a service that harvest my data to make money, I wouldnt mind paying if they keept all that shit in the free version, so now instead I will focus my energy on circumventing the anti-adblocker
- Youtube doesn't run for free, but they can save more money by firing a few executives than go after the minority adblock users. It's not the creators that really matter (but they're the group of people who are visible and who we can relate to) but you would not be saying the same thing if they were totally honest and say they're raising money so the executives can keep on "executing" and that investors can keep their short term profits.