For context I'm in the US. The last time I used YouTube without an ad blocker, there were 2 ads back to back, and way too frequently. I tried watching on my PlayStation tonight, and not only are they more frequent, they've increased in quantity by 150%. It's also very common for the last ad to last 2 minutes to over an hour long. What the actual fuck, why would anyone watch YouTube without an ad blocker at this point? It's literally unwatchable
Edit: the amount of unsolicited advice in the comments is unreal. I don't get ads on my phone or on desktop, I'm very aware of how to block them. I simply won't watch YouTube on my PlayStation anymore. I'm not looking for suggestions, please stop with the recommendations.
Geez, so many entitled people in this thread. If Google didn't get their yearly revenue growth, their poor execs wouldn't be able to afford their 3rd yacht! Stop being selfish and subscribe to premium already! /s
It's not your responsibility to make up for Google's shortcomings. They're a ~5 trillion dollar company now. They could easily change their payment structure if they wanted to, but they don't because their shareholders are more important. If a company with >10^8 times more net worth than you isn't going to bother, then don't make it your responsibility.
It's sad, but unfortunately, the creators made a deal with the devil, and it's not regular people's responsibility to get them out.
And don't forget, there was a time when nobody made any money for posting things on youtube - it was just a site for sharing things people found novel and interesting, with no expectation of remuneration whatsoever. I would even argue that it was a much better time to be there than it is now - back before they had recommendation algorithms pushing people to all kinds of deplorable content and pushing the biddings of far-right dictators. Rewarding Google for this kind of behavior only makes it worse.
The majority of people that uploaded their video on youtube never see those ads money because they don't meet the criteria to receive ad revenue, and those that do, get so little and earn most of their income from other sources (endorsements, paid review, etc). Those minority who blocked ads don't really affect content creator's bottom line in a meaningful way. Subscription is another matter though because it pays higher rates, though still pretty low compared to other income stream.
If you truly care about a creator you can buy their some of their merch. The profit from that will out-value watching every one of their videos with ads for the foreseeable future.
IDK why the hell it's allowed, but a lot of times people will buy adspace and just put an entire video in it, or worse, a company buys the adspace and puts the entire pilot to a TV show in there. I've seen both things happen more than once. Who in their right mind clicks on a YouTube video, sees the pilot to a show they've never heard of or a random clickbait video and thinks "Oh, I wanna watch this!"
the first time i watched the lego movie it (the full film) was an ad played during the trailer for the second movie. and it (the movie) didn't have ads in it.
When the ad is actually something I want to watch, there is no way to open it as a seperate video. Once I click off it's fucking gone forever. It's such backwards design. The few times I have interest in an ad I can't even properly check watch it!
the first time i watched the lego movie, it (the full feature) was an ad played during the trailer for the second movie--and it didn't have any ads in it either.
I was visiting relatives this Christmas and wanted to watch some of my YouTube videos on their SmartTV. I have watched YouThe with ads on occasion throughout the years...usually when watching some video on a relative's device or school or work computer or something. They are annoying, but mostly fairly manageable. So I started up a 20 minute vid from a youtuber I like.
I shit you not...within the first 5 fucking minutes of the video, there were 5 separate ad breaks. And each ad was going to play for minutes on end if I never hit the skip button.
Yep, you read that right. One ad per minute. I am NOT exaggerating. I counted them and watched the video timestamps.
I almost could not believe what I was seeing. My mind was fucking blown. Never have I ever experienced that egregious level of ads. It made the content I was trying to view literally unwatchable and I switched off the video.
To OP, I'd highly recommend getting an Android tv device like a modern Chromecast (not the old models...needs to run android). They are relatively inexpensive and make viewing content on TVs a sane experience. I think I maybe got mine for $40 or something. Install SmartTube Next and you'll have no ads. Works fantastic. You set it up once and never worry about it again.
I don't even use my tv for a tv. I just hook up my laptop to play games. If I wanna watch movies, shows, or videos I got my jellyfin client and youtube is ad free with ubo and firefox
Also, if you watch a video you like, do yourself a favor and download it. Save it. Archive it. It's only a matter of time before they either take it down or derank it because they want to push you to some other more profitable video stream. Bonus points because it doesn't give them analytics information on it when you go back to watch it again, or watch a specific part again.
I've started doing this for all kinds of content - technical videos, music, funny clips, games, etc.
why would anyone watch YouTube without an ad blocker at this point
You answered your own question in the actual post I think? Or what is your question? Do you have a question? There's a question mark in your title. Do you want tips or to just rant?
I read your edit and thought "how bad could it be?"
I started reading the comments and it was way worse than I thought.
The most upvoted comments all display a great deal of "I only read 2 words of your original post" energy.
I didn't bother with an adblocker until recently myself because I was okay with a couple of ads or mentioning sponsors.
Then, one day, the ads just multiplied on every video. It was that sudden for me. After a couple of days, I downloaded apps for my phone and TV and it's been wonderful.
I'll watch YT in all its horribleness on my consoles if I'm looking for something game-related and I don't want to get up and grab my phone.,
Of course Google is going to do everything in their power to hit it. They're well within their rights to disable accounts associated with these apps, too, btw, they just haven't yet. It's always an option if they feel like it though.
I have a theory that they want you to get so annoyed that you suck it up and pay for premium.
Instead, I decreased my YouTube consumption, turned on my adblocker for low-quality content, or content from an unmonetized creator, or content showing something technically illegal (game OSTs or a motorcycle review involving going 2x the speed limit), and donated to some patreons and purchased a year of Nebula.
Quick PSA: they don’t currently block VPNs, so you can sign up for an account in a cheap country (I picked Nigeria) and use a foreign currency debit card (I use Revolut) to get Premium for like £1.50 a month for my entire family.
If they close that loophole then I think I’ll be done with it, the ads make it basically unusable these days.
Already, I see many of my favourite channels being restricted (one Ukrainian blogger) whilst the completely moronic, yet dangerous conspiracy theory/Flat-Earthers flourish.
Meanwhile, the most common thing we see is the push to sign up and pay them - yet with all the censorship (not simply censored for non-paying customers to allow the advertisements) it is not a viable option.
Thankfully I still use a Desktop - with Firefox and decent extras the actual ads are still not affecting me at all, but YouTube's policies really are.
They are completely above the law - they don't need to respect their own TOS (the reasons many people are blocked is more related to some secret narrative, and it goes against their own stated terms).
There is no way to appeal outside YouTube, and good luck with any idea of taking them to court for removing your income stream, or censoring a very useful source of information whilst spamming you with algorithms that treat you like Spongebob, and expect you to watch completely moronic content.
I suggest YouTube is a conspiracy to destroy the world, starting with the world population's ability to think.
There seem to be many 'sources'. Youtube have a policy where you can show explosions, you can show guns shooting as long as you can't see the targets - it's clearly written. Yet several people are demonetised for showing clips related to Ukraine for a start - and YouTube doesn't respond to requests to explain, it's a secretive policy that doesn't follow the written policy.
It's also very easy to find other videos which would more clearly break the actual rules as they are written. Basically, they do have an agenda - it applies to many similar channels - and they keep very quiet about real reasons for doing so, instead quoting some bullshit rule which isn't true, and doesn't apply, both at the same time.
Same for me on Chromecast, it's pretty much unwatchable overnight, started probably about a week ago. I'm to lazy to set up adblocking for my full network, and I was fine watching the skippable 15s ads, and the occasional longer ones, but currently I mostly get at least a full minute of ads on my TV.
I'm watching YouTube on my LG TV quite often. It's not unbearable yet. There's never more than 2 ads. Never more than 30 seconds in total, otherwise it's always skippable. Skippable ads now and then.
It's not great, but not terrible. I'm based in the EU for context.
Presumably they mean it allows the DNS provider to see your internet traffic, but I don't believe that's wholly accurate. I believe at most they'd be able to log timestamps of what domains you visited.
I stream through Roku (great for plex but no way to block ads on YouTube) and the ads got so bad I paid for premium.
I hate it because I’m reinforcing their shitty business choices but it was like being bullied everyday.
YouTube is all I really use for entertainment aside from plex so that’s been one silver lining.
Call me insane but I pay for youtube premium. People have NO problem paying for netflix/hulu/amazon/HBO and whatever else but theres a large amount of people who wont even consider paying for Youtube( presumably because the adblocking options are relatively easy to install and use, especially on desktop)
Youtube premium and it is BY FAR the best value in entertainment for me. I watch videos on it multiple hours a day sometimes (in the background while Im doing housework or whatever) No ads for me or my kids, more money to creators, Its like $12/month or something and with that I also get a music service thats - for me - better than spotify/apple/napster or anything else really.
Theres a reason theres no completely free tier on the other services, and its because supporting things with ads alone takes lots and lots of ads. If you arent paying a dime for the service its tough to take your complaints seriously about how many ads there are, becaus you are getting the content FREE, thus you pay with your time and attention
Call me insane but people have NO problem paying for netflix/hulu/amazon/HBO and whatever else but theres a large amount of people who wont even consider paying for Youtube
Because Netflix/Hulu/HBO/etc hosts TV shows that are expensive to make. YouTube hosts various types of content that is produced on shoestring budgets compared to TV shows.
Just because someone would pay to watch The Boys or Game of Thrones doesn't mean they'd pay to watch Let's Plays.
I've been paying for premium for a while now as I get a ton of value out of it as well, and want to support creators. I watch youtube pretty much exclusively these days, besides the occasional (heh) piracy.
That being said - I am absolutely at the point where I am considering backing up all my subs and switching fully to newpipe. I already use revanced just to deal with their absolute nightmare of a UI - YT, I don't EVER want to see your fucking shorts. Having to hear about them continually making it worse for everyone else makes me want to just leave for another platform.. but sadly 99% of long form content is exclusively hosted on youtube, so there isn't much of a choice.
Main issue is logging in with my main Google account. I don't want my google data to be accessible in the house from the speaker or the tv or the tablet.
I could pay more by buying YouTube family (or whatever they call it today) and share it with a burner account but that would be ridiculous.
Also, I don't want to even consider supporting them when they're pushing their TikTok clone down my throat. Until the TikTok clone is baked in their app with their shitty videos mixed with regular content, then I'm forced to use alternative clients that remove all the short videos from my view.
That TikTok shit bothers me more than 1 minute of ads.
I think one of the moral (?) objections to paying for YouTube versus paying for streaming services is that a streaming service actually creates (some) original content whereas YouTube merely hosts other people’s content. YouTube is only a facilitator and (ironically) not a creator. All of its content (both original and unoriginal) is produced by money that isn’t YouTube's. They take zero risk and expect maximum returns.
instead use youtube via your browser with adblock (for instance safari + adblock pro) and create a shortcut on your homescreen. you can use youtube just like in the app, you won't have any ads and you also can play videos with your screen turned off
This is exactly what I do also, but it's worth admitting that it's not the same as the app. For one, I have to take care to open videos in new tabs, otherwise when I'm done and try to go back to my list, it starts me back at the top of the page rather than where I left off.
Seems users get used to that shit and they don't think its too bad. I'm also shocked that people can get used to it, but it was the same in the 80s with cable TV having tons of ads. People actually thought it was fine to wait during 7 minute ad breaks several times through a TV show or movie. Because they increased the ads slowly, just like YouTube does.
There's no uBlock for PlayStation as far as I know. I don't think there is a solution other than "subscribe to premium" or "don't watch YouTube on your console".
Does PiHole work on YouTube ads? That’s just a DNS based blocker, I thought YouTube ads came from the same domain as the regular videos and they couldn’t be blocked via DNS.
I ask because I watch YouTube a lot on my AppleTV app, which I pipe through NextDNS which supports ad blacklist files. No YouTube ads are blocked there for me