It's funny how I've learned I hate ads more than I want to watch the content I'm sometimes and I end up just instantly closing the video if an ad starts.
But that of course is only if I screw up and I'm not using ad blockers.
I have witnessed this behaviour. A person opened a video in the Android YouTube app and immediately closed it when an ad started playing. Then opened the same video again, closed it, because ads. Opened it a third time and then let it play without ads.
I'll do this if a website has an inconvenient pop up asking for email, or the cookie consent popup is too big to ignore. I just don't bother going back. I'm not sicking around to navigate around dark pattern bullshit like that.
Also great for finding channels in alternative services, and even more so since Google breaks Youtube's compatibility to 3rd party tools every once in a while.
literally have not had to skip a youtube ad in years, because I use ReVanced and AdNauseam like a sane person.
I'm going to be sad when YouTube dies, and all that collective knowledge and content either goes poof or is haphazardly, incompletely transferred to some "new thing", whenever that is -- but I won't be that sad.
I started using YTDLP to download the shows I care about and have them saved offline.
I used to watch a show that got taken down. The show came back online few months later with heavy modifications to remove any potential DMCA footage from it.
They probably make money from sharing my data with 3rd parties , though it's not as benefitical as the data of someone in other countries
I live in Syria
The biggest insult Youtube could get. A person refusing to use it even when it had zero ads because it was heavy.
But, yes I agree Youtube mobile app is inefficient and reloads losing my place. Unfortunately, I have the same issue with grayjay making even that one a non-starter.
Before when the countdown timer showed the duration of ad's I would let anything that was 2 ads collectively less than 1m play all the way through. Anything longer than 30 seconds, even 31 seconds was an instant skip. Now that the countdown timer is gone, I assume every ad is longer and skip all of them.