I think youtube has just started needing way more bandwidth than it used to. A few years ago, 100KB/s would load a videos page almost instantly, comments as well, and smoothly run 360p playback. Now even at 160KB/s I often spend 60+ seconds for parts of the page to even load.
To be honest Youtube has always been slow to me, especially their streams. God, their streams are an absolutely resource hog, I’ve never seen a chat use up so much CPU power.
The last two times there were also errors like not being able to upvote anything. Later, I found it was a global youtube issue. YouTube needs to improve to be able to serve people at its scale.
I can tell you why I do. I watch more YT than anything else (on my TV), and don’t want to watch ads, or play cat and mouse games trying to prevent them. I also listen to a lot of music, and use YT Music. I pay for the family plan, since we all listen to music, and my son and I watch a lot of YT (very different videos on YT however :) )
I get, there’s a growing group of people that think everything should be free, but I’m OK paying for something I use a lot, to remove ads. There should, however be more controls for paid users, like controlling whether or not you see creator ads, shorts, etc…
I’ve been tempted to sign up as well so I can stream to my TV through their app. I can block anything I want through my PC but smart TV’s are too locked down for my technical knowledge so I get ad’s which is unacceptable
Yeah, I’m still sitting on my Roku for the time being. I keep all my other TV connections dumb so my TV and Blu Ray don’t have my WiFi info. I did finally get a HDMI for my laptop to connect to the TV to watch racing on YT without ads which is an adequate backup option now. I have studio monitors on my PC that are better than the soundbar/Sub on the TV, but when friends are over the TV works better for watching stuff
I do totally get paying to support something you use a ton.
But I don’t get comments like this calling blocking ads a cat and mouse game. It’s always been incredibly easy to block ads on the devices I own and I rarely ever have to mess with anything after installing a single browser extension or a single app.
On my desktop/laptop–ublock origin. I would install this regardless of whether or not I care about YouTube ads because ads on websites in general can be pretty cancerous. So I would already have it on my device to begin with. Install one extension and forget about it. Very occasionally ads start coming through, but then the extension auto updates itself and I don’t have to worry about it. It’s effortless and I absolutely never need to mess with the settings.
On my phone–YouTube ReVanced. Just basically download I think two APK files and you’re set. I’ve had to reinstall this a single time over the maybe decade(?) I’ve been using it as YouTube had some sort of breaking update or something. But having to install it again once every many years is hardly an inconvenience. Oh I guess I have had to install it again when I’ve gotten a new phone, but that’s really not that odd or inconvenient to me either…and generally I don’t get a new phone that often.
On my android TV device–SmartTube Next. It’s a single APK file. Set it and forget it. I’ve never had to reinstall the app.
One caveat with this is that it seems harder to watch YouTube ad free (without paying for premium) on Apple devices. So if you use a lot of Apple products it also makes sense.
Ya, all you have to do is install something different on every device you own/watch YouTube on.
You also, have to be technical enough to side load, or compile revanced etc… I’ve heard over and over that ubo keeps having updates/changes to keep yt ads down.
I actually am technical enough to do those things, but both doing and managing these various apps across multiple devices in my house is a lot of work. Or, I can just pay for the music and TV I watch.
For the record, I also have and paid for GrayJay app on my phone and do also use it on occasion. We have used smart tube TV in the past because when my son was younger Google had shit parental controls and we couldn’t allow his child account to access regular yt (restricted). I’ve got it side loaded on both our Nvidia shield and gtv devices. Too bad it doesn’t work on android TV, or my wife/sons iPhones.
YTmusic is the main reason I bothered to pay for premium. I was using Spotify and had a trial of 3months. The quality of recommendations was decent so chose to stick around. Adfree YouTube was another bonus.
I read comments! I watch a lot of videos about self hosting services and the comments is where you find other people who have followed the video and struggled at some point. If you’re lucky it’s a common sticking point you’re stuck on and someone in the comments has a way of fixing it.
It’s free with my YouTube music sub. I was grandfathered into the cheapest price from the Google play music launch. I like a lot of tech and science videos and I watch YouTube for that. Worth it to me.
This is me, too. The alternative seems to be Spotify (also going shitty) or self hosting. I miss the hell out of gpm, but ytm at least works and it comes with ad free YouTube. Not the worst deal out there
I’m a paying YouTube premium subscriber and use adguard. But, I have been experiencing the YouTube app being slow in loading comments for some reason.
I think youtube has just started needing way more bandwidth than it used to. A few years ago, 100KB/s would load a videos page almost instantly, comments as well, and smoothly run 360p playback. Now even at 160KB/s I often spend 60+ seconds for parts of the page to even load.
To be honest Youtube has always been slow to me, especially their streams. God, their streams are an absolutely resource hog, I’ve never seen a chat use up so much CPU power.
The last two times there were also errors like not being able to upvote anything. Later, I found it was a global youtube issue. YouTube needs to improve to be able to serve people at its scale.
Why? Why are you paying YouTube? What is wrong with you?
I can tell you why I do. I watch more YT than anything else (on my TV), and don’t want to watch ads, or play cat and mouse games trying to prevent them. I also listen to a lot of music, and use YT Music. I pay for the family plan, since we all listen to music, and my son and I watch a lot of YT (very different videos on YT however :) )
I get, there’s a growing group of people that think everything should be free, but I’m OK paying for something I use a lot, to remove ads. There should, however be more controls for paid users, like controlling whether or not you see creator ads, shorts, etc…
I’ve been tempted to sign up as well so I can stream to my TV through their app. I can block anything I want through my PC but smart TV’s are too locked down for my technical knowledge so I get ad’s which is unacceptable
There are android apps (I could side load) on my Nvidia shield, but like I said I don’t mind paying for something I use , and use a lot.
Yeah, I’m still sitting on my Roku for the time being. I keep all my other TV connections dumb so my TV and Blu Ray don’t have my WiFi info. I did finally get a HDMI for my laptop to connect to the TV to watch racing on YT without ads which is an adequate backup option now. I have studio monitors on my PC that are better than the soundbar/Sub on the TV, but when friends are over the TV works better for watching stuff
Ya, my TV is actually ‘smart’ but I use the Nvidia shield through an AV receiver which feeds 5.1 speakers and the TV.
I do totally get paying to support something you use a ton.
But I don’t get comments like this calling blocking ads a cat and mouse game. It’s always been incredibly easy to block ads on the devices I own and I rarely ever have to mess with anything after installing a single browser extension or a single app.
On my desktop/laptop–ublock origin. I would install this regardless of whether or not I care about YouTube ads because ads on websites in general can be pretty cancerous. So I would already have it on my device to begin with. Install one extension and forget about it. Very occasionally ads start coming through, but then the extension auto updates itself and I don’t have to worry about it. It’s effortless and I absolutely never need to mess with the settings.
On my phone–YouTube ReVanced. Just basically download I think two APK files and you’re set. I’ve had to reinstall this a single time over the maybe decade(?) I’ve been using it as YouTube had some sort of breaking update or something. But having to install it again once every many years is hardly an inconvenience. Oh I guess I have had to install it again when I’ve gotten a new phone, but that’s really not that odd or inconvenient to me either…and generally I don’t get a new phone that often.
On my android TV device–SmartTube Next. It’s a single APK file. Set it and forget it. I’ve never had to reinstall the app.
One caveat with this is that it seems harder to watch YouTube ad free (without paying for premium) on Apple devices. So if you use a lot of Apple products it also makes sense.
Ya, all you have to do is install something different on every device you own/watch YouTube on.
You also, have to be technical enough to side load, or compile revanced etc… I’ve heard over and over that ubo keeps having updates/changes to keep yt ads down.
I actually am technical enough to do those things, but both doing and managing these various apps across multiple devices in my house is a lot of work. Or, I can just pay for the music and TV I watch.
For the record, I also have and paid for GrayJay app on my phone and do also use it on occasion. We have used smart tube TV in the past because when my son was younger Google had shit parental controls and we couldn’t allow his child account to access regular yt (restricted). I’ve got it side loaded on both our Nvidia shield and gtv devices. Too bad it doesn’t work on android TV, or my wife/sons iPhones.
YTmusic is the main reason I bothered to pay for premium. I was using Spotify and had a trial of 3months. The quality of recommendations was decent so chose to stick around. Adfree YouTube was another bonus.
I think a better question: Why are they reading YouTube comments?
I read comments! I watch a lot of videos about self hosting services and the comments is where you find other people who have followed the video and struggled at some point. If you’re lucky it’s a common sticking point you’re stuck on and someone in the comments has a way of fixing it.
It’s free with my YouTube music sub. I was grandfathered into the cheapest price from the Google play music launch. I like a lot of tech and science videos and I watch YouTube for that. Worth it to me.
This is me, too. The alternative seems to be Spotify (also going shitty) or self hosting. I miss the hell out of gpm, but ytm at least works and it comes with ad free YouTube. Not the worst deal out there
I’m a YouTube premium subscriber with Adguard Home and haven’t noticed anything slow.
You pay for free content? Why?
Edit: Inb4 “I sUpPorT the crEaTorS”. If you pay them directly, you cut out the INSANE charge Google forces on creators.
Source: former YouTube partner