I was watching a video on landscape mode on my phone on YouTube. And then when a wild midroll ad appears, the ad thinks it’s a good idea to play a ultrawide-screen video inside a TikTok style vertical phone window, and then puts that in a widescreen video. The whole thing also got smaller to display the CTA at the right.
Which reminds me, I hate how YT ads on mobile try to forcibly cover up the entire screen. It’s like seeing a billboard that suddenly expands to fill most of your vision. They didn’t used to do that, instead they just took over the video portion of the screen, but you could keep browsing comments while the ad plays.
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Delete the YouTube app, install Firefox and uBlock Origins, point YouTube links to FireFox, never watch a YouTube ad again.
This is basically YouTube’s fault. I was one of those who initially did not block the ads to “support” creators I watched, and just used the app. Now they’ve made that completely insufferable and think my alternative is going to be to pay the subscription. Idiots.
First they started kicking you out of incognito and then add whatever you were watching to your account. It used to be that the video you were watching would also close.
Then if you don’t skip the first ad, they play a 5 minute ad after with the most obnoxious shit hoping you’re not there to click.
Then they tripled the amount of ads you have to skip, and making part of them 15-30 seconds unskippable ones. Now ads are about 1/4 of my watch time which is on par with the old cable model.
The straw that broke the camel’s back is now when you open the app, IT AUTO PLAYS SHORTS FULLSCREEN! At least if it was the creators I normally see in my shorts, but now it’s some garbage trending youtuber I don’t know. AND NOW THAT IVE WATCHED 1 SECOND OF IT THEY ARE NOW RECOMMENDED IN MY CONTENT.
I used to juggle accounts to focus the algorithm of certain type of videos for certain accounts, and youtube has completely ruined that too. Fuck that, went with the webapps and skipped the ads entirely. Fuck you youtube, you spat on those who gave you the least trouble. Never going back to the app.
I’m really wondering: is this working?
Like, does this approach yt is taking really increase viewership, revenue, watchtime, whatever the metric is?
I seriously can’t imagine, that it works. If you’re savvy enough, you’ll use AdBlock of some kind and for the less techy people it gets insufferable. That can’t be good for yt.
The thing is, YT is a de facto monopoly. Yes, there are alternatives, but most people don’t know about or use them. I’m not talking about short TikTok-style videos, I’m talking about longer-form video content. Sure, there is stuff and other sites. I go to Vimeo and DailyMotion sometimes to watch things, but YouTube is where the vast majority of the content is. They don’t need to worry about losing viewers right now, because they know viewers have nowhere else to go. So they can do whatever the hell they want. I wish I knew a good solution.
The solution for YouTube is right in your comment: it used to be the case that only tech savvy people would install AdBlock.
With more ads though, the incentive to install an ad blocker is suddenly there for more, even not so tech savvy people.
YouTube‘s reaction is already visible as they are now trying to block ad blockers: Try to make it more difficult to get an ad blocker at all, so not as tech savvy people won’t get one and continue to watch ads as they used to.I imagine us taking the high seas is “inconsequential”. Until it isn’t at least, all that matter is quarterly earnings, the rest “is next quarter”.
I suspect it’s like video games, they don’t give a shit if pay to win mechanics drive away interest for the game, they make more than enough off those who do pay. In the long run it will worsen the platform until eventually there will be a crisis (similar to some banana looking motherfucker on reddit), and the CEO of google Sundae Pichu is going to start cutting on pencils and printers at YouTube, while asking government for subsidies lest they slack off a chunk of their workforce and buyback they stock.
The fucking world we live in
I don’t understand why people use apps. Just like, in general. If there’s a browser version, it’s almost always waaaaaay better.
@Aesthesiaphilia @SuperSpruce @Kalkaline @RedditWanderer I generally use apps (specifically on my tablet/phone) because:
* They visibly separate those activities from random web sites that I viewed as one-offs
* They look and feel lighter-weight
* Features not in the app are generally more obscure things that I wasn’t gonna do anyway
Or get revanced
ReVanced is proprietary, better LibreTube or NewPipe
EDIT: To be more clear, ReVanced is a mod of the stock YouTube client. ReVanced’s patches are OSS, but Google’s spyware still runs at its core.
What? They literally have the project up on GitHub.
This are only open source patches to the proprietary client.
I didn’t dive into all the repositories, but none of them contain the application. It is all supporting repo’s with documentation and managers.
Or just use NewPipe.
I like NewPipe and use it but not being able to log in is kind of a deal breaker. Watching through Firefox is great tho.
Why is not being able to log in a deal breaker? I imported my subscriptions into it using takeout and that was good enough for me. Although I will admit on youtube I always had search and watch history off, so recommendations have been useless everywhere (intentionally).
Honestly I use the normal YouTube App for logging in and for watching without ads I just use the share button to open that video in NewPipe. Works for me.
Use NewPipe x SponsorBlock.
Ah, the joy of not being sold anything.
I’m not really a fan of sponsor block. It’s pretty much the most privacy respecting way of advertising and safe income for the creator. Seems like a win−win. I don’t like watching ads but I’d rather watch a sponsor segment than a YouTube ad
NewPipe ftw though
I see your point, but I really wish we could go back to a more innocent internet, when people make slightly crappy videos as a hobby, rather than overproduced shows as a profession.
I kind of agree but I also kind of don’t.
I thoroughly enjoy well produced content by the likes of Veritasium, Captain Disillusion, Mark Rober, Lemmino, Potato Jet and more. I do see where you’re coming from tho
There still are people doing it as a hobby and some even consider it a hobby despite the high production quality. Those channels are harder to find, though and that is kind of sad. I can’t help but wonder what would’ve been if we hadn’t commercialised the web.
Wow, that’s just as bad as taking a screenshot of a photo of a monitor displaying an image of a painting
Hang on, let me fax you a Polaroid of the printed spreadsheet I’ve been using as a database. I’ll be sending it through an amateur radio repeater with autopatch.
Youtube has ads?
If only phones had a somewhat simple way to view desktop-format video so that not everything had to be done in portrait. If only.
Hosting video content must be insanely expensive so I have some amount of sympathy for YouTube. However, ads earn such a paltry amount that I can hardly fathom how anyone can put up with it.
The total amount of ad revenue between all sites is only like $12 per user per year. So IMO it is a net benefit to block all ads (save your sanity!) and simply pay the creators of content you like.
Even just one $5 Patreon sub is worth more than all ads I’m likely to see so I block everything I can and IMO my conscience is clear
Highly recommend piped.video or piped.kavin.rocks
Both are instances of piped, and is a brilliant front end for YT. Skips ads, but also includes skipping intro videos and mid video sponsors.
piped.video is the same instance as piped.kavin.rocks
Oh neat! TIL.
I’m sure it’s great once the video actually loads.
Just use newpipe
This even dumber than accidentally making a bad product.
If you minimize a video on mobile ads also fuck up the aspect ratio so when you try to enlarge it to skip it’s harder.
If you’re still seeing youtube ads, you have no one but yourself to blame.
@SuperSpruce I feel like the majority of YouTube ads these days forget that YouTube isn’t TikTok and that the majority of content on the site is made in a landscape aspect ratio. It’s jarring to watch a video essay on my phone, and then it switches to an advertisement that uses 30% of my screen.
I know i get Downvotes all the way, but just pay for YouTube Premium. I do it a while now and me and my wife use YouTube Music for Music Streaming (wich i like more than Spotify). NewPipe is no Solution for me, cause i watch YouTube on my TV and listen Music on my Smart Speaker.
Adblock is free.
Well, I use ReVanced so I won’t have to pay a penny and still have all the features from the official app
