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YouTube's plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers (www.androidauthority.com)

submitted 7 months ago by ijeff@lemdro.id to c/technology@lemmy.world

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cross-posted from: https://lemdro.id/post/2883134 (!android@lemdro.id)

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[-] Nobody@lemmy.world 386 points 7 months ago

These tech companies have underestimated their utility. They are mostly providing mindless time wasters. If you try to charge money or create inconvenience, people will look for something else to do.

Their attention is your lifeblood, and you’re actively giving them reasons to look elsewhere. The VC grow-at-all-costs business model is fundamentally flawed. It doesn’t scale when profitability becomes a priority.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 172 points 7 months ago

i think you mean "overestimated"

[-] Supervisor194@lemmy.world 54 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Their attention is your lifeblood, and you’re actively giving them reasons to look elsewhere.

👍

My attention is all the currency YouTube will ever get from me - and it should be enough. If I post videos to YouTube (for nothing in return) and I talk to people about videos I saw on YouTube or link them to videos - then I am a net gain for Google and they should treat me as such. If anything, they should be working (nicely) to try to get me to want to pay (or view ads) and just be thankful I'm there if I don't pay (or view ads). Instead they've chosen to work at ensuring everyone is so goddamn pissed off at their bullshit that they'd rather make it their full-time job to never give them another dime. Good job, Google! Smart!

PS: Oh hi there YouTube shills, I thought I would see you here.

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[-] mojo@lemm.ee 226 points 7 months ago

There are no better adblockers, uBlock Origin is all you need and is already updated to bypass it.

[-] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 106 points 7 months ago

Unlock origin is the adblocker that people are installing. There are a lot of people with shitty adblockers out there, I guess they are switching.

[-] cm0002@lemmy.world 32 points 7 months ago

I bet all those people with shitty adblockers are also probably googling better ad/YT compatible blockers lmaoo

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[-] ohlaph@lemmy.world 182 points 7 months ago

After YouTube started filling their search results with mostly shorts, I stopped using it for new stuff. It's terrible now.

[-] Rakonat@lemmy.world 59 points 7 months ago

Yeah youtubes attempt at being tiktok is just awful and they don't even have options to not have shorts show up in the feed. On top of shorts just being inferior versions of regular videos without functional controls

[-] elbarto777@lemmy.world 79 points 7 months ago

This is what gets me. Wanna show me shorts? Ok. But why the fuck am I not allowed to rewind a couple of seconds if I want to? It's an artificial, completely useless limitation that had no place in 2023.

So, no thanks.

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[-] Whirling_Cloudburst@lemmy.world 40 points 7 months ago

I started blocking those from appearing when they first showed up. There are a number of ways to do it. The Blocktube extension is one.

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[-] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 32 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I switched to FreeTube and now all the shorts are on a separate page I can switch over to if I feel like watching them. It's also got SponsorBlock built in. Now I can enjoy youtube with a clean, faster interface and google isn't tracking a damn thing. All because google got greedy and made their user experience shit.

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[-] Tygr@lemmy.world 146 points 7 months ago

Didn’t know about SponsorBlock until all this started. So many just found out ad blocking is possible.

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[-] Zacryon@feddit.de 142 points 7 months ago

There’s also the option of biting the bullet and paying for YouTube Premium.

No. Never. I'd rather stop using YT at all than giving in to coerced user-tracking.

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[-] Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 119 points 7 months ago

I love that all the centralized social media networks are scrambling to become shitty for profits right around the time users are realizing that they don’t need centralized servers to host their user-generated content. Users can take their content wherever they want and let these platforms die.

[-] nicoweio@lemmy.world 53 points 7 months ago

I'm not sure if we manage to do the same for video though; hosting these costs a lot more.

[-] Muffi@programming.dev 36 points 7 months ago

Maybe we don't need 4K 60FPS video to show Mr. Beast giving away more crap. Just because we can up the quality, doesn't mean we should. Or maybe client-side real-time AI upscaling will make this a non-issue.

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[-] TheTimeKnife@lemmy.world 98 points 7 months ago

Youtube is a perfect example of why ad blockers exist. They use ridiculous ad volumes and spy on their users for data to sell.

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[-] fne8w2ah@lemmy.world 90 points 7 months ago

uBlock Origin FTW!

[-] Lianodel@ttrpg.network 38 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I love that, in a competition between a corporation worth hundreds of billions of dollars and a FOSS project, all Google managed to do was annoy uBlock Origin users for like a week. I just had to manually update the extension and restart my browser a few times.

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[-] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 78 points 7 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Meanwhile, Youtube engineers and uBlock Origin volunteers are in a war of attrition, updating both the website (youtube, to block ublock) and uBlock Origin (the ad blocker, to unblock the ublock blocker) multiple times a day every day

[-] grue@lemmy.world 43 points 7 months ago

I feel like uBlock Origin has been coming out ahead more often than not. I haven't had to manually refresh my lists for the last few days.

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[-] r3df0x@7.62x54r.ru 76 points 7 months ago

Ublock Origin works

Brave is ass

[-] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 70 points 7 months ago

Switched finally to ff. So I guess thank you google.

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[-] disconnectikacio@lemmy.world 68 points 7 months ago

Spread the word to install firefox based browser, use different frontends to block youtube ads in browser, Invidious and use piped youtube apps on android to block youtbe ads: Newpipe

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[-] andy_wijaya_med@lemmy.world 60 points 7 months ago

And they increased the fucking price for YouTube premium.

[-] AMillionNames@sh.itjust.works 58 points 7 months ago

I had uBlock Origin installed since forever, are people just finding out about it?

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[-] silencioso@lemmy.world 52 points 7 months ago

NewPipe in my mobile and FreeTube in my desktop. Fuck you Google

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[-] maquise@ttrpg.network 46 points 7 months ago

Just this morning all the posts (here on Lemmy) were about how everyone was uninstalling their adblockers.

[-] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 130 points 7 months ago

People should be uninstalling Chrome instead.

Adblocking still works fine on Firefox. Just update your UBO filters.

[-] Subverb@lemmy.world 42 points 7 months ago

I literally have un-installed chrome. I had to use it on an office machine today and it felt weird.

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[-] ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world 60 points 7 months ago

Why the fuck would anyone uninstall their ad blocker just because one site demands it? Whitelists exist for a reason.

[-] smokingManhole@lemmy.world 32 points 7 months ago

I'll stop using Internet before I even consider whitelisting YouTube.

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[-] yukichigai@kbin.social 49 points 7 months ago

That article was full of such blatantly misleading crap. Headline talks about record number of adblocker uninstalls, but the actual data says it was an uptick in both installs and uninstalls. In other words it was people cycling through different adblockers trying to find one that still worked.

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[-] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 44 points 7 months ago

And that didn't mention ublock origion, the blocker that still works...

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[-] WindowsEnjoyer@sh.itjust.works 46 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

They should fucking do an experiment - 2€/$ a month for an ad-free subscription and 3€/$ a month for higher video quality+no ads subscription. I would fucking pour my money into it.

Oh wait, that would not solve lack of sponsorblock. I guess I am not interested then...

[-] DV8@lemmy.world 35 points 7 months ago

They literally had that experiment with Premium Light. €6 for ad free watching, it was all I needed. But they literally sent out a mail they were stopping this tier right before they started implementing more anti-ad blocking measures.

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[-] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 41 points 7 months ago

Not everybody is.

That's the thing, even if 95% of users currently using ad blockers block ads anyway or leave the service, YouTube still wins big.

They aren't worried at all about alienating users from which they can't extract ad revenue. Those on the margin that turn off ad blockers or subscribe to a paid plan are the target, not everyone else.

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[-] ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 39 points 7 months ago

So today I've seen this article saying YouTube failed and another saying they've succeeded because of record uninstalls of adblockers.

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[-] affiliate@lemmy.world 38 points 7 months ago

who could have seen this coming

[-] yuunikki@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 7 months ago

Based, fuck YouTube

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[-] trslim@pawb.social 35 points 7 months ago

I dont even mind ads when its like one minute for 20 minutes of footage. Pluto TV is free to use and has commercial breaks but they never really bother me because they aren't that annoying and i get a lot of MST3K before I watch them. Youtube ad are cancer in comparison.

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[-] mystic@lemmy.world 33 points 7 months ago

reminds me of how bugs develop into superbugs after building resistance to antibiotics

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[-] Rosco@sh.itjust.works 31 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Good, fuck those greedy bastards. yt-dlp + mpv with sponsorblock FTW, bonus points for stopping using a YouTube account altogether and using RSS feeds for your subscriptions instead.

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this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023

1951 points (98.7% liked)

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