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YouTube ads are about to get even longer and they’ll be unskippable - Dexerto (www.dexerto.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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:kitty-scared: 1
 

YouTube viewers will soon have to sit through even longer ads, with Google rolling out new 30-second unskippable spots on a popular app.

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[–] 291 points 8 months ago* (22 children)

Oh no, the ads I block are getting even longer!?

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago (17 children)

    I just purchased a new travel router that will have options for ad blocking built in. Would that block ads on any device sharing that connexion? TV, phone, PC, smart fridge,...?

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  • [–] 56 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    Those will not block YT ads.

    They'll block ads at a DNS level, but YouTube ads are delivered directly into the video stream.

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  • [–] 29 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Those will not block YT ads.

    This is correct

    but YouTube ads are delivered directly into the video stream.

    This is false

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    this is false

    So far

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Sure, but that can be said about almost anything.

    Still, I'd be surprised if they went the route of embedding ads into the stream, in part because of measurability/skipability/etc. It's definitely not out of the question, but I think we're still ways to go before we get there.

    And even then, tools like yt-dlp would probably be able to apply some heuristics to figure out which segments are foreign to the stream and slice them out that way. Blocking yt-dlp would require DRM, which in turn requires changing the transcoding pipeline in a pretty non-trivial way. I also doubt they would willingly go this route.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Youtubes ads are not delivered into the videostream. That would mean reencodingevery video for every user and would need an insane amount of computing power.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    That would mean reencodingevery video for every user and would need an insane amount of computing power.

    You actually don't have to, on account of how adaptive video streaming works. It's fully possible to serve a few segments of ad content mid-stream.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Honestly, it varies. Businesses are starting to get wise to DNS adblockers, and are serving more ads from their primary domain (this is part of why you can't block YouTube ads with a DNS blocker anymore - you can't block them at the DNS level without blocking all of YouTube).

    You'll see a noticeable downtick in phone ads from web browsing and ad-sponsored games, but something like a TV or fridge will probably be unaffected because the ads will be served directly from the same host as the content. You'll see fewer ads but far from zero.

    Also why are you connecting your smart fridge to a travel router? Do you travel with a smart fridge?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    No XD i was just wondering what kind of ads it could block. It will be my dedicated VR router when not in my main setup and i'm wonder what else i could do with it.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Just FYI you don't need a special router to block ads on the DNS level, you just need to point the DNS settings in your current router to a server that does filtering. Theres a couple of public ones set up to do that for you but you can also point them to a LAN IP and roll your own DNS server (like Pi-Hole or AdGuard Home)

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    [–] 73 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    YouTube has ads?

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    • [–] 55 points 8 months ago (10 children)

    It's so fucking funny though. I would love to pay YouTube. But I will never pay a company that abuses my data the way they do.

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    There's that, but I'd also like to point out, that as a paying customer, you're still force fed that bottom tier slop with no way to filter it other than hoping some combination of reporting/not interested/don't show me this channel again works.

    But even if you say, not to recommend a channel, it can still show up. So you get to pay for low grade AI slop videos. Or "content farms" that take 2 videos and just splice them together for some reason (both horizontal and vertical). Or the "I'm just going to stare at the camera and do nothing while I play a video that's from another platform". Like it's endless.

    The "shorts" platform is pure garbage. Can I turn shorts off? No I can "show fewer shorts".

    So you pay, to not get ads. They sell ALL your data to double dip (since they selling your data anywho) and there's no benefit for the content. They have all this data, all this tech, and the platform is rot with shit.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    That's true. I guess I would only pay for a YouTube that is actually useful. "People want to block channels. Best we can do is 'I am not interested' and still show them."

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    The “shorts” platform is pure garbage. Can I turn shorts off? No I can “show fewer shorts”.

    Once again the pirate version (revanced) of youtube is better than the actual paid version. Revanced and ublock filter take care of shorts for me. Haven't seen them in months

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I'd be willing to get YouTube Premium just to get rid of ads, but they're bundling it with YouTube Music and I'm not trusting Google with my music purchases any more, thank you.

    They discontinued Google Play Music (fortunately only after a long long period of time allowing you to download MP3s with their bloody terrible client app, so no loss there) and told me that you can just import the purchases to YouTube Music. Which I couldn't actually access.

    Also I don't want a music streaming service, I just want to buy the albums. It's pretty sad that it seems the only remaining feasible local option for electronic music purchases is iTunes! Bloody iTunes!

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (1 child)

    you gladly feed them your viewing habits to increase their value to their shareholders though 🤷

    you aren't hurting their bottom line by not watching ads. You're just making a tiny dent into a single line of thousands on some slides on the evp of youtube's quarterly presentation. No one else notices.

    Your data and viewing habits and patterns and all of the device info you leak and broadcast? The wifi signals your phone is always seeing? Oh that bluetooth device that just rode past your apartment while your blocking ads on youtube? Definitely not being seen by them. Apps are spyware these days, and they are spying on everything

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    My main point is that if it wasn't a privacy destroying capitalist evil company and website, that it would provide enough possible value for me to want to pay. My data is one of the reasons it isn't, I was merely answering to the article and context here.

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    • [–] 44 points 8 months ago

    The article about crappy ads wants me to turn off my ad blocker, lol

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    [–] 114 points 8 months ago (33 children)

    Firefox with ublock origin for desktop and mobile. Grayjay for mobile (integrates Nebula too so you can get both your feeds at once). Android TV with FCast and Smart Tube Next for your TV. Never see ads again.

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  • [–] [S] 60 points 8 months ago (19 children)

    A/B testing is showing they are going after people with ad blockers: https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-is-apparently-punishing-ad-blockers-by-hiding-comment-section-3320581/ But your specific combo seems good.

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  • [–] 92 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    They keep trying. The adblockers keep winning. I've had my fair share of videos sometimes not loading, or regularly needing to update apps to keep up with Google's latest bullshit, but the minor glitches and headaches are worth it for all the time I don't spend staring at a greyed out skip button.

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  • [–] 46 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Wait, YouTube's idea of punishing ad-block is removing the most toxic, worthless part of the site?

    Nobody tell them. Not one fucking word. We might even get them to remove Shorts, too, if we pretend this is a bad thing.

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  • [–] 29 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Why would I ever want to see youtube comments? Literally zero impact for me.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    If I want to see the comment section I use official app, and just pause the ad.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (4 children)

    I run both those and I see ads every time google breaks ublock which is monthly now. Grayjay is broken more than its not at this point and requires like 10+ tries with various ciphers.

    I think the day of these ads becoming unblockable is coming soon.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Are you running Ublock on Chrome or Firefox? It works significantly better on Firefox. I've never seen an ad get through it.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Firefox. Google does AB testing so they roll out the anti adblocking changes ot some users. Its usually effective at blocking adblocker for a day or two. Sometimes i have to watch the Ad sometimes i have to sit and stare at a black screen for 15seconds.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    Smart Tube is useless for me. Takes forever to load the video and usually craps in the process. Pass.

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  • [+] -1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Someone else in this thread mentioned TizenTube, that sounds like what you're looking for.

    But personally I just grabbed an Nvidia Shield. It works great and if you swap out the default launcher you'll never see a single ad on it (with the right apps). Plus the pro is beefy enough to run some decent emulators too.

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    [–] 37 points 8 months ago

    I set my VPN to Albania. Ads on YouTube are banned in Albania.

    On the web, I be Albanian.

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    [–] 35 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    I wonder what the breaking point is for those who don’t use adblockers.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    I had been paying for it a while ago since, to be fair, the service is free otherwise and often times it pays the creator more. Then Youtube decided to give about $45mil or so worth of energy toward making pro-Israel content and suddenly I didn’t mind the ads so much anymore. Now they’re making it a lot worse and my solution is going to need to be an adblocker.

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    • [–] 57 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    I often entirely forget that youtube and most of the internet is plagued with ads. It's a shock to use a family member's phone or laptop that does not have adblock

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (3 children)

    My computer is covered, but which app is safe to block ads on my phone?

    On my phone it's not just the ads that aggravate but also the autoplay videos–the ones that follow you as you scroll down. I can't prevent them from autoplaying.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago* (2 children)

    Mobile firefox is compatible with desktop addons, so you can still use ublock origin on your phone. I also use pihole to cover my whole local network and wireshark to VPN my phone to my local network when out of the house. If you're on iPhone you're probably just out of luck.

    I generally do everything in-browser and do not use any other mobile apps, so no youtube app, etc.

    This is the first I've ever heard of following autoplay videos lol

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    • [–] 28 points 8 months ago (16 children)

    We need an alternative with people on it.

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  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Gotta start somewhere. Get on peertube.

    Hell that's the reason I'm here and not on Reddit.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    You're people. What alternative are you using?

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Nebula, means tv, and dropout =/ none will be the next YouTube but it’s nice to have options I guess

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    Nebula doesn’t have hobby vids. Good in some respects, terrible in others.

    In addition, it’s locked down to posting, with only a nebulous indicator as to how to get invited to post creator content.

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  • [+] -7 points 8 months ago* (9 children)

    Or to come to terms with needing to pay for the services you use. YouTube has a paid option that supports the platform and creators much more that watching ads.

    Of course, I also upload my videos to PeerTube. Seems like the best alternative I've seen thus far.

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  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    I get a lot of value from YouTube that I would happily pay for, and I already pay for online services that respect me but I wouldn't pay a company that treats users like they do. It's not the ads I have a problem with, it's the tracking of users. They could have ads on their website that don't track users. You can subscribe to premium and presumably they don't show you ads, but they still track you. If they didn't do that I would happily pay them.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    That used to be a fair deal. We know better now and even have a word for what will happen to us once we're locked into the system, enshittification. Just about every subscription model eventually leads to squeezing as much as they can out of us without a corresponding increase in value.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago* (2 children)

    I agree in general, but when it comes to YouTube and the creator economy I do partially disagree.

    You aren't locked into anything, you can just go somewhere else. It isn't like Netflix and the other million subscription services where they hold all of the power, that's the beauty of independant online video creation; the creators have the power. If YT becomes enshittified enough, creators will leave to somewhere else. As it is, I currently watch some videos on PeerTube, some on YouTube, some on Nebula, and some on other platforms. People do struggle with using multiple websites across the internet, preferring to stick to a core few websites, but for their favorite creators I believe they'd branch out.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    I guess there are some examples of that happening with places like patreon, floatplane, twitch, kick, etc. It's hard to fathom anything coming along that can even approach the reach of youtube without backing from another big tech company and eventually following the same enshittification pattern.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    It really is hard to fathom, but I think it has a high likely hood of happening some day. I also think it's why YouTube hasn't been enshittified more than it has been, they know that it's a possibility.

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