YouTube users are now seeing 90-second unskippable ads (Updated: Official statement)
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Users on Reddit are reporting that they're now seeing 90-second unskippable ads on YouTube's TV app, even as policy restricts them to 30 seconds.
  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    150·
    23 天前

    Youtube: “GOD PEOPLE KEEP SKIPPING ADS, WHAT CAN WE DO TO STOP THIS LOSS OF REVENUE?!”

    Viewers: “Maybe have standards for length and content and moderate the platform to prevent malicious actors?”

    Youtube: “I KNOW, I’LL JUST MAKE FORCED ADS LONGER AND MORE OBNOXIOUS!”

    Viewers: “JUST MODERATE YOUR FUCKING PLATFORM, YOU HAVE THE MONEY AND RESOURCES TO FUCKING DO IT”

    Youtube: “Users are just so selfish and entitled, trying to skip ads…”

    Viewers: " Fuck it installs ublock origin

  • Mac@mander.xyzEnglish
    131·
    23 天前

    I will sit on my floor with nothing, for hours, before i watch ads.

      • BackgrndNoize@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        23 天前

        Same I just bought a used kindle and jail broken it so now I have a huge library to go through and I have downloaded a bunch of movies and tv shows to my media server as well

      • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        23 天前

        So true! Also, productive screentime has been nice. Instead of doomscrolling or mindlessly zoning out to video essays, I’ve been programming, doing some 3D modeling for 3D printing, working on some simple games, and reading long form articles from my own curated news feed.

      • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        23 天前

        I had a book once that had a full color spread for the movie in the middle of the book. Obviously this was a skippable ad, but still, it’s inescapable.

        • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          23 天前

          I’ve been collecting old books for years. Currently slogging through Mellives collection of stories printed in 1968. Could find a copy of the book turned movie, printed before the movie?

          • Sergio@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            23 天前

            Some of those old books had ads for cigarettes in them! Mostly the cheaper paperbacks. For some reason it wasn’t as annoying, it was more of a historical artifact, an indication of the context in which the book was originally read.

            • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              2·
              23 天前

              yeah that’s actually pretty dope lol

              I’ve found old textbooks from the 30’s with handwritten notes in them :D

              history is cool

    • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
      46·
      23 天前

      If you just click into the article you are absolutely blasted with statement after statement that this is only for TVs. Obviously if you have an ad blocker you wouldn’t see ads. 🙂

        • wltr@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          28·
          23 天前

          I have Pi-Hole for like ten years maybe, they cannot stop the YouTube ads since, idk, at least five years, maybe more.

          • IratePirate@feddit.orgEnglish
            11·
            23 天前

            I’ve read that YT is injecting the ads directly into the video stream, i.e. the source is not ads.someshittycompany.com, but rather videos.google.com (which you cannot block for obvious reasons). The only solution to kill ads is to use addons like uBlock or client software like Freetube, Newpipe and the like that strip out the ads in some other way.

            • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              5·
              23 天前

              I don’t know if they actually started injecting it into the video, but even before they did that, they were serving the ads from the same domain.

          • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            7·
            23 天前

            Can confirm, I’m going on nearly a decade and Pi-hole has NEVER been able to stop YT ads because they’re served by the platform’s servers rather than outside servers.

            • wltr@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
              1·
              23 天前

              Well, I remember it actually stopping YouTube ads, 2018 or 2019 was when it changed. Or even 2020, won’t recall.

                • wltr@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
                  1·
                  23 天前

                  I have no proof for this except my memories. Perhaps we could find some links somewhere, but that would change nothing: it doesn’t work today. My guess that maybe it was different for different markets / locations. As I clearly remember a friend learned about Pi-Hole and bought an SBC just to deploy Pi-Hole. I’d been having it censoring the ads for my entire family, till it stopped doing that at some point. I still have that Pi-Hole deployed by the way, it continues blocking trackers and other shitty things online.

                  I wonder why browser extensions still work, while network-wide ad blocker does not.

        • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          23 天前

          I wish hahaha. Like the other user said, no blocking any ads served by the same servers as the stuff you’re watching. Never worked for YT, never worked for Twitch.

          That’s why I use computers on every screen in my house, and a Pi-Hole for other ads!

        • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          23 天前

          Yes, Pihole can solve that. “Normal” people don’t have Piholes though. And “normal” people really do purchase televisions, and install the YouTube app and watch videos with it.

          • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            3·
            23 天前

            Nah, Pi-Hole has never been able to block YT ads. And I’m proud of anyone and everyone I’ve ever got to switch from using shitty smart TV interfaces to cheap computers. I’m responsible for probably half the sales of the Logitech K400/plus hahaha.

  • MattR@feddit.orgEnglish
    64·
    23 天前

    No, I don’t see them and the day I cannot block ads anymore is the day I am going to stop using YouTube. It’s really not that important to life.

      • Bad_Ideas_In_Bulk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        23 天前

        … Why would I care if they miss me?

        Why would I care about their opinions at all? I’m pretty sure we care about each other’s opinions about equally as is.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        23 天前

        Are you under the impression that Bad_Ideas_In_Bulk is one person? Physically they might be, but their words represent a massive amount of people. I think millions of people would stop watching if they had to endure youtube without adblock.

      • MattR@feddit.orgEnglish
        2·
        23 天前

        Oh, I don’t care if they care about me. The attention of my comment was to express how unimportant YouTube has become for me.

    • imjustmsk@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5·
      23 天前

      why wait? Give invidious a try, or see if any of the creators you follow also uploads their videos in PeerTube or odyssey or something… The creators, I do follow does that - its good.

      • MattR@feddit.orgEnglish
        6·
        23 天前

        I know of PeerTube and like the concept. Out of my 57 subscribed channels only 2 are available via PeerTube, 4 more are available on other sites. I hope this will improve. I’m not using the normal YouTube interface. I’ve customised it to my needs with injected scripts plus additional cosmetic blocking, e.g. I filter out unwanted search results and removed all shorts. For now it works well enough. Anyway, I’m already in the process of reducing YouTube consumption.

      • versionc@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        23 天前

        Invidious is developed really poorly. The documentation even recommends restarting the service hourly for what I assume has to do with memory leakage (they don’t actually mention the reason, but memory leaks are significant either way). I’d stay away from that project.

      • Pman@lemmy.orgEnglish
        2·
        23 天前

        I use Grayhay since it makes it so all platforms I follow are on there and I can easily download videos if I want, plus follow people like Louis Rossmann on peertube, YouTube, if they have patreon or nebula there too.

  • cpaq47@lemmy.worldEnglish
    56·
    23 天前

    “unskippable”

    I haven’t seen an ad on YouTube for years, with 2 simple browser plugins. Assuming you’re on a PC:

    Ublock Origin Sponsor Block

    If you’re using chrome, you already fucked up.

        • emmy67@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          23 天前

          Mostly because the problem is systemic, so the response should be as well. Your answer was individualistic.

          Individual change always places the blame on you. The real focus should be on the system that puts you under this pressure.

          • Don_alForno@feddit.orgEnglish
            11·
            23 天前

            It wasn’t my answer, but I’ll play the part.

            I agree with you in cases where individual change is hard, costly and has barely any influence on the big picture (like your “individual CO2 footprint”). But in this case the individual solution is to quit using a terrible browser and install a free extension in the new one, and it has all the impact it needs because it makes the problem go away. I can’t take anybody seriously who will willingly put themselves through youtube ads when they are this easily avoided.

            • emmy67@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              23 天前

              In your example you say reducing your individual CO2 print is hard. It’s not. It just has no real effect against the larger problem. The same thing is true here.

              And that’s why the ads will always exist and people will always complain about them. It also funds them to eventually find ways around your individual solutions.

              I guess answers like these misunderstand that you’re fighting a losing battle.

            • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              1·
              23 天前

              I was hoping for some comments that realized not everyone wants to go to such lengths to avoid watching ads.

              Or that people use devices such as Chromecasts.

              • DisgruntledGorillaGang@reddthat.comdeleted by creatorEnglish
                6·
                23 天前

                If you use a Google service on a locked down Google device, what magic fix are you hoping for? There are limits. If you’re unwilling to make any meaningful change, then unfortunately you’re out of luck and either need to suck it up and watch the ads, or pay Google for an ad-free experience. Or you can leave their ecosystem and be free.

              • XeroxCool@lemmy.worldEnglish
                5·
                23 天前

                If there’s no solution to your device, then the only solution is a new device. At some point, it made sense for me to switch out my Chromecast (gen 1? puck) and go with a dedicated media pc. Now the Chromecast lives in the garage to stream music uninterrupted while I can still watch YouTube tutorials

          • Willdrick@lemmy.worldEnglish
            12·
            23 天前

            Grayjay

            Edit: instead of making a snarky comment, I should probably do the right thing for fellow lemmings and explain:

            I’m fucking old and I’ve seen this before. It’s the same model as it was with TV and Cable. Air tv becomes so ad ridden than when Cable comes “ad free” we all start paying and switch over. A decade later the “base” cable TV plan is so ad ridden that they come up with “premium channels”, so you sign up for that so you can watch a movie without 10 minute ad break in the middle or 4 minute ad breaks on series. Then channels start splitting into “base” and “premium” versions (e.g. Discovery or History). Base channel is now just RealityTV garbage.

            I got fed up and started following creators on Google Video (then YouTube), Vimeo, listening to stuff on ShoutCast (that was winamp’s podcast/radio thing). Then Netflix comes out, decent service. Every other media company wants a piece of the pie. Slowly but surely every decent movie/series on Netflix gets moved to their respective production company’s service: disney, HBO, Paramount+… Netflix starts toying with ads, now disney…

            Slowly YT starts adding ads on the sidebar, then in the lower third, then pre-rolls. Now there’s “premium bitrate” behind a paywall. At some point I said “fuck it I’m not playing ball anymore”. Why pay premium? it’ll be the same as it’s always been. Soon enough “premium” yt will be the only way to watch over 360p quality, they’ll lower a bit the cost of YT Premium, ppl will jump in and down the road they’ll add ads back.

            I’d rather donate a buck to my favorite creators, it’ll be 100x more income that whatever they’d get off my views.

  • SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.worldEnglish
    52·
    23 天前

    Hey YouTube? The endpoint of enshittification is this: I wipe my ass and flush you.

    Keep going, YouTube. You’re not so important that we can’t just leave.

    Nebula exists. Curiosity Stream exists. PeerTube exists. Odysee exits. The people I value on YT already have footholds on all four. More will arrive soon enough.

    So keep at it.

    Keep injecting unskippable ads, flooding the feed with AI slop, letting bots post porn, demonetising and hiding quality content, using DMCA like a digital SLAPP against content creators, and using the algorithm to warp reality.

    Your value proposition is ubiquity. That’s it. That’s all you have. Without popular buy-in, you’re dead.

    We proles? We have something better than loyalty.

    We have spite.

    So keep pissing people off - because watching you die on a very stupid hill of your own design will be entertaining AF.

    For everyone else, see you on !selfhosted@lemmy.world and !privacy@lemmy.world. Come and learn how you can replace all of these pieces of shit.

    And in the meantime - yt-dlp should still work to download what you actually want to keep, and SmartTube is black magic incarnate.

    • nprevail_@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      23 天前

      Nebula exists. Curiosity Stream exists. PeerTube exists. Odysee exits. The people I value on YT already have footholds on all four. More will arrive soon enough.

      Exactly my thoughts too.

    • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      7·
      23 天前

      Yes. You will quit YouTube. But 99% of people won’t and they make YouTube more revenue via either watching more ads or giving up and subscribing

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          23 天前

          None of those have all the creators and people don’t want to go between multiple apps.

          This fight is lost. The way to win it now is legislation or blowing up data centers.

          • SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.worldEnglish
            13·
            23 天前

            I disagree. The fight isn’t lost - it hasn’t even started yet.

            People are apathetic and/or ignorant to alternatives. Some of those people can be appealed to - or on sufficient enshittification, motivated into action.

            Spite is a wonderful reagent.

            Additionally, the apathy of the masses has no impact on individual response.

            Things already exist that marry disparate platforms (eg: Grayjay, Kodi plug ins etc).

            We need not wait. And while I remain sanguine that YT will piss off enough people eventually, I’d sooner code my own app, that joins all my streams - and release it into the wild - than let others dictate what I can and cannot do.

        • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
          1·
          22 天前

          Can somebody explain peertube for me? It sounds like it should be a federated video service, but either the federation doesn’t work very well or there’s nothing on it.

          • SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            22 天前

            The second one, sadly :(

            Still, the infra is there. So, it’s one of those “if you build it, they will come” (eventually) things. Maybe.

      • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        23 天前

        I finally gave up and subscribed, but only because the people I wanted to watch weren’t all available elsewhere and because I was lazy

        but this year I will be canceling YouTube as my last subscription

        • Lemming6969@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          23 天前

          But they’re coming for everything. There won’t be anywhere to go to get information. You’ll give up everything?

          • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            23 天前

            I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. YouTube is already near the bottom of my list for source of information and I already have more sources of entertainment than I have time, so if they manage to win their war on ad blockers, I have no problem never visiting the site again.

      • TryingToBeGood@reddthat.comEnglish
        1·
        23 天前

        what Buddahriffic said. :) I ain’t got that kind of time. (Caveat–am looking at little things occasionally on my phone–this must be a nightmare for people using YT TV.)

  • r00ty@kbin.life
    34·
    23 天前

    The enshittification will continue until… No man, it’ll just continue.

  • commander@lemmy.worldEnglish
    34·
    23 天前

    Like others, desktop I’m using Firefox with ublock origin. Android phone, Firefox with ublock origin. Android TV, SmartTube. Ad blockers have always outpaced Google in my experience though I use youtube maybe like twice a week and I don’t randomly browse reccomendations. Just there for specific stuff

    • LedgeDrop@lemmy.zipEnglish
      9·
      23 天前

      Enjoy it while it lasts. With Google forcing developers to register their Android apps (or they’re not allowed to be installed, unless you’re a developer), it puts pressure on applications like Firefox (or ublock origin) to tow-the-line.

      This won’t happen tomorrow or next year, but the writing is on the wall, unless people push back or the government begins to push back on Big Tech.

      The removal of device owner rights has always been a slow boil.

      edit: fixed typo

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        23 天前

        You can still install them, they announced the rules weeks ago.

        1. You need to go into the phone settings and enable developer mode (this doesn’t mean YOU’RE a developer)

        2. Flip a setting to on that will allow it

        3. See some scary prompts and acknowledge no one is asking you to do this

        4. Reboot the phone (its intended to cut off communication with who might be scamming you). (edit: I think this reboot step specifically is a clever idea)

        5. Wait 24 hours.

        6. Install the app

        From there you can keep the phone in the ‘unlocked’ state, or allow it to relock after 7 days.

        I’m not saying this is good, but it IS still possible.

        • LedgeDrop@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2·
          23 天前

          I understand and agree with your sentiment, but try explaining how ”developer mode" does not make you a developer to my Grandma.

          It’s the same b.s. optics that invented “sideloading” as some technically shady practice, when it has always been: just installing the stupid app.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            23 天前

            Maybe your grandma who doesn’t understand that, shouldn’t be installing unverified apps without someone like yours guidance? That’s not a hard concept if they’re going as far as installing something else not from a store.

            • LedgeDrop@lemmy.zipEnglish
              1·
              23 天前

              You’d still need “developer mode” to install f-droid or epic games apk.

              People shouldn’t be scared or intimidated out of installing non-google store fronts.

              …but yes, Grandma should avoid random apks pulled from the internet.

        • BygoneNeutrino@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          23 天前

          Also, somehow preventing adblock would trigger the creation of a corporate competing product. This is a bigger threat to Google than people stealing their bandwidth.

      • commander@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        23 天前

        I’m hoping by the time googles Android goes to shit, GrapheneOS is readily available on more phones or PostmarketOS. Same with Linux with KDE Plasma Bigscreen running on a minipc rather than using an android TV box

  • 87Six@lemmy.zipEnglish
    33·
    22 天前

    I just realised i haven’t watched a single ad in like 2 years

    Thanks ublock origin!

  • Hond@piefed.socialEnglish
    33·
    23 天前

    Well, i wont watch ads. If it comes to it i’d rather have a program thats recording videos in real time so i can skip the ad segments later in my recording like in the good old vhs times.

    • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      23 天前

      This should only become a necessary solution if YouTube invents a way to inject ads directly into the video stream of the video you’re watching, like old school broadcasting.

      • SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nzEnglish
        13·
        23 天前

        That is sort of what sponsored segments are, and what sponsorblock is quite effective at dealing with.

        If they’re injected on the fly at variable time points, it gets harder, but I suspect fingerprinting could work well enough.

        • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          23 天前

          Even better, yeah. So this solution shouldn’t feel necessary unless as a last ditch effort, definitely.

    • hayvan@piefed.worldEnglish
      4·
      23 天前

      uBlock Origin and revanced are still effective at blocking. Sponsorskip (available as a Firefox plugin or built into revanced) even skip sponsored segments inside videos!

    • Wild_Mastic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      23 天前

      That was what my grandpa also did many years ago, he was living in the future! Or we’re going backward.

  • BillCheddar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    23 天前

    When you see the long ad, just close the fuckin’ browser window. Immediately. And then use something else.

    They’ll only get the point and change if you stop giving them your eyeballs for shit you don’t wanna see.