• Meursault
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    173 months ago

    uBlock Origin works wonders. I haven’t seen a YouTube ad since I installed it.

  • @[email protected]
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    93 months ago

    There’s a chance ad blockers are eating up the ‘Skip’ button while also failing to block the ad.

    A CHANCE?

  • snooggums
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    2613 months ago

    While the company stops short of directly saying as much, it sure feels like the preposterously long ads we’re seeing here are an example of one tool in Google’s arsenal for effectively disabling YouTube playback for violators of the site’s ToS.

    That makes no sense at all. It isn’t like skipping ads results in a black screen for the length of the ad.

    People with adblockers aren’t going to see hour long ads or black screens when they don’t see ads in the first place.

    • teft
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      1383 months ago

      It’s hilarious that they think it would matter to anyone with an ad blocker. I haven’t seen an ad for years on youtube. Hell I haven’t even seen promotions in videos for a few months now that I found a sponsor segment blocker.

      • Chev
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        193 months ago

        Both are available on pc and mobile. Love it.

          • Chev
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            63 months ago

            On PC Firefox with the Sponsorblock extension

            On Mobile (Android) NewPipe with the Sponsorblock Fork.

      • @[email protected]
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        383 months ago

        I think Google doesn’t care about that at all.

        They most likely pay peanuts compared to you for “bandwidth” (which for them is more of an electricity cost and trough-output allocation than a specific numeric value like consumers and smaller companies have). You also cache the video on your own device making the multiple tab thing useless if you don’t know what you’re doing. And Google can also just block you when they attack their servers, move traffic around, and so much more advanced stuff that protects their infrastructure.

        tl;dr: Trying to boycott Google by trying to waste their resources is useless.

          • @[email protected]
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            43 months ago

            As I said it’s 100 times more advanced than that.

            They can switch IPs, datacenters, regions, whatever they want. They even have access to BGP routing.

            They also use some custom switches according to Wikipedia:

            The private side of the network is a secret, but a recent disclosure from Google[90] indicate that they use custom built high-radix switch-routers (with a capacity of 128 × 10 Gigabit Ethernet port) for the wide area network. Running no less than two routers per datacenter (for redundancy) we can conclude that the Google network scales in the terabit per second range (with two fully loaded routers the bi-sectional bandwidth amount to 1,280 Gbit/s).

          • @[email protected]
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            73 months ago

            200gig was surpassed what, 8 years ago? They have super active load balancing based on your region. You could purchase a Fiber gigabit line and only watch videos 24/7/365 and nobody at YouTube would ever notice.

      • Jo Miran
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        403 months ago

        All that does is make YouTube money while costing money to the advertisers.

        • @[email protected]
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          243 months ago

          How long do you think those advertisers will stay when it turns out they’ve paid $1M in advertising with no change in sales?

          • Jo Miran
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            3 months ago

            I hear what you are saying but the truth is that they will stay, just so they aren’t missing, regardless of ROI. Case in point is Xitter. The numbers clearly state that the level of engagement and sales conversion from Xitter ads is pitiful, especially when compared to Bluesky, yet advertisers still hang in there…just in case.

            • @[email protected]
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              143 months ago

              That’s because at a certain point ads become less about direct sales, and more about brand recognition. This is why Coke has a massive advertising budget. You know what Coke is. You’re either going to buy a Coke or you’re not. But by advertising as heavily as they do, they’re reminding you that they exist.

              That’s why their heaviest advertising season is Christmas. Some of the advertisements don’t even show their product. Some do, but some just show Santa flying his sleigh with cheery christmas music. Then their Coke logo gets spelled out in the stars as he passes by.

              It’s just so you assosiate their brand with good emotions. But it requires an almost constant barrage of ads, and it’s direct sales are impossible to measure.

          • @[email protected]
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            103 months ago

            The advertising team will just blame it on something else. They have the numbers showing their ads are being watched, everything else is conjecture.

    • @[email protected]
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      03 months ago

      NewPipe stopped working for me two weeks ago, and it seems like Google won’t allow NewPipe to download Youtube’s content for free anymore. I don’t think Youtube/NewPipe will ever be usable again. I think we have to say goodbye to Youtube.

    • Mubelotix
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      3 months ago

      Youtube ReVanced is flawless. It’s easy to patch

      • @[email protected]
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        13 months ago

        I have tried using ReVanced a few times when NewPipe was down, but it never worked for me. Maybe I’ll try it again.

    • @[email protected]
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      13 months ago

      Good suggestions but most of the time I can’t get any of these apps to work, some commenters here say differently but for me, due to YouTube’s policy of “sign in to prove you’re not a bot”, I end up using a tor browser with cookies denied and sadly all the bullshit yt advertising of course.

    • @[email protected]
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      143 months ago

      Firefox + Ublock Origin

      This right here. No longer using chromium-based browsers is a really good start.

    • Echo Dot
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      43 months ago

      Right but capitalists understand people don’t actually want to watch ads so they know there’s another limit to how long they can be.

  • @[email protected]
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    703 months ago

    While the company stops short of directly saying as much, it sure feels like the preposterously long ads we’re seeing here are an example of one tool in Google’s arsenal for effectively disabling YouTube playback for violators of the site’s ToS.

    I don’t get it. When my adblocker works, I don’t get to see this shit. Only if it fails I’llbe confronted with hour-long ads, so the incentive to find a better blocker is even higher?

    • @[email protected]
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      203 months ago

      They are trying hard to block all known adblockers. And if they ever do, this will become a serious problem.

          • Echo Dot
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            63 months ago

            In this case though the arms dealers make the arms for free so I’m kind of okay with it

            • @[email protected]
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              23 months ago

              There are arms dealers on both sides. Anti-adblockers also require development, and I doubt anyone does that for free.

            • @[email protected]
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              93 months ago

              And all of it could have been avoided if google just audited/policed the ads it served. No sane person minds watching a 5-10 second add every 10-20 minutes to support the platform.

              But rather than spend money expanding their ad department to audit and police the adds, they are spending gobs and gobs of money trying to force people to see view virus-delivering ads, racist ads, blatant misinformation, etc.

              No one wants to be forced to spend 30 minutes watching a pragerU video on how the black man should be grateful for slavery and all the “good” its brought him

              But that seems to be the world that google wants.

              • @[email protected]
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                63 months ago

                No sane person minds watching a 5-10 second add every 10-20 minutes to support the platform.

                Fuck that. Ads are cancer. Willing consuming cancer is insanity.

              • @[email protected]
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                53 months ago

                Remember when Google aquired YouTube and stated they didn’t intend to change anything? Remember when the only ads were those little banners you had to close? We’ve come such a long ways from where we started and what is considered “sane” these days would have been an affront back then. Google truly did slow boil the frog.

        • @[email protected]
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          53 months ago

          This is a war that was fought by broadcast TV and the makers of videotapes, DVDs, and blu-rays. In every case the Corpos failed. So no, this arms race is and will be won by the ad blockers.

  • FundMECFS
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    243 months ago

    Can someone donate a large sum to peertube please

    • Captain Aggravated
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      63 months ago

      No but I’ll start making some content for Peertube and contribute a modest amount to the instance I upload to. Fair?

  • Ogmios
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    1223 months ago

    Are ad blockers to blame?

    Why do you make me hit you?

    • @[email protected]
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      573 months ago

      The funny thing is using a good adblocker and I haven’t noticed a single youtube ad, so if they’re to blame, they’re also the solution. I don’t see how this move functionally does anything other than punish those who can’t block ads.

        • Yggstyle
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          233 months ago

          People that know what ad blockers are frequently use them. The act of punishing the group that isn’t aware of adblockers simply will drive more users to discover/make use of them.

          • Em Adespoton
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            93 months ago

            “We have to punish you because of what those other people are doing to legitimately evade punishment” is only a useful argument if the punished group can somehow cover for those not affected.

            • Yggstyle
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              63 months ago

              Exactly. It’s a tired argument that’s been made in a lot of different mediums. It’s not worked in any of them.

          • @[email protected]
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            73 months ago

            Remember those unskippable anti-piracy DVD ads that only paying customers saw? The media industry has learned jack shit during the last 30 years.

            • @[email protected]
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              33 months ago

              You could skip them on PC, and they didn’t come when you rip them. So it was only paying customers using it in the expected way.

    • @[email protected]
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      103 months ago

      No no no…don’t hit them. That leaves a mark. Instead, hold them down, and tickle them for an hour.

      Then if they try to go to the police, and say “they tickled me!” the cops will just laugh. And, no marks.

    • unalivejoy
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      43 months ago

      The only reason adblockers would be to blame would be because Google wanted to make up for lost revenue, similar to the myth of high end department stores having high prices because they expect their customers to shoplift.

  • @[email protected]
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    473 months ago

    One solution to that problem is to close YouTube on your device and do something else with your time.

  • @[email protected]
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    303 months ago

    I haven’t read the article, but surely this is an accident? I have almost no faith left in our capitalistic society, but surely even Youtube understands that nobody is going to watch an hour long ad, right?

    • Captain Aggravated
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      83 months ago

      The most mysterious one to me happened in 2015 or so. I was watching Zero Punctuation, and it served me an hour long computer networking lecture as an ad. Like, some Indian guy delivering a power point presentation. I was like, what’s the monetization strategy here, guys? Did this dude pay you to serve his lectures as ads? What?

      • Echo Dot
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        3 months ago

        At one point there was a period of time where YouTube was consistently serving me ads in Arabic, a language that I don’t speak and from a country I have never been to.

        Their algorithm just breaks sometimes.

        Edit: not sure why that was in capitals.

        • Captain Aggravated
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          13 months ago

          There was awhile there where my parents were getting ads for Pull-Ups Toddler diapers in Spanish.

          • Echo Dot
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            43 months ago

            I know there was that story about Google knowing about some guy’s daughter being pregnant before she’d actually told him.

            So maybe I’m just really Arabic and haven’t noticed yet.

            • Captain Aggravated
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              53 months ago

              That wasn’t Google, it was Target. Based on the teen’s buying habits, that she suddenly started buying certain vitamins, unscented lotion, that sort of stuff with her loyalty card, their system put two and two together and sent her coupons for maternity and baby products, which is how her father learned he was gonna be a grandpa.

              Google has similar power to know more about you than your friends and family, though.

  • @[email protected]
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    363 months ago

    They force paying customers ( yt music premium & yt premium ) to disable ad blockers, too. Why? If I accordingly to the contract shouldn’t get any ads why they would need to punish for blocking ads which shouldn’t exist :-)?

    • @[email protected]
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      123 months ago

      I pay for YT premium and use unlock origin + privacy badger and don’t see any ads on YT.

    • sunzu2
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      293 months ago

      You aint getting the ads but they still need you to load the trackers mate.

      It is for your own safety, taker your pants off, boy

  • @[email protected]
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    1373 months ago

    The YouTube owner explains that normal non-skippable in-stream ads are limited to just 15 seconds in length.

    This is bullshit. I don’t use an ad-blocker and often get a full minute of ad. And an extra minute if I happen to pause the stream for like 30 seconds and come back to it.

    • FartsWithAnAccent
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      403 months ago

      Not using a real ad blocker (read: PiHole or UBlockOrigin, fuck AdBlockPlus) is a serious security threat this day in age. Do yourself a favor and get that set up ASAP.

    • bizarroland
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      423 months ago

      Using the internet without an ad blocker is like fucking every sex worker in Vegas without a condom.

      Practice safe internet.

      This message has not been sponsored by Firefox or uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger or Decentral Eyes, but if they want to throw some money my way I would accept.

        • @[email protected]
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          23 months ago

          Nah, I’ve heard they stopped development. People use LocalCDN as a drop in replacement. However, by itself, it doesn’t change much when it comes to ads and tracking.

    • ssillyssadass
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      163 months ago

      You’re pretty much asking for it by not using an ad blocker. Want it to stop? Boycott the ads.

    • GingaNinga
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      903 months ago

      I consider the internet unusable without an ad blocker, ESPECIALLY youtube. I can’t imagine life without it. It would be like camping without a tent, I guess I could get by but it can really suck depending on where you go.

      • @[email protected]
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        173 months ago

        Hey! Whoa! That’s not fair at all!

        You can TOTALLY go camping without a tent. Just as long as you don’t camp in a mosquitto heavy area.

        Just sleep outside.

    • @[email protected]
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      33 months ago

      This is bullshit. I don’t use an ad-blocker.

      You’re right. It IS bullshit that you don’t use an adblocker. It’s kind of like saying “This is bullshit! I don’t use oven mitts as I take hot metal trays out of the oven! Why am I the only one getting burned???”

      • @[email protected]
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        183 months ago

        You’re misunderstanding. They are calling out the claim of 15 seconds explicitly, they aren’t necessarily complaining about the ads.

        Don’t hand wave their statement by arguing against something they aren’t talking about.

    • @[email protected]
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      113 months ago

      What?! You are forced to watch an ad if you pause it for too long?!

      Jfc i hate this gods damned timeline

      • @[email protected]
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        163 months ago

        You’ve been here for two years and haven’t installed a blocker yet? That’s almost impressive

        • @[email protected]
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          43 months ago

          I been on the internet since the 90s. I want to know what people are seeing. A commercial here or there keeps me in the loop about what is being pushed.

          1 hour unskippable ads tells me a lot about what is going on, unfortunately.

            • @[email protected]
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              13 months ago

              I want to know what’s going on in the world.And that includes knowing what advertisers are pushing down our throats.Political ADS ads for products, things like that.How they’re going about it.

              I care too much and it’s beginning a problem in my personal life

              • @[email protected]
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                13 months ago

                There is already too much going on in the world and things trying to claim your attention. There are things we can’t control. Save your energy for that. Turn off web ads, use the uBlock Origin extension in your web browser. Try it for a week as a digital detox. If you really miss the ads you can always go back.

              • @[email protected]
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                13 months ago

                I don’t have a solution, but definitely find a way to care less. We only have so much time on this rock, so we might as well enjoy it.

          • @[email protected]
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            103 months ago

            I see where you’re coming from but meanwhile I’m here using crowd sourced addons to even skip embedded video sponsorships.

        • @[email protected]
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          103 months ago

          I wonder how they managed that, I’ve been here about a year and a half and I use Linux now, lol.

  • FlavoredButtHair
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    613 months ago

    I either watch YouTube without ads or don’t watch at all. We need a new platform for videos.

    • @[email protected]
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      The problem is hosting (storage, network) is expensive.

      IIRC some platforms (feddit.org, catbox.moe) pays $1000 per month, and that’s mostly just static images.

      Videos is much more than that. Who pays for that?

      • @[email protected]
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        13 months ago

        I have a hunch Linus at LTT could float his own storage for whatever stuff he wants to host. The same way you and me have to pay for our own online storage.

        • @[email protected]
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          13 months ago

          Yeah, that would mean everybody pays for hosting videos themselves. The question is: is that a viable strategy / are users willing to put up with that.

          • Realitätsverlust
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            23 months ago

            are users willing to put up with that.

            No. People are used to stuff being free.

        • @[email protected]
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          43 months ago

          Hosting is only half the equation you have to be able to serve it people all around the world at once with no buffering. People have no clue how amazing YouTube is for a free service. Bandwidth costs a fuckload of money too to add to the hosting cost.

          • Boomer Humor Doomergod
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            13 months ago

            PopcornTime might be a good model for a decentralized YouTube system. You could pick a movie and then it would find a torrent and start downloading it.

    • Elrecoal19_0
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      3 months ago

      Peertube looks good… but has nearly no content or content creators, which is the reason Google nearly has monopoly with Youtube

      • @[email protected]
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        173 months ago

        Not a fediverse thing, but I pay $5 a month for nebula. I think it’s worth it to support creators. And I believe the whole “if you’re not paying for something you’re the product”. Though you can still be the product even if you do pay.

        • @[email protected]
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          23 months ago

          Is there any competitor like Nebula that’s not solely focused on informational/longform videos? I come from the age when hobbyists made silly memetic animations and shared them around, not even necessarily for profit. I’m sure many of those people consider YouTube to be some level of evil and would enjoy an alternative that’s actually organic.

          • @[email protected]
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            53 months ago

            They have a $30/ year annual subscription (I’m not certain if that’s a purely introductory rate or not). Most of the content is non-exclusive but it’s ad-free and many creators remove the sponsor segments or even include exclusive content on their Nebula version. It seems pretty worthwhile to me

          • @[email protected]
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            13 months ago

            There’s definitely good material on it. Was a big fan of “Dracula’s Ex-Girlfriend” short film, for instance.

            But its also got your garden variety YouTube crap.

          • @[email protected]
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            33 months ago

            It’s alright. Most of my favorites aren’t on there, but there’s some decent content there.

          • @[email protected]
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            73 months ago

            I’m also a Nebula subscriber for the same reason stated above. A lot of my favorite creators are on Nebula and either post their videos a week or two early on Nebula, or post extended versions of their videos on Nebula.

            There’s no ads or sponsorship segments, so it makes for a pleasant experience. Admittedly, the Nebula “originals” which are exclusive to Nebula, is a fairly small catalogue. But what is there is high quality.

            The Nebula subscription is worth it for me to support creators and have a better viewing experience… And to see each Jetlag episode a week early.

            • @[email protected]
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              23 months ago

              Tbh I dont use it enough, but I love that’s it no ads like you said. Also feels good to support creators instead of Google. I’ll check out the originals!

        • @[email protected]
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          13 months ago

          I ended up getting a lifetime subscription, and it’s definitely worth it, but it’s not a replacement for YT entirely.

          Dropout.tv has good comedy videos which is largely lacking from Nebula, but I find it buffers more often for me, which makes it uniquely bad among all the streaming services I’ve used.

          But, I watch plenty of fan compilations / animatics for stuff on YT from my recommendations, and I haven’t found them anywhere else either because they don’t exist or because they don’t get recommended to me. It seems difficult for that kind of stuff to exist without free, easy uploads AND free, easy viewing.

          Finally there are some people that primarily do Twitch that I subscribe to on YT. I’ve tried watching them on Twitch, and I prefer the content after their YT editor has worked their magic.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 months ago

      Tell you the truth, once upon a time I really didn’t mind the ads. In fact I was quite happy to support the creators that I like with watching the ads that appeared on their videos. But then YouTube started getting smarmy by blocking my suggestions because I didn’t use history on my account. And then there’s the problem of the ads getting longer. At which point I got fed up and downloaded the adblock software to stop seeing this garbage. And then this little war broke out over ads on the platform.

      Quite frankly, so long as the people who make the software to block ads continue to do that kind of work I will continue to download their software and make Google spend boatloads of their own money to try to block the blockers. Because the blockers aren’t going anywhere. Not to mention that the blockers were not quite as popular before Google started this little campaign. And now they have made people so hyper aware of the fact that they can actually go out and find some way to skip these stupid ads that they’ve basically dug their own grave. Broadcast TV spent decades on this failed quest.

      • @[email protected]
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        I was the exact same way. I could justify watching ads to support the people I watched, but then I learned how little compensation a creator actually gets from one view and decided my time was more valuable. Plus I just got too used to never seeing ads and could never go back.

        This video sums up the sentiment you’re describing nicely.

      • @[email protected]
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        53 months ago

        Yeah, me too.

        I liked watching ads 12 years ago, they were a funny interjection/change.

        Nowadays the ads are so extremely obnoxious, it feels as if they’re poisoning my mind. No way i’m even gonna watch them for a second.

      • @[email protected]
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        43 months ago

        Exactly right. Two 15 second ads in between shows two midstream 15 to 30 second ads, I was perfectly fine with watching those ads.

        When they started letting content creators pick the number of ads, and they started letting more than 30 seconds of ads per break, now I have incentive to block them.

        Capitalism dictates that they need to make 20% more every year. They cannot continue to get 20% more ad revenue every year without increasing ads substantially.

        When a handful of companies owns everything and they can no longer buy new companies up to make more money, They can’t make their numbers. All they can do is gut us for the last 20% and then go out of business.