876
YouTube's ad problem just got worse: Users now seeing 90-second unskippable ads!
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this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2026
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Ublock must be blocking them. Huh, oh well.
I have noticed lately that in FF with ublock the videos have refused to play for an ad like length of time. Probably ab testing something.
I'd rather look at a loading screen than an ad.
If the video refuses to play, just reload the page. That fixes it for me.
Yeah I don't wait for it either but it does cause me click the play button a few times and watch the throbber spin for a second before I do.
I notice that I don't pay attention to videos as much any more. It's just stuff playing in the background while I game or edit an image or browse piefed or something. So if it "hangs" for a couple seconds while ublock fights the ads, it doesn't really bother me.
AFAIK that is youtube delaying the video stream on purpose because you were supposed to watch ads in that time. If you wait 5-10 seconds it will start playing. For me it happens only on the first video, and autoplay is still instant afterwards. I am gladly waiting out the loading screen than watch ads. Knowing that I probably make google lose money on every view makes the wait even more bearable (I am never logged in, and anyways I always run youtube in private mode, so there's almost no profiling happening)
You could try to change the user-agent to make it a little bit faster (google slows down youtube on firefox btw) or you could try to sue google for unfairness or smth
Seriously. I’m not seeing any ads… just AirPlay YouTube to my Apple TV, and I’m good to go