this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025
96 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy

2577 readers
399 users here now

Icon base by Lorc under CC BY 3.0 with modifications to add a gradient

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 26 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Binturong@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 hour ago

Adblockers are the only reason people can still tolerate watching content on the ad-riddled shitscape.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago

Google whines about problems it caused -_-

[–] amgdvx@programming.dev 9 points 5 hours ago

Maybe dont put an ad every 5 minutes, that could lead people not to use adblocker. I wasn't an adblock user but seeing how the web is today its impossible to surf it without one

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 11 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I, and many others left using YouTube from the site once they banned adblockers. I used to watch an hour a day I'd guess.

I'm technical, so I bothered seeking out alternative clients that can bypass the ads (Freetube, Grayjay, etc), but i still watch less overall. And after speaking to less technical friends and family, they said that the unskippable ads just got too much. So they stopped using it except for essential vids like tutorials.

Too many ads = consumer go byebye now.

Ya fuckin' milked the cow dry, idiots.

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 53 minutes ago* (last edited 53 minutes ago) (1 children)

Youtube is still 100% usable with uBlock Origin... Even the "lite" version of uBO.

[–] piccolo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 minutes ago

Its always a cat and mouse game. They say they blocked adblockers... but then that gets circumvented. But then they patch it, but that gets circumvented. If they spent a fraction of what they spend trying to stop adblockers and just show less ads... people wouldnt need to resort to adblockers!

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 24 points 14 hours ago

This is literal abusive language. "Look what you made me do"

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 42 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

It's bullshit. They suddenly changed their metrics and views dropped sharply. The amount of people not using adblockers is staggering. Most people I know had to be made aware they existed and there are many more who watch YouTube through their smartphone app where there are no adblockers.

If you wanted me specifically to watch your videos, you'd stop putting ads in every 2 minutes. It makes the videos unwatchable. But also, I'd only watch directly if the video weren't on YouTube. Fuck them and their monopoly. They can only sustain it because of Google Search (or what's left of that service).

[–] ericjmorey@discuss.online 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The video creators decide how many ads are on their video. YouTube is a heavy influence on that decision, but the number and timing of ads is up to the creators.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Really? I have trouble believing they'd insert ads at the worst moments possible.

[–] entwine@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

They do. The youtube studio thing automatically inserts a shitload of ad breaks by default, but channels have the option to customize it. When you see a video with annoying ad breaks, it's because the creator didn't choose to remove them.

[–] IceFoxX@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago

I use yt by default without ads, shorts, etc. on the home page only suitable recommendation ( or on the desktop none at all ). I recently had to reflash my phone and then went to yt. So wow I saw the garbage hslde and immediately closed it again and then configured my phone first for Ad & trash free yt

[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 52 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Its like every time when these corporations say they don't know how ads got injected into the start menu or something. Surely thats just happens through magic, and not weeks of managerial approval, and software work.

Ad blockers didn't break view counts. Them attempting to block the ad blockers broke view counts

[–] doctortofu@piefed.social 16 points 16 hours ago

Don't you hate it when you mistype a comma and your code to show ads suddenly issues a pull request, approves it, uploads itself to staging, goes through QA and then deploys to prod completely by accident? I know I do! /s

[–] Maxxie@piefed.blahaj.zone 24 points 17 hours ago

If you don't make your metrics reliant on spyware, they won't be affected by me blocking your spyware. But thats not a trick they teach at google university.

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 17 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I can see this. I will only try refreshing a video a couple of times before giving up and moving on, if I can't watch it without ads. And lately, YouTube has been fighting with my adblocker so much, that I end up just turning it off altogether. Fuck ads.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Are you able to use yt-dlp or PipePipe?

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I will be honest...I don't know what those are. Lol!

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

The first one is a popular video downloader, typically used for YouTube. The second is an Android app that is very well made.

[–] taldennz@lemmy.nz 16 points 18 hours ago

And all I can think of is...

I'm doing my Part!

[Would you like to know more?]

Thought that does make it seem like we're part of some kind of movement, rather than just people sick of too many privacy invading ads.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 10 points 18 hours ago

I can see where this is going. Next, ad blocking will be made even harder than it already is.

[–] somegeek@programming.dev 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Wtf. It's obviously crashed because of how absolutely unusable and disgusting youtube has become. I used to use youtube for 3 4 hours a day, but in the last year it may have gotten to an average of 20mins. Because you have to sign in to your google account to watch a video, many of videos cant be viewed with a vpn (which is how very large population of the world use youtube) and the overall quality of content has dropped massively, specially with 3/10 videos and shorts being AI slops.

[–] IceFoxX@lemmy.world 4 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Revanced extended. ( remove ads, shorts etc. ) ( Be careful with other sources regarding malware. (although ultimately you should not blindly trust this source either))

[–] bigFab@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago
[–] xep@discuss.online 5 points 19 hours ago
[–] halfapage@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

haha, knew this gonna be their narrative