this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025

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338

Google says adblockers caused YouTube views count to drop - this is what adblockers told us really happened (www.techradar.com)

submitted 15 hours ago by ardi60@reddthat.com to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] FunnyUsername@lemmy.world 28 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Tldr: youtube forced ai into video monitoring and it keeps killing videos it shouldn't, so instead of saying Ai is bad they're blaming af blockers because why not lie when there's no repercussions?

YouTube views are dropping because they are using AI to vet and cull age innappropriate content from minors. the problem is the ai is very bad at its job and marks way too many videos as not advertiser friendly, which effectively kills YouTube promoting that video in feeds. this is the default view for new accounts, so you have to specifically turn off parental controls to see a normal feed. this started happening about 4 months ago. a number of channels I watch have made comments about this, including Redlettermedia

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 15 minutes ago

I don't understand:

What is 'AI in video monitoring?'
The article mentions literally nothing about this, so where did that come from?

[–] Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 hour ago

Not saying I don't believe that's what's happening, but the article mentions nothing about any sort of YouTube AI interference.

[–] vortexal@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 hour ago

Something that I've been confused about ever since people have been talking about this, is that there didn't seem to be a change of views from mobile devices. Like, I know that adblockers are less common on mobile devices because most people either don't know they are available or aren't using browsers that have/support (good) adblockers. But, was there really no noticeable change at all?

[–] User79185@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Blocking ads for decades everywhere, life is sooo goood without that cancer.

P.S. The only place were ads should appear are "yellow pages" thing, for example messenger channels just for that, where you intentionally join to look for local deals, discounts, contractors etc, especially to support local economy and not some megacorp. And ofc current google spying is not helping, block the ads, block trackers, it ruins the "steal the data" model.

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 28 points 4 hours ago

frustrated by ads that feel irrelevant

What?

Do they think we have a friend-or-foe system that only shoots down advertisements from adversaries?

An ad is an ad, and should be terminated on sight.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 13 points 4 hours ago

[–] alternategait@lemmy.world 68 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I’m sure that the number of times I’ve decided “nah I don’t need to see that” after being told an ad blocker violated YouTube’s terms of service has absolutely nothing to do with it either.

[–] 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works 19 points 4 hours ago

Even on a computer without ad blocker (work laptop, chrome browser)

the number of times i say "nah i don't need to see that" as soon as thes annoying ads comes up before the video...

The decline probably has very little to do with ad blockers.

[–] avatar@lemmy.zip 34 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Didn't age verification - also recently implemented - cause youtube views to drop?

Here's a case of it very well explained.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDPUzfwa4u0

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 4 points 2 hours ago

It was the first thing most people assumed was the culprit, as it silently enabled Restricted Mode, but since the biggest difference came from Computer views, despite the age verification happening on all platforms, that is strong evidence against that having any impact

[–] FireWire400@lemmy.world 27 points 8 hours ago (5 children)

It's gotten to the point where I have to re-load each YT tab three times before the video ever starts playing - only because I use uBlock.

Still better than watching ads, but it is getting annoying.

[–] ronl2k@lemmy.world 1 points 19 minutes ago* (last edited 18 minutes ago)

I switched from Chrome to MS Edge and don't have that YouTube ad-blocking issue with uBlock anymore. Other than that, MS Edge works exactly like Chrome.

[–] gndagreborn@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

For me, it works without reloading.... After a 15 second load and an insufferably laggy UI despite having no identifiable system bottleneck.

[–] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 1 points 18 minutes ago

Yeah yt is basically unusable on Firefox with a blocker and it's 100% by design. Yt even gives a helpful pop-up offering to tell me why it's running so slow.

[–] Fyrnyx@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 4 hours ago

It is like they know you're using adblocks, so instead of trying to force ads down your throat, they try making your experience miserable by breaking their own viewer or whatever. It is absolutely petty of them.

Leave a video sitting there in idle for too long, come back, it plays for 10 seconds then has to reload itself. Sometimes, it doesn't do this, so it requires a complete refresh.

They can do this bullshit all they want but I am not letting up on blocking ads.

[–] LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz 15 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

I have a theory that YT deliberately makes you wait the length an ad would have been if you have uBlock Origin installed. Ive just let it "buffer" for 30 seconds or so and it will eventually load the video.

[–] RamenJunkie@midwest.social 3 points 1 hour ago

I am fine if it means I don't have to watch some scam ass ad.

[–] Typhoon@lemmy.ca 20 points 5 hours ago

I'd rather watch nothing than an ad trying to sell me something.

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

I have no problems with ublock on Firefox or Librewolf, unless I try to skip past what the video already loaded, then it's a dice roll whether it'll work or not

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 11 points 5 hours ago

Still better tbh

[–] BaroqueInMind@piefed.social 14 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

I have the same problem, and after you start clicking play, often you can wait it out and the video will eventually play on its own after 10-15 seconds

[–] attero@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

This mostly happens when you use youtube while being logged into a google account.
I fixed this by using firefox containers + https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/switch-container/

logout from google / clear cookies.
switch to a new "google" container and login to see your subscrpitions
if a video doesn't load switch to decontained

also has the nice benefit of not messing up your reccomendations when clicking on random yt-links from other sites

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[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 27 points 9 hours ago

caused youtube views count to drop

oh no... anyway

[–] 73QjabParc34Vebq@piefed.blahaj.zone 105 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

If you see an ad, close the tab.

[–] Vinny_93@lemmy.world 61 points 11 hours ago (4 children)

Literally the only way they will learn. I really don't understand how we as a society have accepted ads as a necessary evil. We all hate them, but we all also make them work. It's horrible.

[–] puppinstuff@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

It’s going to take a big cultural shift to get enough people to pay content creators through subscriptions to compete with ad-driven models.

Eventually YouTube’s hubris will cross the line where enough people will just assume the ads are so bad it’s not worth trying to watch a video. As somebody with technical means and no tolerance for ads I’m astonished more people aren’t there yet.

[–] foggenbooty@lemmy.world 1 points 48 minutes ago (1 children)

How much do we need to pay though? Most content creators I see have their patreon around $7 CDN/mo. Add even a couple and you're now at the cost of a streaming subscription with much more content. I would have no problem paying content creators if the fees were more reasonable, but right now I only subscribe to a couple.

Should a creator's patreon drop in price to $1 or $2 a month, or should the viewer pay a small fee per view? What new monetization system would make sense where the consumer doesn't have an unaffordable pile of subscriptions, but the creators still get paid a fair rate for their effort?

[–] gh0stcassette@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 39 minutes ago

Nebula seems pretty cool, it's basically a bunch of YouTubers mirroring their youtube content and making original videos for a paid streaming service with no ads. That's one way of doing it

[–] sdcSpade@lemmy.zip 17 points 9 hours ago (6 children)

I've been wondering for a while where the point of diminishing returns is. Surely, at some point, ads become aggressive enough to have an adverse effect on advertisers?

[–] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

1000034609

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[–] FarceOfWill 79 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

If the Google war on ad blocking meant the ad blockers accidently blocked something everyone wants its still Google fault.

Everything was fine until Google decided to change how everything works over and over again to get people to watch the awful ads they let on their platform.

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 10 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Googlees don't "let" ads on their platform. Ads are the entire reason for the existence of their platform.

[–] RamenJunkie@midwest.social 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

They could hire some people to vet the ads.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 hour ago

A company taking responsibility for the ads they serve? That sounds like communism to me!

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

YouTube is completely broken on my Apple TV — the last platform I have which actually does display ads. When the app loads, I get a black screen. When I tap on a video (click on it? on the remote?) it goes black, stutters through an ad, stutters through the next one, then stutters through the video for a couple seconds. Sometimes I have to start the video over. If I were running an ad blocker, I would expect static like this... but I'm not. I don't have a PiHole. The Apple TV has direct, unfiltered access to my WiFi. The ads are showing, but the app is just... broken. On my computers (Macs) I get a perfect experience, because I use Firefox with uBlock Origin like a sane person who knows what they're doing.

[–] puppinstuff@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

The black screen on the TV could be related to your TV’s HDR settings. Only recent TVs have started to decrease that temporary stutter between SDR/HDR.

It was annoying as hell in ad rolls before I started to pay for YT lite so my kid wouldn’t be advertised to.

No longer paying since they shuttered the YT Kids app on TvOS.

[–] 001Guy001@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

For reference, here are the exceptions I've been using to try to make sure my viewership counts. Not sure if they're all needed and they're probably overkill, but:

@@||youtube.com/api$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||youtube.com/youtubei$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||youtube.com/ptracking$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||play.google.com/log$domain=youtube.com|google.com
! these are meant for checking for active internet connection (https://www.techtapto.com/what-is-gstatic-why-you-see-it-often/#Is_Gstatic_com_generate_204_a_virus)
@@||youtube.com/generate_204$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||google.com/generate_204$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||youtube.com/gen_204$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||google.com/gen_204$domain=youtube.com|google.com

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