this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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[–] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 181 points 11 months ago (11 children)

A new wave of slowdowns is hitting users, with the only resolutions being disabling the ad blocker or upgrading to premium.

Or just switching to ublock origin.

Or just switching to newpipe.

Or just switching to freetube.

etc

etc

etc

[–] Excrubulent 67 points 11 months ago

I have ublock origin on firefox and it's really bad for me currently. This has traditionally been the good combo I believe.

Not just slowing down, but stopping, then restarting after skipping a few seconds that you cannot access no matter what.

For now the best solution I've found is to copy the video url, open potplayer and just hit the paste command and the video runs flawlessly.

So they'll have to close that loophole eventually, which means enshittifying the video streaming protocol for everything that isn't the native web viewer, which will inconvenience more people who were used to something working, leading to another workaround, leading to...

Youtube is gradually accelerating their enshittification. I'm looking forward to when it comes to a real head. Too many serious interested parties rely on it. I don't know if peertube will be the first fallback, but I'm sure it'll get a big bump.

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[–] notannpc@lemmy.world 143 points 11 months ago (3 children)

And still, I’m more likely to stop using YouTube than to stop using an ad blocker.

[–] very_well_lost@lemmy.world 55 points 11 months ago (4 children)

That's what they want. Get all the users they aren't able to monetize off the platform to lower their costs.

[–] danielbln@lemmy.world 34 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I mean, I like a good Google hate train as much as the next guy, but that's kind of a legitimate thing to want.

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[–] lloram239@feddit.de 127 points 11 months ago (24 children)

I'll never understand why they spend so much effort pushing ads into people's faces that don't want see them and so little making ads more attractive.

A very large chunk of what people consume these days is effectively already ads. Every Youtuber holding a product into the camera is an ad. And people want to watch that. They want to know what new products are out there. It just has to presented appropriately.

Forced ads with mandatory 5sec isn't making people interested in your product, heck, numerous times I might have been interested in a product, but lost interested since I couldn't rewind the ad or because the ad didn't link to anything that gave me further information. A 15min video from a Youtuber reviewing a product in detail is way more effective than any regular ad I have ever seen, yet there are almost no ads in that style.

[–] camelbeard@lemmy.world 68 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Too be honest I was fine with seeing an ad every few videos. But at some point it became unskippable ads before , during and after a video.

[–] verysoft@kbin.social 36 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Ads got too aggressive, people made adblockers, ads got more aggressive because of lost revenue, almost everyone starts using adblockers.

They did it to themselves, people were content with simple ads on a page, it's once they started interfering with the content and access of it that they became a problem.

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[–] NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world 47 points 11 months ago (15 children)

I never had an issue with YT's 1-2 skipable ads at the beginning, or even the banner ad. But they got greedy.

The midrolls and the unskipable ads was the trigger point for me.

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[–] minibyte@sh.itjust.works 27 points 11 months ago (5 children)

A very large chunk of what people consume these days is effectively already ads

That’s what grinds my gears. I understand ads pay bills, but showing multiple ads before a trailer for a video game or movie is excessive.

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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 99 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I really wish government would just come in already and shatter google into a million pieces with the anti-monopoly hammer already.

Google is far worse than AT&T ever was when it was shattered into the baby bells.

Just gotta learn from AT&T to not let them re-congeal back together like somekind of fucked up liquid metal terminator 20+ years down the line.

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 49 points 11 months ago (2 children)

50% of congress wants to know how the computer mouse stays alive without food.

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[–] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 91 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Frankly, I'd stop using YouTube entirely before I'd start using it without an adblocker. At least there are no signs of it slowing down for me, yet.

[–] trafficnab@lemmy.ca 27 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'd consider paying a few bucks a month, but not $10 or more

Get rid of shitty YouTube music and give me a tier that's no ads only

[–] nightwatch_admin@feddit.nl 21 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That is precisely why Premium Lite was killed off, it did exactly what you are looking for.

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[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 89 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Watching YouTube load slowly is better than watching ads.

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[–] TeoTwawki@lemmy.world 80 points 11 months ago (2 children)

"We'll make our service worse, that'll show them!"

Ok google, good luck with that.

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[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 80 points 11 months ago (25 children)

I will download videos then. I refuse to not use an adblocker on the modern internet.

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[–] AgentGrimstone@lemmy.world 62 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I wish we can fast forward to the part where Youtube completely destroys itself and a new platform takes its place so we can enjoy it for 10 years before the enshittification cycle restarts again.

[–] Kevnyon@lemmy.world 24 points 11 months ago

The problem is that only conglomerates can eat the cost of running such a platform. Ads will be the end of free interne, that's for sure.

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[–] Somecall_metim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Oh no (continues to watch on freetube) anyway....

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[–] davemeech@lemmy.ca 50 points 11 months ago (8 children)

So I have YouTube premium but also have ad-blocker, for the first time yesterday I was noticing absolutely abysmal speeds on YouTube and I suspect this is why. I thought my computer was starting to shit the bed initially it was so brutal.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 43 points 11 months ago (9 children)

I have YouTube premium

Wow, so you pay them and they still screw you? Glad that’s a product I’ll never buy then!

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[–] net00@lemm.ee 48 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (17 children)

I dusted off an old laptop, put debian on it, put an SSD and now I have my own invidious instance, among other services...

No ads, no throttling, no bullshit. Google is very welcome to suck it. I'd gladly stop using youtube, but there's no competition.

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[–] Dehydrated@lemmy.world 45 points 11 months ago

That's why Invidious exists.

[–] tias@discuss.tchncs.de 45 points 11 months ago (5 children)

I don't have an ad blocker, I just have the standard strict tracking protection enabled in Firefox. What's more, I pay for YouTube Premium. But still they add a five-second delay every time I visit a web page. It's infuriating.

[–] Thteven@lemmy.world 65 points 11 months ago

Might as well just stop paying for premium then if they're going to ding you anyway.

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 11 months ago

there is no way the 5 second sleep before loading isnt anti competitive, because last i heard, unless they changed it, it only checks for the firefox user agent.

Actually insane that someone would willingly implement that.

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[–] 000@fuck.markets 35 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Don't worry, YouTube, I won't be using your website anymore. But my yt-dl will be ripping max quality videos by the hundreds, just for shits and giggles.

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[–] Mango@lemmy.world 33 points 11 months ago

YouTube speed has been shit ever since they stopped actually buffering.

[–] pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.world 32 points 11 months ago (4 children)

And this is why we use Newpipe

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[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 31 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Apparently this seems to be mainly affecting Chrome users, lol.

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[–] ZombieMantis@lemmy.world 27 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Nationalize YouTube.

Specifically, nationalize the backend, Google can keep their website. And place it in the hands of something like the UN, rather than any specific country. I hardly trust Uncle Sam any more than Google's investors. They've successfully monopolized video hosting, now turn it into a public resource.

And open it up to the world, too. Google might get to keep their website, but everyone else can access the same database, too. May the best front end win.

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[–] CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world 26 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Anything better than listening 3 songs and getting 5 ads.

Stop being trash youtube. Be normal like you once were and i would actually consider a paid subscription IF i get to fully exclude shorts on my side of the platform.

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[–] zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I don't always click on a YouTube ad, but when I do it's a UI failure because it's an accidental click. How much do you want to bet this crackdown is a distraction from the fact their ad system doesn't perform as well as advertised?

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