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Comment by dleslie | Hacker News Reader

This is why I exclusively view Youtube with adblockers, and prefer to view it with NewPipe or VLC+ytdl.

I'm not opposed to ads at the beginning and end, but numerous _jarring_ cuts in a ten minute video to play a couple of ads every two or three minutes? No thanks.

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There is the option to use YouTube Premium though. It's not too expensive (yet), and with the number of cooking and tech videos I'm consuming right now, it seems worth it.

YouTube Premium doesn't offer any protection for anonymity and freedom from their suggestion algorithm. That makes it inferior to NewPipe and ytdl.

It does, however, reward content creators for their efforts (at about 100x the value of an ad view). That makes it far superior to NewPipe and ytdl, to me.

That is really great to know and will likely result in me re activating my YouTube red (premium? Whatever it’s called now) account.

I'd sooner buy channel merch and let a tshirt company take a middleman cut than let google take that middleman cut. Patreon being the middleman is also preferable to further enriching google.

I think this is really moving the goalposts. It seems like a lot of people who are vehemently anti advertising and ask for alternatives aren't really interested in them. Being anti advertising is totally understandable, but it's weird to see people who don't truly want to pay for ad free content talk about how invasive ads are.

Elsewhere I stated that I pay for free services (CBC); I'm happy to pay for no advertising.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22857357

Why not use Youtube Red with ublock then? Google still tracks what you watch on your account, but I'm assuming if you are a frequent user you already have one to keep track of subscriptions etc.

NewPipe has subscriptions without having a need for an account.

Why don't you subscribe to YT premium. If there is a way to remove ads a support the platform, why not do that?

Consumer Activism's a good reason. Petty and insignificant as it may be, I became fed up with YouTube's content policies and search censorship for news topics, cut my red subscription, and put the money I had been giving toward my most watched channel's patreons. Newpipe and Skytube have been my go-to clients since.

Subscribing gives a worse experience than blocking the ads. If you're subscribed and accidentally open another youtube video, it'll pause the currently playing video with a message saying that a video is playing in another window.

It doesn't for me, and hasn't. Perhaps this is a browser or addon behavior?

Can confirm that this does not happen, as a premium subscriber.

Do you have anything against subscribing to the platform? (If you can afford it)

Not sure if this has changed, but the last time I tried the YouTube Premium trial, they heavily pushed their own content (eg Scare PewDiePie) which was so completely opposite from anything I watch on YouTube, I felt I'd just replaced one ad experience with a worse one that I was paying for. I'd rather see the non-stop Masterclass ads (at least they were often relevant) than see PewDiePie everytime I log in.

They do promote YouTube premium videos in the beginning but after a while you stop seeing it if you don't consume it. I think it took a week max for premium videos to leave my recommended content (it was a while ago I started my subscription) .

If you click the X on the YouTube Premium bar on the homepage, it goes away forever. Or at least, it did for me.

I pay for other platforms, even ones with free options (CBC), and so I am definitely open to it.

But I distrust Google and don't want to serve them more data than is necessary.

I would be outright shocked if Google is unable correlate video viewing habits via direct downloads to a Google account. Especially since they (google, facebook, et.al) have already demonstrated the ability to strongly correlate IP traffic with an account (active or shadow).

To stop feeding personal data to Google completely one must stop using the internet, stop using credit cards, stop filling out warranty cards, and so on. They vacuum up personal data from every possible commercialized database they can access.

But I can at least refuse to use a Google account, and to serve a tracking cookie. I'd have to live off the grid and in the woods to stop feeding them any data.

You can also refuse to watch Youtube videos. It seems like you just want to keep your cake and eat it too.

With NewPipe and ytdl I can.

And the cake is delicious.

Nothing wrong with that, plenty of people do. Just don't go around proclaiming privacy concerns and whatnot when that goes out the window as soon as you get your Youtube fix.

I have defenestrated very little.

Yeah, but will they bother? It's a pretty small fraction of traffic which even uses an ad blocker, let alone a completely different client.

> I'm not opposed to ads at the beginning and end, but numerous _jarring_ cuts in a ten minute video to play a couple of ads every two or three minutes? No thanks.

This problem is a solved problem. It’s called YouTube Premium.

Also solved with ad blockers, NewPipe and ytdl. With better features: unlike Premium, they block tracking.

But unlike your solution, it works on mobile, tablets, Smart-TVs, Chromecasts and other set-top boxes.

And creators get paid too.

You’re simply being cheap. Don’t even pretend there’s anything technically or UX wise superior about the way you’ve chosen to avoid YouTube ads, and on desktop PCs only.

NewPipe is an Android app.

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