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Comment by jbluepolarbear | Hacker News Reader

I refuse to use the YouTube app. The ads have gotten so bad. The website I can use an ad blocker and it’s fine to watch. I try using the app iOS or TVOS and it’s 3 ads to start and an ad every 5 minutes.

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I recommend buying YouTube Premium. I’ve been a happy customer for a couple years now. It’s better for the creators compared to blocking ads too and they get paid based on your watch time. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276

I have YouTube premium and love it. I mostly watch it for music videos and technical talks, and love not having ads. Watch some kids shows too with the 5yo.

I nearly always use the web site, even though I have the app on my phone. Full screen browser tab on the desktop just feels more “TV-like” and engaging than staring at the phone screen.

why not use ublock origin, rather than buy youtube premium? UO will remove every single ad in browser. It's obviously 100% fine to buy premium; I am just curious about the reasons, if any.

To remove ads on Mobile and Android TV

As someone who lives very comfortably on a software engineer’s salary at a big software company, I generally avoid trying to “work around” their business models. If I’m going to use the software/service, I’m happy to pay those engineer’s salaries too. (And if it makes the product unusable, then I don’t use it).

I like the simplicity of paying for it and knowing it’ll work everywhere without having to deal with work arounds. (I watch on at least 5 different platforms)

I don’t mind the price - I love the straightforward model.

I watch a ton of YouTube and want to support the business as well as creators (they get a cut of the subscription).

I do pay for YouTube premium. But the amount of ads in the video itself is just too much. Everybody has a sponsor to talk about multiple times in theirs video. And then there is the various interaction reminders. And YouTube stills shows me ads for movies and whatnot.

I am now combining YouTube Premium with uBlock Origin and SponsorBlok to get a decent experience.

There is an add-on called SponsorBlock that automatically skips the sponsor 'ads' in the video content itself.

Unfortunately this doesn't work for the app.

(Yes, I've heard of NewPipe - I want to use the official app.)

There is YouTube Vanced if you want and it already incorporates Sponsorblock

I also have YT Premium. Those in video promos are so easy to skip. Most creators put them in the same spot every video, some even at the end.

These are mostly regular people trying to earn a living making high quality content. I’m not seeing how you can begrudge them the few seconds of skippable ad copy.

I think many people have forgotten just how many ads are shown on television, where commercials typically occupy around 25% of on-air time.

I did not forget. But ads were the reason I entirely stopped to consume TV.

The same happend with youtube. I cant stand it anymore.

Everyone thought it was cool how episodes of The Walking Dead kept getting longer. But then someone ran the numbers and it turned out the episodes were still the standard ~40 minutes, and every single new minute past that was ads. And not just ads, but lots of super short ads, so they're even more annoying.

https://old.reddit.com/r/thewalkingdead/comments/86o9du/i_ti...

AMC does it in the spinoffs too.

As a full-time YouTuber person, I wholeheartedly endorse this statement. I say that as someone who pays the bills from YouTube and as someone who pays for Premium every month.

It's been a while, but last I checked Premium views were worth more on a per-view basis than ad-watching views. We're talking tiny fractions of a cent, but they obviously add up. Moreover, so-called "demonetized" videos remain eligible for Premium revenue, despite the reality that they will earn little to nothing from ads.

It’s a shame that you’re forced to buy Google’s music subscription in order to pay for removing Youtube ads.

Vanced is a fantastic YouTube alternative app for android - https://vancedapp.com/

Was gonna day exactly this. YouTube venced is amazing.

If I'm not missing anything it seems to have about the same features as NewPipe, which additionally supports downloading video/audio for later consumption. Any particular reason to switch?

After YouTube introduced the age verification for stuff like game demos it has not been the same.

It would be interesting to see what kind of content TikTok excels in if such a list exists.

The nice thing about tiktok is I haven't seen an ad I can't immediately skip. And since I don't follow influencer accounts I also don't see "product placement" or promotional videos.

Truly, I can't remember watching a single advertisement on tiktok because it's so easy to skip them. The moment they force ad watching ala youtube I'm out.

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