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Comment by johnvaluk | Hacker News Reader

I've used Roku in various incarnations (box, TV) since it was released and was excited when the official YouTube app was finally available. But lately, it's been painful to watch YouTube due to the constant and disruptive advertising. Part of me is looking forward to the app being pulled from Roku, since it's so much like the cable TV experience I thought I was escaping. I don't feel this way about the other premium channels I use (Netflix, Prime Video). Is it worth paying for YouTube? Will pulling the app make it impossible to use the premium (paid) service on Roku devices?

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>>"Is it worth paying for YouTube?"

I think that largely depends on your personal ratio of income vs perceived value of time vs annoyance by ads.

For me,today,I'm lucky enough that it's 100% worth it. Somebody sent me a link last week and it opened in non google Firefox container so I wasn't signed in... After I went through "wtf" moment at inopportune interruptions, I realized how totally worth it it is.

Yes the content promos are a bit annoying too but much more easily skippable,not to mention better timed & integrated,and less disruptive.

Plus again,I'm lucky enough to be able to afford supporting content creators and pay for what I consume. As a student in war torn Bosnia my perspective was radically different than established worker in Canada.

>>"Is it worth paying for YouTube?"

>I think that largely depends on your personal ratio of income vs perceived value of time vs annoyance by ads.

What boggles my mind, is the number of YouTube channels that have jumped on the reaction video genre, and amass thousands upon thousands of views, and occasionally have the video they are reacting to interrupted by ads?! And consequently, all of their viewers now have the same interruption! I generally give up on channels that can't do the minimum effort towards their production.

> Is it worth paying for YouTube?

Yes it is worth it. It is the one entertainment streaming service I don't cancel.

No ads on any devices is incredible. I also really enjoy their music service.

Same here. I value my YouTube Premium subscription more than other streaming services.

And you can download videos for offline viewing which is great when traveling.

> Is it worth paying for YouTube?

That depends on how much not seeing that 'constant and disruptive advertising' is worth to you.

Though, you still get all the in-video promos, even when paying. That ticks me off a bit, but it's not too bad.

That's on the content creator, not YouTube right?

With the current system, yes. YouTube could do something where the content creator specifies the sponsored part (if it's not straight up merchandising and product placement) and paying subscribers could have that skipped.

Anyway, I chimed in to say YouTube Premium to me is worth a lot. I watch more YouTube because of it, it's better, better for the kids, less annoying, the whole thing is fantastically better. Every time I click an YouTube video on my employer account and get an ad it's such a shock.

> YouTube could do something where the content creator specifies the sponsored part (if it's not straight up merchandising and product placement) and paying subscribers could have that skipped.

Great idea. It would certainly make the videos a lot shorter as well.

> Every time I click an YouTube video on my employer account and get an ad it's such a shock

Whenever I forget to open up youtube in brave or firefox ;-(

I’d use YouTube premium if it didn’t make things actually worse! Without premium I can watch anything anywhere. with premium I get nasty “you’re using this on another device” messages that stop playback and cause other issues

Doesn't work for Roku/Chromecast, but: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsorblock-for-y...

SponsorBlock is great! It's available on a bunch of platforms besides Chrome: https://sponsor.ajay.app/

Promotion is baked into so many videos on youtube - just as it has been in television and film for decades. I'm not sure whether it's getting worse, or if it has always been this bad and I just didn't notice it as much.

The nice thing is that the format of promos are pretty consistent. Video intro, promo for about 60 seconds, then main video start. I've never felt bothered by skipping ahead past the promo. Actually many viewers feel really glad and supportive that the content creators they're fans of are getting sponsored and paid.

> Video intro, promo for about 60 seconds, then main video start.

Even better are ad sections that are coloured differently to that of the main video. A good example here is Chain Bear [0]. Chain Bear's colour style is based around yellow, and here the sponsored section is NordVPN, with a blue colour scheme. Very easy to skip exactly to where the content starts.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nivswe7Zyuc

I ended up paying for it. It’s too expensive. I’m not happy. But at the end of the day I spend too much time on youtube to waste it on ads.

Why does their advertising feel so disruptive? Is it because it feels like something just broke for a moment? It seems that an ad will often be inserted right at a key moment. Maybe it is that I feel like I have to constantly hold the remote, ready to "skip" the rest of the ads, except now they are getting less and less skippable. Also, lately, they are running two ads instead of one.

It is so annoying I have been watching less and less.

I do not feel the same about regular TV. Perhaps it is because the ads are run at the points the programming is designed for ad insertion.

I don’t know how people can watch ads. We went cable-free a few years ago, so now it’s all Netflix or other pay-to-stream services. When I watch YouTube, as soon as an ad begins, I usually click away. Same for freemium content on Amazon Video. Can’t stand it.

Because not all content is on Netflix. Some times you have to deal with an ad funded service.

> I don’t know how people can watch ads.

Ads are important cultural information. Imagine not knowing "Snap into a Slim Jim" by Macho Man Randy Savage, or the "Oh Yeah" breaking through a brick wall by the Cool Aid pitcher. The horror.

I made an AI powered skip app to automatically skip the ads for me. Conveniently enough, it also detects Netflix/Hulu "Skip Intro" button, "Skip Re-Cap" button, and maybe even the "Are You Still Watching" button.

Best thing I ever made. Literally cannot fall asleep to YouTube without it.

Just threw it out on GitHub if anyone is interested: https://github.com/SkipSentry/Skip-Pi

Oh, man! Falling asleep to youtube is (was) my PRIMARY reason for watching youtube. The recent creep of ads considerably reduces the soporific quality of dozing off to a Malcolm Gladwell conversation or a Royal Institute lecture.

Nothing worse than just drifting off to sleep watching a soothing woodworking video only for a 45 minute ad about some book club or a music video to ruin it.

Hah! Yes. I have woken up to some super long-form ads that I wasn't awake to skip.

I am going to have to try your app. My slumber TV is a TCL w/Roku built-in.

YouTube premium is the very best subscription I have. Why would I want to see ads all over the place anywhere anyone embedded a video (on twitter or wherever)? When I have to use YouTube signed out or on someone else's device it is just shocking how frequent and bad the YouTube ads are.

$15/month for totally ad-free YouTube and ad-free unlimited YouTube Music for my whole family seems like a complete no-brainer to me.

I think they really set the wrong expectation early on. I think the amount of advertising per hour is still barely 1/4 of what you'd get on commercial broadcast TV. They have to pay their creators and product teams to keep it running and it ain't free.

I use the app on my Sky TV box sometimes, and it's actually a decent experience until you try to watch something. So I rarely do. If they toned down the interruptions I would probably use it more. As it is I just revert to a device with an adblocker.

I just watch YouTube with ad blocking. I do feel slightly guilty, as it means my favorite channels don’t get paid for my views, but I justify it by telling myself that most of them have sponsors that they mention in-video.

I don't think they are threatening to pull YouTube from the device, just YouTubeTV- a completely different service.

For some reason the Apple TV YouTube app's recommendations are pretty abysmal compared to the desktop website or the iPad app, and Watch Later isn't saving the day either. Could be that the app displays a grid of just 6 videos per screen, which is utterly ridiculous for any TV screen, god forbid a projector. Premium is still worth it though.

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