The free YouTube tier is about to become unbearable with even more ads | Hacker News Reader

The free YouTube tier is about to become unbearable with even more ads

androidpolice.com

52 pointsraybb96 comments

Reminders:

yt-dlp[1] allows you to download videos to disk via command line. Lots of options.

Also, there's this Google-owned youtube-nocookie.com domain which is lighter than main one. DuckDuckGo offers to show YouTube videos from it under the "Videos" tab (not when video is suggested on the "All" tab) without fully switching browser to video's page on YT site.

Also, you can use it to listen to YT audio on iOS Safari, on an locked iPhone. To do so, search the video in DDG, switch to "Videos" tab, play it on duckduckgo.com on the results page (without switching to www.youtube.com). Lock your phone and it will stop playing audio. Tap the screen (don't unlock) and you'll have the usual media player on the lock screen, showing the title and author of YT video. Simply hit the play button and you can switch the screen off.

EDIT: reply to a freshly deleted "don't use if you don't pay" comment:

I own a BluRay or DVD copy of every single movie or TV series I pirated and liked. I paid studios times more than I would if I never pirated and seen those products in the first place.

After Google bought YouTube, other media streaming services started to diminish. Some content started to be only available on YouTube. Until Google was a team player and the "don't be evil" slogan wasn't trashed - I used the service and seen and was annoyed by ads. Then there were more ads. And many, many, many, many other issues with Google.

I ditched the account I had with them. Haven't made a single search with their engine in 3+ years I believe.

I use yt-dlp to watch YT videos and encourage everyone to do the same if they are annoyed by Google's user-hostile practices.

[1] https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

saw this in twitter and it worked

on Android, when playing a YouTube video on app, you can share that video and select "Play in VLC"

this avoids all ads

now in VLC you can also "Play as Audio" if you want audio playback while phone is locked or background audio play while you are using other apps

yt is already testing steps to mitigate those apps.

They do so constantly. The youtube-dl project kind of died (at least for some time - seems to be active again) because they were behind with mitigating those issues and the often-updated yt-dlp took over.

They where being DMCA'd and stopped updating. Fortunately github is now owned by Microsoft which harbors no great love for Google and came to their defense in a manor of speaking. https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo...

There is also streamlink if you just want to watch videos piped to VLC https://streamlink.github.io/

I recently tried to download a video from youtube using youtube-dl (not to avoid commercials, and not to prevent anybody from earning money, but to be sure to have access to it for a presentation) and I had to give up, because it was beyond slow.

Does yt-dip have the same problem?

To YouTube employees reading:

I pay for YouTube premium.

So it really sucks when I google the name of a movie, click to play the trailer, and then it plays a pre-roll ad. This only happens with the movie trailers that you one click play from the search results. If I click on something that goes to the youtube domain or youtube app, it's fine.

I'd like no videos when I'm playing videos from google. My google account and youtube premium account are the same, so I'm not sure why it doesn't link.

If you're a Youtube Premium member and by Youtube TV, they still play 5-6 pre-roll ads before VOD streams. It's why I've cancelled that... though I did buy it for one month just to watch some of my favorite sports events not available on streaming services.

Also, Chromecast (Ultra) now shows a YouTube app when casting to it. This app puts recommendations on the screen. Even with premium, ads will show when I select one to watch. There's an option to sign in, but if I select it, it just says I can't sign in.

Also, with chromecast, it's really annoying that they allow multiple users to put videos in the queue, but only have my videos be ad free. It effectively removes the multiphone feature because I have to look up and play (and ruin my recommendations) on my phone anyways. One premium users being connected should be enough to kill all of the ads.

I've also had ads rarely and randomly show up. If I had to guess, some "is this user premium" server was down, and it decided to default to "no", despite that being the explicitly frustrating experience for paying users.

It seems you may be mis-reporting this behavior.

I pay for YouTube Premium, do the steps you describe, and do not see that behavior.

You must be in another browser session that's not signed in to your Premium account. You're in incognito or on second browser. Just sign in to YouTube to fix it.

I think you might've fixed it, thanks!

For anyone else reading: the issue happened on iOS Safari. I was signed in on the YouTube iOS app, and I was signed in on Google.com on Safari, so I assumed there wasn't anywhere else I needed to be signed in. But sure enough, I went to youtube.com in Safari and wasn't signed in. Tried it once after doing that and it worked. Will see if it solves it, seems likely.

YouTube has a problem where they are a victim of their own ad sales success: they have all of this advertising inventory that contractually needs to be shown, how do they make that happen? (I'm curious if the ads I don't see because I use uBlock Origin are somehow counted as having been seen... I think advertisers would call that fraud if that's the case.)

Of course an easy solution to this is to radically reduce the number of ads being shown and radically INCREASE the prices for said ads. It would help if content creators were active participants being paid a premium to tailor their content to an advertising model (A block, advert, B block, advert, C block... etc) rather than a sudden interruption in the middle of an explanation video about advanced networking concepts that are jolting and make me need to rewind a bit when it comes back from the algo-inserted advert to remember what the context was. (And if there remains a "let me pay to never see ads" tier then content designed for advert insertion should see some of that money going to the content creator and not just to YouTube).

I would be really surprised if the ads are counted as viewed, literally 0 second has been watched.

In fact, uBlock origin in its default configuration prevents watch histories from being recorded, because it prevents the analytics calls that record watch time.

> reduce the number of ads being shown and radically INCREASE the prices for said ads

They can only do that if they had the ability to properly target ads like they’ve claimed for decades at this point.

With all this data collection, they can barely show relevant ads and so they’ve simply decided do show all the ads they have

This will inevitably be filled with people talking about adblock. Changes like this are more targeted at people who watch videos on mobile which is most people. I would venture a guess and say most people use Chrome or the Youtube app to watch videos.

And no, the large majority of people don't know Firefox on Android + uBlock Origin even exist.

Maybe people are talking about it so other people can know that adblockers for YouTube (even on mobile) exist. I don't see anything wrong with that.

There is nothing wrong with bringing awareness to these things. I'm just making it clear that these changes are deliberately targeted at the average mobile user. Not the person who has a PiHole setup on their network and probably not at the average HN reader.

One possible problem is if ad blocking technologies spread enough, they will stop working because it becomes a problem big enough for YT & others, or at least the adfree experience becomes harder.

I can't explain how, and I don't really care, but it could become a cat & mouse game with the developers of uBlock, Newpipe and similar, and the big corp, in this case Google.

It is already, and has always been a cat & mouse game with the bigcorps.

Facebook and Twitch are at the bleeding-edge of "anti-adblock tech", and another reason why I don't use those services.

You can just use the Brave browser on mobile. It supports background playback too.

> It supports background playback too.

Firefox on Android also has the "Video Background Play Fix" extension that mocks the PageVisibilityAPI and FullscreenAPI to allow that too.

Fun fact: I have an older iPhone on which the youtube app is completely useless. It's extremely slow and crashes all the time.

So I dropped it and started using Safari for my very rare mobile youtube needs. I can watch it again in fairly high quality with what seems like no ads (I use AdGuard or something along those lines).

I wouldn't say the majority is always mobile. Just checked my channel and mobile viewing is 44%, so the majority of people are still not phone users.

It's irrelevant for a large chunk of people, anyway. I have the standard array of adblocking stuff installed, but it's not gonna help when my "default" viewing experience for YouTube is pushing videos to a Chromecast-connected TV. If I've got 15+ minute videos in my queue, I wanna watch them on my couch.

Hook a PC up to your TV. My TV doesn't even have internet access.

Also:

Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc. based on the Chromium web browser. The browser blocks ads (including YouTube ads) and website trackers. It supports offline and background palyback on all conventional devices.

https://www.brave.com

There is no way I'll use Brave after their controversy, not to mention they include cryptocurrency mechanisms in their browser.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#Controvers...

Also:

Use literally any other browser with Adblock and you'll get a better, less bloated experience than Brave.

It's only bearable now with an adblocker. We're way past the point of unbearable.

I think my adblocker causes videos with ads to break on YouTube. They'll just have a loading spinner that never finishes. If I open them in a new tab or window it'll continue to happen. If I open in an incognito window (which has extensions disabled) it'll load fine.

What adblocker do you have? Use uBlock Origin if you don't already, it works for YouTube just fine, and every other site.

Yeah it's uBlock Origin that I'm experiencing this with. And it's only every now and again that I see this.

Just wait until Youtube begins hardcoding ads into videos. No doubt it's on their roadmap.

I'm sure something like SponserBlock - or SponserBlock its self - will step up to the plate.

Yes. The downside, if one cares about privacy, is that the pressure to sell a user's history to a fourth party will be impossible for SponsorBlock to resist.

Just the cost of the service. If SponsorBlock actually works and makes YouTube useable again, I'm willing to relinquish a little bit of personal data for that.

You're going to end up paying, one way or another.

The sad thing for me about Youtube and monetization is that Youtube has no right to monetize most Youtube videos (big-budget or non-profit) that interest me.

The content that Youtube does have a right to monetize (all the garbage that starts 'hey guys' and ends 'remember to like and subscribe') I consider worthless.

  I'm willing to relinquish a little bit of personal data for that.

I probably would, too, though reluctantly :(

So it'll be forked or get cloned...

Agreed, but years could pass before the public discovers who (among the developers of the competing browser extensions) shares what.

People who don't pay for YouTube content, either through, you know, paying, or watching ads are almost exactly the same as the slimy scumbags who offer to pay artists and programmers in "exposure".

The differences are so slight as to be superficial.

Either pay, or don't use.

"But I don't like their terms."

So what? Either pay, or don't use.

Brave browser works for me.

It's unclear if it's economically feasible as revenue to replace advertising for most services, but I happily pay for YouTube Premium and it is absolutely fantastic. No ads makes it a dream. I was dismayed when I realized Hulu's top tier still shows you ads for most in-season shows.

Message to all streaming execs: I HATE ADS TAKE MY MONEY.

Imagine paying for Youtube Premium then some months down the line they will just ban you as usual without any chance to get back your account. Maybe you opened a "wrong" link from Gmail. Maybe you watched a "wrong" upload on Youtube. Who knows. Google would be the last company on Earth I'd give my money.

Would it be possible to cancel your new subscription?

uBlock Origin

SponsorBlock (blocks sponsor segments as well as filler content like intros, outros, jokes, etc)

ReVanced (or Vanced while it still works)

These are all you need to remove ads on YouTube. This is also the reason why I won't use Chrome with their Manifest v3 extension mandate, Firefox all day.

Don't forget SmartTube(Next) for Android TVs (like Shield)

$11.99/month buys you YouTube Premium. I consider that a more than fair deal, and the advantage this nets you is flexibility as long as you can sign in and all I really need is my phone and an AirPlay target if it’s something I want to show my friends without having to rely on their accounts (which a lot of TVs have built-in now).

I have YouTube premium but most Youtubers have sponsored segments which is why I also use SponserBlock as well. Creators see exactly how much revenue they get from premium vs ad-supported, in many cases the premium viewers are the lion's share of the views. The sponsor is paying them regardless if I skip the segment, so I don't have any bad feelings about it.

That’s fair; personally I just skip them because a web extension isn’t going to do anything for me in the YouTube app anyway, but some YouTubers make a fun skit out of their sponsors when they have them. I’ll usually watch those if I have the time.

There's no guarantee that'll stay will stay without ads. In fact, I think that's extremely improbable. The need for infinite growth is definitionally insatiable.

Part of what they're doing now isn't just to show more ads, but to drive people into Premium. Once they have enough people on Premium, then they can break it up into more tiers, adding ads to some. When enough people are using Premium (because Free has become completely useless and pointless) they can just remove the Premium tiers with no ads and "simplify" the entire thing: i.e. you paying Premium price for what Free YouTube with ads is right now.

I would have no problem cancelling or paying more. I’m not commenting on a hypothetical future though, I’m commenting on what I think the best way to enjoy YouTube without ads is today.

The best way is an uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock. Why would you get that result AND pay. That's irrational.

Because YouTube is fundamentally a good business with excellent entertainment value that has brought me joy for 17 years and I can afford to pay, and YouTubers who make it their job to upload videos still end up getting paid if I watch a video with Premium.

I think it would be irrational and immoral to use the service as much as I do, for music, hobbies, education and business and not pay for it. Then I’m not stuck using only one browser with one set of extensions; all of which I have to keep updated, and engaged in an arms race–but in fact have full access on my phone, iPad, computer and TV without ads. I’ve been in that arms race back when I had more time than money, and I don’t want to be in it again.

They don't need you, or anyone's help. You're just screwing yourself.

I think it's irrational and immoral for YouTube not to be commons at this point. The rest of what you said doesn't exist as a problem, no end-user cares about any of that because it involves no actual work or activity of any kind.

Agree to disagree. I think you have a much more mercenary attitude than I do in just taking what you want and our POVs are not reconcilable.

That was a dismissive and disrespectful comment. I told you what my attitude is, so don't just ignore that and then proceed to tell me what my attitude is. No, using Wikipedia as we all do is not a "much more mercenary attitude", it's just commons, as all globally shared infrastructure should be. Your morality is just inconsistent.

You don’t build a business with real infrastructure without money and a value proposition.

YouTube isn’t a non-profit, and society isn’t entitled to take what they want from it without acknowledging and respecting the terms YouTube makes its infrastructure available. There are other outlets for more “commons”-like tube experiences, notably PeerTube.

The value is in YouTube though, and I know that bothers some people, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m not screwing myself by paying them for a subscription: it’s called trade. They have stuff I want, I have stuff they want. If I value something, I pay for it or trade for it (e.g. Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, all private property by the way, somebody owns their servers too, they’re just a different type of corporation).

I think it is fairly mercenary to take a moral stance against paying money for something that you like. I know that there are people I watch who make their livings through YouTube, some of whom are buying houses or getting married because they’re able to with this income; and for others, it’s just a side gig or a hobby. They’re not getting paid when you Adblock, but they are getting paid for the aggregate views that I and others give them.

If you think our views aren’t un-reconcilable, don’t tell me that I’m being irrational or that I’m “screwing myself” by paying for something I want to see continue to exist simply because I’m not bothered by the idea of people taking profits. If you can’t do that, then take my offer to agree to disagree. I’m not bothered by your outlook, but I don’t share it in common with you.

Wikipedia itself is commons, regardless of what private property it's served on (which is 100% fungible.) This isn't the case with YouTube, which is the problem. When you pay someone running Wikipedia or IA, that's what you're paying for. When you pay for YouTube, you're just paying stockholders and executives, their costs are more than covered, and on top of that you have no rights and no control. I'm sorry that you can't see the difference and why that's wrong and makes your behavior irrational.

Yeah, and donations go towards sustaining the Executives and Staff of Wikipedia more than they do the servers, but without any staff Wikipedia as we know it would cease existing. A like project could replace it and its data, but that wouldn’t be Wikipedia anymore, that would be something else. Maybe better, maybe worse? Dunno, and I’m not sure I want to find out.

Getting back to YouTube: when I pay for a service, it’s called a trade. $11.99/month or $143.88/year nets me a service I rely on. I don’t particularly care where the money goes to after I pay it, but the correct answer is probably a revenue account owned by YouTube. Where that money goes after it lands on their Balance Sheet isn’t my business, because money that has left my hands is not mine anymore. I walk away feeling like I’ve gotten a good deal, and I never have my time wasted by Google Ads anywhere in the service on any device I control and some that I don’t, and I’m not limited to a specific browser setup. Your inability to see the benefits to my life does not make it irrational, nor wrong to do so.

That’s true for every service or product that you or anyone pays for: you got a product or service. You didn’t maintain any equity in the dollars or euros or yen that you paid in exchange. Nor do you possess equity in any items you barter away.

I wonder how many people pay for Netflix & HBO & Disney but won't pay for Youtube, especially since Youtube Premium predates most of those (obv not Netflix).

I've paid for Youtube Premium for years and consider it money well spent.

To be fair YouTube didn’t do themselves many favors by trying to push the YouTube Red originals, making it sound more like bad Netflix rather than ad-free YouTube plus Google Play Music which was the real value, but I think there would still be a fair contingent that are anti-YouTube Premium.

No one that I’ve convinced to buy it has chosen to go back and not started paying again, friend that are generally cheap about this kind of thing too and they became the person I was: the one complaining when we went over to someone’s house, watched a video and ads started playing. Just using YouTube that way long enough convinces you of the value.

That's great for those who want to pay, but for me, I can get a superior experience with adblockers and SponsorBlock etc and also not pay, so I won't.

I'd shift to Firefox when the world around me crashes. And Burns. Till then, I am using Vivaldi.

Outside of the technology bubble/fort we have built around our families and us, the normal outside world is extremely bizarre. I frequently have the opportunity of helping families and friends with their computers. The amount of distractions and non-content content is astounding. I always feel like Chris, trying to fix Jen's computer installing a browser and should expect an answer, "Leave it. I have it how I like it."

Same here. I use Brave browser and rarely see ads anywhere. I am always shocked when I see other people’s web experience . It’s as unbearable as US network TV with commercials every ten minutes.

FYI, YouTube Premium is economically cheap in countries such as India. A single user subscription is just ₹120 (~$1.5) monthly, so $18 a year. While the Family is just ₹189 (~$2.36) monthly, which is less than $30 a year. I believe it is worth it instead of fighting every algorithm, alteration, that Google throws at you.

it costs that little _right now_

Youtube being Youtube will definitely increase it

Never encountered advertisements using AdGuard with Vivaldi. I listen to many podcasts there; no issues. On Android, I sideloaded a modded YouTube app without issues. Besides, I can use Kiwi Browser with specific extensions to allow YouTube to play in background and screen switched off, and uBlock origin to block advertisements. If the Chrome manifest does take over, AdGuard on Android does its job perfectly (side loaded). I haven't touched the official applications or use Google Chrome because it's restrictive. I don't use iOS, but Adguard for iOS can filter out advertisements.

"about to become unbearable" pleeeease. It crossed that Rubicon long ago. I had a Yahoo mail account once. When I started going to my inbox and could not find my mail due to all the ads I switched to gmail.

Another option for those who don't/can't run ad blockers: Invidious (https://github.com/iv-org/invidious)

It's a proxy server for YouTube. You install this on a server from your choice and it serves a minimal YouTube-like UI without any ads or other obnoxiousness. You can test-drive it by using public instances but those are often overloaded so I recommend running your own.

YouTube already makes more money than Netflix. Guess they want to make more money than Disney now? YouTube Red (I guess they call it premium now) is pretty good though. Their music service and being able to download videos makes it pretty nice on the whole.

I refuse to watch advertisements anymore and I hate advertising in general. Most commercials are brain pollution.

YouTube makes more money than Netflix? Huh... why not just buy Netflix and roll it into YouTube Premium (or Red or Plus or whatever it's called this week)?

Netflix's value is quite a bit higher than its income, and that value is quite a bit higher than the figures we see for market leaders buying major competitors. Now, if it were worth $20B rather than $100B...

For those who don't know it, you can also put a dash '-', between the 't' and the 'u' for any youtube video address and it will direct to an ad-free full screen version of the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUDu0KT74No

add the dash

https://www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=TUDu0KT74No

which redirects to:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/TUDu0KT74No?playlist=...

You can always tell ads to fuck off with the fuckoff.yt extension.

Just install uBlock Origin. It blocks ads everywhere, not just YT.

I probably would not use the internet if it were not for uBO

I'm _sure_ I wouldn't.

Or you could just buy YT Premium. I don't have it since I can handle 2-3 ads but if it does get as bad as the article suggests I'll probably just buy the damn subscription. This entitlement for free stuff on the Internet is the cause of many issues with the Internet of today.

I have no problem paying creators for content. If a creator I follow has a patreon or some other method of supporting them I pay for it without hesitation.

What I do have a problem with is supporting a company that is actively destroying the free internet. I think Google is a much bigger cause of the issues of the internet today than me attempting to maintain freedom in how I consume my carefully selected media.

For example: I want to watch videos in mpv, which tiles nicely in my WM, and doesn't have toxic social media features such as like buttons, comments, and related videos which serve no purpose other than to entice me into wasting time watching useless content.

Ok fair points,but how does the creator achieve the reach he has? Or pay for hosting and serving content across the globe? He doesn’t pay for either of these right? YouTube pays for this and you the user can choose to pay by watching ads or paying a subscription fee (Patreon does not defray Google’s costs).

There are tons of reasons to be pissed with google, but I find this allergy to YT premium very fascinating, especially when many of the same people would cheer a paid search subscription.

What an odd way to phrase things. Tiers? Almost certainly 99% of youtube's visitors don't pay anything. It's hard to believe people pay for Youtube Red.

Premium. I pay for it quite happily. It doesn't cost much and there are no ads. It's very worth it for me.

I suspect this is a bug.

Also, all the sites that picked this up have been shown to be of questionable quality since their primary source is Twitter.

It says the extra ads are only "bumper ads" up to six seconds long.

Has anybody demonstrated that the total ad time is increasing?

6 times billion is 6 billion.

> Has anybody demonstrated that the total ad time is increasing?

You mean scientifically?

Sample size = 1, total ad time most certainly increased.

The last 10 videos I played had 2 ads, one short unskippable (10s, not 5s), and one long that wasn't skippable until a long time had passed (like 30s). It was the style of ad that was a short-length video that was in itself somewhat captivating. I think I went something like 10 seconds into letting me skip, because it was about smart homes and I thought it was interesting.

Ads are truly a pest. Especially when they work.

Thank you Pichai for squeezing out more from employees and users.

I am a stockholder, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining!

Any good ad blocking mechanisms for Safari 15 and/or 16 on macOS?

iOS Safari has ad blockers in the app store now. I would be surprised if these aren't available for desktop Safari.

1Blocker has been working great for me. It does block YT ads.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/1blocker-ad-blocker/id13655310...

For iOS and iPadOS, I use Adguard Premium(they offer system wide blocking too). On Mac, Adguard for Safari is good enough. It’s the best possible option given Safari’s limitations if you want to stick with Safari. For most intents and purposes it works ‘almost’ as well as ublock origin on Firefox. 1Password and Wipr does a good job too.

Wipr seems to work pretty well. It doesn't block the stupid overlays that YouTube puts over the last 20 seconds or so of videos (not ads, but watch this or this next or subscribe to this channel...), but I don't think that uBlock does either.

AdGuard is alright and seems to work fine on YouTube.

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