1y ago

Google admits it's making YouTube worse for ad block users

www.theregister.com Google admits it's making YouTube worse for ad block users

Search giant says delays not specific to any browser – just those evading advert breaks. YMMV

317 comments

Whatever happens on my browser is client side, which is hardware and software I own. I can make what I own do what I want. It's a right.
It's like Google saying that I can't skim a magazine in my home, and that I must read the ads. Google can do what they want server-side, and I'll do what I want client-side.
- They're not saying you can't have an adblocker. They're saying their software will try not to serve you their data if you do, or at least make it inconvenient.
  You have a right to your computer. You do not have a right to their service.
  
  That's exactly what I said, yeah
  
  No, you don't have a right to it. If they want to they can put the entire site being a subscriber paywall. That's their call. But until they do that i will continue to access the site with my adblocked browser.
  
  They don't have the right to disregard my right to privacy either, yet here we are.
  
  But their software is just blocking based on browser. Their message to you is not "don't use an ad blocker". It's "use chrome and you won't have this problem". Theyre literally just hoping to abuse their position as a monopoly in video to try and strengthen their monopoly on browsers.
- And as a service provider, they can choose to degrade your experience. It goes both ways.
  
  Except they want to send you videos. The power is with you, the viewer. Without you, advertisers will have no reason for buying ads. Google can't collect your data either. Realise that you have this power. Youtube is not like electricity or clean water. We can live without it if push comes to the shove.
  
  Yep, they can send me 500s if they want to, too
  
  If the service degrades to far due to using ad blockers then I'll just stop watching anything on YouTube. Easy.
- Google can do what they want server-side
  Sure, like not sending you videos. 🤔
- Client side DRM is coming.
  They’re mostly there on Android already.
  
  You forgot to mention it's also coming to all Chromium based browsers (i.e. Chrome, Edge, Brave, etc) as well in the form of ManifestV3
  
  That’s ok. Us nerds have been defeating DRM in its many forms for decades. This will be no different.
- It's called a "User Agent" for a reason.
- You can, but as a part of doing what they want serverside they can ask for some kind of proof you don't have an adblocker on the server-side, you can reverse engineer that and spoof the checks and it becomes an arms race just like we have now... You're effectively just saying the status quo is a-ok with you
  
  I don't personally enjoy the status quo, but they're not obligated to serve me any videos if they don't want to. However, if they have given me media to consume on my devices, it's up to me to decide how I consume the media that was already delivered.
- Let's just hope they don't start injecting their ads into the video stream itself

Remember when every billionaire apologist was telling us how no one would do shit like this when net neutrality was being gutted?
- This has nothing to do with net neutrality. Google is not an ISP. With or without net neutrality, Google could fuck with YouTube users.
  
  Technically false. Google is an ISP. But they aren't using their position as an ISP to slow down traffic or fast track other traffic in this instance so no it has nothing to do with net neutrality.
  
  Only if we narrow our scope to the commonly thought of types of net neutrality. I think if we had foreseen intentionally treating browsers differently, this type of thing would have 100% been rolled into that original conversation about net neutrality. It's the same idea: artificially modifying a web experience for capitalist gain.
  I personally wish it could be illegal for them to do this, but I do think it would be really hard to enforce such a law.
  
  Google is literally an ISP. They provide my internet service.
  
  Thank you
- Not just YouTube. Now I have to say I'm not a robot when searching from my phone because I dare use a VPN that's not theirs.
  
  This is because scammers and criminals often use VPNs. They actually should be doing that.
- I still remember Ajit Pai's dumbass teeth as he smugly insisted that you'll still be able to "'gram' your food" before covering a Chipotle bowl in a mountain of flaming hot Cheetos and an ocean of Sriracha. And that was one of the least irritating moments of that video. That whole fucking video was basically "you can still waste time with your bread, circuses, and creature comforts, you fucking peasants, now shut up and let the corporations do their thing" while ignoring every legitimate criticism of the decision to gut NN.
- DAE nET nEUtrAliTY?!?!

This is a good time to make aware about an amazing privacy-centric & user-friendly alternative - Peertube. It is not a big network as of now but the benefits it provides over YouTube are large - it is a part of the fediverse. Of course, only through increasing participation will the network become bigger.
If you still wish to use YouTube, you can try third party front ends like Invidious or Piped on the browser; NewPipe(Also is a front end for Soundcloud, media.ccc.de, Peertube & Bandcamp) or LibreTube on Android.
If you only browse YT Music, you can try HyperPipe in the browser. There are many apps for it available on F-Droid, an alternative app store for Android. My personal pick is ViMusic.
- Peertube is a great platform. And it has its uses. But it will never compete with YouTube - YouTube's business model actively incentivises and pays people to post media to their platform.
  Peertube is more likely to be to be the opposite - donation run, and given videos are exponentially more expensive to host, it's highly unlikely that creators will receive any compensation for their work. In fact it's more likely theyl be in the list of people donating to the platform (or they'll own the platform outright)
  While this might be fine if a creator makes the majority of its money elsewhere, via patreon or sponsors or whatever, it's not going to work out for any aspiring or up and coming YouTube who has yet to become big enough to start diversifying their income base.
- I feel like people mistake YouTube for a video hosting solution.
  But that's not the point.
  YouTube a huge archive of content that accumulated over the past 17 years.
  YouTube is a content suggestion machine. Discoverability is a key aspect.
  YouTube sets an incentive by allowing people to monetize their content.
  ...
  So, if the only thing you're looking for is a video hosting solution, then, yes, PeerTube might be an alternative. In the same way uploading videos to your own webspace would be, and Vimeo also still exists.
  But for all the other stuff, YT is, unfortunately, unmatched, and probably will be for a while ...
  
  You're right. It also got people and ai flagging illegal content. That takes much more money then even hosting videos does. Though if the .world owners want to make a peertube insurance, I'm all for subscripting.
  Once again, I want to agree that it's a massive undertaking that's more than software and bandwidth.
- Cool thing about LibreTube is that it uses Piped and you can make an account on a Piped instance, log in with that in LibreTube and your subscriptions and playlist will be synced
- I'm thinking of just skipping ahead a bunch of steps and start the global resistance movement so it's up and warm and running for when the rest of you guys start popping in after the GlobuCorpedorate attacks

Well that's only fair.
It already made it worse for non-adblock users.
- You had me in the first half. Ngl
- I'm 3 hours late to make this same joke
  
  Sadly it's not a joke.

However bad they may make it, it can't possibly be worse than it is for non-adblock users.
But hey, if they want to torpedo their own services, have at it. It's not like they have a reputation for it or anything....
- i am more worried about the old videos wipe thats coming soon
  Sooo many peoples uploaded memories and documentaries are going to becone lost forever
  
  Wait, what?
  
  I wonder why they would kill old videos instead of just removing those 10-hour plus loops of the same song over and over again that nobody watches. You'd think those giant loop videos would be taking up far more space.
  
  They aren't wiping videos.
  From a literal 5 second Google search: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/is-youtube-deleting-old-videos-1234737099/
  
  Wait what?
  
  Who's going to wipe the old videos?
- About a week ago YouTube rolled out a new interface for ads. I cannot skip 90% of ads now. Many are around a minute in length. Always 2 ads at the beginning of every video, even if it's only 10 seconds in length. Always 2 ads at the end of every video.
  
  I'm not getting that many ads. Could I see the new interface?

I don't know why they think this change is going to get anyone to switch.
5 seconds of nothing is still way better than a minute-long ad
- They want to sell their Premium subscription. They want you to compare 5 seconds of nothing versus "0" seconds of nothing. That being said, I think uBlock Origin with up-to-date filter lists completely eliminated this delay for me.
  
  At work, we can't log into personal accounts. And my job isn't going to buy YouTube premium. So now any video tutorials on YouTube is getting impossible to watch.
  This has now triggered a bunch of lazy developers into action in my entire company. Even our internal newsletters are explaining how to use adblock.
  
  I haven't seen any issues or ads on Youtube across all devices, except my LG tv. I don't doubt they're being scummy but the workarounds are working.
  
  uBlock Origin
  I still worry that google is going to declare ad blockers against their TOS and shut down my gdrive and 20 year old gmail. I'm trying to move away from alphabet shit but it's not so easy with such a long history. To that end I haven't even once used yt except not logged in on a FF private window with ublock since they started pulling this shit.
  
  They can try selling me their Premium subscription again when they start suggesting more than one or two videos (if that) on their homepage that actually interest me.
  Not that I'll ever pay for it, anyway. But get me something that I'll actually click on to get served ads before trying to sell me something to get rid of them.
  
  are people that impatient
- 5 seconds of nothing
  It's an eternity of nothing for me now so yeah I switched. To invidious.
- deleted
  
  still not as bad as Chrome
- deleted

Fuck Google and YouTube, but the title is misleading, and it's an article from three weeks ago. I'm quite surprised that this post is so upvoted, and nobody else flagged this before.
- I just read the article and I don't see how it's misleading. Google introduced a delay before video starts for adblock users
  
  But the register wasn't able to reproduce it, and goes on to suggest it might be testing the capability with a random subset of users.
- Genuine question (because I'm looking too): without YouTube, where would you go to watch all the diverse videos they host? It's a really difficult business model. Look at how expensive Floatplane is to the user. Luke and Linus have talked about how difficult it is to run on WAN Show, too: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1mZrsunukUA
  A fediverse platform would almost definitely be a worse experience in terms of speed and video quality because residential internet (at least in the majority of the US) just doesn't have the upload to support multiple HD video streams. Therefore, it's not really possible to host at home; a basic server at Hetzner could probably do a dozen or two direct streams with no conversion, but storage is kind of expensive just because there's so much content, and then there's the need for moderation, high uptime, security, "good" UX design...
  Then of course on top of all that when you don't have creators getting paid by ad revenue, fewer will be able to spend the time on production quality because they'll be doing it after work, so the length and/or quality suffers.
  I dunno dude, I really hope someone smarter than me has figured this out, but it's a tough problem.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://piped.video/watch?v=1mZrsunukUA
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  You are correct. Fundamentally, it's the hosting and storage issue that's the crux of all this.
  And the only choices available are another corporation hosting and paying/passing on the cost, or all of us hosting on a peer-to-peer network, which will be slow, but doable.
  Having said that, the peer hosting method would work though, and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. We just shouldn't expect the same level of service we do from YouTube or any corporation hosting videos.
  
  Peertube is already just as good in terms of performance, it does need more content and better discoverability for sure
- Interesting, it came up in news feeds on other sites. I'll check more in the future, that's the first time I've had that happen.
- I wonder if there are bot farms for Lemmy/Fediverse... There must be
  
  Why would someone do it?
- FAKECIENT OLDS!

- By doing that you're wasting bandwidth on all the CDNs that hosts ALL your filter lists. Updating the Quick fixes list should be enough. (Which updates every 5 hours automatically on uBO 1.54).
  How to manually update Quick Fixes (Manual updates push back automatic updates.)
  Click 🛡️ uBO's icon
  the ⚙ Dashboard button
  the Filter lists pane
  the 🕘 clock icon next to the uBlock filters – Quick fixes list
  the 🔃 Update now button.
  
  mate, that won't even scratch a single server's bandwidth, much less that of a CDN.

Are they, though? I’ve been using Firefox and uBlock Origin for years and I’ve not had an issue other than needing to manually update my filters three times since this started.
- Yeah, however "worse" it is for adblock users, it can't compare to how awful the ads are.
- Exactly. I've spent 15 seconds of my life overcoming this three times. Click, click, click.
  
  You'd be surprised how sensitive normies are regarding 3 additional clicks.
  For us tech literate folks it's a regular sunday but they are literally raging internally if they need another 5 clicks more than usual.
- The proven reason why you can't beat crowd sourcing in the millions.

And freetube is making it so much better.
- Something I didn't even realize I wanted was to not have some eyeball-pulling algorithm recommending things to me. It's lovely.
  
  Yep. Personally use Piped, but it's the same idea. It basically saves me hours of watching useless videos everyday.
  
  That's why I've been using YouTube without logging in and if using in browser, I have the cookies autodelete after I close the page to start new each time.
  It never really recommended me what I wanted anyway. I guess the algorithm doesn't work on me.
- What freetube?
  
  Google it and join us in video paradise

Weren't adblocker-blockers judged going against gdpr?
- Yes
  
  Could you provide more info? On what grounds?
- It was some low effort attempt talking about "code that I do not like running on my PC" or something like that, words like "malware" were thrown around. Basically if detecting adblocks is illegal so should be any JavaScript code.

I mean they've also consistently been making YouTube worse for everyone not using Adblock, so it's only fair.
- Sounds like its beginning to reach the point someone may decide to code an add-on or extension that adds a "F*** YouTube" button to a Youtube Video page where if you click that button, it would take you over to the equivalent YewTu.be page of the video currently being viewed.

Great, I'll use it less if that's the case 🤷
- That’s not a bad outcome for them
  
  If everybody with adblockers quit youtube and used alternative platforms, I agree, that would be great.
- I moved over to new pipe. No more algorithm on regular basis. I have the 20 or so people that I want to see. If one of my existing 20 people recommend somebody else, I'll go check them out.
  Between getting rid of reddit algorithm and YouTube's algorithm I'm clawing back huge swaths of time.

We'll still figure out ways to get around ads. So suck it Google.

By the looks of these default recommended videos, Youtube is great for bigots and authright traitors.
- Right? I'll be scrolling through my feed and bam random Jordan Peterson video and then some black guy pointing up at a video of Trump. I don't want to see that crap ever, but Google gets paid by these guys so they just insert that crap wherever.

As a premium subscriber, it's definitely gotten worse for me over the last month. Whatever they're doing on the back end, it's pretty terrible.
- I'm not sure what the hell is going on at YouTube but I've noticed a significant drop in decent videos being recommended, and a huge uptick in videos I've already seen showing up at the front of the feed. Probs gonna drop it when the price picks up and just go to nebula.
- Why are you paying your abuser
  
  Honestly: I'd rather pay for YT and pirate Netflix.
  The amount of Entertainment I get from YT exceeds the scale of Netflix and I use it daily at 2-3h per day.
  And while yes, it's free, I can also support the creators with a better click price than a regular click.
  Is it a better solution then the respective patreon/whatever? Nope
  Do I want to pay 5€/month or video each time? Fuck no. I am not king Midas.
  
  There's a ton of educational content only on YT and so it's a part of our homeschool curriculum. My kids were getting a lot of super inappropriate ads a while back, so I got premium to avoid all ads.
  
  Stockholm syndrome

Long time family premium user (household of parents and kids). Anything Youtube do to preserve their revenue within reason doesn't bother me too much as long as they don't reduce the split with quality creators. If they were successful with all this bullshit perhaps they wouldn't have needed to notify me that subs are almost doubling next year. My guess is all they are doing is fucking things up for everyone. It is only going to get worse if their premium subscription base reduces. They should be pricing premium as an alternative to ad-blockers but instead they are pushing people including premium subscribers towards ad-blockers.
I already have ad-blockers and apps for circumventing youtube ads. Not using them in favour of a fairly priced (to me) subscription was a choice but sadly one Google seems to be discouraging.
- I've also felt like YouTube Premium was a pretty good deal, given the sheer amount of YouTube content I consume and how much I detest ads.
  That said, I also feel like most of what I really value from YouTube is on Nebula, to which I am also subscribed. I constantly wonder if it would be worth it to drop YouTube altogether, to save some money but also a huge amount of time.
  The only other thing really keeping me on YouTube Premium is the included YouTube music. Not like Spotify is much cheaper, and I'm not much into manually managing libraries of my own music files like I did in the days of my 2nd Gen iPod (it had a touch wheel!).

WHAT?! I didn't believe it for a second when the whole planet immediately noticed at the same time!
But then again, they DID admit it. Which means they have nothing to hide! And that's transparent, and bold. We should reward companies for doing the right thing. Not only criticize them when they didn't do wrong!
Tinkle Fingerent!
- Youtube should add a tip Google button.
  
  deleted
  
  YouTube premium exists

*Laughs with RSS feeds, Invidious redirects, Newpipe and Sponsorblock.

The CEO said shareholders needs to be appeased by making new sacrifice

Fuck YouTube

Are they making it worse than ads make it?
- Not yet!

My biggest problem with the ads is that it's louder than the thing I'm watching, oftentimes a lot.
They are sometimes an hour long and I gotta press the skip ad button with my nose cause it'll take me ten minutes or more to clean up.
I have no love for the automatic gadgets where you can speak your commands. They get suggested by my coworkers quite a bit.
They want too much for what is ultimately hours of people playing chess.
(⁠╯⁠°⁠□⁠°⁠）⁠╯⁠︵⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻
- Theyre also blatant scams. Whenever I accidentally open youtube on my phone when clicking a link the ad is literally claims of free money using ai voices of celebrities, “cures” for blindness that are selling watered down bleach, and other scams
  
  Yeah any time I scroll through YT Shorts (Revanced doesn't block those ads rn) 99+% of the ads are just the "This new government program gives everyone $6400/month trust this bad AI voice of Steve Harvey." scams.

Despite their wasted efforts, it just doesn’t matter. Circumventing all this is still too easy. Only the impatient are doomed.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
Google has admitted its efforts to discourage the use of ad blockers now includes delaying the start of videos – a deliberate "suboptimal viewing" experience, as the corporation put it.
Earlier this year, YouTube began interrupting videos for those using advert blockers with a pop-up encouraging them to either disable the offending extension or filter, or pay for YT's ad-free premium tier.
In a statement to The Register, Google admitted it was intentionally making its content less binge-able for users unwilling to turn off offending extensions, though this wasn't linked to any one browser.
To be clear, Google's business model revolves around advertising, and ad blockers are specifically called out as being in violation of its terms of service.
Google told us users who have uninstalled their ad blockers may continue to experience temporary delays loading videos, though the issue should resolve itself after "refreshing their browser."
As we reported earlier this month, the search giant will be pushing ahead with a planned API change in June that will render legacy Chrome extensions – including ad blockers – useless unless they are overhauled.
The original article contains 468 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 61%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Still using Vivaldi with only the built-in ad blocking, still noticing no ads, still noticing zero performance issues.
- I use Vivaldi. I've been getting the ads mostly. I have to open YouTube in a private window and view from there. Do you have Unblock with scripts? My scripts only worked for awhile. The built in adblocking is just not working for me.
  
  It's just a regular install with "block trackers and ads" enabled. The only YouTube related plugins/extensions I have are tube buddy and dearrow to remove clickbait thumbnails. I don't use unlock, ad block, or anything like that.

It doesn't seem to be working for me. I've never been blocked for using ad blockers. It's still the same speed it's always been. I have all these work arounds just waiting to be used that I haven't even had to actually try.
Are they only doing this shit to like 12 people who write articles about it? Why wouldn't it be globally done all at once for everyone?
- Yes, they are rolling these changes out in stages to make it harder for the internet to collectively address the issue.
  Trust me, you will get hit eventually.
  
  It doesn't seem to be making it harder; shit's in the news all the time and damn near every discussion on those articles has work arounds mentioned constantly.
  If it ever does hit me, as previously stated, I have several solutions already lined up. Not least of which is simply using Piped. Which I could just use now, even without getting screwed... 🤔
- Personally I don't watch it in the Browser instead I use the AndroidTV app.
  Amd I am patient in that regard. Can't scare me with a 5sec delay.

It just doesn't play on my Firefox anymore.
- I got no issues whatsoever. Are you using any browser addons besides uBlock origin? I've been using ghostery for quite some time (which also has an ad-suppression engine) and that cocked up with youtube. Removed it and now I can use it as always. Firefox 120.0.1.
  
  Privacy Badger is better than Ghostery anyway.
  Instead of using a commercial server, it build its own anti-tracking list over time.
  Made by a non-profit digital rights group.
  And it works fine on Youtube.
  
  Good information. I will remove it.
- Open your videos in Incognito mode, the block is cookie-based. I open YT on my browser in normal mode to see all my subscriptions, then open the videos in incognito with adblock enabled.

They are a business that makes money off of ads. Nothing to see here.

As a Premium user who still had uBlock installed, I was noticing the other day a loading problem when I had it activated until I deactivated and reloaded. Still, Google is entirely within it's right to target people even according to one of its greatest critics: https://youtu.be/KMLMQRS3Krk?t=175
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://piped.video/KMLMQRS3Krk?si=topYLrXiiYqpF1GE&t=175
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  Piped doesn't respect the t time attribute.
- Still, Google is entirely within it’s right to target people even according to one of its greatest critics:
  [Citation required.]
  Could you give us a timestamp of when he says that?
  
  It starts at 2:55, when I linked it, but it's a long argument. You can forward into 3:20 for the first short conclusion, 4:57 for his rebuttal of a common counterargument, and you can forward into 5:40 for his own experience with freeloaders. You can fast forward to 12:40, to 13:15, to 13:46, and to 14:16 as well, but he's pretty based throughout the whole video and the point remains consistent throughout.

I have LIbreWolf with uBlock Origin and NoScript (and Redirector I can turn on to redirect me from watching videos on YouTube.com to YewTu.be on a moments notice of something funky going on with YouTube), and so far, I have not noticed any ads or anything for a long time. I'm probably at the point of beginning to wonder what a YouTube Ad is.

This is not new. They started doing this when the adblock detection was ramping up too

Still not going to give them a dollar ever.

Youtube is still fast for me though.
- kthx
  
  As I lack knowledge on IT, I'm not telling anyone what I might be doing inadvertently to still have a fast YouTube streaming 😛

Why can't people just stop using google? Genuinely curious
- Because most alternatives aren't nearly as functional due to them dominating the market.
  
  Yes alternate platforms with good level of UX exists. But without content its no good. YouTube - Peertube Google maps - Organic maps & OSMAnd (open street maps) Reddit - Lemmy (bigger is better)
- It is frightfully expensive to host video content. YouTube would cost Billions per year to run.
  
  I always wonder about this. I pay only a few bucks per month for Nebula. I highly suspect Nebula is running at a loss.
- There's no alternative to youtube that isn't complete garbage
- By and large, that's where the content is.
- So what is equal or better alternative than Google Maps, Youtube and Google Search?
  
  I've been using duckduckgo for half a year already they've became quite good compared to Google search, Google maps alternative is any popular maps app just try what'll fit your tastes, but YouTube is certainly don't have alternatives YET just because libre alternatives though exist but not yet in shape enough (basically we need datahoarders who'll hoard and host whole youtube to libre alternatives such as framatube and others) for now we can only rely to custom frontends such as clipious, piped and others and custom apps of course
  
  I started ditching google apps last spring and my “alternatives” are: bing/apple maps, invidious, and SearXNG. I self-host the last two to keep even more control of my data.
  
  there is no such "better" alternative. how could we compare a company that has been digging up their user data and built something with it, vs some community or even a solo developer who build something out of nowhere without collecting or selling data?
  but, what are the alternative?
  Google Maps
  OpenStreetMap, is not as complete as Google Map, the amount of places won't be the same. but it's enough to help you navigating from a district to another district, and use much lower resource too
  YouTube
  Odysee, couldn't explain, think of it like YouTube
  Rumble, couldn't explain, think of it like YouTube
  PeerTube, a fediverse software where you can upload videos and do livestream, you own your data
  Piped, NewPipe, PipePipe, Invidious are just alternative frontend for YouTube, its good if you are watching an exclusive content from their platform. But why do we keep letting YouTube has our data?
  Google Search
  wow, really?
  DuckDuckGo, controversial, but enough
  Brave Search, controversial, honestly aint using it
  Searx, host it yourself, you own your data
  and hey, why didn't you mention about the browser, mails, and many more? There is firefox, tuta, and much more.
  
  OpenStreetMap instead of Google Maps (OSM would be even better if more people used and actively contributed mapping data to it), no real youtube alternative yet (but see Piped/Invidious, Peertube, and Odysee), and there's plenty of alternative search engines like Duckduckgo, Brave search (has its own index), etc
- Revealed preferences. As much as people won't admit it, these services do provide legitimate value, and they also cost a lot of money to operate.