YouTube is finally cracking down on third-party apps like ReVanced

finally
- But premium doesn't have sponsorblock
  
  YouTube is testing a feature where it'll pop up a button to intelligently skip ahead if you skip once, or so I've heard.
  That sounds a lot like sponsorblock.
  Though it won't be fully automatic.
  
  I have premium and SponsorBlock. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

If they hadn't gotten so obnoxious with ads that it was impossible to use YouTube without blocking them, I wouldn't have used the vanced/revanced stuff in the first place.
They find a way to prevent using those, I'm out totally, including on the few devices I didn't care about playing the ads because it was just background noise.
Oh well
- I even had Youtube premium for a bit. Revanced is nice just to dial back some of the bells and whistles that isn't relevant to the video platform. The official app feels clunky.
  
  I had YouTube Premium after Vanced was killed. I gave it a fair go. No ads- great, it is now back to how it was a decade ago. But also no SponsorBlock - and my God, how many channels I realised I couldn't listen to anymore when 50% of every video was an ad for one of three online services or games I'm definitely not going to ever pay for. So now I just... don't watch YouTube on my phone. Hurray?
  Seriously, if the ads are supposedly worth €15 a month, pay the fucking YouTubers enough that I don't have to listen to a linguist try to sell me WarThunder
  
  Id really like to use revanced while paying for premium if it means it doesn't get borked every x months and I don't risk getting banned, kind of like Spotify tolerates 3rd party clients as long as they are premium accounts
  
  yeah I use revanced + YT premium for sponsor block. Haven't experienced any issues yet though
  
  I mainly watch it on my Roku TV and it is TERRIBLE. Idk if they've updated it in years.
- Wouldn't mind the ads if they weren't deliberately twice as loud as the music! That's just fucking rude

- I'm sure they meant "in the end" and not "it's about time".

We need better alternatives
Also YT premium is not a good solution as it does nothing for privacy
- Video is nearly impossible to host in a sustainable way. The bandwidth usage is among the most expensive things you can host. The only way you’re getting something better than YouTube is if it’s tax funded somehow.
  
  Public libraries should host the peoples internet. As a service, not to generate tax dollars, not to break even.
  Jumping from platform to platform is just delaying the enshitification.
  
  Nebula is very sustainable.
  The 20mbit bandwidth of a 4k video might have been a lot 10 years ago, but it's child's play now.
  
  Well I sure hope it isn't getting Tax funded
- Also YT premium is not a good solution as it does nothing for privacy
  Neither is accessing any Google service in the first place, ReVanced or not.
  
  Using third party clients does. Think invidious or piped with apps like Libretube
- Piped exists and has continued to work smoothly for me this whole time. There are many public instances but running your own is best
  
  Invidious and piped are under attack by YouTube. We need YouTube alternatives.
- We need better alternatives
  We'd need a quantum leap in storage and bandwidth first - orders of magnitude better, if we want competing to be financially sane 😮‍💨
  Maybe when Google is (hopefully eventually) shattered into a million pieces by some US judge, YouTube could be splintered into several smaller companies, each with some portion of the infrastructure and channels/videos - thus forcing competition. Vaguely similar to the Bell divestiture.
- We need better alternatives
  Do it and host a fediverse video platform: https://joinpeertube.org/

I have YouTube Premium but I have to use ReVanced to block shorts because it's terrible for my ADHD. My mental health has improved ever since I ripped that fucker out of my life.
I want to control what I see, and this isn't even about them being paid anymore, it's just about forcing me to see what I don't want to see.
- I know it will eventually be blocked by YouTube like Twitch did but you could try ublock Origin with this filter list or another custom filter list. Works pretty well for me.
  https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts
  
  Oh on desktop it's not a problem, I use an extension to block shorts
  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-shorts-block/
- You can hide them with the normal app. Just click the "x" on your main feed.
  
  They always re-appear and I'm tempted to click on them, that's the main issue.

Good luck YouTube
The official YouTube app will provide one of the better experiences...
Ha ha ha ha... the author must be dreaming or hasn't tried many other apps. NewPipe lets you run videos at custom speed, and optionally pitch-shift videos. And you can save videos to watch on any app capable of playing video files stored on disk.
- Agreed... The second half of this "article" reads like an ad/puff piece.
  A better researched article would go into the difference between API access, scrapers, and modifying the YouTube app, and question which of those YouTube will be able to detect. Maybe even discuss using region-pricing with a VPN to get YouTube premium for cheaper.
- And don't have to drag the seekbar, simply tap wherever you want to play

If they manage to break third-party applications, and they cannot be repaired, then I am totally just leaving YouTube entirely. It's not worth it at that point.
- I agree. I refuse to watch ads or to pay for an experience that offers less than a fraction of what Newpipe offers. When Newpipe is no longer viable I'll repurpose that time to chipping away at my reading list.
- My third oarty app stopped working recently, went back to old youtube for my morning shit. Ruined my poo, absolutely not ever going back. Got my app back but grabbed a nebula sub and downloaded a few other options. Fuck youtube.

I don't think YouTube understands a lot of our willpower to just close their app the second an ad appears.
If there isn't a way to watch without ads, then I'm just going to download videos and watch them instead.
If they stop that from working, I'll figure something else out, do we need to get the shaky movie theater camcorder people to start recording their YT premium videos now too?

I quit when they took away the dislike counter, so many said they would but didn't. All I ever see about Youtube is people complaining about their new shitty tactics... just leave, it''s the ONLY way to get any changes. They will never change if people keep using the platform.
Suck it up, leave, you won't regret it.
- But where do I go instead for my aquarium hobbyist videos? 😥
  
  You're not going to find everything you want outside of YouTube just yet. But apps like GrayJay make it a lot easier to start transitioning to other platforms.
  It combines most all of the video sharing platforms in one. From there you can start following creators if they have their channel setup on different platforms while still being able to keep your main home feed coming from YouTube if you wanted to.

Interesting, I guess we will have to see how quickly and widely this is enforced. I haven't used the official YouTube app for a very long time and have relied heavily on third party alternatives (Vanced/ReVanced, NewPipe, LibreTube, Grayjay). There is absolutely no way I am paying $17 a month for YouTube so I think a family plan would probably be the best option, though at this point I think I'd be more likely to just abandon the platform altogether.

I use the official YouTube app with premium. But, it glitches and reloads on its own after a while. Not to mention the UI frame rate getting capped to the video frame rate when playing a video.
3rd party apps let me download and browse the videos in a better way and I can also download them in 4k resolution in HDR format.

@Wahots guess they'll do just like they did with ublock origin ¯⁠⁠⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠⁠/⁠¯.
<details class="spoiler"><summary>Reveal/hide</summary>I still use ublock origin without an issue</details>

If my 3rd party app is broken to the point theh can't bring it back, I would like to say I'd drop YouTube like a sack of moldy tangerines. But I really don't know what I'd do without it. I use it about 8hrs a day.

- People really need to just stfu about a certain other app. If ya know, ya know. Otherwise stop advertising it you morons....When you mention YT and IMMEDIATELY bring THAT up publicly, you're not helping anyone.
  Do you really think that Google is only going to take down an app or adjust the API based on some comments, posts, articles?
  "Yo, Neal, did you see what that one person on Lemmy said? We gotta crack down on this API to fix that."
- If you know about it, google knows too. They have an army of lawyers, they can easily find YouTube 3rd party clients.
- grayjay?