You Tube and Ad Blockers

[Bruce Wrenn]

Seems that You Tube no longer wants anyone to view without ads, or else pay a ransom. Has anyone else ran into this, and what did you do?

[Cameron Wood]

Yes, I have that issue. So far I'm suffering through ads, but mostly they can be skipped pretty quick.
I may look into paying.

[John Ziebron]

When I want to watch a YouTube video I open it up in a private window and can view it with no ads. Works on Vivaldi and Brave for me.

[Mark Wedel]

If you get a video with a long ad you can't skip before it starts, you may be able to reload/exit and go back to the video and get a shorter add that can be skipped. At least I've gotten this on my Roku - instead of a 30 ad, get an ad I can skip after 5 seconds.

[Rich Konopka]

Seems that You Tube no longer wants anyone to view without ads, or else pay a ransom. Has anyone else ran into this, and what did you do?
It is extortion for the price of Youtube Premium. However, I get so much more entertainment and knowledge from YT than cable or other streaming services. It is the only streaming service I have. It is worth it to me.
I really wanted to get cable to watch baseball games but it was outrageous and all of the fees added on were ridiculous.

[Roger Feeley]

I don’t mind the ads but I don’t understand their algorithm. I get ads that have nothing to do with me. I watch mostly mechanical type videos and I’m logged in as me so they should be gathering all sorts of good information about my interests.

[Jim Becker]

It's been that way for over a month now...not something new. You either watch the ads or you subscribe. I chose to subscribe after turning off the LiveTV portion of Hulu to save money since I watch quite a few YouTube content creators daily and weekly. While I wish it was less than $14, for the amount of time I spend there, I'm paying it. There currently is no "permanent" way to bypass their ad-block-block that I've seen out there and workarounds seem to be time limited based on what I've read here and there.

[Bill Howatt]

I don't mind the ads since after a few seconds of most you can skip.
What I find weird in my case is that this works quite well on my computers, on my LG TV's YouTube app it isn't nearly as smooth. The ads seem to be more than one (one immediately after another) frequently and they freeze or are without sound or both and the time shown is screwy. If I want to watch a YouTube item on the TV, I fire up the laptop and then use the TV's Screenshare app and cast the PC screen to the TV. Much smoother. I did update the Youtube app helped a little. TV is about 4 or 5 years old.

[Rob Luter]

I used to really enjoy YouTube. As with everything else, the amount of quality content is on the way down and the cost is going way up. It won't be long and there'll be a pay wall for everything. The money grubbers will ruin the internet.

[Jim Becker]

OTOH, Rob...just like here at SMC, it takes money to provide the services and entities like YouTube have costs to support millions/billions of users as well as to compensate content providers and turn a profit for the business shareholders. Ad revenue is an important component of that and when blockers get in the way, YT loses whatever monetization there is for the blocked ads for that viewer. The Internet might have originally been intended to be a free service when it was small and academic/research/government focused, but once it expanded to be world-wide and private entities entered into the picture, things certainly changed. The "honor system" didn't work relative to ads (the reason why SMC now asks folks to be contributors to have access to features) and now folks are being asked to pay for what they actually use relative to content via subscriptions. Internet user behavior made this happen for the same reason that "free" software has also been waning because lots of people use without being willing to contribute to the cost. Etc.

Don't get me wrong, I was NOT happen when YouTube took this action because I've been watching more and more and the ads got to be too much disruption. So I rejiggered things to better match how we use media here and even with paying for the YT (which I actually use), our monthly cost is down about $70 dollars because we don't watch live TV other than the local morning news and that I get via the local station's streaming app for free. (with commercials, of course, but less than on broadcast or a live TV subscription)

[Bruce Wrenn]

Jim, I understand your thoughts. What I don't understand is when the ads use up more time than the video. Last week, I wanted to watch a 30 second clip. It opened with a two minute ad, plus was interupted TWICE for 15 second ads. Two minutes and 30 seconds of ads for a 30 second clip. That frosts me! Plus, I can't think of one thing that the ads have ever promoted me to actually buy. It's like looking on Amazon for a ball bearing, and they repeatedly pop up women underwear. This happened recently.

[Doug Garson]

I used to really enjoy YouTube. As with everything else, the amount of quality content is on the way down and the cost is going way up. It won't be long and there'll be a pay wall for everything. The money grubbers will ruin the internet.
So how do you propose the content providers and the operators of the platform make a living? Maybe those who are in favor of a free lunch would ruin the internet faster than those who try to make a living on the internet.

[Rob Luter]

So how do you propose the content providers and the operators of the platform make a living? Maybe those who are in favor of a free lunch would ruin the internet faster than those who try to make a living on the internet.

By using ads that are less obtrusive. By using ads that don't run on top of content. By using ads that don't pop up with earsplitting volume. By using ads that don't bog down the stream. By using ads that don't drop 400 cookies on my computer. By using ads that don't take away from the experience. By "right sizing" ad content instead of packing in as many as possible. (seeing a pattern?)

With a few exceptions (SMC being one) many sites have morphed into ad delivery systems with a little content added to try and keep things legit. When 75% of the screen is filled with ads, promos, and other "non content" stuff it's too much. News sites are especially bad. I want to find out what is happening in the world, not watch 10 video ads running simultaneously while sucking the resources out of my computer. There are sites I can no longer even visit on my iPad because the ad load brings the OS to its knees.

I have the same beef with cable. It used to be a way to pay for content and skip the commercials. Now it's horribly overpriced and has twice the commercials. Oh yeah, I'm paying for content and infrastructure. Yet when I have service issues (all the time) I get to talk to someone in the Philippines who tells me to reset my modem to fix the tree that has fallen over the lines. PBS is the same way. It used to be "viewer supported" with the only commercials being during pledge break. Not any more. There are the same amount of commercials on the PBS affiliate as any network feed. They just all happen to be about feelgood stuff (or what some view as feelgood stuff)

Many have cut the cable cord and moved to streaming. As a result the ISPs (who often are the cable company) and now metering connections for streamers. That is unless you want to step up and pay for the "premium" broadband service which coincidentally is the same price as the old digital cable/internet bundle.

So in closing I think the best approach for content providers and the operators of the platform make a living is to deliver a product people want as opposed to one they are forced to endure.

[Rich Engelhardt]

If people are being paid 10s of millions of dollars for their YouTube stuff, I guess there's going to be some commercials.

[Ole Anderson]

I watch a lot of YouTube, am subscribed to a ton of content. For me, the cost of Premium is worth it. As it is, I still have to put up with ads the creators include in their content. I just fast forward through them.

[George Yetka]

I get it. I went a long time without paying and just suffered the ads. I hung out at a friend house and he had the subscription it was so nice that I got one myself. Its been 6 months or so. What I need to do now is cancel spotify and use youtube music

[Allan Dozier]

I watch a lot of YT and don't find the ads that obtrusive. In a 20 minute video it seems they are are 2 to 3 maybe and most can be skipped in 5 seconds. I would certainly subscribe if the fee was more reasonable but not $15. I subscribe to USA Today for $5.33 and NYT for $4. If YT was 3 or 4 per month then I would sign up.
For the ads that you can't skip in 5 seconds I often click on another tab until I hear the ad finished then click back.

[Edward Weber]

Seems that You Tube no longer wants anyone to view without ads, or else pay a ransom. Has anyone else ran into this, and what did you do?

Pay a ransom?
You're getting free content, you have to watch a few commercials from advertisers just like network television, this is how it's free, advertisers pay so you don't have to.
When you've had enough, you pay to get cable, streaming or for YT premium.
Most people don't give away anything for free, I know I don't

[Bill Howatt]

I agree, Allan, YT's price is just too much.

[Mark Wedel]

To me, the ads in youtube have gotten a lot worse over the past few years.
Back then, my recollection was that I'd see some ads before the video, and it would be least 15 minutes of watching a video before youtube would put in more ads (ads that the video maker puts in are something that youtube can not control much).
But now, I'll get ads before the videos, sometimes another set of ads 1-2 minutes later. A 10 minute video may now have 3 sets of ads in it.
I don't think youtubes cost has gone up 3x - maybe ad revenue (how much they charge) for the ads is way down. Or maybe they are just trying to make more money.

[Pat Germain]

YouTube is like anything else; 90% of it is crap. But 10% is really good and I really like it. And that 10% is a LOT of content. I don't mind sitting through 30 second ads at all. Anything longer I typically skip. (If you repeatedly skip ads, you will eventually have to watch them as the Skip feature will be disabled for a while.) Yeah, the ad rellevance to content watched is completely bonkers, but so what. I typically mute the commercials anyway.

I'm seeing YouTube as becoming more and more of a value. You can now get local channels and NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. Combine that with ad-free videos and that's a good deal.

Just for fun, here are some of my favorite YouTube channels:

- Bourbon Moth
- The Wood Whisperer
- Side Projects with Simon Whistler (this guy has a lot of fascinating videos and few duds)
- Joe Scott (You can find hundreds of videos about the Dyatlov Pass incident with crazy theories about aliens and monsters. Joe Scott did a video about a scientist who published a paper which very convincingly explained the whole thing with no paranormal activity whatsoever. Imagine that.)
- Trail Recon
- Disney Food Blog and Allears.net (Absolutely ESSENTIAL if you're doing a Disney World trip.)
- Brian Lagerstrom and America's Test Kitchen (Cooking channels.)

[Bill George]

We went to fiber totally un-related to cable, the old was MediaCom and it was also the cable and cost skyrocketed. Fiber is not really cheap but so fast and no down time and dealing with support who really DID Not Care. We get local digital TV off the air and subscribe to Discovery Plus $10 per month and NO ads. Also have Pluto TV which is zero cost but really have not used much.