Google warns users of these apps that their experience may deteriorate soon. They may “experience buffering issues” or see errors such as “the following content is not available on this app” when trying to watch videos.
Similar to Google Search, ads have become insufferable for many users of the service. There are too many of them, they may break the viewing experience, and they may show inappropriate content.
YouTube Premium is expensive. What weights more for some users is that its functionality is severely limited when compared to third-party apps.
The cat and mouse game continues.
For those looking to avoid ads or improve privacy, here are some options for free, open source, privacy-friendly frontends to YouTube without advertisements:
Google lost the battle even in their own browser so now they’re trying to save face by attacking third party apps, dumbass just don’t know how to take the L.
Aren’t they implementing manifest v3 for addons soon, which will cripple adblockers on chrome?
When they do it’s only a matter of time for users to search how to block ads and move to a new browser
Firefox
They attempted to blocking videos for adblock users on YouTube some time ago, it was effective for like, I don’t know, a few days?
Chrome is still the most used browser
It’s ok google, we have just as many engineers across the world that hate you and your ads and want to watch videos without your predatory pricing.
Indeed. However, they have that web DRM thing in their back pocket. The more we resist (as we should) their efforts to shut ad circumvention down, the more they’ll look at web DRM I’m sure. And they’ll have all large media outlets with them when they load that ball into the cannon.
Lol good luck Google. No way im watching YouTube with ads.
Then don’t.
Yeah let me fork over my rapidly disappearing regular people money for a service which used to be free, whose price will only keep going up, and whose features will only keep disappearing to be locked behind a higher tier of paid subscription, thus giving me less and less, for more and more payment. You meet me over there. Let me just grab my little red wig and honk my nose a few times first and I’ll be right over.
The service was never fucking free you goober it always had ads. Since the moment it expanded beyond a couple dozen 240p videos, it had ads. You know what they did though? Tried to pay the people you watch so they could make a living giving you content. But yes throw a fucking tantrum that you have to pay the website so they can stay running and pay the people so they can earn that “regular people money” you ignorant fuckwit. YouTube still, to this day, doesn’t make a profit and still comes at an expense to Google/Alphabet.
You’ve been comfortable in that red wig and nose for way too long already.
Yes, I’m the “ignorant fuckwit” who is “throwing a tantrum”. Read above and behold me being immature, for the crime of calling out the poor little giant corporation who reportedly generated $31.5 BILLION dollars last year. Clearly they’re just trying to keep the lights on, and not kowtowing to investors whose sole, stated goal, is to buy low, and cash out when line goes up. I’m the fuckwit for pointing out that this shouldn’t be the system we’re all just okay with accepting. Clearly.
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Youtube Premium offers a fraction of the benefits of something like Newpipe.
Does it even pay the people you watch? No… wait… it just freeloads off YouTube by piping that content to their site.
it just freeloads
I watch a number of creators that YT has demonetized so I’m not worried about it.
YT can clearly see what people want in these apps. They simply need to provide the exact same functionality and set a price. They won’t though because they want control and data as well.
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To be clear I wouldn’t give them my money even if they did offer all the same features.
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There’s multiple issues with this but a lot of them come down to: it’s Google.
They will charge. They have heaps of money, they will enzhittify. They will kill and recommend a new less capable app.
They’re Google and I’m moving away from them hard.
I do use YT a lot, and for now I pay. But give me a little time and that won’t be as true.
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I was simply explaining why I’m bailing on them.
Google graveyard has happened. YT makes them a lot of money, so it’s not likely destined there. But, like search, they will eventually make it more about $ extraction than value for the customer.
It hasn’t happened yet. Early adopters and early leavers shape things.
Ads don’t support YouTube. Actually if you have premium that does a better job supporting both YouTube and the creators because they get paid more per view with premium than they would with ads. That’s why google pushes premium so hard and is bundling it with the services it thinks it can get away with.
What you’re describing has basically already happened and the ads are getting worse because they just don’t provide enough income.
But that doesn’t get rid of the ads, it just get rid of some. Sponsorblock would still be needed. Why pay a huge amount for something ineffective?
To. Support. The. Creators. I. Watch.
Use sponsorblock then, I sure as hell do. My main goal is to get rid of as many problems as possible and creators not getting paid enough is on that list.
So I buy premium. I participate in the system because a tantrum doesn’t fix it.
To. Support. The. Creators. I. Watch.
Did you ask those creators how much money they get? Loads of them make way more from inserting advertisements themselves.
It’s also telling that you’re saying it’s about supporting those creators while responding negatively towards the person who blocks ads and gives money directly.
Even if my client couldn’t block ads, I’d still keep it for the downvote button count and sponsor block.
Fuck Google and their price gouging.
No. No fucking ads, or lack of swipe controls.
You know, they’d probably get a tenfold increase of Premium subscribers if they just, I don’t know, dropped the prices a smidge and had better regional pricing. Not everyone can or will subscribe, but Google is only making this more difficult for themselves by making it such an expensive service.
I was about to pay for it when they doubled the cost. No joke I told my wife I was going to start paying since we watch it all the time. The next week they doubled the cost. It irritated me. Not because I couldn’t afford it but because they added no value with the increase. Nothing changed.
I was a happy subscriber when I was paying $15/mo for a family plan for 6 people. I was grandfathered into a low rate for being an early adopter of Google Play Music All Access.
Then they decided that grandfathered plans no longer applied and wanted me to start paying $23/mo, a more than 50% increase, so I canceled. I switched to Spotify for the music, where I pay less, and just watch less YouTube since the ads are ridiculous.
If they kept it at $15/mo, I’d still be a subscriber. If they sold just ad-free YouTube for like $3/mo, I’d consider subscribing to that and keeping my Spotify subscription.
It costs $23/mo for fucking YouTube? And to get the same experience you get with a free browser add-on? Fuck all of that. Absolutely not.
… No. It’s $15 a month unless you sign up every single person in your family. It still boggles my mind how people have grown used to the idea of using services for free. The internet isn’t free. Everything costs money, even Lemmy. YouTube has server costs. Employee costs. And dare I say it, profit margins because they’re a business.
You need to pay for services you use. I’m exhausted with online entitlement that it all should be free.
The Internet is actually free. Services on it aren’t always. The issue with YouTube monetizing, for me, is 1) they are doing it retroactively and 2) they’re monetizing content made by others.
The internet is actually free
Okay I’ll let Verizon know so they can stop charging me monthly. I’ll let Google know the servers they bought should have been free. That the electricity to keep them running, also free. It’s all just fuckin free!
How long have you been on the internet? Two weeks? Three? How did you even find Lemmy?
It reads to me like you think these companies are entitled to a user base. They aren’t. Just because it costs money to run a service, it does not mean we have to accept the price they charge or the anti consumer practices.
They provide a service not easily replicated, hence why there are no good alternatives. They operate on a loss because Alphabet/Google can afford it. They own the monopoly because they’re willing to lose money on it. You can swallow your pride and fuck off but it doesn’t matter. You don’t make an impact. They’ll still have the userbase and you leaving does nothing but lighten the server load from people who won’t pay anyway.
You aren’t entitled to free services at the expense of others. They don’t have to let you use their website without charging you. You not using the site without paying isn’t the attack you think it is, it’s the desired outcome.
That was a whole lot of assumptions about me. That, with the emotional language being used tells me that this interaction isn’t going anywhere useful or productive, so I’mma go ahead and step out.
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Right, cause YouTube/Google are really struggling so much that their only option is to increase prices while offering less value and making everyone’s experience worse. Maybe, and hear me out here, the massive billion dollar corporation could make less money.
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As far as I know, YouTube does not lose money(feel free to correct this with a source) and even just from a logical perspective if YouTube loses google money why keep pouring so many resources into it? The correct answer imo is YouTube doesn’t lose money theyre just greedy pigs but Alphabet(the parent company behind both google and YouTube) makes 10s of billions of dollars in profit, they are not struggling to pay the bills hell even if YouTube was losing then money fucking good they shouldn’t be allowed to hoard that much wealth anyway, but feel free to keep being a corporate bootlicker.
YouTube has been running on a loss since they last posted their info some handful of years ago. I think Susan was being pressured by creators to be transparent or something. YouTube has expanded well beyond what it used to be and hasn’t demanded money to compensate. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and Google/Alphabet has been fine with that but clearly aren’t anymore.
Alphabet makes money in other areas, yes, but YouTube specifically is the problem child that keeps begging for an allowance. So, how does YouTube fix it? How do they save money? By kicking off the freeloaders. You watch ads, contribute your 13 cents for the day, then fuck off - or you can buy premium.
Like I’ve said before, if you hate the big companies fix the tax laws, don’t bitch about them charging you for the service you’ve been getting free of charge.
You people really throw logic out the window when you talk about shit like this. You want corporations to make less money? Go fix the fucking tax laws not bitch about average membership fees like a fuckwit.
The problem is not that YT cannot make money, the problem here is that the options are that you can choose if watching video, with or without ads, for free (well, paying with your data) or pay with money and your data to watch videos with ads.
I am not saying I have some god-like right to watch videos for free but on the other hand it seems that at YT they are trying as hard as they can to make me install adblocker to be able to use their service with minimun hassle.
YT, like every other company, is learning that if they don’t care about customers then customers don’t care about them. They are making the false equation “one less user with adblocker == one more user on Premium|without adblocker”, which is obviously false. And they are forgetting that they have a lot of more or less direct competition.
YT, like every other company, is learning that if they don’t care about customers then customers don’t care about them.
Quite a statement to say that Google (YouTube) would care about customers.
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You need to pay for services you use. I’m exhausted with online entitlement that it all should be free.
So, why Youtube Premium has ads ?
It doesn’t.
Source? Me. I’ve had it for months haven’t seen a single ad.
Loads of videos have ads in there. They’re put in there by the content creators. This as YouTube doesn’t pay enough. YouTube premium doesn’t block those.
It’s strange that you haven’t noticed those.
You know what’s really strange? That you think not paying YouTube would make it so they could give their creators enough to where they didn’t need to take outside sponsors. Almost like YouTube has limited or even no control over creators having third party sponsors but you still blaming them for it.
Loads of videos don’t have those either. I watched three to four car repair videos yesterday and none had sponsored segments.
Some of my followed creators have them, but they are the minority. I’d love to see some overall stats, as my experience may not be the norm.
Yep. Their excuse is that you also get YouTube music out of it, but there is no option to buy them separately.
At this point I have no interest in moving away from Spotify, so Google’s gonna have to play ball if they want to get me back. It’s sad, too, when it seems like every other YouTube link I visit from my phone brings up a prompt begging me to subscribe again.
I believe there’s a sort of death-loop phenom taking place here. The enshitification, you know.
I said the same thing for Reddit before the third-party apps crackdown; instead of cracking down on users who just want a better experience, they could allow third-party apps to be officially used if you have a paid/Premium subscription?
That way Google gets paid, and the users who enjoy their third-party apps can keep using them without worrying about them suddenly breaking.
That doesn’t solve the privacy issue which is a good reason why people use these, but at least it partly solves the monetary issue.
I uninstalled the YouTube app on my phone a long time ago. I only visit the site in an ad blocking browser.
