Technology

The ads have become too long. Some of them are 40 seconds long, for a 3 minute video. That's unacceptable. I have thought about it, and I think the best would have been a single 8 second ad, unskippable. But never more than that. That, I could take. But multiple ads (even if they're just 5 secs each but you have to be vigilant to press "skip"), or long ads, or interrupting ads, are just too much to accept.

Make your platform so bad in the interest of shareholders so no one wants to use your platform anymore. It's a story as old as capitalism.

potential account suspension

You don't even need an account to use YouTube lol

The worst of all issues to me was any interruption working to help feed people or the destitute immediately has a 5 second skip, while all else has 59, 30, 20, 14 skip. There was no benefit for good externalities, just cost and profit. I was even ok with ads around 5 seconds and that they can even show up before watching a video. Adding the countdown was a nice touch too. It's when it gets in the way of UI/UX, how you have to suffer through the same commercial over and over, interrupting a video at critical moments, and ending videos with an ad so that you don't know if the video is ended that it gets awful to use. I would hope someone gets to making it 5 second ads that don't take away from the experience.

• Despite these measures, many users are leaving YouTube or finding workarounds, leading creators to seek alternative revenue streams off-platform.

That is the best part of it! A very welcome change! Basically the first step of becoming an independent creator, and to being able to abandon youtube for any of them.

I mean this genuinely: I would rather YouTube die than be subject to their overlong and hyper targeted ads.

If the ads were untargeted I'd feel less adamant, but as it is now I would sooner give up YouTube entirely.

Until they start properly filtering ads they accept they get auto disabled in my side. No weird crypto or porn ads for me, thanks.

Worse part of the problem is knowing what part of the ad profit YouTube uses to pay MrBeast and his stupid content.

Pro tip: open YouTube in Chrome, signed into your YouTube account. Allow the algorithm and your subs to continue recommending videos. Find one you wanna see. Copy link address. Paste it into Firefox with adblock, not signed into Google/YouTube. Prosper.

Just watched a YouTube video on my PS5 earlier today while cooking a food and saw for the first time that they will shoot an ad with a "next" button that skips to another ad, and then there's a "skip" button countdown. Ridiculous. I wouldn't bother with adblock if the ads were reasonable.

Here's a free idea, YouTube: build in the ability to add videos to a simple temporary queue and then only put ads in at the very start or very end of videos so they aren't intrusive.

if i ever get banned from youtube for using ublock origin am prob switching to odysee

On the one hand I understand they aren't serving billions of hours of video for their own health. Not sure how one can justify the expenditure as a "loss leader". But at the same time, the ad experience is horrendous.

In the last month I have consumed YT on desktop browser, mobile, and regular TV. Guess which is by far the worst experience?

On desktop, you can use an alternate browser or do a reg edit to re-enable manifest v2 plugins (for now) in Chrome, and continue blocking (for now). On mobile you can use alternate apps and frontends.

TV viewing of YT is the worst experience, as there are no native alternative apps and DNS ad blocking doesn't block YT ads. The native YouTube app (on Samsung and LG TVs at least) is horrendous. You get midroll ads sometimes mid-sentence as the content presenter is speaking. Sometimes you get pre-roll ads, disruptive mid roll ads, and then wash it down with a POST-roll ad at the end of the video. Depending on how the content is structured it is disorienting as to whether the video has ended or not.

Say for example its a 30 minute video. I would rather they show 5-7 minutes of predictable ads at the beginning of content, so I can at least have the same experience as broadcast TV, and make an informed decision to get up and use the restroom and feed the pets while the ads roll. Then once the content starts, don't randomly interrupt it.

Imagine the YT model applied to broadcast television. The quarterback drops back to throw a deep pass towards the endzone, and suddenly you find yourself watching an undskippable ad for diarrhea medication, while the football is in the air.

And we wonder why people have ADD.

Just got a one-minute unskippable ad for the first time yesterday (no way to use adbockers on a PS5). I'd rather not watch at all.

Youtube is waging a war against their customers. If they win, they lose; and if they lose they win.