Google confirms more ads on your paid YouTube Premium Lite soon
It is a well-known thing that browser adblockers often fail to play nicely with YouTube these days. However, even if you paid for Premium Lite, Google says it will soon push even more ads.
Why would I pay for premium if it doesn't remove the ads? It's like they don't do market research and just make shit up.
Firefox and UBlock origine.
The ads will continue until morale improves.
remember when paying removed ads? crazy i know. no subs ever.
"Premium lite"? What is this doublespeak?
Why has no one heard of FREETUBE!?!?!?
FreeTube is fantastic. I only discovered the concept of YouTube front ends relatively recently and I am not a normie, so the likelihood of normies knowing about front ends is practically zero. Most people think that the only ways to access YouTube content are to go to the website or use the app.
I think it's because it's a desktop app only (for now) and most people are consuming content on handhelds? Just a theory..
Freetube does need an app. I use a fork of NewPipe called PipeBender on Android and it works most of the time but not all the time. Freetube has never failed me though.
All the people saying "I'll just stop using it, no big loss," are you only using YouTube for fun? Have you never needed to pass a class, prep for a job, work on a house, learn a skill using it?
It is such a large repository of human knowledge that is so far not widely replicated anywhere else. I rely on it for learning skills to provide for my family, as far as learning other useful abilities.
For example, YouTube taught me how to service my own vehicles. I have a specific set of old 90s Volvo cars, and there is a youtuber (Robert DIY) who does an excellent job documenting how to do maintenance on them. I have done my best to archive everything he posts, but he is just an example, as there are countless other informative tutorials and how-tos posted on YouTube.
As of now, Google has their grips on an enormous amount of practically useful data, and they know it. It's beyond fucked, and to act like it is inconsequential or ignorable is very short sighted.
To keep using walled gardens like Youtube, Reddit or Discord in an effort to share and preserve knowledge is just a losing proposition. The sooner we stop using them, the less of a headache it will be when the companies behind these gardens decide it's finally time to cash out and start to charge for access.
The knowledge you grow in a walled garden doesn't belong to you.
What pisses me off most is that the way the internet works now is that ten years ago, someone who wanted to share about how to service your 90s Volvo that would have written it on a web page with a few photos that would have been quicker, cheaper and easier to write, quicker and easier to read, and cost next to nothing to host.
But because Google control fucking everything, that same person is now heavily incentivized to make it a pointlessly long video instead, that took days to make and edit, and is harder to use while working, and if they don't do that then they ain't getting anywhere near the top of the search results and you weren't going to find it anyway.
It sucks and I can't wait for people to wake up and tell Google to fuck off and stop ruining the internet.
You are absolutely right!
Knowledge is power - Google has tons of it. Not only on YouTube, but also the data they collect about every user, every click and interaction, etc.
I think the Tech-Giants have way too much power and even have some sort of monopoly. Like you said: No one has or even can recreate something like YouTube. Same with (for example) Microsoft. Even though FreeBSD, Linux Distros, OpenBSD, … gain popularity, they are nowhere near Microsoft’s Windows (or any other Product). And if you look at schools, businesses or governments, they (for some ungodly reason) use and pay for Microsoft products. Children get hooked on their Products in school!
Something has to change, I honestly don’t know what exactly, but these monopolies destroy our freedom! Maybe it would be better, if our countries had politicians, that do their work, not care about some “make America great again” shit.
It reminds me of Reddit (human solutions/ideas for random problems and interests), except the costs of storing and serving video are probably really high with a large userbase. (I wonder exactly how high, though. I'm sure it's hard to put a single unit price per GB/hour or whatnot, but still . . .) It's unfortunate that so many people have put so much work into sharing their knowledge but have basically experienced vendor lock-in.
Just recently I found old reddit and forum threads and a few YouTube videos that helped me and a buddy fix her car. The solution(s) was provided by just enthusiasts and random people helping others in their spare time by documenting stuff. Although there's also a lot of unhelpful threads and videos out there too, lol.
YouTube became shittier, what's new.
I still use an ad blocker. They can fuck themselves in the ass. I’ll never stop.
Youtube has ads? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Wait. I pay for YouTube with my time, the most important resource I have access to. There’s a level where you pay money and STILL SEE ADS?
I pay money to ride on the bus and still see ads there.
The bus doesn’t stop when you look at an ad.
Try harder.
And you should not. But perhaps you would not want the fares to rise?
Why bother to pay if you're just going to get ads anyway
<gangster> It would be a shame if you were not to pay and had more ads than content. </gangster>
We have network television at home.
I'm never going to pay to see ads in my life. Nope.
Sadly I do so every week when going to the cinema
Yeah, horrible innit? When I used to go to the cinema as a kid in the 70s and 80s, you'd get maybe ten minutes of trailers before your film. And I never minded that, I don't dislike watching trailers. These days, totally different. Last time I went to the cinema there was maybe half an hour of ads. Some trailers, but mostly just advertisements for crap.
It is so fuckin disrespectful to their customers. If I wanted to see all that bullshit, I could have stayed home and watched it on TV. Except I don't watch TV because the experience is so poor - largely because of ads.
I understand that cinemas have been struggling ever since covid, even before, and I understand that advertising revenue pays the bills. But cinema isn't cheap, for me it's an occasional treat when there's something I really wanna see on the big screen. I do not want to spend that much money and get treated like a fuckin farm animal being fed crap. Wankers.
I can't be alone in feeling this way, who wants to pay to see ads? Who thinks that sounds like a great evening out? It ruins the experience, and it's insulting, by the time the movie starts I'm angry. I'd rather pay a bit more and just have a couple of trailers.
I recently went to a small autonomous cinema with a mate and saw Mulholland Drive. Great experience, comfy seats, could bring in drinks from the bar, no fuckin ads. But for new films there aren't many options. So I don't often go to the cinema.
Sorry for this long and bitter diatribe! You just hit on something that really pisses me off too.
I haven't gone to a movie in like... 10 years probably. Ha..
Youtube ads? I have no clue what you're talking about...
Christ, premium light is still fucking 8 dollars a month and you don't even get rid of ads. The greed is fucking astounding.
I'll stick to an adblocker, dickheads.
Newpipe is all I have. I signed up for a couple creators patreon to support those I really like. Fuck Google. They are here for the investors bottom line not our shit. But people just want their shit and it perpetuates this behavior. My friend said he pays to support the creators he likes. He supports the giant corporation holding these creators ransom. Just send them money directly. Use new pipe or whatever. Quit supporting this shit and let the whole thing die until we realize there has to be a better way.
Why think of the consumer when you have practical monopoly on online video content distribution. If the creators are on youtube so will their audience and vice versa. Where will any of them go if you squeeze?
Firefox+uBlock Origin on the computer.
ReVanced on my Android phone.
SmartTubeNext on my Android TV.
I haven't seen a YouTube ad in years.
This is the way!!
I even subscribed to youtube premium when it came bundled with music streaming as well. back then it was a good deal. They kept raising prices and making the end product worse. Now it just seems obnoxious.
In case anyone is reading this and using an iPhone, Orion is the only iOS browser afaik to currently support uBlock Origin. I haven’t had a single ad since discovering that. Picture in Picture mode works too, as long as you go full screen with the video before swiping home. Hope this helps someone.
I've gotten some home page ads on revanced lately, but they'll surely be patched out soon again
I truly, truly don't get it.
Ublock Origin + Firefox still works.
Works just fine.
Been that way for over a decade.
Yes, if you're more privacy concerned (and there are good reasons to be) you can use some other browser, something like NewPipe, or Invidious...
But I just don't get why any normie, ever, goes for YT Premium...
Edit: Guys. I think a lot of you missed where I said EASIEST METHODS.
Easiest methods to ditch Youtube ads:
For those who may have heard about Pi-hole and are wondering why it's not on this list: PI-HOLE DOES NOT BLOCK YOUTUBE ADS. IT NEVER HAS AND NEVER WILL.
Youtube ReVanced
Revanced still Relies on G services
Also, Theres this very unknown app Called Freetube for all plattforms or newpipe for Android
Revanced uses microG, which is optional. I also mentioned that these were the easiest methods. But, you're absolutely right in that there are plenty of other methods to choose from.
Yeah, this will work for a while but I think the days have gotta be numbered.
Best long term solution? Leave YouTube.
I guess in the meantime: if on PC grab the freetube flatpak. Really decent client, anonymous and create subscriptions without actually subscribing.
No Grayjay? Been using that almost exclusively since they released the desktop version. Had to log out and back in with my (new, basically blank) YT account a few times after updates, and there are very rare cases of certain videos not wanting to load, but overall it's been working well so far.
Mac also has the excellent Orion Browser where you can install uBlock origin
Can I block youtube ads with a transparent proxy like squid ? What about a self-hosted youtube auto-downloading queue list ? I'm fine with .mp4 files !
Can I block youtube ads with a transparent proxy like squid ?
I haven't tried that, so I'm not entirely sure. I just focused on the easy methods that most people will gravitate towards.
Try it and let us know what you find!
What about a self-hosted youtube auto-downloading queue list ? I’m fine with .mp4 files !
Sounds like yt-dlp. Lots of people use that to get around ads, and also for data hoarding.
I use IgeBlock on Android. It has the banner ads, but not the video ads, so it's pretty good if you don't wanna deal with Revanced
uBlock on mobile Firefox gets rid of all the ads though.
That, and Revanced isn't difficult to set up, you don't even need root:
And you're done. Update once every 6-12 months or so.
You can also use the Orion browser with Ublock Origin on iPhone.
No time like the present to begin creating a European alternative, given the geopolitics of the times.
Please support peertube, it's kind of like the Lemmy of streaming videos in that it's a federated collection of providers.
A list of instances: https://joinpeertube.org/instances
e.g. peertube.tv
I keep noticing people in this thread recommending UBlock Origin, with others replying that they eventually got a popup to turn off their adblocker.
This is usually followed by replies mentioning they just click X (or add a UBlock filter on the popup), and go on with watching Youtube. No problem, right?
According to Ublock Origin's Redd*t Post, that is just the first warning stage; eventually the presentation of their anti-adblock message becomes more intrusive until you receive the "The in-player message. Playback is stopped."
I should know. I get that message on any Youtube video (while logged in), and it doesn't go away for several hours.
That said, my workaround (extremely hacky) was to find the RSS feeds for all of my channel subscriptions, and then add them to FreshRSS. That section of my RSS feed essentially acts like a Youtube subscription page, but not tied to an actual account.
On my computer: I watch them in a private browser Firefox profile I've dedicated solely to Youtube (and has all of the extensions already installed, of course).
On Android: I watch them using NewPipe.
Even quicker fix: logout.
Admittedly i'm not a huge youtube watcher, but since logging out there's not a single damned nag when i run a marathon
i dont log in, for the purposes of google gathering more data about you. and also i would get in the habit of commenting on videos, which i dont do anymore.
Same. I use it in a dedicated Firefox container, so if I ever get a nag, I'll clear the cores all cookies in that container and I assume that'll reset whatever that is.
Ublock orgins on Firefox has worked for me so far on both pc and mobile. No warnings.
I do also have umatrix on pc, but I can't really recommend it for everyone since it requires some setup on every web page which most people would find too annoying.
Previously I had the warnings until uBlock killed them. Only one has made it through in recent times, we'll see how things keep going.
Ubo and ff mobile: I got the warning for the first time yesterday. Closed ff completely and it went back to normal. I also run pihole too, so maybe a mix of them together has kept my account 'safe' still. And I'm still yt freemium. FF mobile with desktop site enabled allows for audio play back with screen off btw.
if this happens to me I just won't watch youtube anymore. It's mostly garbage content anyway.
Why are you censoring the word reddit? Is that a joke?
Damn, you pay and still get ads? Does that count as findom? Like it feels very cucky, doesn't it?
It's like cable TV, pay $100+/mo just to watch ads
Also starting to spread on the cheapest plans of streaming services like Prime and Netflix.
Wait, so I was right?
I will pay only when Google ensure that my data will not be used for any type of advertising or AI training (this obviously includes selling to third parties). Months ago I read around, I don’t know if it’s true, that even those with a premium account will see ads. If that proves true, it means I will never make the subscription. It’s pretty simple.
To remove ads subscribe to Youtube Premium Platinum Plutonium and select the Ad-Free! add-on (for only an additional $2.95/mo)*.
*promotional first-month price only; increases after 30 days to regular rate of $5.95/mo **
**with annual subscription only; per-month rate $7.95/mo ***
*** with VIP subscription only; regular rate $11.95/mo.
####These terms of service can only be updated by GOOGLE at anytime with or without notice. You hearby agree to this term of service and, any and all updates, without review, made by GOOGLE to the terms of service.####
Oh good, we're not up to having to provide bone marrow (yet).
Or use stube on android tv and recanced on phones. One of the reasons I can't go to iOS.
I had to go iOS because of… reasons,but you can sideload modded youtube app, with sponsorblock. exactly as on android,but with many headaches like token expiry every week and other bullshit issues like google not allowing IPAs directly in github repos.
Lame, but it can be done.
Adblock/revanced are working. Google’s ad revenue is getting squeezed and so they need to shoehorn more ads everywhere to get the same revenue levels, since so many people never see the ads.
Keep using them. You’re making business really difficult for scummy Google.
Adblock, maybe a noticeable fraction on desktop, but Revanced users are within a rounding error of the total users, surely?
I feel like both populations are now dwarfed by the numbers watching YT on their TV's built-in apps, which throw demented amounts of ads at you.
I’m dating this person and we were watching YT and she didn’t have any ad blocker up and I was fucking blown away
The $ revenue share to creators per video view has dropped, even though the percentage of Google's ad revenue shared with the creator has remained the same. So to me this means Google is earning less per video view. (That could also be just a result of the ad market in general collapsing, eg advertisers just pay less)
Also, Google has added new requirements to get the video share. You need to post new videos at a regular cadence, or they kick you out--even if your old videos are still getting views. (began being enforced in 2023, I think). Its another way they can keep their revenue numbers looking OK by cutting a cost associated with older videos.
Google has also escalated their efforts to make it more difficult to view content without also viewing the ads.
So maybe its wishful thinking, but I think they are feeling the squeeze.
Unfortunately unlike the reddit or twitter situations its significantly harder to accumulate enough fresh video content to attract the views necessary to get the ball rolling and make a shift away from YouTube.
Cable TV providers in the 70s: "No commercials when you pay for our services!"
Cable TV providers in the early 80s: "Ok, we actually meant no commercials on premium channels, but local channels will, and it's not our fault."
Cable TV providers in the late 80s: "Fine. What we meant was no commercials on movie channels."
Cable TV providers in the 90s: "Uhm, so only on-demand shows will be commercial free."
So what we need is a new disruptive media type that puts is on the head-end of the cycle again?
Nah. We need to hack the planet.
Probably 10 years until AR starts this cycle over.
Genuinely though, the point of YouTube premium is to get rid of the ads...
We seem to be making cable TV again where you pay a premium for the privilege of being advertised to
YT Premium has no ads. YT Lite does, just fewer of them (supposedly).
YouTube Premium Lite is Premium, it's in the name. I presume the OP is saying the only reason people buy Premium is to be rid of ads, therefore Lite is pointless.
It will literally never end.
This is why anyone who was excusing advertising at all is part of the problem and should be seen as a useful idiot.
Stop lowering your standards so people richer than you can be even richer.
There's one in the article comments. Talks about getting the material "dishonestly" and violating the TOS.
If they could they would only show you ads and charge you for the pleasure.
UBlockOrigim
wtf is premium lite?!!? Lmao
it’s the opposite of Economy Plus
Oh so you pay to be abused, gotcha.
freetube still works great! no ads, and an easy to use interface.
And it has an Android fork (FreeTube Android), and can have playlists, subscriptions etc. synced across devices with Syncthing. It does sometimes result in sync conflicts though, but if you reload it before using it on a device, you will be fine. Most sync conflicts I get are for history, and that's fine by me to lose some history.
Ironic that just yesterday I was getting blocked on youtube telling me that adblocking was illegal/against tos/whatever and that if i didnt want Ads I could subscribe to Youtube Premium.. only now to announce ads on premium.
What a fucking shithole company.
edit
and they continue to take no accountability for failing to police their own ads, thus creating the essential need for adblocking services in the first place.
WE WOULDNT BE BLOCKING ADS IF YOU REGULATED ADVERTISERS LIKE YOU ARE TRYING TO REGULATE VIEWERS.
WE WOULDNT BE BLOCKING ADS IF YOU REGULATED ADVERTISERS LIKE YOU ARE TRYING TO REGULATE VIEWERS.
I still would.
When options like uBlock and FreeTube no longer block ads, I'll stop watching YouTube. They'll never get a cent out of me.
If it weren't Google, I wouldn't be against paying. Fuck Google.
if ublock origin stops working, you can erase your youtube cookies or wait a few hours for a ublock origin update to work around it.
And with that I can confirm I will continue to use adblock.
I would actually pay for YT premium if it was reasonably priced and I think there are many like me. Why are they shooting themselves in the foot?
I actually paid for it for a bit after I got a few months free with a Pixel a while ago. And it was pretty good and reasonably priced.
Then they started removing features (no dislike bar for you lol) and raising the price and I'm never giving them a single goddamn cent or not using a block on their shit.
I've since cancelled and transitioned from workspace or whatever they call it now and use Revanced, ublock origin, etc. They actually had my money and they fucked it. Never again. Get fucked, Google and the shit huffing execs in charge of it.
It's never enough for these people. They want all of your money and they won't stop until they have it. Fucking blood suckers.
I'll never pay for until until 1. It's reasonably priced, 2. Downvotes are returned and 3 sponsor block is integrated into the app.
Can I add 4. the integrated video downloader actually downloads videos, in whatever format you would want, and with no internet connection required to watch them. This to me is still the biggest scam 'feature' of Youtube Premium. You can '''download''' videos, but not as eg. an mp4, but as an encrypted file only playable inside the Youtube app, and only if you connected to the internet in the last couple of days can you play it.
That's not downloading, that's just jacking my disk space to avoid buffering the video from Youtube's servers. That's not a feature, that's me paying for Youtube's benefit.
I cancelled and haven't paid for Premium in years because of it. When someone scams me out of features I paid for, I don't reward that shit until they either stop lying in their feature list, or actually start delivering.
If you use yt music and watch YouTube as your main entertainment, it's well worth it imo.
With that said, I've been degoogling and this is probably the one I won't be able to break.
Because of the desire for infinite growth. The line must go up 💹
Why? Greed.
And they're not even shy about it.
I made this comment some time ago on another thread about YouTube ads.
With the sheer number of concurrent users, worldwide, 24/7, YouTube could show one ad every three or four videos, and still make a mind boggling amount of money.
But if some money is good, more must be better, right?
Same. They should have a lower tier where your first N hours of watch time have no ads. I don't watch a ton, so that would probably convince me to pay.
Youtube has ads?
🤷(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases)
Imagine paying for "Premium Lite"
Had a "youtube doesnt allow adblock" pop up yesterday, set up freetube. No login required, even has a subscription import tool. So far so great.
Had my first ones yesterday too.
I'll use FreeTube if I have to, though I don't quite like the UI, but cleaning the cache seems to have done the trick for now.
They are really dedicated to helping foster the pirate side of the Web, aren't they?
WTF is Premium Lite?
Premium but without the music. And with ads apparently.
Before this change it was with ads for music content.
I guess it’s their “pay for ads” tier which sounds fucking stupid to me.
Premium Sike.
It's Premium, but not really.
YouTube already had too many ads, and I stopped using as a result. That was several months ago. I guess I'll just have to stop using it even harder.
I'm self-hosting Invidious... I get a nice, free YouTube experience without ever visiting YouTube.
Wasn't aware of this, that's awesome. Unfortunately it would need to be able to cast to various HTPCs and be easy enough for my family to use to fully replace YouTube in my house.
Youtube is telling me daily that they'll soon disable my youtube because I have an ad blocker. Still waiting for it to actually happen.
I've been using Ublock origin for years and I've never seen a message like that
I don't even login so I don't know what they are going to disable.
I’ve been using Ublock origin for years
Same here. I started seeing them this week.
Same. The last time I saw an YouTube ad was around 2015.
For your web browser, don’t use Chrome. Use Firefox with uBlock, NoScript, Sponsorblock, and a VPN like Mullvad.
For Smart TV usage, block your TV’s built in “smart functionality” and its access to the internet via MAC address blacklist on your router. Also use SmartTubeNext on a Shield Pro with FLauncher instead of Google’s.
For mobile, use 3rd party YouTube clients on your device like Vanced on Android, and Unwatched on iOS.
Same here. And I’m waiting for them to finally do it because it’ll free up so much of my time. I might start reading books again.
Also, it’s the last Google-service I’m using. So, banning me from it will allow me to finally delete my Google account.
Or, and hear me out: just install a browser plugin and forget ads exist.
I hesitate to name extensions names, but I’ve literally never seen an ad on YouTube.
These companies don’t respect us, so I don’t feel the need to respect them by allowing them to force their meaningless bullshit down my throat.
I don’t use it that much, but you better believe if I go to YouTube to watch a video, that video is the only thing I’m watching.
This ain't reddit. You can freely name extension names here.
uBlock Origin
Oh I know, I’ve been here for years despite the age of my account. I just migrated from lemm.ee
I tend not to like to name these types of extensions because more exposure puts them at risk, and they’re super easy to find anyway.
Firefox + ublock origin + sponsorblock and I haven't seen an ad on youtube in all the years since I started that combo.
Don't forget about ReVanced and SmartTubeNext (for smart TVs)
Yesterday evening I got a pop-up that I should disable ublock from youtube. Refreshing page got rid of that but apparently it's time for me to run some updates on this thing. I've seen that few times, google changes something and as I'm a bit lazy to run updates my system sometimes gives the pop up.
They're trying to block adblockers again, it seems. I got the "adblockers are not allowed" popup again recently.
Oh no... Anyways,
Adds a filter for the pop-up
Lul I have uBlock origin and no ads for free
My ublock origin was having issues today and I had to scale back some of the stuff being blocked.
Most of the time reloading the filters fixes uBlock Origin not working
My ublock origin was having issues today
time to open Freetube and paste the link
I think I'm understanding the playbook here.
Eventually YouTube will cost 89.99 a month and also be full of ads.
Then they will be disrupted by some startup company that will have to fight uphill for search and bandwidth access through Google's monopolistic front door.
Years later a court case will be decided and the new guy will be up and running a free service with a few ads or 1.99 a month for no ads!
And then we get to go through it all again.
There is no end to the greed of those with millions and especially billions and they aren't content to just keep running a profitable business, they have to get all the money.
This is just the history of humanity and finances forever, the one saving grace in all this is every big business gets complacent in its money making and seeks ever increasing profit (and becomes management heavy) until a young upstart finds a way to do it a lot better and cheaper and disrupts the market. Google has become the big lumbering unable to change organisation seeking maximum profit now, its become IBM.
Ah, the grand circle of enshittification.
YouTube has so many ads now it's ridiculous. Yesterday YouTube threatened me with the popup even though I have UBlock on Firefox. I've seen 10 ads on a 20 minute video. As if the un-skipabble 2 minute long ads that pause when you switch tabs wasn't bad enough, YouTube is now putting ads in their Premium.
YouTube is in dire need of a big competitor and fast.
Yeah. Lately in 20min chunks I've been getting about 4 ad breaks, so if it's an hour+ in length...
And some of those 'ads' are 3min, 5min...one was almost 2hrs! Yes, there's the skip button, but if it's that long then it's not an ad and it has no place in an ad break.
Well, I'm still happy that my grandfathered $7.99 plan from the GPM days still holds up, fully ad-free.
Watch your card on file. I had the whole enchalada once and loved using the music app and no ads. Card expired for one payment, sub cancelled, and I fixed it immediately. They wouldn't give it back to me, and refused to refund the larger payment for just Youtube.
It's a sad state of affairs. I would pay for youtube in a heartbeat if it wasn't connected to the biggest spyware company in the world. But now, even while paying you still get ads and they still track you. The people working at Alphabet are bad and should feel bad.
It feels insane to me that you're paying and you still get ads. I fucking refuse to do that
This is literately the equivalent of cable.
No, it's worse. With a cable DVR you can skip all commercials.
DVR is the equivalent of having a yt-dlp frontend that includes SponsorBlock.
Can you, though? Because I remember when DVB started in Europe, they’ve sent a signal during commercials that makes your device block the fast forward feature.
I don’t know whether that’s still a thing. But you needed a hacked firmware on your TV / set top box to allow to FFWD through commercials back then.
I tried watching a 30 minute video on YouTube the other day and it injected ads every 1 minute for the entire video. Fuck Google. Fuck YouTube. Fuck Alphabet.
I used to watch YouTube with ads since they added ads. It wasn’t too bad.
Then during the start of Covid tons of people watched YouTube and googles greedy eyes lit up… they went from 1-3 (skipable) ads per video to ads every minute of video. I was like WHAT THE F&$@… then installed U-block.
I couldn’t believe their greed.
I also spent Covid downloading (yt-dlp) every video I wanted to archive for offline (never know if they will someday block downloads), I’m also worried for a time we loose YouTube. 99% of the things I loved about the internet is dead now, someday it will happen to YouTube too.
An interesting component here is that it's possible that the video creator is responsible for this silly level of ads, but it's impossible to know. Creators can select points in the video where ads will happen, which they can use to preserve the video's flow as much as possible. In theory, you can even select to not monetise your video at all, which is a useful tool if the topic is something particularly dense or sensitive. In practice, I've seen plenty of creators apologizing when an inappropriate ad plays at a sensitive part of the video, despite them having tried to disable ads on the video. It must suck to have so little power over one's own work.
In your case, I suspect this was a creator choosing to maximally monetise their video, given the regularity and number of ads. However, it's possible that this is a 100% "Fuck Google" situation, given how opaque they are. I find it frustrating that when we have poor experiences like yours, we don't even have a clear target to get angry at. It leads to accountability so diffuse that it's like homeopathy. Getting angry doesn't necessarily help change things (at least individually), but it can be incredibly cathartic even then
