10 mo. ago • 97%

YouTube just made it harder to avoid ads with a tiny skip button

www.androidpolice.com YouTube just made it harder to avoid ads with a tiny skip button

YouTube starts making everyone’s Skip button for ads smaller

Technology @lemmy.world YouTube just made it harder to avoid ads with a tiny skip button

57 comments

And this is why we continue to use ad blockers. The entire internet is worse without them.

116
- Something like less than 5% of users use adblockers - and yet that's still too many for youtube. They just can't have a 95% revenue stream, they have to ruin what little tech credibility they had left and ruin it for that tiny 5%. I hope this only encourages more robust ad blockers.
  
  68
  
  Right! Google acting like they are losing billions a month due to adblockers when in reality it’s like .2% of their total profits and they STILL foaming at the mouth.
  
  🖕
  
  44
  
  In fairness, those 5% of users probably make up a larger portion of views than their non-blocking counterparts…
  
  Wait… never mind. Fuck fairness. Fuck Google. Fuck YouTube.
  
  15
  
  These tech companies have learned they can get away it. Think of how many people were password sharing on Netflix? How many people were using unofficial Reddit apps? Tiny fractions of the userbase but they never get any financial blowback from stamping them out, so they're going to continue to do that
  
  9
  
  I put a relative's mobile phone on NextDNS to block ads for them, and the came back a couple days later noting how weird the ad-free experience was. Thankfully they didn't want to revert, but yeah, most people are way into advertiser Stockholm Syndrome at this point.
  
  I think I've been blocking/combating internet ads for 20+ years at this point.
  
  6
- uBlock Origin represent!
  
  10
- I use YouTube mainly on my fire stick and phone. Are there any adblockers for those that actually work? Even on PC I've installed ad blockers on Firefox and they don't seem to work at all
  
  3
  
  Ublock origin should work for Firefox on PC. For your fire stick you could try Smart Tube
  
  4
i miss when people who made websites genuinely wanted what's best for their users

82
- Yeah, geocities was great!
  
  21
  
  YTMNDs are still the pinnacle of web design, change my mind
  
  17
  
  The charm of the early WWW.
  
  9
- Still exists. It's what I do for a living.
  
  7
  
  Tell us more
  
  3
My wife turned off her adblocker so she could watch some videos.

Within 20 minutes I heard tobacco ads, gambling ads, alcohol ads, and some ads that sounded like outright scams.

It's a moral imperative to use an adblocker at this point.

51
- Are tobacco ads legal where you live? Not sure I've ever even seen one in my life.
  
  5
  
  They don't have to be legal. In Finland we are getting YouTube ads for a sports betting website. That's illegal. (Only the nationally regulated gambling monopoly can do that, and even they have massive restrictions on what kind of advertising they can run.)
  
  In the off chance that you can report the ad to YouTube (can't do that on TV or Android), YouTube has nuked the ad. Doesn't matter. The ad has been submitted via bazillion different advertiser accounts.
  
  9
lol, hilarious, reader mode it is then

32
- Reader mode is a necessity at this point. I don't even try to read articles without it anymore.
  
  19
- Fuck that Admiral antiadblock.
  
  7
The skip button was already too small, so of course they had to make it even smaller. YouTube's usability on Android is already terrible enough, which is pretty spectacular considering YouTube and Android are made by the same company. The seek bar barely works. The video end screen hides the de-maximise button. Nobody at Google has heard of the concept that controls at the edge of the screen are harder to aim accurately at. Just to scratch the surface!

15
- Nobody at Google has heard of the concept that controls at the edge of the screen are harder to aim accurately at.
  
  Interestingly, that's the exact opposite of how it works on non-touch interfaces. The edges are prime control areas for pointer-driven interfaces.
  
  Slight challenge to optimise a UX for both.
  
  3
- Pixel 7 and up got rid of the back button and made it so you can just pull from either side. I swipe "back" way too often when I miss tiny sliders. The option to use a regular set of bottom buttons makes them as ugly as possible, too, permanently taking up space in a solid white bar. Such ui shit
  
  3
- Their while goal is to make the experience so terrible that you pay for YouTube Premium.
  
  1
- The horrible app experience is what made me switch to Invidious two years ago, and its not even an app!
  
  funny enough when I switched to Invidious and when videos would sometimes not load, I found that YouTube's website on mobile was miles better than their native app.
  
  1
I'm all about malicious compliance.

I let the ads run, after I've switched countries with my VPN. Best of luck trying to sell me something in Estonian, Finnish, Portuguese, Thai, etc.

13
YouTube ReVanced, smarttube next, and I think peer tube though I haven’t used that one, all working wonderfully on android tablets, phones, and chromecast with google TV. Also, I am having 0 issue using Firefox and ublock/sponsor block on the computer.

11
Honestly, it doesn't look that smaller. They probably just wanted to give it that rounded-edge treatment.

8
I just changed my dns server and I haven't seen ads yet. So...

5
I've noticed that some videos randomly won't start with Firefox on Android. I have to fast forward and then it will load. I'm guessing it's trying to play an ad, gets blocked, and just retries instead of starting the video. Eventually theres gonna be an add on that automatically starts videos 5 seconds ahead to avoid the opening ad all together.

5
- Have you tried ReVanced or ReVanced Extended?
  
  7
  
  I've heard of it, but havent tried it yet. It hasn't been enough of a problem for me to start looking, but, looking at it now, this just might be what I need. Thanks
  
  5
I think YouTube third party clients should get federation and there own content

4
On a related note, anybody else having problems with uBlock on Firefox today?

2
- Nope, just checked and not seeing any ads on channels that I assume have them.
  
  3
  
  I’ve been getting YouTube blocking the videos. I can watch on Freetube, just wondering.
  
  2
- Ublock is different than ublock origin. They are not the same thing.
  
  1
!(https://files.catbox.moe/ikiskg.jpeg)

1
...
has anyone here actually looked at the images in this article
the buttons are practically the same size, its just one is rounded

1
- It Is literally just rounded edges, you're right. People gotta have pitchforks for anything I guess.
  
  Guys, if you're so upset over a tiny change on the skip ad button graphic then you should probably look into using an ad blocker. Just throwing that out there lol
  
  5
Youtube has lost me as a user. I'm totally fed up with being force fed garbage ads all the time when I'm just trying to click on something informative. Forget it. I can get my info elsewhere and i do not need Youtube at all. One of the biggest joys of death is going to be never ever having to see another god damned "Liberty Mutual" or "Verizon" ad again in all eternity. That's one thing I'm truly looking forward to!!!

0
- Go out and make your own video storage and streaming service then.
  
  With blackjack and hookers
  
  -1
  
  Hmmm that sounds great to me! When can I get the hookers? I'm all for it!
  
  1

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