For us who use ad blockers on our Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Mac browsers

[Billy F 1988]

If your Google account is linked with your YouTube account and you're running an ad blocker of any brand, regardless of what browser or OS you're using, YouTube immediately blocks video playback unless you disable said ad blocker or whitelist YouTube, despite the fact that, hey, ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS WATCH THE GOD DANG VIDEO, NOT A MARATHON OF ADS!!!!

Oh, and that's despite the fact that YouTube's revenue is owned by, guess who? THE GOOGLE INVESTORS!!! So, the age of watching YouTube videos for free is nearing death's door mat at the moment; I mean, DUH! Hasn't that been the case since, what, TWO THOUSAND FRICKIN' NINE?!!! It's only becoming more obvious the more you look into it.

Programmers at YouTube have put together an algorithm that seeks out users who run any ad blocker and stops playback immediately forcing them to turn it off, uninstall it, whitelist it, and so on, therefore forcing garbage ads down peoples' throats with every subsequent click. Free YouTube has become Pay-Per-Click YouTube.

Here's the "So what?!" part of this - If you're running an ad blocker that YouTube hasn't caught in its dragnet yet and you haven't got that ominous "Ad blockers violate Terms of Service" message, rub 'ya damn belly for luck y'all. Perhaps you may have a work-around trick to fool the algorithm into thinking you're not running it. But like all work-arounds, the empty suits at *cough*GOOGLETube*cough* will fight back with one of their own.

Since discovering this, I've broken the link between my Google account and YouTube, and haven't had the problem since. But that may only be temporary.

[Scott5114]

I have uBlock Origin, and usually it's just a matter of doing a cache purge followed by a blocking rule update. Then the moneyfucker box goes away for a week or so, until Google decides they want to blow a few grand paying people to circumvent that too, and then the cycle of stupidity repeats.

If for some reason uBlock Origin stops working, I'm probably more apt to invest in a Pi-hole than forking over money to Google to avoid the ads. A Pi-hole is a computer you route all of your network through that does nothing but void incoming and outgoing ad data. Maybe when I get a new computer in a few months, I'll use the old one as a Pi-hole.

[vdeane]

I run Vivaldi and while my Google and YouTube accounts are linked, I pretty much always browse videos in incognito (I only use the account for favorites and subscriptions), so I haven't seen this yet.  That said, I have seen something where I'll often have to open videos in a new tab or they'll instead end up trying to load up something 15 seconds long that stays blank and unplaying until the regular video plays at some point.  I would presume that's related to this issue.

[jp the roadgeek]

Brave Browser does the trick for me. Sick of watching 2 minutes of ads to watch a 30 second video.

[HighwayStar]

I would welcome enough of an exodus from YouTube over this to stimulate a decent alternative platform. The nature of networks does strongly favor monopolies, but I think YouTube is past its prime and needs some competition.

By far the most absurd of their pleading messages played while I was watching a video of a creator who has been demonetized anyway, claiming that ad revenue supports creators. No, it does not support this creator you lying dirtbags. 

[ErmineNotyours]

Ad revenue does support creators.  So I must be wrong because I subscribe to YouTube and my money goes to them.  Creators get no ad views from me.

[kalvado]

Ad revenue does support creators.  So I must be wrong because I subscribe to YouTube and my money goes to them.  Creators get no ad views from me.

Problem of the digital world - price people are willing to pay and price content providers want to charge don't quite match.
I assume those ads are not very efficient, and I value my time a bit more than the other side (and so do I)

[Stephane Dumas]

I would welcome enough of an exodus from YouTube over this to stimulate a decent alternative platform. The nature of networks does strongly favor monopolies, but I think YouTube is past its prime and needs some competition.

By far the most absurd of their pleading messages played while I was watching a video of a creator who has been demonetized anyway, claiming that ad revenue supports creators. No, it does not support this creator you lying dirtbags. 

There was once Liveleak but they closed. Dailymotion was created a bit after Youtube but except for the French speaking communities, it wasn't big as Youtube.

[Rothman]

I would welcome enough of an exodus from YouTube over this to stimulate a decent alternative platform. The nature of networks does strongly favor monopolies, but I think YouTube is past its prime and needs some competition.

By far the most absurd of their pleading messages played while I was watching a video of a creator who has been demonetized anyway, claiming that ad revenue supports creators. No, it does not support this creator you lying dirtbags. 

There was once Liveleak but they closed. Dailymotion was created a bit after Youtube but except for the French speaking communities, it wasn't big as Youtube.

Dailymotion was a wonderful bastion of piracy for a while...but then they clamped down on it.

[zachary_amaryllis]

If your Google account is linked with your YouTube account and you're running an ad blocker of any brand, regardless of what browser or OS you're using, YouTube immediately blocks video playback unless you disable said ad blocker or whitelist YouTube, despite the fact that, hey, ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS WATCH THE GOD DANG VIDEO, NOT A MARATHON OF ADS!!!!

Oh, and that's despite the fact that YouTube's revenue is owned by, guess who? THE GOOGLE INVESTORS!!! So, the age of watching YouTube videos for free is nearing death's door mat at the moment; I mean, DUH! Hasn't that been the case since, what, TWO THOUSAND FRICKIN' NINE?!!! It's only becoming more obvious the more you look into it.

Programmers at YouTube have put together an algorithm that seeks out users who run any ad blocker and stops playback immediately forcing them to turn it off, uninstall it, whitelist it, and so on, therefore forcing garbage ads down peoples' throats with every subsequent click. Free YouTube has become Pay-Per-Click YouTube.

Here's the "So what?!" part of this - If you're running an ad blocker that YouTube hasn't caught in its dragnet yet and you haven't got that ominous "Ad blockers violate Terms of Service" message, rub 'ya damn belly for luck y'all. Perhaps you may have a work-around trick to fool the algorithm into thinking you're not running it. But like all work-arounds, the empty suits at *cough*GOOGLETube*cough* will fight back with one of their own.

Since discovering this, I've broken the link between my Google account and YouTube, and haven't had the problem since. But that may only be temporary.

I've been using Ultimate Adblocker, and have had zero issues.

[SectorZ]

So I use Firefox with Ad Block Plus and Ghostery. For about a week, I was getting the block on YouTube, so I just opened the video in a private window and problem solved.

However, yesterday, if I opened YouTube the whole damn site refused to load, even in a private window. If I whitelisted YouTube in both ABP and Ghostery, it worked. Instead of capitulating, I found "Adblocker for YouTube" as a new add-on. It still blocks me from watching videos with the private window trick working, but at least the damn site renders.

YouTube is Google, and the malware delivery via Google ads is something I am not risking. When they get their shit together and make that ecosystem bulletproof, I'll reconsider the ad thing.

[hotdogPi]

YouTube is Google, and the malware delivery via Google ads is something I am not risking. When they get their shit together and make that ecosystem bulletproof, I'll reconsider the ad thing.

I'm on Safari. I don't use an adblocker, and I've never received malware from ads. There is the very occasional automatic download, but since I have it set up to ask me where to put downloaded files, it gives me the option to cancel rather than put it somewhere.

That's not to say there are no malware ads — they exist, but the vast majority only if you click on them.

[Scott5114]

Malware is defined as "software that is specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system."

Showing me content I didn't ask for is disruptive.

Therefore any software that displays advertising is malware.

[hotdogPi]

Web browsers aren't the source of the ads. Websites are, and those aren't software.

[kphoger]

Malware is defined as "software that is specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system."

Showing me content I didn't ask for is disruptive.

Therefore any software that displays advertising is malware.

Web browsers aren't the source of the ads. Websites are, and those aren't software.

They also tend to disrupt your web surfing experience, not the computer system.

[LilianaUwU]

Trillion dollar company, by the way.

[thspfc]

I don't understand the outrage. Nobody is in the wrong here - not the viewers, not YouTube. From the viewer's prespective, if there are ways to improve viewing experience by blocking ads via a third-party program, go ahead. From YouTube's prespective, both YouTube itself and the content creators that the platform relies on are losing a lot of money as a result of these adblockers. If they can disable the blockers they will, and frankly I'm not sure how they let them go on for this long. I wasn't bent out of shape over people using adblockers, but I also certainly won't shed a tear over those people now having to watch ads to support the creators of the videos they're enjoying. If it's that important, you're always free to stop watching.

Perhaps I'm biased as someone who has personally lost money from YT viewers using adblockers - my channel isn't huge at all, but a few of my videos hit big last year and the additional amount I would have made off that if not for adblockers could have bought me a round-trip flight or a couple weeks of groceries.

Trillion dollar company, by the way.

Sooner or later we'll realize that companies will continue to act in their own best financial interest regardless of how much we whine about it on the internet.

[Rothman]

I don't understand the outrage. Nobody is in the wrong here - not the viewers, not YouTube. From the viewer's prespective, if there are ways to improve viewing experience by blocking ads via a third-party program, go ahead. From YouTube's prespective, both YouTube itself and the content creators that the platform relies on are losing a lot of money as a result of these adblockers. If they can disable the blockers they will, and frankly I'm not sure how they let them go on for this long. I wasn't bent out of shape over people using adblockers, but I also certainly won't shed a tear over those people now having to watch ads to support the creators of the videos they're enjoying. If it's that important, you're always free to stop watching.

Perhaps I'm biased as someone who has personally lost money from YT viewers using adblockers - my channel isn't huge at all, but a few of my videos hit big last year and the additional amount I would have made off that if not for adblockers could have bought me a round-trip flight or a couple weeks of groceries.

Trillion dollar company, by the way.

Sooner or later we'll realize that companies will continue to act in their own best financial interest regardless of how much we whine about it on the internet.

...and that such companies are exploiting content creators much worse than anyone using an adblocker is.

[ErmineNotyours]

Web browsers aren't the source of the ads. Websites are, and those aren't software.

When I finally got a smartphone years after everyone else, the first use for it was being able to read newspaper comics while waiting for the bus.  But instead of seeing the content I kept getting BS like the "Low battery virus.  Download this patch to fix."  And it didn't go away.  Once I clicked past that ad another one came up to take its place.  So then I downloaded Chrome for my phone rather than use the default Samsung browser, and the problem went away.  Some companies are so stupid.

[kalvado]

I don't understand the outrage. Nobody is in the wrong here - not the viewers, not YouTube. From the viewer's prespective, if there are ways to improve viewing experience by blocking ads via a third-party program, go ahead. From YouTube's prespective, both YouTube itself and the content creators that the platform relies on are losing a lot of money as a result of these adblockers. If they can disable the blockers they will, and frankly I'm not sure how they let them go on for this long. I wasn't bent out of shape over people using adblockers, but I also certainly won't shed a tear over those people now having to watch ads to support the creators of the videos they're enjoying. If it's that important, you're always free to stop watching.

Perhaps I'm biased as someone who has personally lost money from YT viewers using adblockers - my channel isn't huge at all, but a few of my videos hit big last year and the additional amount I would have made off that if not for adblockers could have bought me a round-trip flight or a couple weeks of groceries.

Trillion dollar company, by the way.

Sooner or later we'll realize that companies will continue to act in their own best financial interest regardless of how much we whine about it on the internet.

...and that such companies are exploiting content creators much worse than anyone using an adblocker is.

Creators are free to move to TikTok. Do they have any payout programs, btw?

[thspfc]

I don't understand the outrage. Nobody is in the wrong here - not the viewers, not YouTube. From the viewer's prespective, if there are ways to improve viewing experience by blocking ads via a third-party program, go ahead. From YouTube's prespective, both YouTube itself and the content creators that the platform relies on are losing a lot of money as a result of these adblockers. If they can disable the blockers they will, and frankly I'm not sure how they let them go on for this long. I wasn't bent out of shape over people using adblockers, but I also certainly won't shed a tear over those people now having to watch ads to support the creators of the videos they're enjoying. If it's that important, you're always free to stop watching.

Perhaps I'm biased as someone who has personally lost money from YT viewers using adblockers - my channel isn't huge at all, but a few of my videos hit big last year and the additional amount I would have made off that if not for adblockers could have bought me a round-trip flight or a couple weeks of groceries.

Trillion dollar company, by the way.

Sooner or later we'll realize that companies will continue to act in their own best financial interest regardless of how much we whine about it on the internet.

...and that such companies are exploiting content creators much worse than anyone using an adblocker is.

By . . . being for-profit?

What is the desired endgame here? Media being ran entirely by the government or not existing at all?

[Scott5114]

Web browsers aren't the source of the ads. Websites are, and those aren't software.

Websites are absolutely software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript

Sooner or later we'll realize that companies will continue to act in their own best financial interest regardless of how much we whine about it on the internet.

This doesn't mean I have to feel sorry for them, or enable them, or encourage it, or agree with it, or facilitate it.

Creators are free to move to TikTok. Do they have any payout programs, btw?

TikTok is not suitable for the long-form videos that make up most of YouTube.

[thspfc]

Web browsers aren't the source of the ads. Websites are, and those aren't software.

Websites are absolutely software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript

Sooner or later we'll realize that companies will continue to act in their own best financial interest regardless of how much we whine about it on the internet.

This doesn't mean I have to feel sorry for them, or enable them, or encourage it, or agree with it, or facilitate it.

I never said you had to do any of those things. I simply said that it should have been expected that this would happen and getting bent out of shape over it is immature.

[Scott5114]

What is the desired endgame here?

Death to capitalism.

[thspfc]

What is the desired endgame here?

Death to capitalism.

Dream on.