For context I'm in the US. The last time I used YouTube without an ad blocker, there were 2 ads back to back, and way too frequently. I tried watching on my PlayStation tonight, and not only are they more frequent, they've increased in quantity by 150%. It's also very common for the last ad to last 2 minutes to over an hour long. What the actual fuck, why would anyone watch YouTube without an ad blocker at this point? It's literally unwatchable
Edit: the amount of unsolicited advice in the comments is unreal. I don't get ads on my phone or on desktop, I'm very aware of how to block them. I simply won't watch YouTube on my PlayStation anymore. I'm not looking for suggestions, please stop with the recommendations.
Geez, so many entitled people in this thread. If Google didn't get their yearly revenue growth, their poor execs wouldn't be able to afford their 3rd yacht! Stop being selfish and subscribe to premium already! /s
I was visiting relatives this Christmas and wanted to watch some of my YouTube videos on their SmartTV. I have watched YouThe with ads on occasion throughout the years...usually when watching some video on a relative's device or school or work computer or something. They are annoying, but mostly fairly manageable. So I started up a 20 minute vid from a youtuber I like.
I shit you not...within the first 5 fucking minutes of the video, there were 5 separate ad breaks. And each ad was going to play for minutes on end if I never hit the skip button.
Yep, you read that right. One ad per minute. I am NOT exaggerating. I counted them and watched the video timestamps.
I almost could not believe what I was seeing. My mind was fucking blown. Never have I ever experienced that egregious level of ads. It made the content I was trying to view literally unwatchable and I switched off the video.
To OP, I'd highly recommend getting an Android tv device like a modern Chromecast (not the old models...needs to run android). They are relatively inexpensive and make viewing content on TVs a sane experience. I think I maybe got mine for $40 or something. Install SmartTube Next and you'll have no ads. Works fantastic. You set it up once and never worry about it again.
I read your edit and thought "how bad could it be?"
I started reading the comments and it was way worse than I thought.
The most upvoted comments all display a great deal of "I only read 2 words of your original post" energy.
I didn't bother with an adblocker until recently myself because I was okay with a couple of ads or mentioning sponsors.
Then, one day, the ads just multiplied on every video. It was that sudden for me. After a couple of days, I downloaded apps for my phone and TV and it's been wonderful.
I'll watch YT in all its horribleness on my consoles if I'm looking for something game-related and I don't want to get up and grab my phone.,
I have a theory that they want you to get so annoyed that you suck it up and pay for premium.
Instead, I decreased my YouTube consumption, turned on my adblocker for low-quality content, or content from an unmonetized creator, or content showing something technically illegal (game OSTs or a motorcycle review involving going 2x the speed limit), and donated to some patreons and purchased a year of Nebula.
Already, I see many of my favourite channels being restricted (one Ukrainian blogger) whilst the completely moronic, yet dangerous conspiracy theory/Flat-Earthers flourish.
Meanwhile, the most common thing we see is the push to sign up and pay them - yet with all the censorship (not simply censored for non-paying customers to allow the advertisements) it is not a viable option.
Thankfully I still use a Desktop - with Firefox and decent extras the actual ads are still not affecting me at all, but YouTube's policies really are.
They are completely above the law - they don't need to respect their own TOS (the reasons many people are blocked is more related to some secret narrative, and it goes against their own stated terms).
There is no way to appeal outside YouTube, and good luck with any idea of taking them to court for removing your income stream, or censoring a very useful source of information whilst spamming you with algorithms that treat you like Spongebob, and expect you to watch completely moronic content.
I suggest YouTube is a conspiracy to destroy the world, starting with the world population's ability to think.
Quick PSA: they don’t currently block VPNs, so you can sign up for an account in a cheap country (I picked Nigeria) and use a foreign currency debit card (I use Revolut) to get Premium for like £1.50 a month for my entire family.
If they close that loophole then I think I’ll be done with it, the ads make it basically unusable these days.
Same for me on Chromecast, it's pretty much unwatchable overnight, started probably about a week ago. I'm to lazy to set up adblocking for my full network, and I was fine watching the skippable 15s ads, and the occasional longer ones, but currently I mostly get at least a full minute of ads on my TV.
I'm watching YouTube on my LG TV quite often. It's not unbearable yet. There's never more than 2 ads. Never more than 30 seconds in total, otherwise it's always skippable. Skippable ads now and then.
It's not great, but not terrible. I'm based in the EU for context.
I stream through Roku (great for plex but no way to block ads on YouTube) and the ads got so bad I paid for premium.
I hate it because I’m reinforcing their shitty business choices but it was like being bullied everyday.
YouTube is all I really use for entertainment aside from plex so that’s been one silver lining.
instead use youtube via your browser with adblock (for instance safari + adblock pro) and create a shortcut on your homescreen. you can use youtube just like in the app, you won't have any ads and you also can play videos with your screen turned off
Seems users get used to that shit and they don't think its too bad. I'm also shocked that people can get used to it, but it was the same in the 80s with cable TV having tons of ads. People actually thought it was fine to wait during 7 minute ad breaks several times through a TV show or movie. Because they increased the ads slowly, just like YouTube does.
Haven't had more than 2 ads per ad break yet but have seen the frequency go up on some videos. Some videos have only a beginning ad while some have 2 or 3+ ad breaks. The extremely popular youtubers usually get the 3+ ads from my experience.
The ad duration also went up to 20-30 seconds with 10 seconds sprinkled in. It doesn't matter if I back out of videos anymore, it seems that the beginning ads are fixed to whatever duration they are. All of this happened when they rolled out the buggy circle timer.
I have no doubt that this will get even worse next year. It's just on the tv I use the youtube app, so if push comes to shove I will go back to fully using newpipe.
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