**this seems to be the theme of the season mateys**

Google is an ad company. To them, a web browser is nothing more than a tool for collecting user data and delivering ads.
When you use a chromium based browser you are allowing google, an ad company, to decide what the future of web browsing should look like. And this is the result.
Firefox is the ONLY browser which is genuinely competing with google. Do you think ad and tracking blockers are going to get better or worse once they die out, and literally every major browser is running on chromium?
Use firefox and u-block origin. Enjoy a superior, ad free, browsing experience, and support the future of an open web.
- It's so encouraging to hear so many pro Firefox opinions lately. Then I remember I'm logged into the pirate instance of a federated platform and anti-corporate sentiment is probably as high as it gets.
  Sadly most younger people haven't even heard of Firefox.
  
  Most young people are basically tech illiterate. Yeah they are fantastic with new apps and phones. But have zero idea how any of it works under the hood.
  Ask them to transfer a file from a computer to a USB drive, most will not know how. They have no idea how a file system is structured or even that an app has to specifically made for different platforms.. e.g. Facebook app on Apple is completely different from Facebook on Android and the two will contain different bugs and different settings.
  We are almost back to default browser = internet
  
  Most younger people have heard of it. Using what came with their computer is just easier to them though.
  
  Right? After years of feeling like the only pro-firefox person left on the planet, the pro Firefox sentiment lately is a breath of fresh air, to say the least.
  
  Well, we are in the worst cyberpunk timeline so...
  
  It's my preferred mobile browser because you can install ublock origin and other privacy extensions which is pretty unique
  
  Young people seem to proudly go along with the biggest name, which is really sad. They think there’s merit in that, conforming means acceptance.
  Meanwhile, anytime I encounter a young non-conformist doing something very contrarian, it gives me some hope for the future. Because 99% of society is open-armedly embracing dystopia because the one thing they hate more than anything is the burden of independent thought and self-determinism. To intelligent freethinking individuals, seeing it play out is a waking nightmare.
  
  It's my preferred mobile browser because you can install ublock origin and other privacy extensions which is pretty unique
  
  Sadly, at the end of the day I prefer edge because it has ~~cloud voices~~ is slightly faster

More people should try out Tubesync. It's a tool you can host yourself that essentially uses yt-dl as a backend and lets you subscribe to channels, and it'll download videos as they come out. Gets you away from the ads and you can archive content you like forever.
https://github.com/meeb/tubesync
- I wonder if they'll ever make that impossible. I used to go on a couple of 6 hour drives twice a week for a long time. A lot of the drive didn't have cell service, as it was thru a bunch of mountains. I ended up making a python script that downloaded podcast episodes to listen to, and to force my brother to watch Your Mom's House, when he was with me on the drive.
  It was surprisingly simple to do this.
  
  Imagine if widevine are required to watch any video, that would be disaster.
- Similar to that you've got tubearchivist, because it's good to have options
  https://www.tubearchivist.com/
- That's pretty cool, thanks

If you're demanding I watch ads, it's not "free". you're demanding my time and probably attention.
I really think we need to stop with this idea that "Something is free" because no money is exchanged. Some stuff ARE free, there are repos on git, where you can download software, there are websites that ask for nothing. However Gmail, Youtube, reddit, and the rest are not "Free" just because they aren't directly asking for money.

NewPipe for android is still working. Much better than the official app IMO, no ads and it actually shows the videos you subscribed to.
- YouTube ReVanced has been fine for me too
  
  NewPipe is FOSS and available in F-droid, which is a plus in my book.
  
  Youtube Revanced has a habit of going into perpetual loading for me, so I've got both it and the normal YouTube app as backup
- Never heard of NewPipe, thanks for sharing

I'd say to you all: get used to bombshells dropping! At some point the investor pyramid scheme will go crashing down. It might be now. All those companies were on borrowed time. Until investors realised that "data" isn't valuable on its own - it's what you make of it. There needs to be a product that generates revenue. Spoiler alert, it is hard to come up with a business plan that takes plain usage data and makes the technical challenges worthwhile to squeeze money from it. I can feel it myself as data scientist. The honeymoon's over, investors want to see ROI.
I mean this cycle will probably recover in a few years when the markets recover but still - some lessons stick
- Holy shit! Your post made me realize that we are in Dot-com bubble burst 2.0
  It's the exact same thing, everyone and their dog, had to have a webpage. Investors finally realized that most websites had no way of generating money, and stuff came crashing down.
  Same thing is happening now!
  
  Zines are making a comeback!
- DRS GME

Youtube should be archived, burnt to the ground, and replaced

I'm not so sure that this is anything to worry about. It's just another step in the game of cat and mouse. Is it annoying? Of course! But if/when it goes mainstream, ad blockers are just going to push updates that make it possible to block the ad block blocker. uBlock Origin does a really good job at blocking ad block blockers on most sites.
- True, especially with the fuckfuckadblock list which really mitigates most aDvLoKC d3TeKteD bullshit.
  
  Honestly, using uBO (which is really the only blocker anyone should be using) I never see those popups anyway. And that list apparently causes unintended connections to google servers (warning, there's some drama in this issue between the ublock dev and the list's dev, but gorhill comes off more reasonable here.) So really, just turn on most of the filter lists in uBO settings as per your need and you should be good to go.
  
  I had no idea that this list existed, and even without it, I don't see any of these popups with uBlock Origin. I was an AdBlock user for years until about 9 months ago when I made the switch after learning that uBlock Origin was more robust. Apparently the devs of AdBlock have a policy against blocking ad block detection because they consider it to be unfair to website owners.
- This is google that we’re talking about, they can pull a Twitter and just fully restrict access unless logged in / subscribed. I don’t think uBlock origin can get around the Twitter / Facebook / Instagram log in to see this content modal.
  
  I do not think it will happen, but even if they do implement what you have described here, it doesn't matter. Users will be forced to sign in, and then from there, they can block ads as usual.

Firefox
- This. I’m pretty sure this is a result of the ad engine changes they made to chrome a few months ago. Manifest V2 is what enables uBlock Origin to be so effective iirc and they’re removing it in chrome in favor of Manifest V3.
  Firefox on the other hand still supports V2.
  
  I was curious how people feel about Braves new Browser? I usually stick to Firefox but I've given it a try. It however does seem to be chromium based.
  
  Firefox on the other hand still supports V2.
  For now, mozilla rely heavily on google for funding.
  They dropped xul extensions to have extension compatibility with chrome a few years ago.

Having to watch ads isn't free. It costs me my time and it's limited.
- Technically you pay to use Youtube by watching adds. People sometimes forget that there are no free lunches.
  
  As long as there are CEOs getting payed more than i could earn in my life for one year, i'm good with my free lunch.
  
  Someone smarter than me once said, "if your using a service, and it seems free, then YOU are the product being bought and sold"
  I don't think this is always true, but it usually is.
  
  There are, but they exist outside the market. Any company is going to want a return on its investment, and many people have even been trained to see themselves as “a business” and so operate transactionally in their personal lives, but many people don’t also. There are many people who do and give away many things with no expectation of return.

Greed? I mean they are not a charity and ads pay for the service. Don't get me wrong I use ad block but to call it greed..
- Yes, greed. Google is an extremely profitable company, wanting more money than they already have is completely unreasonable.
  
  Unlimited growth is not impossible! Consider having all the money in the world when it starts to burn. Must be nice.
  
  They don't owe us jack shit. If they want to block users of AdBlock I'm sure it's within their right to do so, and it's within yours to look elsewhere.
  It's frustrating, but like the parent comment said: they're not running a charity.

Whats up with all these online companies just deciding to be assholes this year.
- Companies are becoming even more greedy recently across the board and at a rapid pace. Some people would want you to believe Youtube wouldn't generate billions of dollars as income annually for Alphabet for some reason. But the truth is the platform is extremely profitable already. Youtube simply wants even more now because competition has done the same. We've seen prices spiraling up and quality dropping in pretty much all sectors of the economy and this trend will continue for the forseeable future.
  In short: Because they can (some are really stretching their boundaries, though)
  
  and try to speak about this to anyone who doesnt see it you are basically labeled as conspiracy theorist or something and just dismissed.
- Like another poster said, investors are pushing for profits. The Sillicon Valley model of throwing money at it until they figure it out is suffering with the downturn in the markets. So with the VC and investor money drying up, sites are pushing to make money to keep the lights on.
  
  I would't say keeping the lights on, more then trying to beat covid lvl profits.
- They were always assholes, but the end of zero interest rates is making American corporations go from boiling the frog to just smoking the frog alive.
- Interest rates went up and now they need to make payments on their previously free debt.

This seems somewhat intentionally coordinated, so that the squeeze everyone into submission.
- It is coordinated but also driven by purely financial factors that changed over the last year. Interests are rising and suddenly those tech companies can't just live by growth alone, they have to find ways to be profitable.
  
  Won't someone think of the poor tech companies?
  (Just making the joke, not at you. You are correct, that is why it's happening now.)
- Not coordinated just money drying up everywhere.

Greed didn't lead someone, this is a shareholder entity. Each shareholder doesn't even have to think about greed. The entity does it all for them. That's why companies can do horrible things and everyone can sleep at night. It's always the entity that did it not them. Shareholders are the root of all evil in this world today.
- Nah, landlords are
  
  landlords are but a branch of this tree of evil

No way I'll use YouTube with ads. The amount of your lifetime they waste is what I'd consider disrespectful to their users. Even if the ads were bearable, I wouldn't turn off my ad blocker on any Google site for tracking alone.
I also don't see myself subscribing to YouTube Premium, firstly because it's too expensive (stop including your music streaming service and make it cheaper maybe?), but also because YouTube is just a platform with a lot of not curated content that YouTube had no part in creating.
Let's see how the cat and mouse games between YouTube and ad blockers and alternative frontends go. If it's too much of a hassle, I'll just stop using YouTube. I don't miss Twitter, I don't miss Reddit, and I won't miss YouTube.
- Eh, I wound up with a YouTube premium subscription years ago when I subscribed to Google play music, way back when it was YouTube Red. I cannot imagine going without at this point. It became YouTube music at some point, and... Yeah.

I haven't had this happen using ublock origin, but if they do figure out how to block ublock origin, adnausiem (ublock origin fork) might work. It's a fork of ublock origin that tricks the ad providers into thinking you clicked on every ad, which not only bypasses a lot of adblock detectors, it Actively costs them money by polluting their ad data with garbage.
- If they really want to prevent us from watching videos without ads, they can. They know of the ad is watched or not, we can have some kind of auto-mute-during-ad but that's it.
  Question is if they will kill network effect with it.
  I have already drastically reducedy yt watching because of too many sponsors... watching two minutes of sponsored material, plus two ads just to see that I don't even wanna watch the stupid video is too much.
  Not to mention those laud ads in the middle of relaxing and quiet video... few months ago one ad was starting with screaming, that's when I said no way.
  
  That's why SponsorBlock is a godsend. I can't stand all the in-video ads.
  
  That's why SponsorBlock is a godsend. I can't stand all the in-video ads.
- it Actively costs them money by polluting their ad data with garbage.
  Lmaoo, i'm going to install that

Really not worth watching a 10 minute video that has four minutes of YouTube ads and a minute of a sponsor pitch by the creator.

Not the main point, but this is the first time I've seen "allowlisted". Lol
...are they trying to avoid saying whitelisted because of the word "white"?
- Yeah, at my company we switched to allow/block listed last year. Whitelisted and blacklisted are verboten
  
  The best reasoning I saw for this change was for clarity for non native English speakers. If you're learning the language "allowlist" is definitely more clear in meaning than "whitelist"
  
  A lot of companies seem to be doing this, personally I think trying to make a connection between race and tech is a bit far fetched. Nobody thinks of race when talking about whitelists and blacklists...
  In public repos where these changes are merged in to FOSS projects, they get little resistance too - although I could see concern of a potential backlash if anyone questioned the alleged benefit of such a change.
  Imagine if this approach was taken with the (now outdated) IDE interface? Instead of "Primary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Master, Secondary Slave", there'd maybe be "Primary Primary, Primary Secondary, Secondary Primary, Secondary Secondary" 😵‍
  
  My company has recently started disallowing these words in code. The funny part though is the first few lines of the Jenkins job responsible for checking this stuff proudly states "Waiting for slave node to start checks."
  I know it's a minor fix in the jenkinsfile but I chuckle every time I see it.
- Yes, it started from this terminology change at Twitter in 2020. They're the reason that version control systems call the primary branch 'main' instead of 'master' by default, because 'master' comes from the master/slave terminology that is used in electronics hardware design.
  There's a comment here saying that master/slave in hardware design is being replaced by primary/secondary because of the software trend, which I think is stupid. Master/slave works much better in that context because the master device controls the slave device. Primary/secondary implies that the slave device is a fallback of the master device.
- Just like "master" in git. WTH is wrong with it. I feed "master" as "the master of kung-fu" is much better then "main".
  
  I do think dropping master is absurd, since it in no way implies slavery or any such thing. master mostly has uses that are entirely inoffensive, unless post-graduate degrees are racist, for example.
  But I do think there is some merit in moving off the idea of white is good and black is bad. There are some good arguments that we shouldn't bestow magic powers upon words, but there is also a lot of merit in the idea that these words affect our perception in negative ways and there is really nothing lost by shifting to equally good alternatives.
  
  In the wider context of computing and technology, "master" has historically often been paired with "slave" as well, such as old IDE hard drives that had to be switched from master to slave depending on which cable they were plugged into on which port of the motherboard. I realise that's a bit of an odd example, but there are numerous ones.
  Anyway, while I don't think many people have ever used a branch name of slave, it's entirely feasible to argue that any branch that isn't master is in some way subservient to it as opposed to the master branch being the most experienced. The point isn't to debate that the way you view it is incorrect, your view is entirely reasonable and rational but in order to be inclusive we should take all other views into account and in a very simple way, rather than debate the meaning of the word master in this specific context and telling people that they're "wrong" for feeling a certain way about it, it's easy to change the word and thanks to the excellent design of git, there isn't really any downsides to it.

Holy cow, is the real? On YouTube desktop? Or just on mobile?

I just don't get how these providers (Specifically Reddit with the API lockdown and now the stranglehold on mods, Twitter's new login requirement, and YouTube now cracking down on adblockers) are missing the point that their sites live and die by user generated content.
I understand these sites are hugely expensive to run, but if you keep alienating those who are bringing users to your site in the first place, people will stop submitting and people will stop visiting.
- Well, realistically there is a good chance that this will turn out just fine business-wise. They don't care if they lose some engagement or if the quality goes to shit. It's all good, as long as it makes some money.
  In my opinion, this sort of model should be considered anti-competitive. It has become apparent that these services operate on a model where they offer a service that is too good to be true in order to kill the competition, and then they switch to their actual profitable business plan. If you think about it, peertube is a much more sensible economical model with its federation and p2p streaming. But nobody has ever cared about it because huge tech giants offer hosting & bandwith "for free". The evil part of youtube is not the ads, its the fact that it allowed us to bypass them long enough for the entire planet to become dependent on it.
  
  The majority of people don’t use any form of ad block, especially on mobile so i’m not sure your argument holds there. I don’t see how Youtube wanting to monetize its users somehow will make the quality go to shit? Centralized things need to be monetized, and as much as we all would like it, a mainstream decentralized video streaming platform is not realistic given current tech.
  I don’t personally see this as in the same category as what Twitter and Reddit are doing.
- Twitter and Reddit sure but youtube is not a user generated content site. youtube has big creators and they are the main reason people go to the site.

FreeTube/Piped on PC
ReVanced on droid
uYou+ on 🍎 phone
SmartTubeNext on 📺
Youtube can do the fuck they want on their website
- there's also Newpipe x Sponsorblock on android.
- add mpv+youtube-dl to thr mix and you get a full healthy dinner
  
  yt-dlp is the successor. On droid there are several beautiful front ends for yt-dlp so you don't need a terminal emulator
- uYou can't be used on non-jailbroken devices, right?
  
  No you can. You need to choose from AltStore, TrollStore and Sideloadly depending on what works for you, then sideload the uYou+ IPA (or the IPA of any app)
- Can't they block the likes of Freetube, Newpipe, Revanced?
  
  These clients use the same set of APIs as the YouTube official client. Unlike the Twitter and Reddit clients which used APIs for 3rd-party.

Revanced it is

The more ad-riddled they make the platform to try and monetise users, the more they make adblocks necessary to even be usable.
I didn't use to both with adblockers. I didn't like ads, but they didn't affect me enough for me to go through any effort blocking them.
Now I use blockers everywhere, on every platform. Even for creators I like, because I know how little they actually make for ads - so how bout instead of watching 12 hours of ads so they can get 2c, I just send them a dollar or buy their merch every once in a while to not watch ads at all? Etc.
Ads could have had a place. There are ads that serve a purpose, that have minimal disruption but still give businesses a way to develop awareness for those who might want to use them.
Movie trailers (including when they stopped trailing movies and started leading them) are examples of 'acceptable ads' to me. When I purchase something from a store and they include a printed card from their sponsor. When sports teams have logos for being sponsored. A work van with the business logo parked while out on call. Etc.
But the internet's online ads? Email spam? Telemarketing? These are forms of advertising that are actively hostile, and they've become the default. So now a user that wants to be on the internet at all is best served by block all ads, including the ones that would've otherwise been reasonable.
Google will never make me feel guilty for blocking ads when they're already making their search engine unusable, too.
- And while I'm at it, here's the filters to add to your uBlock Origin's MY FILTERS settings to block YT's blocker:
  youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false)
  youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0)
  youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, [])
  youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)
  
  Wait, surely that doesn't work? It might block the "disable your adblocker popup but there's no way this is all it takes for yt to continue serving videos?

what's the fediverse alternative to YouTube? seems like this is the way the 2020's are going
- As much as I'd like to see an alternative to YouTube on the fediverse, I can't see myself using it much unless my favorite content creators move on over there too. And I can't see them moving.
- Oddysee is built on LBRY, which I believe is the closest thing. I think there's something else called PeerTube, but I'm not sure what it is exactly (haven't looked into it).
  
  I might be too pedantic, but Odysee/LBRY is a blockchain-based decentralized network. But its not federated and it doesn't use activitypub like Lemmy and mastodon. I would only call Peertube to be part of the fediverse.
- I've been tracking the Fediverse loosely since stumbling into StatusNet and OStatus in 2011. To see the fediverse alive and well after being away for so long makes me very happy, though I don't share the same political opinions as many of the people here.
  That said, I'd argue there needs to be a way to spin up PeerTube and educate the masses on how to do that instead of starting a YouTube channel.

Report issue. You're not running an adblocker! wink What's an adblocker??
Google already has trouble with support, if they have a million lightly befuddled users who are getting blocked and "don't know why", that will be a problem for Google.
- Somehow I feel like they won't care, those reports probably go directly into the bin.
  
  They'll care if enough people do it. Being flooded with reports is just as time consuming

Revanced: Blocked, huh? You don't say.
- I've seen YouTube already detected apps like ReVanced and still gave that warning

I think it's less enforceable than they think - every system someone sets up will eventually be circumvented.
It'll be a pain for a few months, or we'll see a federated alt pick up creators.
- To be honest, YouTube would be the hardest thing to replace. And if they ever stream ads from the same URLs as content I don't see a blocker being overly successful.
  
  They already do stream ads from the same urls. It's why a pihole can't block youtube ads.
  But you can tell what's coming, since apps like SmartTubeNext and Revanced can skip them.
  It'll probably just be a cat and mouse game, as it always has been.
  
  They already do stream ads from the same urls. It's why a pihole can't block youtube ads.
  But you can tell what's coming, since apps like SmartTubeNext and Revanced can skip them.
  It'll probably just be a cat and mouse game, as it always has been.
  
  I disagree, something like Sponsorblock is working quite well already for ads embedded in the video and unless YouTube makes serious sacrifices in UX I don't see how they could prevent this.
- Replacing a megacorp service is only possible when the stars align and said megacorp makes a fuckup so big users start jumping and these users are still a tiny speck compared to the total userbase. Still I hope Reddit dies slowly.
- There are already open source Alternatives. But not federated.
  
  What about peertube? Since Twitter -> Mastadon | Reddit -> Lemmy Why not Youtube -> Peertube next :D

Peertube, Nebula, Patreon, etc. You don’t have to use YouTube.
- Plus, Newpipe and the likes have been doing pretty well at getting around YouTube ads so far, it's just the main YouTube website that has been more problematic.
  
  Neat lil app. Would be nice if you were able to see all the YouTube playlists for a creator. When you go to a creators YouTube channel, it just lists a bunch of their random videos.
  Also, a screencast functionality would be good too!

I think ublock already got around this no? I have had 0 issues
- They haven't rolled it out to more than a small percentage of users.

Man, what is happening to social media
- Free silicon valley money for tech giants dried up with the SVB collapse and interest rates soaring.
  Now the investors want their return on investment, and platforms are frantically trying to squeeze what they can out to do this

YouTubeDL + Plex
Not so crazy anymore.

Still waiting for ISPs to change their model ever since “net neutrality” was abolished. With all of this shit with YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit coming down the pipe it really does feel there has been a global change in how corporations are squeezing their customers. I am guessing ISPs are waiting for the bulk of services to change their model before they sweep in with their greed. It’s coming.
- If isp corpos start pulling shit like this, I'm out! I'm going to get a library membership & be done with the internet for good.
  
  I'm already archiving shit on my humble terabyte of two HDDs

Yt-dlp, NewPipe, Invidious...
- It'll be a very sad day when those no longer work.
  
  The day they no longer work is the day I stop watching youtube.

i've never seen this using librewolf + ublock + /etc/hosts

To everyone who is saying they use adblock and haven't seen this yet: YouTube probably rolled this out to a smaller percentage of users first. It allows them to understand how this change impacts user behaviour, e.g. how many users comply and disable their adblocker, how many more users close YouTube than usual etc. Most tech companies do this type of analysis before releasing a high impact change to all users.
- I do close youtbe much quicker than I used to. I can watch one video and rhan I'm done. The next video starts with a full minte of ads and I'm out. I know there's stuff like ReVanced, but I keep wondering wether it's all worth it.
  
  You'll hear this over and over again but that's because it's true: Revanced is absolutely worth it. Not difficult to set up and the experience is life changing once you see YouTube without ads
  
  Odysee is a great, decentralised alternative if you are looking to jump ship.
  If you do end up sticking with youtube, ReVanced is good. Smart Tube Next is good for TVs, and firefox + ublock origin on desktop.
  
  For iOS users Vinegar is a nice add-on for Safari that strips out all the ads etc.

I get that servers, bandwidth, manpower, utilities and buildings aren't free, and with more and more people using ad blocking, all that user data they have harvested isn't worth much anymore. So I think we are going to see an increase in subscription based services, and man do I hate it.
Because You just know it's going to increase and squeeze evey last dime from their users. Because it's never enough to have their expenses covered and earn some money.. They constantly need to earn more. Just look at Netflix, declining in contents, increasing restrictions and rising price.
The way that YouTube treats their users and content creators for that matter, I'll never enter a subscription from there. Removing features, blocking people with no way of appealing and letting scammers and spammers run rampant on their platform. Yeah, no thanks.
I used to love using YouTube for music, it was great at suggesting new and exciting music. But then it was split into a separate service and they nuked the algorithm. Now I can discover music by popularity or moods, and as someone whos into EDM, hardstyle, rock, metal and heavy metal.. that's a piss poor way to find new music.
- YouTube is the only thing I don't mind paying a subscription for. I consume an unreasonable amount of media on YouTube. They host something like 4.5 petabytes of new videos every day. For me, the value I get from there is easily worth the price of premium. I couldn't say that for any other streaming service.
- I'm finding this with my Spotify. The discover new music algo just feeds me the same 30 or so songs that I've listened to a million times it must be broken.
  
  Speaking of Spotify, I wonder how long it will be before they gut their desktop app for free users. It just feels too functional to be long for this world, especially given how unusable the app is if you don't have premium.
  
  Don’t you have access to “Discover Weekly” anymore? My MO is: start curating some playlist based off a genre or theme, start radio from it, keep adding suggestions that fit and I like. Then have a huge playlist with my “I really liked and would play this anytime” and if I find I’m replaying a new song it goes there as well, then, based on your new searching and adding stuff, your next week’s discover might get a lot more interesting. Also shazam stuff on the go and add it to respective playlists, even maybe IFTTT to a Shazam playlist, and even (we need to find a fediverse alternative but I had IFTTT setup to add to a Reddit playlist picking from Music and ListenToThid top posts as well) . So, basically, you need to branch out first so spotify can continue to branch out for you.
  
  If you're on mobile clear your data cache. It seems to me like the app prioritizes a handful of cached songs it's already downloaded, probably to save bandwidth, and doubly so when you're in an area with poor signal.

Me who uses piped and all:

I have paid for YouTube Premium for 5 years...forgot there were ads on YouTube🤔
- Yeah, i didn't use a 1st party app for about 5 years, forgot about them too
- YT premium is one of those things I'm pretty happy to pay for, because I know the creators I watch are getting much more money per view from me versus someone who watches with the ads.
  The actual lack of ads is just a massive bonus since I would have been able to block them anyway. (Well, until this change)
  Also, that and I'm one of the 5 people out there actually using YouTube music rather than Spotify

We need to reclaim the internet
- This statement is extremely stupid. YouTube is a free service to you. It is dammed expensive to run, and they pay for it by showing you ads. It's the exact same thing as ltelevision channels that show ads. it's paid for by ads. You are not freeing the internet by blocking ads, you're driving the content providers to have no money. I hate ads as much as anyone but unless you want to pay $20 a month for YouTube, then stop whining
  
  Don’t come at me with a toxic Reddit attitude. The issue is not about paying for a service. For example, people are willing to donate to the fediverse to keep servers running. The problem is that the current state of the internet is dominated by paywalls, tracking and ads. Even if I paid for YouTube they’d still track me, feed me garbage from an algorithm and try to sell things to me (relentlessly).
  
  More devices, content, and people are online than ever before, and the user experience has never been worse. It is one of the most significant advancements in human history, and its not-so-slowly going to shit because of corporate greed.
  It's Google's right to serve ads however they want, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't call for a competitor that doesn't treat users like garbage.

Did Libretube (android) stop working because of this? Or is it just me?
- Try changing instance. I hopped through a few and it is working again. I think they might have blocked a few of the instances making libre unable to load content
  
  I went back to Newpipe from Libretube because it became unusable and I got tired from waiting for hotfixed whenever Google got ahead in the cat and mouse game and having to jump between instances

I know this may be blasphemy but if you use a VPN to sign up from certain countries you can get YouTube premium for like 25 bucks for the year. Haven't tried it personally but I've seen it mentioned a million times.
If they go to war with adblockers though some one smarter then me will probably come out with a way to just download the video and cut out ads post.
- But then you have to pay for vpn to access the countries where prices are low.

If in the future they make it completely impossible to use ad blockers I'll just stop actively using YouTube. I hope a good enough alternative comes around.
I've heard it is quite difficult to make one.
- You could give Odysee a try. I was pleasently surprised at how well it works, and how nice the UI/UX is. Especially considering it is a decentralized platform.
  It's missing a lot of the content that youtube has. Especially if you trying to look up a specific video or niche topic. But there's still a lot of great content available if you are happy to browse.

Haven't seen that one on ublock origin + Firefox
- Same, I've seen posts saying it only affects people who use chrome
  
  Soon: "Sorry, only chrome is allowed. Please download chrome to access youtube"

Probably get shit for this, but…
I just pay for Premium.
YT has literally become my cable. I listen to music, watch movies, documentaries, stand up comedy, news, sports… and cat videos, obviously.
To me it’s just worth it to pay a bit of money each month and have the whole thing just available to me.
I feel like if you were to put a money value on all the complaining, stomping of feet and trying to side-step the ads I’ve seen over the last several years, you’d probably find it’s actually less to just pay and enjoy it.
Just my opinion, of course…
- It's the principle of the matter to me. Google became the multibillion dollar corporation it is by selling my data, your data, everyones data. To then come around and demand I pay to continue using their service the way I have for over a decade? But also still continue selling our data? Nah, fuck that. When they cut me in a percentage on the data selling business, maybe then I'd consider premium.
- You're paying for premium, but you're not paying it to people producing the content you enjoy. You're paying it to a middle man parasite. Content creators get a tiny fraction of your money.
  Paying because they made it deliberately difficult to use without paying is akin to giving the bully your lunch money because it's better "money value" than standing up for yourself. That's not something I can do without losing respect for myself.
  And my "trying to side step the ads" has so far taken a total of 30 seconds - installing uBlock origin, which I would have done anyway.
  Besides, to use premium you need to be logged in. Being logged in Google outside of a contained environment is idiotic if you have a shred of respect for your own privacy.
  
  You know that this parasite in the first place enables creators to make a living? Youtube also has the best revenue split between it and the creators. They're storing exabytes of data for you, watchable at any time, in any resolution you'd like. Google has been running Youtube at a loss for a long time and ads are not going to cover the costs. They need paying users. 12.99$ a month for more videos than Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.... , unlimited music streaming and even giving your favorite creators more money (they get more revenue from premium members than from free "ad-viewing" members) is not a lot to ask for. Stop your Spotify or Netflix or Hulu or Sky subscription and get youtube premium.
- you do you if you use it that much and you think it's worth your money then good for you ( i honestly mean it ) we don't like youtube ads, YES that is true but it is not the only reason :
  some of us hate youtube ( and google by extent ) for tracking
  some of us hate youtube because it's algorithms tricking us into forcing certain agendas and ideals upon us
  some of us hate youtube because the hypocrisy around how they treat content creator differently yet claiming they are all under the same "rules"
  the list goes on but what i want to say is that we don't hate people who pay for youtube we hate those who defend the platform like it's a white knight and nothing shady happening in it
- I agree if they charged around half price of Netflix I would be more interested.
  And the part with supporting the creators. I don't trust Google to give more than pennies to them regardless if I pay or not, I use other ways to support the ones I follow.
- Nah, can't do it on principle. I know they already make money from me for selling my data, I'm not going to also pay them to do that.
- The likening to cable is noteworthy because cable started as a means of "tv without those pesky ads" and then...
- They'll probably push ads for premium users too, though
  
  If that happens I’ll probably just stop using it
- just get revanced
- Google sucks and YouTube is evil.
  If they were not such an explicitly and overtly shitty company, I'd pay for premium no qualms.
  As it is, I wouldn't give them a dollar if the CEO would personally suck me off.
- Given that we are in the piracy subreddit, you can change your Google account to Argentina or similar and pay Argentinian prices for premium. I'm from Europe and I pay 2€ for a family subscription for 5 people.
  
  I pay for Indian Youtube Premium with Revolut
- I also have been paying for Premium the last couple years and I completely agree. I get more value out of my premium subscription than I do Netflix or Max. Plus premium supports the creators more than ads do.

YouTube these days is insufferable, its why I don't bother with it too much anymore. Two pre-roll ads, then two ads after about two minutes, then two more before the end and then two more at the end. And the problem is that you can't skip through a video without getting ads. So lets say you watch 30 second and then skip, well bam, two new ads even though you only watched 30 seconds. Its so goddamn annoying and they need to lessen the amount.
- I wouldnt use youtube without newpipe/ adblock either. When i am at somebody elses place, i am just baffled by the amount of trash google tries to ram down your eyes. And the more ads they serve, the more people will be done with it and either get premium or look for options to get rid of it.
  Even though it seems like more and more website now lock out adblock-users, i am confident that eventually there will be a "next-gen" of adblocks, that in turn circuvent these lock outs
- It almost feels like extortion to me. Don't wanna pay for youtube? Fine, you get ads. All. The. Time.

Must say I'm glad they're doing this. Helps me stay off the platform and be more productive after the 3 videos, and requires me to plan which 3 videos I want to watch. If all addictive platforms had these self-moderating features, I'd definitely use them.

I’m honestly amazed they let us use adblockers for that long.

Soon, people will join the strange and buggy world of YouTube alternative frontends

Does this affect viewing youtube videos through external players, like mpv?

I'm not paying for YouTube. It's algorithm sucks, it routinely sells your personal data, and virtually none of the money you spend goes to its creators--that YouTube pretends otherwise is repulsive. How did we get in the situation where we're being asked to pay more and more for worse and worse services? I'm not gonna be a part of it.

Are you using firefox? I mean, does Ublockorigin on firefox help it?
- and I instantly switched to firefix from chrome
  Lol, my phone decided to do that about 1.5years ago, when I had it in my pocket and it deleted chrome (I have modded my phone, so I can delete ~every app I want). It was the push I needed to install Fennec (firefox from fdroid).😅 Otherwise I would be kinda reluctant. Since then I'm using firefox with ddgo on almost every device.😌

I really don't think it's greed. Can't blame em for trying to win the cat/mouse game of adblocking. I'm sure it's not the end of the world, and new ways to circumvent this will show up.
- Can’t blame em for trying to win the cat/mouse game of adblocking.
  IDK; I blame them.
  YouTube has become part of the world's social infrastructure. In a way, it is the town square.
  Frankly it should be publicly owned.
  
  Well, that's not in YouTube's interest, so I don't know how you can blame them for not being publicly owned.
  If it somehow magically becomes publicly owned, your bills/taxes will reflect that (as they do with TV in many countries, it just gets added to the monthly electricity bill, whether you use it or not).
  
  Okay. I can dig a publicly owned YouTube.
  Are you willing to spend your tax dollars hosting flat earth content?
  Far right? Thinly disguised racism?
  It’s ironic: but at least by paying based on what is watched, you give money to those you consume.
- while i agree to some extent it never been that aggressive before, have you heard that dial-er and SMS apps are no longer included in the android open source stock making it bit harder for custom roms maintainers

What about things like newpipe, invidious, feetube etc?
- Will work for now, but it's only a matter of time
  I think they're just trying to outdo general ad blocking methods. The users who would go through the trouble of using a third party app to view are not the users that would be generating ad revenue anyways.
  They want the people who make up 99% of their lost revenue, the people who just found out toy could click a couple times in your browser and install an ad block

I will still use invidious while having muy subscriptions saved as RSS feeds so this change will go over my head
- let me bring you up to speed a couple days ago YouTube legal team threatened invidious devs saying they are abusing their API ToS ( trems of service ) which the devs said that the claim does not hold any truth to it since invidious is just youtube proxy\scraper and does not depend on API
  
  This just tells me that invidious is in their crosshairs but it is legally safe until YouTube tries taking them to court to create precedent over scraping webpages

“Allowlisted”?
Are we not allowed to say white/black anymore?