I swear I'm about done with YT. The ads are long, overabundant, irrelevant, and timed specifically to fuck with people in the middle of specific segments of content. I mean, I keep getting ads for Oppenheimer for the past four days. I already own Oppenheimer - and Google knows this. My Google account is linked to my MoviesAnywhere account, they have this information. What is the point of "targeted" advertisements if they net the advertiser zero value? Is Google just messing with users trying to block their ads at this point?

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 57 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Haven't seen ads in ages... Firefox on linux with uBlock origin.

[–] 30p87@feddit.de 11 points 7 months ago

Also, Firefox Nightly with uBlock on Android, and Piped as frontend for YouTube anyway.

[–] red_rising@lemmy.world 29 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Half the point of ads these days isn’t to advertise to you, it’s to piss you off enough to upgrade to a paid plan. If they happen to also make money from the adverts, then that’s just an added bonus.

[–] qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'll never pay. I've spent so much money of failed Google products at this point they owe me YT premium for life. If they make bypassing ads impossible I'll just stop watching.

[–] red_rising@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

I feel the same. I don’t do ads. If a product doesn’t have an ad-free product that I’m willing to pay for, then that product doesn’t exist for me. Similarly, if a paid product decides to introduce ads (I’m looking at you Amazon) I’m immediately cancelling.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-01-12

I'd say we haven't got to all-despising baby skull yet, but youtube still keeps trying to recommend Joe Rogan.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

If the baby skull is all-despising, doesn't that mean it isn't bigoted anymore and is thus paradoxically suboptimal?

[–] Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You're not kidding. My girlfriend started talking about this until I straight up told her to stop. She already has ublock on pc she knows there's a way, she's just willing to pay to not have ads on her YouTube TV app because they're frustrating.

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee -4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

your gf is kind of a tool and needs to crack or replace her TV.

[–] Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Eh I get what you mean even if it does sound sorta mean and I don't entirely disagree. I would just call it ignorance, she wasn't aware that you could get cracked apps for tvs or that just hooking up your pc to the TV is an easier alternative to all of that. Now she knows and she's all about it.

Were planning to move in together soonish and I told her I would handle all the techside of stuff and that she can just let me know what she wants and I'll do it.

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

yeah I'm usually the 'I will make your machines stop using you' friend. which is probably why I'm so bitter about people putting up with this shit.

[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Smarttube works well on my android TV. Comes with adblock and sponsorblock enabled. I'd bet my TV is spying on me in some way, so yeah, PC and TV disconnected from the Internet would probably be better.

[–] Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 months ago

She has a roku TV which I've read a bit about cracking but it sounds sorta annoying. Once we move in I'm planning to get a projector and hook it up to a mini pc with a wireless small mouse and keyboard. We mostly use it for movie nights anyways.

[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I used to subscribe to YouTube premium as of just a few days ago. Even without the ads. There was something very seriously wrong with the suggestion algorithm.

I was getting cartel violence videos, and dead animal videos. Never watched one before in my life. Yet. YouTube seems to think that I should want to watch this crock of shit. This started coming up about 6 months ago. Until now I've been reporting each video as they come up. But that doesn't seem to help at all.

At this point I think YouTube is a danger to society - if it's recommending cartel violence videos to me unsolicited, what are they suggesting to my nieces?

I have completely nuked it from my life. Almost all of the YouTubers I like are on Nebula or Floatplane so it doesn't feel like I'm missing much.

[–] Beefytootz@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

As dumb as this is probably going to sound, you're most likely getting those recommendations because you reported them. YouTube sees that as an interaction and that's what they're chasing after. Same for giving videos a thumbs down.

[–] BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I used to have this exact issue with what was essentially porn on Instagram reels (Meta is evil yeah I know but it's better than shorts and tiktok). I'd report those e-thots videos but it kept showing them because it considered it engagement. Eventually I got the algorithm to show me what I'm actually there for, memes, funny cat videos and the occasional car videos.

Just scrolling past them quickly eventually got it to stop.

[–] Beefytootz@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

It's a real shame that we can't just tell those sites what we want to see, or not see for that matter. Instead were victims of AI/THE ALMIGHTY ALGORITHM. I think that's part of the plan though, keep us on their site searching for content we actually want instead of finding it and being done. I'm dying for a YouTube replacement to come about. I'll enjoy that until the inevitable enshittification comes about.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Clear your history on YouTube. Personally, I've had mine paused for a decade and just subscribe to stuff I like and that is fine.

Definitely never seen anything like that.

[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 2 points 7 months ago

I normally would, but my wife has the same problem and she's done that 3 times in the last 6 months. In fact, her problem became MUCH worse because the "clean slate" was far more impressionable. She'd search up beauty routines, only to find that Youtube thinks she now wants to see "popping" videos, even though she's now searching for dinner recipes.

So yeah, I saw her experience and decided "no thanks".

To be fair, MOST of YouTube I watched can be found on Nebula and Floatplane, both of which will likely not have this issue since it's not a user-content platform. Not to mention, the creators likely make more from those platforms anyways.

YouTube is basically unavoidable though, so now I just view everything through a piped instance if I absolutely need something that can only be found there.

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Some of the sponsored shit is crazy too.

I was watching a video on a timeline of events with Puff Daddy and it hit this one part that went something like, “the young man said that Diddy wanted to play with his anus. Which reminds me of our sponsor, the law offices of so and so. Life is unpredictable and you or your loved ones could get molested too. If that happens you’ll need legal representation! Our sponsor will represent you…”.

Holy shit my brain shorted on that one.

[–] charonn0@startrek.website 2 points 7 months ago

Install SponsorBlock.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 1 points 7 months ago

I am enjoying Freetube on desktop, and I just don't watch videos on my phone.