12 ms·

YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

204 points by laurentdc 7y ago

equalunique 7y ago
YouTube Premium is worth it IMO. No adds, the ability to minimize, and downloading videos locally, all within the same app are killer features.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- vinay427 7y ago
  Even better if you have Google Play Music All Access (or whatever the premium version is called now). You get YouTube Premium included along with unlimited streaming of millions of songs.
- duncan-donuts 7y ago
  You know what? I’m not going to pay google to stop harassing me with ads. YouTube was actually usable as little as a month ago. I see so many ads now you’d think this was some sketchy app, but we’re talking about YouTube. How is the answer, “paying them $10/mo is worth it,” in the context of there being an ad problem an acceptable answer?
  - tehwebguy 7y ago
    You went to their house. They have ads there. You knew that.
- falcolas 7y ago
  I agree it’s worth it, but for slightly different reasons. No ads, yet the creators are getting a significant amount more money for me watching their content. It’s the easiest, and most sanity-proof way to get money to most content creators I watch.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    Oddest downvotes to date.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  > the ability to minimize It's sad that a basic element of computing is now considered a privilege people need to pay for.
  - izacus 7y ago
    > It's sad that a basic element of computing is now considered a privilege people need to pay for. Just like it's sad that being asked to pay the creator and service provider is now something we need to write whole articles to whine about. How do you thing we'll get rid of personal data tracking and collection if you don't even want to pay a pittance for service you're using?
    - Nextgrid 7y ago
      My problem is not with paying. My problem is that I am being asked to pay not for the content itself, but to remove bullshit limitations that shouldn't be there in the first place. Also, it's very naive to think Google will suddenly stop tracking you just because you're paying for Premium... quite the opposite actually, as you've now given them a valid credit card and billing address.
      - izacus 7y ago
        Everything a paid service doesn't give you until you pay is a "bullshit limitation" right? Is all always arbitrary. Why do you refuse to pay for the features if you want them? Why do you feel they should serve you for free?
        Nextgrid 7y ago
        There’s a difference between a service not giving me something and a service explicitly breaking platform conventions. When I open a browser tab with audio in it I expect to be able to switch to a different app and the audio keeps playing. YouTube explicitly uses hacks to break that on mobile. I consider it very nasty to get out of your way and interfere with browser & OS features like that.
deleted 7y ago
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perl4ever 7y ago
I can't remember if it was on YouTube or not, but the other day, I wanted to watch a video about an Acura concept car, and it forced me to watch a Honda ad. I quit in disgust. People insist that online advertising works, but it's just too much to swallow any more.
- alexis_fr 7y ago
  4 ads every 12 minutes was quite common on TV. I’ve always thought Youtube would ramp it up to this level one day. It’s only a matter of time until VoD does it too (Netflix? for 7$?).
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    It's not the quantity of ads overall, it's that the content I want to watch is frequently essentially an ad anyway, and in this case it was for the same entity, and yet I can't watch it uninterrupted.
  - wazoox 7y ago
    It was quite common in the US. We Europeans always considered US TV as totally unwatchable, because of the horrible, constant ad interruption.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      I'm not sure it was always common in the US, I'm sure I heard a rumor that in olden days, cable didn't have ads, or had fewer ads because you paid for it. Some places in Europe pay for OTA TV so that could be connected with the quantity of ads, rather than the inherent superiority of the citizenry in all respects.
      - wazoox 7y ago
        I think this has more to do with inherent superiority of the consumer defence laws. BTW ads are an almost unmitigated nuisance: when France banned ads after 8PM on its public channels, their audience numbers soared (so the project which was an obvious gift from Sarkozy to his media mogul friends, badly backfired).
nerdponx 7y ago
I actually disagree with this. I am being provided 1080P video streaming into my house 24/7 with virtually no interruption. If they want to spam their premium stuff at me, that's a small price to pay. I will complain to high heaven about misuse of personal data, but it is perfectly within their right to show pop up ads for their own premium product on the free version. I would be a lifelong subscriber if I didn't think they were abusing my data in the first place. If there's anything I would complain about, is that the ads don't have enough variety. I see the same damn advertisements over and over. This is part of why I can't stand TV advertising either. Yes, it's patronizing and intrusive in my show, but but it's also repetitive. At least keep it interesting and tell me about some different products...
- CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
  Same here, would buy a in a second if I believed it would make me the customer.
Hokusai 7y ago
Welcome to the future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU3GzYcb1g8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU3GzYcb1g8 Tech companies are an oligopoly with a few actors. Competitions do not offer enough pressure to make them change. Regulation is the only way forward if we do not want to end in a dystopia.
- ianai 7y ago
  Agree. We need some old school style trustbusting.
  - pimmen 7y ago
    We’re fortunate to have some politicians and officials who believe in anti-trust measures in the European Union. Margrethe Vestager is the current champion and I’m glad I’m under her wing rather than her American counterpart, Ajit Pai. I’m optimistic that regulations will come, sooner or later.
  - 0xfaded 7y ago
    I originally succumbed to YouTube premium because of the bundled music. I remembered thinking at the time this bundling put Spotify at a disadvantage. When for unrelated reasons I started degoogling sure enough I went straight to Spotify. Can someone explain where the boundary here is for antitrust?
  - Guest42 7y ago
    For a moment I read that as truthbusting and got a little frightened
  - izacus 7y ago
    How would antitrust here look like? It's a subscription for a direct service... what's the monopoly solution here? Ordering Google to store and serve videos for free?
    - bogwog 7y ago
      How about breaking up Google? Seems like that'd solve a lot more problems than it'd create.
RKearney 7y ago
Even if you pay for YouTube Premium you’ll then get reoccurring pop-ups to sign up and pay for YouTube TV.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  I don't see these? Maybe it isn't available where I am, or maybe I set a switch that disables promos?
- faeyanpiraat 7y ago
  Yo’ve pulled out your wallet. Perfect time for a neat upsell.
- pimmen 7y ago
  That’s the absolute worst. I’m paying for YouTube Premium and I hate that I get pop-ups for YouTube TV and YouTube Kids and whatnot. Peace and quiet was one of the things I paid good money for.
- joegahona 7y ago
  Maybe you guys are getting lost in multiple logins? I've had Youtube Red/Premium almost as long as it's been available, and I never see ads of any kind. I love it.
drewg123 7y ago
If you want to get rid of pop-ups, ads, and other annoyances, try Newpipe on Android, and SmartYouTubeTV on FireTV / Android TV https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/ https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/
- jackjeff 7y ago
  I’d kill for a YouTube client for AppleTV or to go back to the old one before Google decide to trash the UI with immaterial design everywhere. YouTube has the worst UI on AppleTV by far.
  - tehwebguy 7y ago
    Yes, literally only useable because of the voice input on the remote / mobile app
  - PretzelFisch 7y ago
    The website, and roku channel are not much better. Seems to get worse with every update.
- perlpimp 7y ago
  you can get your whole Google account suspended by using newpipe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759
  - jowsie 7y ago
    No idea how common this is, but that particular case seems to most likely be fabricated.
    - lucb1e 7y ago
      While I was also under the impression that this is probably not true (since you can't actually log in with Newpipe), I've been waiting for them to crack down on it from the day I learned of it. Wouldn't surprise me if it stopped working when enough people start to use it. Related, a few weeks ago they cracked down on Yalp (a Play Store front-end: basically an open source implementation of their internal APIs). I'm not sure if/when they're going to ease up on that, but until then, it looks like I'm stuck with whatever selection of apps (and versions) I've got at the moment.
mitfahrener 7y ago
Got youtube premium so I can watch videos on my commute. NYC subway, no wifi, no 2g,3g,4g or 5g
- gruez 7y ago
  ...or use youtube-dl (or newpipe on your phone), which does the same for free
  - popup21 7y ago
    +1 for youtube-dl nifty little cli
  - Jonnax 7y ago
    Yeah there's a cheaper way. But like using Spotify versus ripping CDs or piracy, the convenience of the tool is the value.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      Convenience seems to be a slippery concept. From my perspective, the convenience of mpv+youtube-dl cannot be beat. Neither the official web player nor the official mobile applications have the features I expect or desire. For instance, I use text-to-speech to read aloud the subtitles of foreign language content. With mpv that's straight forward, but I wouldn't even know where to start with getting that to work using any of the official frontends of youtube.
  - Crash0v3rid3 7y ago
    So pirating videos and not supporting creators is the solution? I understand the complaints some folks have but this isn't the solution.
NoblePublius 7y ago
YouTube Premium is the best $ I pay for streaming. YouTube has incredible inde music and background play makes consuming it possible.
Waterluvian 7y ago
Dunno if it's a regional thing or what but the last month of Android YouTube has been just insane with ads. I used to only get video ads, then earlier this year got a little banner below the video that was about the ad that played before the video. But now I have entire blocks of totally unrelated traditional-style ads for nothing YouTube or video related (like women's shoes) in the suggestions section.
- jorvi 7y ago
  Nope, same here. They used to have either one 5s ad or a skippable 20s+ ad. At some point they've started to roll two 5-10s ads back to back, or unskippable 10-30s ads, and only the 30s+ are skippable. The topmost video in the app is always an ad as well, in addition to all the text ads you mentioned. I get that video hosting costs beaucoup bucks but the amount of ads is getting ridiculous.. Its happening on other sites in other ways as well (either dark patterns or vast amounts of ads) and it has gotten me to the point where I actively take pleasure in extracting the maximum value for me as customer (so blocking ads, using VPN to pay in rubles or rupees, etc) as most companies these days see you as nothing but entities to suck as much profit out of as possible, with no regard for a reasonable middle ground. Sucks for them, that's a two-way street.
  - lokedhs 7y ago
    It's gotten so bad that I installed Newpipe instead. Basically I tolerated Youtube ads up to a point, but now that I'm using Newpipe instead, neither Youtube nor the creators get anything. I wish there was a better way, since it's not pracitcal to contribute to all channel's patreons.
    - warp 7y ago
      Subscribe to Youtube premium?
      - phaus 7y ago
        Like many others mentioned, they don't completely stop nagging you simply because you subscribe.
czottmann 7y ago
I ditched the YT iOS app last night as the web interface is finally quite usable in Safari (iPad). Fullscreen works fine, quality and speed settings work fine, PIP mode works out of the box… Both on my Pi-hole-powered internal network and my nextdns.io based mobile setup the experience is so. much. calmer. I recommend giving it a shot. If pi-hole is not an option for you, check out NextDNS. Solid tracker & ad blocking either way.
- kibwen 7y ago
  Seconded. I've never seen a single one of the popups from the OP myself, which I thought was curious until the author mentioned they were using the Android app, whereas on mobile I only use Youtube from within Firefox, which is perfectly serviceable (and apparently less annoying).
  - czottmann 7y ago
    Well, I got rid of the native iOS app because the modal nag dialogs had become so annoying that I didn't want to put up with it anymore.
  - concerned_user 7y ago
    Yes native android app gives you popup to enable premium trial once a week or so, from my experience.
frou_dh 7y ago
Someone not spending money and being indignant at the same time is generally not too interesting. Ask any business operator.
deleted 7y ago
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fwxwi 7y ago
ublock origin on desktop, youtube vanced on android.
jandeboevrie 7y ago
YouTube Vanced or Peertube don't show ads. They do show stories, which are stupid as well. Just as the recommendations are shit lately. Just more of the same instead of new interesting things. If I can't block ads then I'll stop using YouTube. Did for half a year when I was on ios where adblock in the app didn't work.
monkeyfacebag 7y ago
I pay for YouTube premium but I'm still subjected to ads in the majority of videos I watch: the kind that are embedded by the creator directly in the video, eg, a one minute sponsored by Squarespace segment. I don't know how Google is framing YouTube premium (I get it through my Google play music subscription) but it is most assuredly not an ad-free experience.
- falcolas 7y ago
  FWIW, the videos with sponsored content are frequently either not getting money from YouTube (such as the gaming segment), or not getting enough from the ads that do run (COPA affected and . The creators may also be futureproofing their livelyhood in fear that their segment will be the next one that YouTube demonitizes by default. It’s not very profitable to be a content maker (outside the top .01%), and many content creators are paying a team to help them produce regular, high quality videos.
  - monkeyfacebag 7y ago
    I don't dispute any of that. I'm saying that, as a YouTube premium subscriber, I'm not clear exactly what I'm paying for. I mean, I guess fewer ads is better than more ads but I think a paid service should be able to provide me with stronger guarantees.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      To the extent that YouTube is just a user-generated content delivery platform, paying for premium makes them stop injecting their own ads. Ads that are part of the videos are outside their purview. It's a defensible, and I think reasonable position to take (and I say this as someone who hates advertising in general).
      - monkeyfacebag 7y ago
        I mean, I get how Youtube works. I understand there is a distinction to be made, if I cared to make it, between Google's ads and creators' ads. My point is that Youtube premium is not ad-free and explaining how Youtube works doesn't refute that point. You may think it's fine that Youtube premium has ads because that's how Youtube works. I respect that. I still watch Youtube all the time myself.
robbrown451 7y ago
I've had YouTube Premium/Red for years (the only thing I pay for to watch video content), but I'm about to cancel it because they now show ads on videos if those videos are embedded in other web sites. Most of the content I watch is on other web sites that curate content, and now the benefit of YouTube Premium is gone.
- tehwebguy 7y ago
  Can the embed detect your logged in state? Privacy settings may have changed in the browser.
  - robbrown451 7y ago
    Yes I am starting to suspect it has to do with changes in Chrome. I can't find out how to modify site settings to make it work though.
    - michaelt 7y ago
      I believe the setting you're looking for is called 'uBlock Origin'
      - chihuahua 7y ago
        Indeed. Chrome + uBlock Origin = 0 ads on Youtube over the past several years.
Jagat 7y ago
"It’s a pointless subscription that Google is trying to lazily ram down my throat instead of improving its offering,.." It's now fashionable to shit on google on HN, but Youtube premium is one of the best investments I've made, and I'm glad google is giving that choice. How many times have I not read comments like 'give me an option to pay instead of showing me ads' on HN. There are tons of videos on youtube that I listen to as podcasts while commuting (and there aren't enough good podcasts in that sector).
izacus 7y ago
YouTube Premium is literally the service HN wants: honest payment to support a Google service costs and creators publishing on it. It's a sustainable service which actually earns more for creators than ads and data mining (at least according to last CPC values I've seen for video ads). And yet, it seems like the author of this piece still feels entitled to complain about being asked to pay the price of service and these comments are full of people advertising products that still use the service without paying the asking price. It's like demanding that music authors just send you MP3s for free without paying for it at all. I personally hope that more companies allow me to pay for their services instead of being plagued by behavioural ad tracking.
- Kye 7y ago
  No one asked for constant nag screens. edit: HN won't let me make any more replies. I don't know why people are fine with someone accusing me of entitlement with no basis, while me calling them out on it with a level of civility they did not deserve is out of bounds. I don't understand this place. This is ridiculous.
  - izacus 7y ago
    You're only getting them because you're not paying anything for the service. Why do you think your "ask" matters? Do you feel the same entitlement in other stores? When using Spotify? When visiting the movies?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - Kye 7y ago
      This is not a good post. You should rethink it. Some suggestions: 1: Making assumptions will never go over well. Entitlement is an especially touchy one. The implicit assumption is that I use YouTube, or that I use it enough to justify the subscription price. Google is not owed my business any more than Spotify (which I don't use), the movie theater (same), or physical businesses with pushy sales people (this pushes me right out the door). 2: You asked four questions in rapid succession with further (wrong) assumptions. The term for this is sealioning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning Good luck with future posts!
astral303 7y ago
The author throws Apple under the bus pointing out a forced full screen modal message advertising Apple TV+. IMO this is an unfair comparison, because the Apple TV+ modal ad came up exactly once and never again (once per Apple TV device). Whereas YouTube is nagging and interrupting the author every day, multiple times a day. I wish there was a YouTube alternative. I dislike their Apple TV YouTube app enough that I loathe to explore videos. Yet the content creators I watch only distribute on YouTube. I won’t pay for YouTube Premium because I know the quality of the app is still the poor same.
- SebastianKra 7y ago
  I use RSS to keep track of my subscriptions and Invidio.us to watch them. RSS is IMO waaay better than the sub-box because they are in the same place as all my other news. Invidio.us doesn't have the best interface, but it offers all the necessary features and let's me do picture-in-picture on iPad.
- abruzzi 7y ago
  On the other hand, Apple does spam me with an ad for Apple Music every couple of weeks. It happens when I launch the music app on my phone.
wazoox 7y ago
I use NewPipe on mobile. No nagging pop-ups, background play, free software.
htk 7y ago
I’m a premium subscriber but I do agree that the pop-ups on non-paying users are too much. It’s a poor proposition to make users subscribe to your service to get rid of annoying pop-ups. It’s like an airline company telling customers to pay a fee to get rid of spikes on their seats. But I also think the shrill tone of the article diminishes the message.
- chihuahua 7y ago
  I'm using Youtube via Chrome browser with UBlock Origin. I can't remember seeing even a single ad in several years. I'm amazed that Youtube has not figured out how to prevent this, but at the moment it's a fantastic experience.
abraxas 7y ago
To each their own but YouTube premium is one of the few subscription services where I feel I get my money's worth. YouTube's content library drawfs everyone else's and I use it a ton for education as well as entertainment. So much so I think I'm going to cancel Netflix as it gets too little use to justify its price in my house. YouTube on the other hand is wildly more popular in my family.
TacoToni 7y ago
I'm sure someone already mentioned this, but I would pay for YouTube premium at a lower price just to remove ads. I have no interest in their music service.
- jsnell 7y ago
  That's what YouTube Red was. Did you subscribe to it? If you did, why aren't you now grandfathered into YouTube Premium at that old price? If you didn't, why not? It was after all exactly the product you now claim to have wanted.
  - Marsymars 7y ago
    > If you didn't, why not? Not the poster you asked the question to originally, but YouTube Red was never available in Canada.
monkeycantype 7y ago
The edge YT has over its competitor music streaming providers is that I get access to both licensed and blatantly pirated material. I’ve been listening to 70s Japanese Rock, Apple Music has v little, YT has everything, none of what I’m listening to is licensed.
CraneWorm 7y ago
> Get background play with YouTube Premium. Are you shitting me? I get background play with Firefox... Also, I value my mobile transfer limits so... youtuble-dl it is.
guu 7y ago
For those annoyed by the YouTube app or website bloat: https://invidio.us https://invidio.us is an AGPL alternative front end for YouTube that truly feels premium. It doesn’t have pop up ads and even plays videos without javascript. Source is here: https://github.com/omarroth/invidious https://github.com/omarroth/invidious
martin1b 7y ago
I agree with every word in this article. I understand adverts but being hit on the head with the google advertising tack hammer at every view is annoying. Makes me want to look for a new platform.
helloworld2019 7y ago
Hello! I need to finish my college homework, but I have no money to get survey responses…… If you have about a 1-minute spare, please help me do this simple survey with only 5 questions about Youtube recommendation system: https://forms.gle/5nmQFWxMX2P47wqx8 https://forms.gle/5nmQFWxMX2P47wqx8 Your response will be appreciated so much! Thank you very very much!

204 points by laurentdc 7y ago

YouTube Premium is worth it IMO. No adds, the ability to minimize, and downloading videos locally, all within the same app are killer features.

deleted 7y ago
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vinay427 7y ago
Even better if you have Google Play Music All Access (or whatever the premium version is called now). You get YouTube Premium included along with unlimited streaming of millions of songs.
duncan-donuts 7y ago
You know what? I’m not going to pay google to stop harassing me with ads. YouTube was actually usable as little as a month ago. I see so many ads now you’d think this was some sketchy app, but we’re talking about YouTube. How is the answer, “paying them $10/mo is worth it,” in the context of there being an ad problem an acceptable answer?
- tehwebguy 7y ago
  You went to their house. They have ads there. You knew that.
falcolas 7y ago
I agree it’s worth it, but for slightly different reasons. No ads, yet the creators are getting a significant amount more money for me watching their content. It’s the easiest, and most sanity-proof way to get money to most content creators I watch.
- falcolas 7y ago
  Oddest downvotes to date.
Nextgrid 7y ago
> the ability to minimize It's sad that a basic element of computing is now considered a privilege people need to pay for.
- izacus 7y ago
  > It's sad that a basic element of computing is now considered a privilege people need to pay for. Just like it's sad that being asked to pay the creator and service provider is now something we need to write whole articles to whine about. How do you thing we'll get rid of personal data tracking and collection if you don't even want to pay a pittance for service you're using?
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    My problem is not with paying. My problem is that I am being asked to pay not for the content itself, but to remove bullshit limitations that shouldn't be there in the first place. Also, it's very naive to think Google will suddenly stop tracking you just because you're paying for Premium... quite the opposite actually, as you've now given them a valid credit card and billing address.
    - izacus 7y ago
      Everything a paid service doesn't give you until you pay is a "bullshit limitation" right? Is all always arbitrary. Why do you refuse to pay for the features if you want them? Why do you feel they should serve you for free?
      - Nextgrid 7y ago
        There’s a difference between a service not giving me something and a service explicitly breaking platform conventions. When I open a browser tab with audio in it I expect to be able to switch to a different app and the audio keeps playing. YouTube explicitly uses hacks to break that on mobile. I consider it very nasty to get out of your way and interfere with browser & OS features like that.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

perl4ever 7y ago

I can't remember if it was on YouTube or not, but the other day, I wanted to watch a video about an Acura concept car, and it forced me to watch a Honda ad. I quit in disgust. People insist that online advertising works, but it's just too much to swallow any more.

alexis_fr 7y ago
4 ads every 12 minutes was quite common on TV. I’ve always thought Youtube would ramp it up to this level one day. It’s only a matter of time until VoD does it too (Netflix? for 7$?).
- perl4ever 7y ago
  It's not the quantity of ads overall, it's that the content I want to watch is frequently essentially an ad anyway, and in this case it was for the same entity, and yet I can't watch it uninterrupted.
- wazoox 7y ago
  It was quite common in the US. We Europeans always considered US TV as totally unwatchable, because of the horrible, constant ad interruption.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    I'm not sure it was always common in the US, I'm sure I heard a rumor that in olden days, cable didn't have ads, or had fewer ads because you paid for it. Some places in Europe pay for OTA TV so that could be connected with the quantity of ads, rather than the inherent superiority of the citizenry in all respects.
    - wazoox 7y ago
      I think this has more to do with inherent superiority of the consumer defence laws. BTW ads are an almost unmitigated nuisance: when France banned ads after 8PM on its public channels, their audience numbers soared (so the project which was an obvious gift from Sarkozy to his media mogul friends, badly backfired).

nerdponx 7y ago

I actually disagree with this. I am being provided 1080P video streaming into my house 24/7 with virtually no interruption. If they want to spam their premium stuff at me, that's a small price to pay. I will complain to high heaven about misuse of personal data, but it is perfectly within their right to show pop up ads for their own premium product on the free version. I would be a lifelong subscriber if I didn't think they were abusing my data in the first place. If there's anything I would complain about, is that the ads don't have enough variety. I see the same damn advertisements over and over. This is part of why I can't stand TV advertising either. Yes, it's patronizing and intrusive in my show, but but it's also repetitive. At least keep it interesting and tell me about some different products...

CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
Same here, would buy a in a second if I believed it would make me the customer.

Hokusai 7y ago

Welcome to the future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU3GzYcb1g8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU3GzYcb1g8 Tech companies are an oligopoly with a few actors. Competitions do not offer enough pressure to make them change. Regulation is the only way forward if we do not want to end in a dystopia.

ianai 7y ago
Agree. We need some old school style trustbusting.
- pimmen 7y ago
  We’re fortunate to have some politicians and officials who believe in anti-trust measures in the European Union. Margrethe Vestager is the current champion and I’m glad I’m under her wing rather than her American counterpart, Ajit Pai. I’m optimistic that regulations will come, sooner or later.
- 0xfaded 7y ago
  I originally succumbed to YouTube premium because of the bundled music. I remembered thinking at the time this bundling put Spotify at a disadvantage. When for unrelated reasons I started degoogling sure enough I went straight to Spotify. Can someone explain where the boundary here is for antitrust?
- Guest42 7y ago
  For a moment I read that as truthbusting and got a little frightened
- izacus 7y ago
  How would antitrust here look like? It's a subscription for a direct service... what's the monopoly solution here? Ordering Google to store and serve videos for free?
  - bogwog 7y ago
    How about breaking up Google? Seems like that'd solve a lot more problems than it'd create.

RKearney 7y ago

Even if you pay for YouTube Premium you’ll then get reoccurring pop-ups to sign up and pay for YouTube TV.

tialaramex 7y ago
I don't see these? Maybe it isn't available where I am, or maybe I set a switch that disables promos?
faeyanpiraat 7y ago
Yo’ve pulled out your wallet. Perfect time for a neat upsell.
pimmen 7y ago
That’s the absolute worst. I’m paying for YouTube Premium and I hate that I get pop-ups for YouTube TV and YouTube Kids and whatnot. Peace and quiet was one of the things I paid good money for.
joegahona 7y ago
Maybe you guys are getting lost in multiple logins? I've had Youtube Red/Premium almost as long as it's been available, and I never see ads of any kind. I love it.

drewg123 7y ago

If you want to get rid of pop-ups, ads, and other annoyances, try Newpipe on Android, and SmartYouTubeTV on FireTV / Android TV https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/ https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/

jackjeff 7y ago
I’d kill for a YouTube client for AppleTV or to go back to the old one before Google decide to trash the UI with immaterial design everywhere. YouTube has the worst UI on AppleTV by far.
- tehwebguy 7y ago
  Yes, literally only useable because of the voice input on the remote / mobile app
- PretzelFisch 7y ago
  The website, and roku channel are not much better. Seems to get worse with every update.
perlpimp 7y ago
you can get your whole Google account suspended by using newpipe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759
- jowsie 7y ago
  No idea how common this is, but that particular case seems to most likely be fabricated.
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    While I was also under the impression that this is probably not true (since you can't actually log in with Newpipe), I've been waiting for them to crack down on it from the day I learned of it. Wouldn't surprise me if it stopped working when enough people start to use it. Related, a few weeks ago they cracked down on Yalp (a Play Store front-end: basically an open source implementation of their internal APIs). I'm not sure if/when they're going to ease up on that, but until then, it looks like I'm stuck with whatever selection of apps (and versions) I've got at the moment.

mitfahrener 7y ago

Got youtube premium so I can watch videos on my commute. NYC subway, no wifi, no 2g,3g,4g or 5g

gruez 7y ago
...or use youtube-dl (or newpipe on your phone), which does the same for free
- popup21 7y ago
  +1 for youtube-dl nifty little cli
- Jonnax 7y ago
  Yeah there's a cheaper way. But like using Spotify versus ripping CDs or piracy, the convenience of the tool is the value.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Convenience seems to be a slippery concept. From my perspective, the convenience of mpv+youtube-dl cannot be beat. Neither the official web player nor the official mobile applications have the features I expect or desire. For instance, I use text-to-speech to read aloud the subtitles of foreign language content. With mpv that's straight forward, but I wouldn't even know where to start with getting that to work using any of the official frontends of youtube.
- Crash0v3rid3 7y ago
  So pirating videos and not supporting creators is the solution? I understand the complaints some folks have but this isn't the solution.

NoblePublius 7y ago

YouTube Premium is the best $ I pay for streaming. YouTube has incredible inde music and background play makes consuming it possible.

Waterluvian 7y ago

Dunno if it's a regional thing or what but the last month of Android YouTube has been just insane with ads. I used to only get video ads, then earlier this year got a little banner below the video that was about the ad that played before the video. But now I have entire blocks of totally unrelated traditional-style ads for nothing YouTube or video related (like women's shoes) in the suggestions section.

jorvi 7y ago
Nope, same here. They used to have either one 5s ad or a skippable 20s+ ad. At some point they've started to roll two 5-10s ads back to back, or unskippable 10-30s ads, and only the 30s+ are skippable. The topmost video in the app is always an ad as well, in addition to all the text ads you mentioned. I get that video hosting costs beaucoup bucks but the amount of ads is getting ridiculous.. Its happening on other sites in other ways as well (either dark patterns or vast amounts of ads) and it has gotten me to the point where I actively take pleasure in extracting the maximum value for me as customer (so blocking ads, using VPN to pay in rubles or rupees, etc) as most companies these days see you as nothing but entities to suck as much profit out of as possible, with no regard for a reasonable middle ground. Sucks for them, that's a two-way street.
- lokedhs 7y ago
  It's gotten so bad that I installed Newpipe instead. Basically I tolerated Youtube ads up to a point, but now that I'm using Newpipe instead, neither Youtube nor the creators get anything. I wish there was a better way, since it's not pracitcal to contribute to all channel's patreons.
  - warp 7y ago
    Subscribe to Youtube premium?
    - phaus 7y ago
      Like many others mentioned, they don't completely stop nagging you simply because you subscribe.

czottmann 7y ago

I ditched the YT iOS app last night as the web interface is finally quite usable in Safari (iPad). Fullscreen works fine, quality and speed settings work fine, PIP mode works out of the box… Both on my Pi-hole-powered internal network and my nextdns.io based mobile setup the experience is so. much. calmer. I recommend giving it a shot. If pi-hole is not an option for you, check out NextDNS. Solid tracker & ad blocking either way.

kibwen 7y ago
Seconded. I've never seen a single one of the popups from the OP myself, which I thought was curious until the author mentioned they were using the Android app, whereas on mobile I only use Youtube from within Firefox, which is perfectly serviceable (and apparently less annoying).
- czottmann 7y ago
  Well, I got rid of the native iOS app because the modal nag dialogs had become so annoying that I didn't want to put up with it anymore.
- concerned_user 7y ago
  Yes native android app gives you popup to enable premium trial once a week or so, from my experience.

frou_dh 7y ago

Someone not spending money and being indignant at the same time is generally not too interesting. Ask any business operator.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

fwxwi 7y ago

ublock origin on desktop, youtube vanced on android.

jandeboevrie 7y ago

YouTube Vanced or Peertube don't show ads. They do show stories, which are stupid as well. Just as the recommendations are shit lately. Just more of the same instead of new interesting things. If I can't block ads then I'll stop using YouTube. Did for half a year when I was on ios where adblock in the app didn't work.

monkeyfacebag 7y ago

I pay for YouTube premium but I'm still subjected to ads in the majority of videos I watch: the kind that are embedded by the creator directly in the video, eg, a one minute sponsored by Squarespace segment. I don't know how Google is framing YouTube premium (I get it through my Google play music subscription) but it is most assuredly not an ad-free experience.

falcolas 7y ago
FWIW, the videos with sponsored content are frequently either not getting money from YouTube (such as the gaming segment), or not getting enough from the ads that do run (COPA affected and . The creators may also be futureproofing their livelyhood in fear that their segment will be the next one that YouTube demonitizes by default. It’s not very profitable to be a content maker (outside the top .01%), and many content creators are paying a team to help them produce regular, high quality videos.
- monkeyfacebag 7y ago
  I don't dispute any of that. I'm saying that, as a YouTube premium subscriber, I'm not clear exactly what I'm paying for. I mean, I guess fewer ads is better than more ads but I think a paid service should be able to provide me with stronger guarantees.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    To the extent that YouTube is just a user-generated content delivery platform, paying for premium makes them stop injecting their own ads. Ads that are part of the videos are outside their purview. It's a defensible, and I think reasonable position to take (and I say this as someone who hates advertising in general).
    - monkeyfacebag 7y ago
      I mean, I get how Youtube works. I understand there is a distinction to be made, if I cared to make it, between Google's ads and creators' ads. My point is that Youtube premium is not ad-free and explaining how Youtube works doesn't refute that point. You may think it's fine that Youtube premium has ads because that's how Youtube works. I respect that. I still watch Youtube all the time myself.

robbrown451 7y ago

I've had YouTube Premium/Red for years (the only thing I pay for to watch video content), but I'm about to cancel it because they now show ads on videos if those videos are embedded in other web sites. Most of the content I watch is on other web sites that curate content, and now the benefit of YouTube Premium is gone.

tehwebguy 7y ago
Can the embed detect your logged in state? Privacy settings may have changed in the browser.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  Yes I am starting to suspect it has to do with changes in Chrome. I can't find out how to modify site settings to make it work though.
  - michaelt 7y ago
    I believe the setting you're looking for is called 'uBlock Origin'
    - chihuahua 7y ago
      Indeed. Chrome + uBlock Origin = 0 ads on Youtube over the past several years.

Jagat 7y ago

"It’s a pointless subscription that Google is trying to lazily ram down my throat instead of improving its offering,.." It's now fashionable to shit on google on HN, but Youtube premium is one of the best investments I've made, and I'm glad google is giving that choice. How many times have I not read comments like 'give me an option to pay instead of showing me ads' on HN. There are tons of videos on youtube that I listen to as podcasts while commuting (and there aren't enough good podcasts in that sector).

izacus 7y ago

YouTube Premium is literally the service HN wants: honest payment to support a Google service costs and creators publishing on it. It's a sustainable service which actually earns more for creators than ads and data mining (at least according to last CPC values I've seen for video ads). And yet, it seems like the author of this piece still feels entitled to complain about being asked to pay the price of service and these comments are full of people advertising products that still use the service without paying the asking price. It's like demanding that music authors just send you MP3s for free without paying for it at all. I personally hope that more companies allow me to pay for their services instead of being plagued by behavioural ad tracking.

Kye 7y ago
No one asked for constant nag screens. edit: HN won't let me make any more replies. I don't know why people are fine with someone accusing me of entitlement with no basis, while me calling them out on it with a level of civility they did not deserve is out of bounds. I don't understand this place. This is ridiculous.
- izacus 7y ago
  You're only getting them because you're not paying anything for the service. Why do you think your "ask" matters? Do you feel the same entitlement in other stores? When using Spotify? When visiting the movies?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Kye 7y ago
    This is not a good post. You should rethink it. Some suggestions: 1: Making assumptions will never go over well. Entitlement is an especially touchy one. The implicit assumption is that I use YouTube, or that I use it enough to justify the subscription price. Google is not owed my business any more than Spotify (which I don't use), the movie theater (same), or physical businesses with pushy sales people (this pushes me right out the door). 2: You asked four questions in rapid succession with further (wrong) assumptions. The term for this is sealioning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning Good luck with future posts!

astral303 7y ago

The author throws Apple under the bus pointing out a forced full screen modal message advertising Apple TV+. IMO this is an unfair comparison, because the Apple TV+ modal ad came up exactly once and never again (once per Apple TV device). Whereas YouTube is nagging and interrupting the author every day, multiple times a day. I wish there was a YouTube alternative. I dislike their Apple TV YouTube app enough that I loathe to explore videos. Yet the content creators I watch only distribute on YouTube. I won’t pay for YouTube Premium because I know the quality of the app is still the poor same.

SebastianKra 7y ago
I use RSS to keep track of my subscriptions and Invidio.us to watch them. RSS is IMO waaay better than the sub-box because they are in the same place as all my other news. Invidio.us doesn't have the best interface, but it offers all the necessary features and let's me do picture-in-picture on iPad.
abruzzi 7y ago
On the other hand, Apple does spam me with an ad for Apple Music every couple of weeks. It happens when I launch the music app on my phone.

wazoox 7y ago

I use NewPipe on mobile. No nagging pop-ups, background play, free software.

htk 7y ago

I’m a premium subscriber but I do agree that the pop-ups on non-paying users are too much. It’s a poor proposition to make users subscribe to your service to get rid of annoying pop-ups. It’s like an airline company telling customers to pay a fee to get rid of spikes on their seats. But I also think the shrill tone of the article diminishes the message.

chihuahua 7y ago
I'm using Youtube via Chrome browser with UBlock Origin. I can't remember seeing even a single ad in several years. I'm amazed that Youtube has not figured out how to prevent this, but at the moment it's a fantastic experience.

abraxas 7y ago

To each their own but YouTube premium is one of the few subscription services where I feel I get my money's worth. YouTube's content library drawfs everyone else's and I use it a ton for education as well as entertainment. So much so I think I'm going to cancel Netflix as it gets too little use to justify its price in my house. YouTube on the other hand is wildly more popular in my family.

TacoToni 7y ago

I'm sure someone already mentioned this, but I would pay for YouTube premium at a lower price just to remove ads. I have no interest in their music service.

jsnell 7y ago
That's what YouTube Red was. Did you subscribe to it? If you did, why aren't you now grandfathered into YouTube Premium at that old price? If you didn't, why not? It was after all exactly the product you now claim to have wanted.
- Marsymars 7y ago
  > If you didn't, why not? Not the poster you asked the question to originally, but YouTube Red was never available in Canada.

monkeycantype 7y ago

The edge YT has over its competitor music streaming providers is that I get access to both licensed and blatantly pirated material. I’ve been listening to 70s Japanese Rock, Apple Music has v little, YT has everything, none of what I’m listening to is licensed.

CraneWorm 7y ago

> Get background play with YouTube Premium. Are you shitting me? I get background play with Firefox... Also, I value my mobile transfer limits so... youtuble-dl it is.

guu 7y ago

For those annoyed by the YouTube app or website bloat: https://invidio.us https://invidio.us is an AGPL alternative front end for YouTube that truly feels premium. It doesn’t have pop up ads and even plays videos without javascript. Source is here: https://github.com/omarroth/invidious https://github.com/omarroth/invidious

martin1b 7y ago

I agree with every word in this article. I understand adverts but being hit on the head with the google advertising tack hammer at every view is annoying. Makes me want to look for a new platform.

helloworld2019 7y ago

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