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YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

• eznzt 6y ago
  Hacker News User Will Continue to Run uBlock Origin on All Sites Including YouTube Even If Webmasters Don't Want Him To
  • Droobfest 6y ago
    I think technically it would be pretty easy for google to embed ads into videos in a way that would be hard to impossible to block.
    • eznzt 6y ago
      It would be very expensive, though, as they would have to recode videos constantly. (Edit: my children comments are right)
      • krageon 6y ago
        At first I thought you had a point (and for practical purposes, perhaps you do) but I don't think it'd be particularly challenging to inject video frames into a stream without re-encoding the original video.
        • colejohnson66 6y ago
          It’s not challenging.[a] ffmpeg can “join” streams back-to-back without reencoding if one desires. [a]: This is assuming you know the magic incantation to get ffmpeg to do it
          • rileyteige 6y ago
            if anyone has the resources to figure out this magic incantation, it would be Google.
            • colejohnson66 6y ago
              It’s not that difficult a command compared to what is possible with ffmpeg. But it’s also a pretty common enough task that literally the first result for using DDG with “ffmpeg concatenate without reencoding” gave: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49371422/how-to-merge-two-videos-without-re-encoding https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49371422/how-to-merge-tw...
          • mnw21cam 6y ago
            You just need to make sure the video sections are stored in a concatenatable format (like mpeg or m4s), and then you can literally use cat.
        • kaetemi 6y ago
          You can cut on any key frame and switch to another video.
    • paol 6y ago
      I've long wondered why they don't do this for video ads. If they were served as part of the main video stream it would be almost impossible for ad-blockers to filter them. (I even think the DASH segmentation would allow them to this without reencoding the original video, but that's just speculation on my part)
      • asddubs 6y ago
        I think maybe the problem is that you do need to have a seperate mode for ads, so you can click on them. and as long as that's the case, there are going to be ways to block them
        • rileyteige 6y ago
          - Embed ads into the video itself, as suggested above - Stream ad start/end events to the browser, with no duration info - On sending the start event, lock the user's session such that they can't change their position within the video. lock it server-side, and client-side. Start event will include details of the ad being displayed for any interactivity. - Unlock the session after the duration of the ad has elapsed, which is only known server-side. Then send the end event to the browser so it can be unlocked client-side.
          • asddubs 6y ago
            you could still block that ad, you would just be delaying people. the browser plugin could fake stream the ad before you click play. it still means you have to wait sometimes, but you won't have to actually watch the ad. The big problem with this is that now you're heavily incentivizing people to spoof ad watching to get around it, and then you start having trouble measuring the real numbers, which advertisers won't be happy about
            • e_proxus 6y ago
              What a great mode that would be. I would probably skip a lot of movies during this period like “do I really want to watch this?”
    • ce4 6y ago
      Very probably not. Dynamic ad insertion usually uses separate domains for serving the ad media and it's probably not viable to inject totally unblockable dynamic ads at the media level. And also not breaking YT for some clients on the way.
      • postingpals 6y ago
        twitch.tv has started doing this very thing, so it's definitely possible. Twitch and youtube respond to each other's actions so youtube could easily end up doing this too.
    • fakedang 6y ago
      They would be heavily pressed for storage then.
    • burnthrow 6y ago
      Twitch literally started doing this a few weeks ago (unblockable ads embedded in the stream), but the geniuses of HN that downvoted you know better.
    • thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
      It would be hard to work around this https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock
    • userbinator 6y ago
      Many VCRs had a feature to skip ads when recording, working solely on the (analog) video stream. They worked quite well using only the technology of the time.
      • dekerta 6y ago
        I think those VCRs looked for the short black screen between the programming and commercials
        • comprev 6y ago
          I remember from my childhood seeing an icon in the screen corner indicating adverts were about to start. This was on terrestrial British TV.
        • jzl 6y ago
          I thought it was triggered by audio volume, because ads are typically louder and more consistently loud. Maybe it was a combination. Not so sure how well it ever worked, though.
        • jdofaz 6y ago
          Frasier had long enough black transitions between scenes to trigger the fast forward on mine
      • zinekeller 6y ago
        For UK, it looks for a special mark being used by ITV companies (and Channel 4, which are ultimately controlled by IBA) which is mainly used to signal companies in other regions that they should switch to an advertisement tailored for their region [1]. Since the television channels were controlled by IBA and BBC, this is a for-sure way to skip advertisements. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_mark#Cue_dots_in_television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_mark#Cue_dots_in_televisio...
    • adrianN 6y ago
      Twitch does this already: https://twitchadvertising.tv/ad-products/surestream/ https://twitchadvertising.tv/ad-products/surestream/
      • sugarpile 6y ago
        Twitch ads, including surestream ones, are blockable/bypassable.
        • MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
          How does one do this? I've tried but eventually just gave up and currently I'm not in a situation where a PiHole would be viable.
    • freebasenic 6y ago
      Twitch has figured it out
    • Bayart 6y ago
      You can already effectively block all sponsored segment through SponsorBlock. I imagine that if Youtube were to randomly "inline" ads in the stream they're delivering to you, crowd-sourcing would also be an effective way to combat it. Make a "signature" of sorts of the video by pulling data from users and detect the ad bit on on your side using it. Well, that is if the ads come from the same domain as the legit video bits.
    • ouid 6y ago
      Google values its monopoly status pretty highly. I don't think you're playing out this scenario far enough in your head.
    • cyberpsybin 6y ago
      Twitch has launched its crusade against ads. Going so far to look into all the adblock exploits being posted and patching them by day basis. Twitch is winning as of now. YouTube will do the same.
    • intricatedetail 6y ago
      I think in many countries content that is an ad must be clearly marked by law. Should be easy to skip.
    • paulnechifor 6y ago
      It would probably be a good thing for me, since forcing annoying ads will make me stop using YouTube. I insta-close any website which forces me to turn off my ad blocker.
  • jrootabega 6y ago
    Thereby Making it Worse for Everyone Else. Indiscriminate measures don't provide helpful information. Support videos that have acceptable ads. Don't support ones that don't. Downvote them, comment, and, most importantly, be willing not to watch them, ever. YouTube can learn, much like a dog, as long as the feedback is clear and swift
    • oauea 6y ago
      YouTube doesn't have any acceptable ads.
      • jrootabega 6y ago
        Nonsense. They have a lot of short and inoffensive ads, and similar delivery methods. They also have a lot of long offensive ones, and we should give them an incentive to favor the former
        • themaninthedark 6y ago
          Short...I remember getting several 15 to 30 minute ads on 5 minute videos. At lest they were skipable. To be fair, the ads themselves were interesting, I just didn't have time to watch all of them.
          • jrootabega 6y ago
            Oh, they try to get away with some shit. Just gotta be ready for it. They get me occasionally when I'm elbow deep in dishwater. I'm pretty sure they model people who are asleep or afk and hit them with the worst ads
    • hadrien01 6y ago
      We already support videos that have acceptable ads: not YouTube ads, but in-video ads. The creator is paid directly by the advertiser with no middle-man, the user is not tracked and can easily skip them, and personally I prefer these ads instead of unskippable TV-like commercials .
  • pedro2 6y ago
    DRM on YouTube would block that. As well as Webbundles.
  • Shivetya 6y ago
    however Youtube app users are in a lurch as watching videos that way can result with ads even part way through a video and it seems wholly random how much you can watch before an ad pop. Also, Twitch has been waging a war of sorts against uBlock and others with their forced ads on streams you are not subscribed to. For the most part both youtube and twitch are doing their damn best force ads into all content though for the time being twitch does let subscribers to a channel avoid an ad on that channel
• zinekeller 6y ago
  Edit: I need to emphasise that the ads were occasional, and probably YouTube will be more agressive this time. I've also realised that many of you are using some sort of ad-blocker, so you might not felt the changes when it was (silently) rolled out years ago, but this is from my experience using YouTube on devices which I cannot install an ad-blocker (like in some instructional videos for certain robots which some companies decided to use YouTube for). I have put this edit on top because it seems that some HN commenters do not read beyond a few sentence. Original text: I'm sorry if I seem dismissive, but isn't this the status quo already (like years ago)? I don't necessarily endorse it, but from what I've read on the article and the announcement it seems that it has rewritten the terms to clarify that YouTube/Google can monetise videos outside of YPP programme (and some other changes that are not in scope of the argument), so is this just net zero? (Also: if a YPP creator has decided to not monetize a video, the video gets less ads which its proceeds goes directly to Google. This has been the status quo at least 2016(?)ish so this might be just to clarify that this indeed happens.)
  • thirteenfingers 6y ago
    If you're referring to in-video ads, then no. At present, if you choose not to monetize a video, no ads get shown unless a third part makes a copyright claim on your video. I'm not quite sure about the situation with ads that show up in the corner of the page - those are unobtrusive enough that I'm used to mentally tuning them out.
    • zinekeller 6y ago
      > If you're referring to in-video ads, then no. Pardon me? I'm pretty sure that there are (occasional) in-video ads for channels not under YPP and explicitly-demonetized YPP videos even before 2020. (and I'm pretty sure that they were in no way claimed by others at all)
      • thirteenfingers 6y ago
        Examples? Happy to be proven wrong on this.
• cableshaft 6y ago
  I know there are several content creators (such as Jim Sterling) that have their videos ad-free as a perk for their supporters (since he's supported enough via Patreon). He's pretty angry about this change. I somewhat understand Google's stance on this, as it's a service that should be allowed to make money even on people who don't want to make money. They don't really have such a way to opt out of pretty much any other service of theirs that has monetization. But at the same time, there are people who have so heavily invested into the YouTube ecosystem with certain expectations for a very long time, and pretty much have their entire business on there, so they can't very easily take their business elsewhere if they're unhappy with the change. This isn't a 'Netflix raising their subscription cost' scenario, where users can just cancel their subscription and sign up for a different service. It would be a massive undertaking to shift their backlog of videos onto another service, and they'd lose all their existing subscribers and have to build it up elsewhere. So in that respect, it's kind of a shitty move by Google.
  • draugadrotten 6y ago
    > it's kind of a shitty move by Google. It's kind of business as usual for Google. Why would anyone expect them to be kind and generous suddenly when they have consistently for years pulled the rug out underneath previosly-free services. (or killed them off completely https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ ) gmail subscriptions are next, just wait and see.
    • ce4 6y ago
      What do you mean by gmail subs?
      • lordnacho 6y ago
        Sounds like he's suggesting that you'll soon be required to pay for it.
        • ekianjo 6y ago
          You are already paying for it with massive crawling of your personal information.
• londons_explore 6y ago
  YouTube already does ads on every page right? The ones in the top right corner of the watch page for example. I think this is now referring to in-video ads.
  • nacs 6y ago
    Yes this is referring to in-video ads.
• swiley 6y ago
  Reminder that https://lbry.com/ https://lbry.com/ probably has lots of your favorite youtubers on it anyway and if you're a creator it's very easy to have it sync with your channel.
• superkuh 6y ago
  Bait and switch. This is what big companies do. They buy products that are a threat to them, or allow them to address the threat of another company. Then they offer the bought company's services for free for a period. Then it ends. The point is to kill competition so they can settle in and collect rent.
  • mecha_love 6y ago
    true that. Amazon is a perfect example
  • Supermancho 6y ago
    > Then they offer the bought company's services for free for a period. Then it ends. It ends because there is an expectation of continuous growth. Eventually the predatory company starts corrupting the free model to increase revenue incrementally (all the while, internal development costs start to rise with bureaucracy) until the revenue growth is outstripped by development cost or market demand falls to equal/below a measurable amount. Usually before, but at various times, some smaller startup with funding to stay alive or a novel business model grows with more agile process and lower cost expectations while the old predator tries to flail about (reducing ads or subscription costs) shedding users who invested, all the way down while maintaining all the bloat. This is what happened to Yahoo, I think.
• 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
  Please use newpipe if you are on android. Your watching ads of your favourite small youtuber wont get them paid anyways because of this so make your experience a bit cleaner. Use newpipe. Also, start looking into peertube. While its still long ways from a competing software, its going strong and the more people join it, the better will be the network effect.
  • nacs 6y ago
    Not sure why this is downvoted but this kind of thing is a good example for why I'm glad things like peertube exist. Youtube was down for a few hours a couple days ago and thats when I realized that just about every video on the internet is now exclusively hosted on Youtube. Even visiting the homepage of some sites, they'll have a Youtube "Here's what our product is"-type video that was no longer working.
    • 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
      Dependency hell is used in coding but it can just as easily be used for google/YouTube. Peertube already is becoming a good floss competitor software that can be selfhosted. You make the rules, you put advertising if you want. My reasoning for saying use newpipe with this new rule. Earlier the idea was like you are not watching ads and taking money from creators if only that was 50% of revenue. Now they are not getting nothing so why bother watching obnoxious ads.
• simfoo 6y ago
  I went premium earlier this year to avoid the ads while getting my favourite channels a little revenue. If they ever start showing ads for YouTube Premium users I'm out of there
  • sterwill 6y ago
    I've been a Red/Premium subscriber for years, and I'm out the second there's a single ad. I'm annoyed at the increasing number of creators jamming sponsorships into their content. I don't know what my threshold is on that before I just stop following YouTube content altogether, but I'm getting close.
    • ziml77 6y ago
      SponsorBlock. Auto-skips that garbage. The overlay over the playback bar is helpful too. If I see that half of it highlighted as a sponsor segment, then I know it's a trash video that isn't worth my time.
      • sterwill 6y ago
        I only watch YouTube on my PS4 using Google's app, so I don't think SponsorBlock is an option there. I was really happy with Red/Premium in the early days because I felt like I was getting a great deal for the price. Apparently there aren't enough subscribers, or Google doesn't share enough revenue with creators, or some combination of that and other things--but the experience is getting worse every week. I guess it was good while it lasted.
• randlet 6y ago
  Most of the creators I watch are switching to a combination of Patreon and in-video advertising "reads" (have you heard about Kiwi Co?!?) both of which cut Google out of the equation so it's not too surprising to me Google is cranking up the dial on their own advertisements.
  • btreecat 6y ago
    Only they are doing it on channels with out enough viewers to choose those options. Shady af.
    • apexalpha 6y ago
      Why is it shady, should Youtube host your video for free? Youtube is an insane free service, there's nothing that comes close to the video and stream quality. To be honest I'm surprised so many video's have been hosted without ads while the creators cash in outside of Google.
      • Quarrelsome 6y ago
        > Why is it shady, should Youtube host your video for free? That has been the service since release, so yes.
        • Google234 6y ago
          It’s still free ...
      • TACIXAT 6y ago
        >should Youtube host your video for free? Yes, because I am making content for them for free. It is unpaid labor on my part in exchange for free hosting. Now it is unpaid labor that makes them money.
        • TACIXAT 6y ago
          Could someone explain the downvotes? I do not believe this is such a radical opinion. Prior to this change you were still producing content for the YouTube ecosystem for free until you hit 4k view hours. Then you could begin to make a meager amount of money. It is not such a great deal for content creators and now it is even worse.
• Okawari 6y ago
  Having just recently bought a Smart TV, I was shocked by the amount of ads that played. I pretty much stopped using it at this point. There is just too many ads. I dont even know how they can cram more ads into videos at this point.
  • nacs 6y ago
    I had the same experience using the native Youtube app on iOS. In my browsers (including on mobile), I always have adblock enabled but playing the video in the native Youtube app crams so many ads into a video it's ridiculous. They deliver ads on videos as short as 2 minutes long. Move onto the next video after watching an ad + 2 minute video == another ad. I've stopped using the native app and have now switched to the mobile-browser version now (I use Adguard as an ad-blocker for mobile Safari which blocks YT ads in browser)..
    • sbarre 6y ago
      In the last year (or so?) the amount of ads I see when using the iOS/tvOS YouTube native apps has steadily increased, where now I basically have to sit through 2 x 15s ads at the start of almost any video I want to watch. And only after the second or third video I watch am I finally given the "skip" button, and then after a few more videos, it's back to unskippable for a while, etc.. Not to mention the constant push for YT Premium, it's every 3rd or 4th time I launch the app now that I have to tap past a full-screen interstitial asking me to subscribe. Google is already steadily increasing the amount of ads they are making people sit through on YouTube, and so a move like this just feels like more steps down the same path they've already been on for quite a while.
      • ballenf 6y ago
        Even if you don't pay for Premium, just using a VPN in a smaller country helps a lot. Make sure you have all the personalized ads turned off in privacy settings.
    • ballenf 6y ago
      Plus there are ads in the UI that look a lot like recommended / related videos.
• at-fates-hands 6y ago
  There's already several articles about Google on the front page. I'm curious why they would be making moves to avoid an anti-trust lawsuit on the one hand with its scaling back of using AMP; while on the other hand, they seem to be actively using their monopoly with YT to generate ad revenue by forcing it on the content creators. This puts a lot of people in a bad situation. There's no real recourse because the platform has so many users dependent on it, and its not easy to simply yank all of your content and go to another platform. The logistics of doing so are cumbersome and time consuming. I don't know what the long term solution is, but this just seems very unreasonable. When you're business becomes so reliant on Google, you don't have any alternative but to just take what they do to you as a part of doing business with them.
  • blackoil 6y ago
    Both are different cases. Monopoly (dominant position) isn't bad abusing monopoly in one segment to gain market in another is. So AMP is bad, as they are abusing monopoly in search/news to enter hosting/content platform business. Youtube monetization is not independent of Youtube, so they are free to build upon it.
  • Nasrudith 6y ago
    That isn't using the monopoly to generate ad revenue it is using their traffic to generate revenue. If anything running YT division at a loss is way worse for antitrust than milking it hard for ads.
• mister_hn 6y ago
  Time to ditch YouTube I guess. I understand they want to be _profitable_ by forcing users to pay those $9.99/month, but this aggressive campaign against free users is really really bad.
• bsharitt 6y ago
  I get why people are mad that something that exists is changing, though at this point I've stopped being surprised when something that was free either stops being free or has the free offering diminished. This particularly was a very weird setup where if you didn't want a share of ad revenue, you got to use the service completely for free. While Google offers ad free YouTube to users, it'd be nice if they offered a way for creators to pay for YouTube hosting so they can continue to offer their channels ad free, with maybe a small discount based on the percentage of your user base with YouTube Premium.
  • everdrive 6y ago
    Yep. You don't own Youtube, and you don't really have much control over content you wish to upload, or content you wish the view. And, this content can be removed or modified (by inserting ads) at any time. I think services are generally bad for consumers. (they can be quite good for businesses, though) If a consumer relies on a service, then they are beholden to any change made in that service. In other words, it's fine to enjoy Youtube, but just know that your enjoyment could be temporary, videos could be lost, and you could be shut out from the service.
    • effingwewt 6y ago
      Completely agree the imbalance of the power dynamic has really gotten worse since the Reagan era. We really need stronger consumer advocacy. An aside- it's really jaded me that with the advent of the internet so many of us had these wonderful dreams of the things we could build and share the world over, and how it would change the world and be this revolutionary force. Well it was, just not for good. Every single good thing gets twisted and perverted in the hunt for the Almighty Profit. I remember my father complaining when I was young about money being the root of all evil, never be greedy, love your fellow man. But some time around his late 40s he became a republican, tax became theft, people he didn't know personally could fuck right off. This all coincided with his opening his business and got worse as it became more successful. The man who hated Reagan and Bush and my rich half of my family with a passion became a staunch Trump supporter. We no longer speak for other reasons but I use it as a reminder of what not to be. It's worked well for me, I'm not an abusive alcoholic, hopefully I wont become a selfish old curmudgeon over money either.
• DanBC 6y ago
  > Yes, the new Terms of Service allow ads to run on videos from non-YPP channels (so long as the video meets ad-friendly guidelines). So now all these smaller creators will just start their video with "hey cunts, how you doing today?"
  • clankyclanker 6y ago
    Or they could use the opportunity to do activism which necessarily repulses advertisers. * “Hey kids, here’s how the oil lobby caused climate change and screwed over your generation.” - Bam! No SUV ads.
• j45 6y ago
  After having tried Youtube Premium to remove ads, it's almost jarring to see ads in a Youtube video. YT seems to be increasingly prioritizing being ad delivery network over being a content delivery network.
• atemerev 6y ago
  “You Know What, Evil Is Actually OK” — Google, 2020.
  • blackoil 6y ago
    For lack of better word, "Evil is Good", Evil wins market, kills competition and make you rich.
  • falcolas 6y ago
    “You Know What, Evil Is Actually Profitable” — Google, 2020.
• gtirloni 6y ago
  Why not pay for Youtube Premium? We're often talking about how we would gladly pay to keep a sustainable product going on but people are outraged that a _free_ service is increasing monetization through ads. I think Youtube is great, it's where I find a lot of content, I use it a lot and not seeing ads makes a huge difference. Plus, Youtube Music is great value for the price.
  • falcolas 6y ago
    As a YouTube Premium subscriber - I still think this move is janky as hell. If my views weren’t worth more to the channels I care about (last I heard, a “red” subscriber is worth an order of magnitude or more than ad view), I’d be out of there out of a sheer distaste for Google’s actions.
  • kevincox 6y ago
    I used to pay for YouTube premium. But I left and switched to adblocking after it kept getting worse (YouTube is one of the few sites that I use an adblocker on). - YouTube Music is awful, not a halfway decent product to replace the good Play Music. - Stopped sending emails for video uploads (I know, I'm weird) - "Premier" videos started to be shown in the RSS feeds. So now I am notified of stuff I can't even watch yet. - Half the time videos just play at 360p even though I have never had a second of buffering on my 500Mpbs connection. I think there were a couple of other things that were bugging me. But when they dropped the email notifications and the RSS feeds were terrible it was the last straw for me. I would gladly pay if I felt that they were providing a good service and it was getting better.
    • dqv 6y ago
      > Half the time videos just play at 360p even though I have never had a second of buffering on my 500Mpbs connection. Weird. I have a 50Mbps connection and get 1080p minimum on everything I watch. I like to use YT Music for discovery but not a full listening experience. Over all, YTP has really improved content discovery for me. Ad free makes it easy to find out which videos are BS.
    • driverdan 6y ago
• vlozko 6y ago
  I don't understand why people are up in arms about this. It's as if people want their cake and eat it, too. Yes, I'm aware of questionable practices that YouTube does, such as monitizing off of dead people, but I'm still astounded that people are upset about this change. Specifically, I'm referring to the expectation that one can upload a video - for free - and allow it be distributed with millions of views to the world - for free - and without ads. Google's revenue model as always been ads so this change shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. And judging from Google's latest quarterly financial results on YouTube's ads success, I'm personally confused why this wasn't done sooner.
  • chasing 6y ago
    People are (fairly) annoyed because that was the deal Google offered when they were uploading videos. And if the change shouldn't shock users, then it certainly shouldn't be shocking to Google... In which case maybe they shouldn't have presented it as an option in the first place if they knew they would have to renege on the deal.
  • clusterfish 6y ago
    Just tired of companies baiting users with free stuff to build market dominance and then dialing up profit extraction once they've killed off all possible competition. That's also your answer to why it wasn't done sooner. This is not surprising at all, but not much you can do about it even if you see it coming, because other people don't see it coming or don't care. What are you gonna do about it as a user - all the creators are on YouTube. And as a creator - all the users are on YouTube. By design.
  • Verdex 6y ago
    People expecting something that was free to remain that way forever were a bit naive. Getting upset that someone doing something for you for free is now "charging" is unreasonably entitled. However. Ads are a blight. Sure, there's something to be said for brand awareness, but if I think back on my ad experience for the last 10 years (which is pretty easy because I haven't seen that many ads in that time) then I can safely say that my conversion rate is approximately zero for video ads. And there's several services/goods that I specifically avoid because their ads offended me. Youtube thinking that they can fix their financial issues by summoning the ad fairy is just as naive and entitled as people who think that youtube should just be free and ad-less forever. I'm sure it will work short term. But unless they've really thought out how this transition is going to work as well as how they're going to make sure the ads provide significant value to creators/viewers/advertisers, then I expect a slow decline. With all of the cloud infrastructure providers out there, it's never been a better time to try launching your own video service. Setup some experimental payment options where the whole thing is paid for by an inventive combination of content creators, viewers, and ads. All tailored by the desires of all three. Want your video to be watched? You can pay to make that happen. Want to watch a video. Same deal. Don't want to pay (on either side). Well we can work out deals with advertisers. I'm sure youtube can work something out to maintain market dominance. But they have to be paying attention to what they're doing and the announcement makes me wonder if they are.
• Clampower 6y ago
  Funny that everyone here is talking about small creators when an even larger impact will be on large companies using YouTube for content and for product instructionals. If I'm a brand, and I'm reaching you organically through branded content. I do not want another ad play before my content.
  • sbarre 6y ago
    Then those companies should use a paid video CDN service to host their content? Which now makes me wonder if YouTube will launch a paid hosting offering sometime in the future that guarantees ad-free viewing.
    • pier25 6y ago
      Or they could use Vimeo but the issue is people search for stuff on YouTube. For example, when I'm interested in a product (synths, videogames, etc) I go directly to YouTube to watch demos and reviews. If it's not there I won't see it.
    • e_proxus 6y ago
      You would think they would have had time to develop such a program before launching this change.
      • sbarre 6y ago
        Imagine the outcry if they launched paid hosting at the same time as they introduced this new change?
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• lopis 6y ago
  At least with TV, ads were scheduled and expected. The thing I hate the most about Youtube ads is how the intermission happens randomly and unexpectedly. It really spoils the whole experience of watching videos.
  • sbarre 6y ago
    I wonder if YouTube could at least give creators the option to insert markers where they feel an ad would be least intrusive? So at least, since they are forced to show ads, the ads can be at the right place?
    • izacus 6y ago
      YouTube does give creators the ability to insert ad markers. Not sure if it's available to everyone though.
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    TV ads were built into TV shows as well, and were very jarring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCLFut6pAa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCLFut6pAa8 The ads are everywhere and in everything, and it has basically stopped me from being able to enjoy much of media. But consuming media is a poor use of my time anyway, so it seems like a benefit for me.
• OzzyB 6y ago
  It's time to coin a new term, "Ad Creep" - One Ad per video that the creator chooses to elect - Each Ad can be skipped after 5 seconds - Two Ads now but the first can still be skipped the second cannot - The first Ad's skip time increased from 5 seconds to 6 seconds - Videos get Ads regardless of creator consent I'm noticing a trend, and it sucks for those that like to use YouTube in app form since you're kind of stuck w/o the use of Ad Blockers.
  • CamelCaseName 6y ago
    - Videos get 15 second unskippable ads - Videos get 30 second to 3 hour long ads - Videos have several sets of two ads within the video.
  • ojilles 6y ago
    I think you're looking for Overton Window, actually [1]. Also, I'm waiting for the the last shoe to drop: showing ads even to users that have YouTube Red; it's only a matter of time. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
  • astrobe_ 6y ago
    ... And an aphorism: "Any social platform that becomes as popular as TV also becomes as trash as TV".
    • toper-centage 6y ago
      Remember when we used to think YouTube was going to replace TV? Well... I guess we were spot on.
• zimmen 6y ago
  The norm is already getting to be 2 unskippable pre-roll ads, the creator’s sponsor read (not uncommonly > 3 minutes long), several badly timed mid-roll ads, and a post roll ad. The ads themselves are mostly repeats to the point that I’m getting an aversion to the companies and products they try to sell. Goolgle is clearly hoping to get more consumers on YT premium but that’s just priced too high IMHO.
• peanut_worm 6y ago
  I feel like YouTube as we knew it before is probably going to come to an end soon. Between youtube ads, ad reads, sponsors, patreon plugs and merch ads, it is either going to wind up looking like cable tv or it is going to die and make way for some paid service. I saw a video with a sponsor, a separate THREE MINUTE ad read for some stupid mobile game AND 2 youtube ads. The video was 10 minutes. I understand video creators need to make money but at this point i’d rather just have some patreon service where I can subscribe to channels individually for a dollar or two a month. It seems like the fate of all streaming services is to end up like cable.
  • everdrive 6y ago
    I would be strongly surprised if ad-blockers keep working on Youtube indefinitely. And further, if youtube-dl continues to work.
  • Silhouette 6y ago
    I feel like YouTube as we knew it before is probably going to come to an end soon. Between youtube ads, ad reads, sponsors, patreon plugs and merch ads, it is either going to wind up looking like cable tv or it is going to die and make way for some paid service. And would that really be a bad thing? Social media sites and content hosting services like YouTube have become like the old book publishers and record labels. They provide a largely fungible middleman service to the creators who generate the real value by creating new material, yet somehow for a long time they've wound up keeping the lion's share of the financial benefits. It's natural that creators will push back, whether through things like sponsored placements or through other revenue schemes like Patreon. But even if it's just providing storage, distribution and possibly discoverability to the creators, the host service still has bills to pay and needs to make enough revenue somewhere to be a viable business. The ideal outcome, IMHO, would be to separate the hosting/distribution from the discoverability, have hosting services that charge real money for providing a real service and effectively compete for the best content creators, and have the equivalent of search engines or recommendation systems to help people find the content, whoever is hosting it. The latter could still operate on some sort of ad-based scheme, without interfering with delivery of the main content itself. In short, I'd like to see a return to a more decentralised system, where the content creators are the driving force, and the intermediaries have to provide their fungible services in a competitive market without becoming the de facto controlling entities for the whole system. See also: self-published writing, music, etc.
• lxgr 6y ago
  Ads on YouTube have become annoying enough to make me hesitate before following a link to the site. I really wonder how much further they can push this without either driving users to using ad blockers or creators to upload to other platforms. Unfortunately, I suspect the answer is "pretty long"...
  • Silhouette 6y ago
    Unfortunately, I suspect the answer is "pretty long"... I'm not so sure. I'm only a casual viewer of YouTube. I don't engage in any of the account-based stuff, just watch the occasional video hosted there. But even in the content I've seen, it's clear that the semi-pro creators -- the kind of people using schemes like Patreon these days, and maybe placements as they get more successful -- are very aware of how they come across. In particular, they might already be hosting their content on multiple services, particularly those who livestream events of whatever kind, where they might stream on Twitch one day and YT the next. Those who are successful enough to make significant money from their videos are well aware of anything affecting their video quality, audience numbers, and ultimately revenue. I doubt many of them will have any great loyalty to YT if it becomes too awkward or expensive, and I'm sure many of them already have accounts on other services and the bulk of their followers would know where else to find them if YT shut down their accounts overnight.
• Verdex 6y ago
  I hope they let creators decide where the ads go. Because otherwise, this is going to destroy ASMR videos. I can see it now. Person with insomnia listening to someone softly picking a mic with a q-tip about to drift off when all of a sudden HI LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT CAR INSURANCE. From looking casually into the community, those channels have a lot of videos with millions and sometimes tens of millions of views. All of that is going to potentially migrate to somewhere else.
  • jrootabega 6y ago
    I've stopped watching songs over 8/10 minutes as a result of this. I'd be glad to watch a reasonable ad up front, but when I see a midroll, I bail.
  • asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    Where are they going to migrate to that is going to host a video for tens of millions of views for free with no ads?
    • bobajeff 6y ago
      Maybe they could use a Peertube instance or LBRY.
  • nwallin 6y ago
    It drives me bananas that the ads are always so much louder than the content. There's a law against that for broadcast television, but it doesn't apply to internet content. (It may not apply to cable/netflix either? I dunno.) I don't watch youtube on my phone anymore. IMHO this is profoundly bad for Google. The last time I bought a phone, having a bigger screen was one of the considerations. I don't remember how much it was, but I spent like $800 on it. Not anymore. My last phone was $350. I use for a lot less stuff. Mostly just texting and discord. So Google has lost out twice- once for just less watching of youtube, but also less mobile device usage, which likely earns Google quite a bit more from that the ads.
• pedro2 6y ago
  Yes... Yes... Join the Dark Side... Honestly, it too too long. Should have been sooner, before other YouTube competitors slided into irrelevance. "Dumping", anyone?
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• chasing 6y ago
  If this is the case, I'm really unclear why they're not revenue sharing with users who create the videos. That seems like the real dick move, here
• minikites 6y ago
  Google is fundamentally an advertising company and I genuinely don't understand why people trust their email and web browser software to what is essentially a fancy version of DoubleClick.
• popup21 6y ago
  Ungoogled Chromium + uBlock Origin = ZFG
• bsd44 6y ago
  As a content consumer I see this as a positive thing for me. A few months ago when YouTube decided to auto-add ads on all videos, my watch time on YouTube decreased by more than 50% since I consume all video content on either my phone or my tablet (where I don't have access to AdBlock), and I find the amount of ads I have to go through to watch a video so annoying that I'd rather not watch it at all. As a result I spend my free time on Coursera or listening to audiobooks instead and I log in to YouTube once a day to have a quick scroll through the subscriptions page to see if there's anything worth watching. Keeping the amount of ads in mind and the stress they cause me, I am more selective and will often not click on a video that I previously would. And I don't mindlessly binge-watch video for hours on end any longer. With the new monetisation coming in place, I can see my consumption of YouTube declining even further to the level of Google - use it as a tool, when you really have to and not just for entertainment. And I welcome it! Just thought to share a perspective of a consumer rather than a creator. On the other hand I do understand YouTube's move. After all, it's their platform and they're not running a charity - people often forget that it's not their birth right to use a company's product or a service without paying for it one way or the other.
  • f1refly 6y ago
    > on either my phone or my tablet (where I don't have access to AdBlock) I think it's amazing you're putting up with devices that work against you. If my phone would force me to watch ads I would get a new phone tomorrow.
    • pedrogpimenta 6y ago
      Your phone doesn't force you to watch ads. Youtube (which has nothing to do with your phone) forces you to watch ads (if you don't have an adblocker)
      • thrower123 6y ago
        Your phone doesn't allow you to run a browser that would let you use an adblocker.
• freebasenic 6y ago
  Another reason why I feel obligated to subscribe to YT premium as an avid YT user.
• post_break 6y ago
  As someone how makes a tiny amount on YouTube who only puts ads on some videos, I guess this means I can monetize every video I upload and the users won’t notice a difference. Annoying but it’s YouTube.
• kmeisthax 6y ago
  I have YouTube Premium, so this doesn't affect me as a YouTube viewer. However, this is the sort of foundational service change that you simply don't do ten years into a lucrative partner program without a good reason. "It's 2020 and our investors are hungry for growth" is not a good enough reason, IMO. Any good business needs to keep it's goals aligned with it's customers or it will stop being a good business and people will want to leave. "Changing the deal" in a very big way like this makes your customers - the people giving you video content with no up-front expectation of payment - very, very mad. I have a feeling you're going to start to see certain creators deliberately put advertiser unfriendly content in their videos just to get out of monetization now. Certain videos are already deliberately not monetized because they either are viewer-funded channels (which YouTube very much missed the boat on) or are promotional videos. YouTube should grandfather those channels and videos in as monetization-exempt, because that was "the deal" that people signed on to. Hell, if that's already financially untenable, you should at least still allow YouTube Partners - i.e. the people whose financial incentives are most aligned with monetization anyway - deliberately demonetize their own videos. Because, again, they are your customers and that was the deal they signed on to.
  • jonathankoren 6y ago
    > However, this is the sort of foundational service change that you simply don't do ten years into a lucrative partner program without a good reason. YouTube is a monopoly. This is exactly the type of things monopolies do. Yes, there are other places to upload videos to watch on demand, but they’re much smaller, less well known, and just more niche. > "Changing the deal" in a very big way like this makes your customers - the people giving you video content with no up-front expectation of payment - very, very mad. As the saying goes, “If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.” The creator is not a customer. The viewer is not a customer. The advertiser is the customer. Yes, you can poison the well and lose users, and thus alienate your customers, but again, YouTube is a monopoly. There aren’t any obviously viable alternatives for long form videos.
    • tombert 6y ago
      > There aren’t any obviously viable alternatives for long form videos. There are plenty of alternatives in some sense; stuff like Bitchute exists and allows you to post whatever you want and it works well enough, but the reason I don't go on there is that it seems like a lot of the content is basically just neo-Nazi crap, which of course I don't really want to watch. And I suppose that's kind of the issues; YouTube has become so normalized that it's sort of impossible for alternative video sites to reach a similar scale, and the ones that do pop up inherently start appealing mostly to the fringe groups that aren't safe for YouTube.
• 0xcafecafe 6y ago
  I don't even mind ads before videos however the current way ads are being shown is pathetic and ruins the experience. My toddler likes to watch 15 mins of cocomelon while drinking milk and ads show up every few mins in the middle of the nursery rhyme playing. It is extremely infuriating.
• Unklejoe 6y ago
  I always kind of predicted that services like YouTube will eventually end up just like cable TV when it comes to ads (formerly known as "commercials"). I think even services that you pay for (like Netflix) will eventually get there. I was at my parents house the other day and they watch a lot of cable TV. The amount of commercials was shocking since I'm so used to streaming. I kept thinking "why do we still have to watch commercials if we're paying for the service?". Then I realized it's only a matter of time before Netflix, Hulu, etc. start doing the same thing. Hopefully I'm wrong.
  • Nasrudith 6y ago
    What Netflix and other the streaming service demonstrate is that the problem seems to be at the mainstream producer end. The earliest started out the most pro-consumer and then over time got more demanding and even started their own streaming platforms to try to get in on thr action and made the user experience worse for consumers with things like paid and ad subcription tiers. If a company launches their own storefront and promotes it and claims it is to reduce costs and pass on savings they are lying to you. Breaking into a new market is expensive and risky. Initial sales are essentially a use of their marketing budget. The true reason is that their demands are rejected by the existing storefronts which usually means they are too aggressive in demands for margin or control. They have the legal right to do this of course but we don't have to like it and the impact on the market and can choose against them if you believe that their content is not worth commercials and rising prices.
  • smhenderson 6y ago
    I agree with your prediction. I'm old enough to remember when cable was first rolled out and a big selling point for it was commercial free channels. And, as you mentioned, look at it now. Channels like TBS and TNT take it to such extremes too. A movie with a runtime of an hour and twenty minutes takes 3 hours to watch! If not for DVR I probably wouldn't watch any network or cable TV at all these days.
• mildavw 6y ago
  Darn, I use YouTube as a quick communication channel to users of an app I maintain. I’ll throw up a video to show a new feature or that something has changed. Sometimes I answer single tech support questions with a short video. That’ll be lame if ads start showing up. I guess I’m free to host my own videos...
  • phendrenad2 6y ago
    I'll bet they add a way to pay to remove ads from a video soon. You know, for enterprise customers.
• hkchad 6y ago
  /rant I really hate YouTube now. Everyone wants to put every bit of information in a 10+ min long video b/c 10 min videos get better ad rates. So they spend the first 4 min w/ a long ass 'intro' sequence on all videos, then pleading you subscribe and 'hit the bell' then plugging patreon, then some long backstory, then the gem of info you came for that could have been a tweet. Oh and all this is broken up by ads at the beginning and middle of the videos, it's a cesspool I refuse to pay for. /rant
  • CleaveIt2Beaver 6y ago
    It's like searching blog posts for recipes all over again.
• nickjj 6y ago
  Edit: I just talked to YouTube support directly and yep it's exactly what I anticipated below. It only affects channels not yet in the YPP. Larger channels who are in the YPP but explicitly choose not to monetize videos will not get these new ads placed into their videos. At least not with this TOS change. Original comment: The wording of this isn't 100% crystal clear but I have a feeling this article might be making this out to be way worse than it is. I have 10k subs on YouTube and made a decision not to run ads on my channel from the beginning because I care more about the viewing experience than profiting. Technically I'm in the YouTube Partner Program and I choose not to turn on monetization for my videos. Monetization is basically a checkbox you can turn on and off for each video and then if you enable it, you choose some information about how the ads are shown. Going by the TOS update's wording, it sounds like if you're in the YPP then your videos will have not have these new ads placed in them if you choose to disable monetization for a video. It sounds like it's only going to affect channels who have a handful of subs and views, in which case you were making $0 guaranteed anyways because you couldn't turn monetization on due to not being in the YPP. The only difference now is YouTube will make some money off your views which seems reasonable since they are hosting it for free, and realistically it'll be pennies at best if you have a small channel with 15 views per video.
  • mdoms 6y ago
    "It's not as bad as it seems because it doesn't affect me personally". Thanks for your input mate.
    • nickjj 6y ago
      > "It's not as bad as it seems because it doesn't affect me personally". Thanks for your input mate. I didn't say that, so you might want to remove your quotes. The article made it seem like people with 5 million daily views who decided not to monetize their videos would get ads placed into their videos and make $0 with no way to opt-out while YouTube profited from ads in those views. That would be way different (and worse) than what's really happening.
  • ArunRaja 6y ago
    Good points! My analysis: 1. "Youtube partner program" can be terminated after 6 months of zero interaction with users, though creator shall reapply. 2. Youtube shall run ads on non YPP videos. So idea seems to be, takeaway 'ideal creators' money from them to 'Youtube'. Is it fair to disassociate creator from "YPP/ads share" for 6 month/more dis-engagement?
• jesuscyborg 6y ago
  YouTube has a demonetization feature too. Let's say you run a programming tutorials channel that's too small to monetize and you don't want Google layering ads over your content. Just crosspost something like a Tim Pool video and hope the YouTube AI categorizes your channel as too toxic for advertisers. Otherwise it'll be interesting to see how the standard changes when Google is the sole beneficiary. That money is too toxic for thee, not for me.
  • driverdan 6y ago
    I'd rather have ads on my videos than ruin my reputation by posting trash like Tim Pool.
  • quantumwannabe 6y ago
    They’re running ads now on channels that were previously deemed too toxic for advertisers, which makes me doubt that that was ever a real concern and not just an excuse to defund people who made videos they didn’t like.
• daemonhunter 6y ago
  If they'd just fix the googlevideo CORS errors.
• b0rsuk 6y ago
  I recently downloaded the video of cat listening to classical music, using youtube-dl, just to disable a youtube card obscuring the screen. Between this and "please log in" pop-ups, I can see myself downloading videos before watching.
• TomMasz 6y ago
  I occasionally watch YT videos on my Fire TV Stick. Although ads are technically skippable, the on-screen directions don't actually work. I was watching a concert the other day and got stuck in a 3 minute ad that I couldn't escape. I just exited YT.
• I_am_tiberius 6y ago
  Does this concern embedded videos on your website as well? I don't want my potential customers to see a youtube ad before my explainer video starts.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• rbx 6y ago
  I switched to watching youtube through firefox+adblock on android a while ago.
• alangibson 6y ago
  At what point does the social contract between consumers and Google, whereby we get loads of freebies and they get to know everything about us, become void? It looks like we're all getting played for suckers because they still get all of our info while their services are gradually restricted.
• nbzso 6y ago
  This makes me reconsider Vimeo as a video platform. This year I decided to invest my free time in creating two channels for Painting(art in general) and Drawing (design focused), all is planned and tested and the only thing left on the table is video platform. YouTube as a platform rewards "dopamine reaction", controversy topics, kick-bait thumbnails, short form format and so on. Yes, there is a ton of good stuff that is actually hard to find because the Algorithm is fine-tuned to work in absurd way by pushing non relevant content. As a creator after recent changes to UI/UX you cannot tailor user experience in full. Using playlists is not enough of a tool for me. YouTube is useful for big brands with lots of content with high revenue and everyone small is pushing it hard to find a way to be liked and stay relevant to "monetization" practices. At this point if you as creator don't rely on ad-revenue YouTube is not your place.
  • foxhop 6y ago
    yup. see my comment in this thread. I need to find a new home, likely self-hosted.
  • suyash 6y ago
    Vimeo is well known in design and art community for higher quality content, unfortunately it lacks the large viewrship base that YT has.
• alangibson 6y ago
  Does anyone know of any good 'static video hosting' tools? I'm thinking of an easy to use tool that would chunk videos and create manifests for DASH, generate a thumbnail, and do whatever else you'd need to do to host streaming videos on your own blog.
• sleepysysadmin 6y ago
  Youtube ran for years without ads. Recently they have greatly increased the number of ads. Now they are even putting them on all channels? Pretty much confirming predatory pricing. Hence why Google is up on antitrust laws.
• yeldiR 6y ago
  My suggestion to content-creators: Dedicate the last few seconds of every video to making it thoroughly ad-unfriendly.
• cblconfederate 6y ago
  We should be fighting for compute equality: everyone should have their own server, and not on the cloud.
• barnabee 6y ago
  Honestly I don’t mind this. Ads for free video hosting is a fair offer and at least one can buy ad-free YouTube. Of course I’d love YouTube and thus Google’s ad empire to not be so dominant, but to the extent that that is fine, this is fine too. As a user what really sucks is that despite paying to get rid of ads I still have to put up with the ones creators include within the video itself.
• duxup 6y ago
  I wish I could somehow manage the ads... I know that isn't youtube's goal but just watching some neato science videos with my kids ... I got some surprisingly explicit male grooming ads... and some ads that IMO were awfully suggestive.
• flightless 6y ago
  Man I miss the old youtube, you can hardly find those cool zero budget "filmed on dad's camcorder" kind of videos anymore with all of the high budget 10 minute production videos being dumped onto it. I've had to start watching at 1.25x speed, I think they slow some videos down to hit the 10 minute mark. Youtube sucks.
• addicted 6y ago
  This should be a nice boost for Vimeo and the rest.
• tsjq 6y ago
  Google is going greedy. [tin foil hat on] Perhaps this is signs of something else going very wrong and they trying the plug the revenue gap. Google Photos size limit last week, More Youtube ads now. At this going , I wouldn't be surprised if they bring in some tighter limits / pricing plans on GMail too.
• foxhop 6y ago
  I'm pissed, I knew this was coming. Google and "Alphabet" are bastards. Will this be my last video hosted on YouTube? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUYrN0o-cfk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUYrN0o-cfk | Hardneck Garlic Planted For High Yield. YouTube doesn't give me any network effect anyways (all my views are from external sources), I was just trying to do good in the world. What tech should I look at for self hosted streaming on Digital Ocean spaces and a CDN? Please give me hints as to what I should do from a self-hosted perspective. I'm going to "DevOps" a solution, using webservers just like I do for many of my web domains. Where do I start, I want to build it from scratch using open source. ideas? I already have the domain unturf.com
  • Shared404 6y ago
    Check out PeerTube. It may be exactly what you're looking for.
    • foxhop 6y ago
      Naw, PeerTube is clunky and I don't think I need the network effect. I want to host videos (for download or streaming) like I host static web pages.
      • Shared404 6y ago
        Hmm. AlternativeTo has a list[0]. Not a great list, but a list. Looking at that, possibly MediaGoblin could work. Alternately, something like Jellyfin may work, but that's a little bit of a push. [0] https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/?platform=self-hosted https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/?platform=self-ho...
      • tartoran 6y ago
        How about vimeo?
      • swebs 6y ago
        Why not just put the mp4 with every other static file and wrap it in a <video> tag on the page you want to embed it in?
• jdofaz 6y ago
  Think of all those embedded youtube videos on commercial websites used for product demonstration or in instruction manuals, now google can run ads for your competitor right on your company website. Kind of funny to me actually
• jariel 6y ago
  Usually these issues are not a function of policy, but of degree and application. Some types of ads are really innocuous, some not so much. If there were only a 4 second ad at the start we'd be fine with it, but it'll be a 'click to skip', there'll be more than one, it will interrupt, the ads will be loud and annoying etc.. Product Managers are always under pressure to increase revenue, but they never want to contemplate the long-run effects of the qualitative reduction in the value of their product.
• kumarm 6y ago
  Having youtube premium is definitely the biggest time saver for me. Other than not showing ads, lets you listen to videos like a podcast on mobile in background. For podcasts that also posts youtube videos, I just use youtube since it lets me see reactions when I want to from podcasters. I never understand HN Crowd complaining about ads on YouTube. It literally costs(1 month sub) less than typing a comment like this for most people on HN (At least in opportunity cost).
  • jd24 6y ago
    plus, you still support the content creators whereas adblockers do not.
  • fossuser 6y ago
    YouTube premium is great - I wish I could pay for ad free Twitter. Being able to pay for a service without ads is worth it. Users complaining about a free ad subsidized service come across as unreasonable to me (and maybe a little entitled).
    • domano 6y ago
      I am happy with ads, but you probably have never been hit by a 30 min sponsored video at the beginning of a youtube video. The ads turn the whole watching experience into a remote-searching minigame. I'd much rather have unskippable, but reasonably long ads.
      • renewiltord 6y ago
        How does this comment make sense as a reply? Obviously he has never been hit by one of those because he pays for Youtube and gets the ad free version. Same as me.
    • anoraca 6y ago
      The real problem with that model, I think, is that the people who can afford to pay to opt out are the same people that are most valuable as ad recipients.
• IshKebab 6y ago
  > “YouTubers need some kind of union,” says Brax. “I’m not sure how that would work or anything but they can’t just keep getting away with killing off small creators like this.” Someone should tell this guy: https://youtubersunion.org/ https://youtubersunion.org/ In fact this is already one of their demands (more or less): * Monetize everyone - Bring back monetization for smaller channels.
• domano 6y ago
  I am fine with ads but having multiple ads in a row gets on my nerves. The worst thing is that you have to skip them, so you need to interact with the tv. If the ads were reasonably long that would be fine, but sometimes there are WHOLE EPISODES OF OTHER SHOWS as ads (sometimes as long as 30 mins!). I just want to watch something without searching for the remote all the time.
  • mcguire 6y ago
    One of the ads I saw recently was, literally, an hour long video.
• Scoundreller 6y ago
  What about creators that did want them, and YT decided that I didn’t have enough subscribers so they demonetized me? I’ve put up some useful videos on a few technical tasks and was happy with the few dollars/mo/video they were kicking me, but it wasn’t subscribable content; I solved your problem, why would you come back?
• TheChaplain 6y ago
  I rarely watch Youtube on mobile anymore because of the ads. Desktop is still usable thanks to adblockers, but if it becomes more obnoxious that will stop too. I could buy Premium but not at the current price tag, I don't use it that much.
  • sixothree 6y ago
    Google products on mobile are disgustingly awful. Just repulsive in so many ways.
  • timbit42 6y ago
    Firefox on Android supports Ublock Origin (and most other desktop plugins).
• krisroadruck 6y ago
  Oh boy. If this applies to embedded youtube videos on other sites this is going to create a real mess on the web for a while. Lots of companies hosting videos on youtube and embedding them on their site with the expectation that visitors won't be bombarded with ads (potentially by direct competitors). Should be interesting to see how this plays out.
• throwaway122378 6y ago
  BuT tHeY’Re a PrIVaTe company... humanity needs rule laws to govern entities that have never existed before.
• draw_down 6y ago
  There’s basically one site for video. Until and unless that changes, it’s all over but the tears for everyone who wants to make video content. People say this all the time about Apple and the app store, and they're right. More or less the same situation exists here -- they're the only game in town, their way or the highway. Your choice.
• bootlooped 6y ago
  I like putting "Cat TV" on for my cat. No matter how many ads they show him, I'm certain he won't be buying anything because of it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPJXfmxMYAoH02CFudZxmgg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPJXfmxMYAoH02CFudZxmgg
• thejackgoode 6y ago
  I am waiting for the day when they will start threatening of discontinuing accounts using ad blocking software
• jonnypotty 6y ago
  So we now support the idea of user unfriendly software cos it means we use it less and get happier. This is a weird industry to work in.
• hedora 6y ago
  I wonder if it’s a coincidence that youtube-dl was nearly taken down immediately before Google created a massive incentive for people to bulk migrate data off their platform.
  • Kye 6y ago
    Channel owners can already download the original videos from the backend.
• tartoran 6y ago
  I wouldn't be blocking ads if there weren't so many of them and they weren't so obnoxious. The day I can't use adblocks I am probably rarely going to visit youtube. And I'm using youtube too little anyway to pay for a monthy paid membership with youtube.
• wbhart 6y ago
  This is not workable in Germany. There are huge fines for running YouTube businesses without putting business details at every location your video appears on the internet. German State administrators have sent out such fines simply because videos made in Germany (even in English) which have advertising do not carry such additional business information. These administrators will not know, nor care if you are in the YouTube Partner Program or not. They will simply send out the fines, which could bankrupt a small hobbyist. This affects me directly, and I would have to remove my hobby channel from YouTube if they go ahead with this.
  • behringer 6y ago
    Can't you just put your business information at the start/end of your videos?
    • wbhart 6y ago
      If I were a business, the answer is no, the regulations are very strict. But I am not a business, I'm a hobbyist. I derive no income from my channel. By my estimation you would need at least five employees in Germany to run an online business properly, as the law that governs businesses is voluminous and bureaucratic. I could not afford to run a business. For example, if I were a business in Germany, other YouTubers could sue me simply because I didn't follow packaging or E-waste laws in one of my videos. And that is to say nothing of surprise laws that you couldn't even predict would be laws. Also, under German law I'd need permission from my existing employer to run a business, which they would not likely give.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
• r00fus 6y ago
  Yet another reason to pay the danegeld to Google for ad-free experience. I hate it.
• josefresco 6y ago
  My kids (like most kids) spend a ton of time on YouTube. We pay for YouTube Premium to remove ads (no-brainer). How does YT compensate creators when the viewer is a Premium customer? Is it the same rate, or better than non-paid viewers?
  • dimnsionofsound 6y ago
    Linus Sebastian from Linus Media Group has said somewhere that a YouTube premium viewer is worth several times as much as an ad-supported viewer apparently. Apologies for no citation on this.
    • josefresco 6y ago
      Thanks. This makes me feel slightly better about my kids' YouTube consumption and my decision to pay for Premium.
    • dimnsionofsound 6y ago
      Found the video where he says this: https://youtu.be/PRQVzPEyldc https://youtu.be/PRQVzPEyldc
• tomcooks 6y ago
  I suggest creators move to PeerTube and LibrePay, YouTube is strong only because other platforms lack content.
• agentdrtran 6y ago
  It's crazy it was free for as long as it was.
• tomcooks 6y ago
  The trick is, in the app, to pull down the video and close it by tapping the X Quickly reopen by tapping on the thumbnail, it shan't show ads. If it doesn't work do it 2-4 times
• arvigeus 6y ago
  For content creators: just say "Free Hong Kong" and voila - no more ads in your video!
• mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Can’t wait to have our ambient classical music interrupted by Pizza hut. youtube-dl it is
• bluecalm 6y ago
  This sucks. It would be nice if they at least offered an option to pay for hosting without ads. Moving all the videos to another provider will take a lot of time. Any suggestions btw? I would prefer a provider that charges for hosting and that's their business model.
• Jerry2 6y ago
  I tried to export my subscriptions list as OPML today... Youtube has removed that option now. You cannot easily grab the RSS list of your subscribers anymore.
• remote_phone 6y ago
  If everyone bought YouTube Premium, would content providers make money anymore? Or would all the money go to google?
  • Ajedi32 6y ago
    Content creators would make significantly more money. It's hard to find good information on exactly how _much_ more. I've seen estimates anywhere from 2x (https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/9agg5f/how_does_youtube_premium_affect_ad_revenue_for/e4v9dzf/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/9agg5f/how_does_yo...) to 20x (https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/totalbiscuit-youtube-red-payout/ https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/totalbiscuit-youtube-red-p...).
• thdrdt 6y ago
  It is strange. I noticed all the ads lately, sometimes even 2 in a row. But thinking about it I can't remember a single ad. Today more and more people have an ad filter in their head. This means that Google earns a lot of money from ads that have a lot of exposure but almost zero effect.
• rkagerer 6y ago
  I've uploaded videos to YouTube that I've intentionally intended to be ad-free. I simply use it as a video hosting platform, since it's been more convenient and performant than rolling my own. Is there a way for a content-publisher to pay Google to not show videos on our ads?
  • CharlesW 6y ago
    Q: Since you're just using it as a host, what's keeping you from moving to Vimeo?
    • boogies 6y ago
      LBRY and bitchute can automatically mirror a YouTube channel for free. I think Peertube might be able to as well.
• intricatedetail 6y ago
  When I see an ad I then think if video is worth watching ads. Usually it's not, so I close it few seconds after an ad pops up. It's positive for me as I waste less time on YT
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• mdoms 6y ago
  The number of videos that now have sponsorships and ads embedded in the video (which to me is 100x worse than pre-roll ads - especially because I pay for Youtube premium) is probably a significant cause here. It has made Youtube a far worse product for me. If you watch anything DIY or car related then most of the content you're consuming is just a long-form advertisement.
• baybal2 6y ago
  Google already did that for at least a year in 3rd world countries.
• binarycodedhex 6y ago
  Hello ad blocker my old friend I've come to enable you again Because an ad softly shouting Left its seeds while I was watching And the headache, that was planted in my brain... still remains Within the sound of content In restless dreams of unskippable ads I walked alone. Narrow windows of portrait mode Neath the halo of dark mode I turned my brightness to the cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon ad That split the night And touched the sound, of content.
• pbasista 6y ago
  Not long ago Google has automatically enabled mid-roll ads for all videos longer than a certain length [0]. Most likely, its net effect is that more ads are played and as a result, YouTube's ad revenue has increased. Now they implement a similar measure whose net effect would probably be comparable - i.e. an increased ad revenue. It is perhaps logical for Google to behave like that, purely from the financial point of view. However, they could have done it a long time ago. It is unclear to me why they believe that the right time to introduce such measures is now. Maybe they believe that their user base is currently large enough and stable enough that the decreased comfort levels while using YouTube would not motivate a critical portion of them to leave. It remains to be seen whether that is true. Or, perhaps, their ad revenue growth is slowing [1] and they are trying to compensate for it even by using measures whose long term effects are unclear. [0] https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/60293363?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/60293363?hl=en [1] https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/youtube-google-q2-ad-revenue-coronavirus-1234721162/ https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/youtube-google-q2-ad-r...
  • cwkoss 6y ago
    This probably isn't the case, but would be kinda funny if Youtube keeps a list of unpopular policy changes they'd like to make, and rolls them out each time they start to push into some backend infrastructure limit or need to do a heavy migration. I bet a lot of devops would love a 'reduce user usage by 20% for a week' button.
• tanilama 6y ago
  Too weird to me since I have an YouTube premium subscription (because I bought Google Music way back), not non of this affects me. Is it getting so bad recently?
• Ikatza 6y ago
  Has anybody managed to make YouTube Vanced's sign in work with legacy GSuite accounts? It's the only thing preventing me from switching to it.
• AndyKelley 6y ago
  I have a humble channel with 3,281 subs and 108 videos. My boycott starts today. Deleting all content from YouTube.
• billpg 6y ago
  I'm surprised they didn't do this long ago. Hosting videos is expensive.
• shireboy 6y ago
  I wonder if this applies to “made for kids” content which traditionally has not had ads
• billpg 6y ago
  I hope I'll be able to choose where the ads appear in my own videos. Ads playing in the middle of a sentence are really annoying.
• noncoml 6y ago
  I only use YouTube when searching for an instructional video, eg how to find the hidden reward in a game, how to cook or prepare a recipe, etc. With ads on it’s a nightmare as when searching it takes a number of videos until I find the one I am looking for and each time I have to wait for 30 sec ad. It’s so time wasting that I stopped using it. I hope they continue the trend and the Google monster dies from inside.
• lobster45 6y ago
  This will drive people to more apps that block ads on mobile
• tombert 6y ago
  Ugh. I don't want to make Youtube a career or anything, so I figured if I ever reach 1000 subscribers I'd disable them since I really don't like watching ads for myself. Now Youtube is going to put ads on my stuff, and I don't get any money for it, so really the worst of both worlds.
• ergwwrt 6y ago
  When I'm having a transcendental youtube experience, last thing I want is to have is an ad disrupt my focus. It disturbs the "flow".
• liminal 6y ago
  I use YouTube to listen to guided meditations. Getting ads in the middle will be a new way to test my equanimity
• blacklight 6y ago
  When I see such things two conclusions come to my mind: 1. The developers of tools like youtube-dl are the good guys, those at Google are the bad guys. There's no other way to put it. If you force all of the creators on your platform into a "partner program" that slaps ads on all of their videos, even if they don't want to, and you take all of their revenue away, knowing that creators won't leave you anyway because you're the biggest player in the market that provides them with access to the widest audience, then you're hurting both creators and consumers for your personal profit, while abusing your dominant position. On top of it, they take away the revenue generated by content created by someone else, just like a century-old music major would do, and when you put things in perspective (small YouTube channel that struggles to make a few hundred bucks per month vs. gargantuan corporation that belongs to the exclusive trillion dollar club) you realize how expectedly and banally greedy evil the former "don't be evil" company has become. And instead of listening to all the cries for changing their business model, Google is simply trying to force the world to swallow their outdated ads-based business model, proving that, after all, they're nothing more than a mediocre ads company, not a tech company that still likes to risk and innovate. In the face of so much evil piracy isn't only a right: it's a civic duty to remind those fuckers that it doesn't matter how many technological restrictions they decide to implement to force us to swallow their ads and how many repos they take down. We've also got brilliant engineers on the other side of the barricade, and we'll ALWAYS find clever ways to bypass their dumb restrictions. It's probably just not the best use of engineering resources on both sides. We'd love to spend our engineering time building things instead of reverse engineering the new authentication flow of YouTube in order to get that damn direct video URL. And Google engineers had better invest their time building a new infrastructure that offers fair payments to creators, instead of finding new ways to make people swallow their ads in spite of our scrapers. 2. Creators need to get the fuck out of YouTube. I know, it's hard because they'd lose access to a huge audience, but if nobody ever wins the initial inertia then things won't change, and the Evil Corp will keep bullying everyone. Platforms like Nebula and Curiosity Stream have proved that people are happy to pay a subscription to access premium ads-free content. And platforms like Vimeo and Twitch also offer access to a wide audience. And more platforms can be experimented too, perhaps based on micro-payments or affordable subscription models in order to both create revenue and offer creators anything more than the spare cash from ads revenue. And at some point we should consider a "video aggregator" that works pretty much like an RSS aggregator, listing videos on multiple platforms (after all, they're nothing more than URLs to mp4 files) to make sure that none of the other video platforms becomes the next YouTube. We need consumers and creators to seriously boycott YouTube and let other platforms build enough momentum. That's the only way to make an evil company that only cares about ads revenue change its mind.
• 02020202 6y ago
  hey ho, hey ho, adblock push my dinghy boat.
• gumby 6y ago
  People are upset that YouTube is charging a hosting fee? Just put your video someplace else. They aren't a monopoly and if people talk with their "feet" then YT will try something else.
• minusSeven 6y ago
  I wonder if YouTube is getting too big for Google to handle or not. I pay for YouTube premium but find YouTube slow and buggy most of time. YouTube's latest app often break existing functionality. And all features of YouTube premium are available in other free YouTube apps too where you pay nothing. I pay for YouTube premium because it's only 120₹(2$) in my country and I like to spend a lot of time on YouTube, a lot more than Twitch or Netflix or any other streaming app. As such I am in favour of this move it it means that YouTube will perform better but I am not sure anymore.
• jve 6y ago
  Is YouTube profitable yet? They now have those ads. Lots of them. Youtube Premium and YT music.
  • CivBase 6y ago
    And Youtube TV. And payed channel subscriptions. And all the indirect money they make off of harvesting user data.
• _up 6y ago
  Will this also affect your youtube embeds into your Website?
• ternaryoperator 6y ago
  Unless you want the pennies you might get from a YouTube video, please use Vimeo for uploaded classes, tutorials, etc. The lack of ads, the higher quality interface, all make the user experience so much more pleasant.
• samatman 6y ago
  A clever, and decidedly evil, move on Google's part. Showing ads on content produced by creators who aren't a part of the partners program, means they get to pocket the full ad revenue. There is already not enough ad money to go around, hence the Adpocalypse a few years back. Now Google is skimming even more of the cream. This is a company which deserves to lose, and I, for one, can't wait.
• valehelle 6y ago
  I wonder how this would affect the ASMR[1] community. They rely on immersive experience and most of the time at high volume. Now with ads popping up randomly people might not watch it anymore. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASMR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASMR
  • rdrr984 6y ago
    Good point. Meditation videos will also be ruined.
• thereare5lights 6y ago
  Is there any detail as to whether or not they'll show ads on demonetized videos/accounts and not pay the creator? If they do that, that seems perverse. Isn't the purpose of demonetization to prevent showing ads on videos where the videos aren't conducive to showing ads? If they show ads on such videos then that seems to defeat their argument.
• young_unixer 6y ago
  I don't like Google very much, but this seems reasonable. The huge amount of engineering effort that goes into maintaining the platform isn't free. It would be cool if creators could pay Youtube to keep their videos online without ads.
• ddmma 6y ago
  That is the sign that world might need another youtube
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• alkonaut 6y ago
  Wait, cerators can choose whether there are ads? Meaning every time I see an ad before a video it’s because the uploader thought it’s worth making $0.50 a year?
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• charliebrownau 6y ago
  Yet people still refuse to leave judo mainstream platforms and use alt tech or self host content using opensource solutions
• johnisgood 6y ago
  Screw them. Install uBlock Origin.
• wayanon 6y ago
  I wonder if somehow creators could gift YouTube Premium to their subscribers so they still wouldn’t see ads? (Could a sponsor cover YT premium costs for say a month at a time?)
• neurostimulant 6y ago
  This is probably a good thing because it'll force companies to move to other video platform that let them host videos without ads. It might drive up competition in video space, which is a good thing. Youtube has been monopolizing video space for far too long because they were operating without much regards for profits, killing their competitors that don't have a deep pocket.
  • newguy1234 6y ago
    Good point. I would like to see some alternatives for youtube. Decent alternatives.
• ArunRaja 6y ago
  1. "Youtube partner program" can be terminated after 6 months of zero interaction with users, though creator shall reapply. 2. Youtube shall run ads on non YPP videos. So idea seems to be, takeaway 'ideal creators' money from them to 'Youtube'. Is it fair to disassociate creator from "YPP/ads share" for 6 month/more dis-engagement?
• a3n 6y ago
  Ah, the smell of the boiling frogs that got YouTube where they are now.
• IndySun 6y ago
  I think if people knew the real size (in every sense of the word) of tech companies, they would understand the urgency in breaking them up. It is beneficial for every one on the planet. Competition is good, no competition is bad.
• akulbe 6y ago
  Thus far, if you've got a YouTube Premium subscription… you've been able to completely avoid the ads. Completely worth the $10/mo, in my book. Does this new policy change that?
• aaronsnoswell 6y ago
  Haven't seen any root-level comments asking, so I'll throw this out there: Are there any good alternatives to YouTube?
• pers0n 6y ago
  Guess I need to figure out how to stream videos with uBock-Origin from a PC to a iPad, to kill the ads
• tomc1985 6y ago
  How many times do we need to keep telling all these cloud-native folks to stop building their livelihoods on a foundation made of straw This sort of shit is inevitable. Is there a single free web service that's been successful and kept to its core promises way back when?
• sida 6y ago
  Will the creators make money even if they don’t want it?
• enumjorge 6y ago
  I wonder how they’ll select the ads. YouTube hosts some material that some brands might not want to be associated with.
• XorNot 6y ago
  I feel a rebirth of BitTorrent in the wings honestly. Symmetrical connections are getting more popular and inline (creator made) sponsorships have become the norm, so really letting all grab your video data is less of a problem. Since the shape of video content downloads is heavily weighted towards newer releases, backing BT with HTTP seeds looks a lot more viable.
• Cypher 6y ago
  What a shit change for those that don't have adblock.
• lerpapoo 6y ago
  does youtube not make enough revenue already?
• nobrains 6y ago
  What about ASMR videos?
• bArray 6y ago
  I would also like to add that Youtube have relatively recently removed OPML output (which can be used for an RSS feed). This is after they also removed emails for the channels you press the "bell icon". If they do not bring back the RSS feed I'm leaving. I do not want to spend time on their dark-pattern user interface wasting time. Between this and not paying creators because of some "glitch", showing ads on videos that the creator cannot get paid for (if that be because they don't have "enough" followers or because they got the yellow checkmark), the bullshit preferential treatment of news agencies I could not care less about, becoming the arbiter of truth with "fact checking", randomly deleting channels, zero customer feedback or recourse with a human - the list goes on. These days, if I want to watch somebody like EEVBlog I can just go to BitChute or Library. Content creators and users are fed up.
• ChuckMcM 6y ago
  This move is consistent with the hypothesis that Google is dying. I'll admit though that my predictions on the next place they would start to monetize was not these videos. And I expect this action to see some litigation (basically Google restricts who can be a 'partner' and forces you to allow them to monetize your video without compensation if you aren't a partner, that is basically copyright infringement of the content creators content :-)) My guess had been they would start charging for access to Google Maps or "more than 2 turn by turn directions per week" would cost extra or something.
  • nmfisher 6y ago
    “Dying” is quite the stretch. I think a better description would be “trying to squeeze as much revenue from existing products”.
    • goldenManatee 6y ago
      Yeah. The alternative is they see a lot of big tech regulation headed their way. They preemptively set the rules of the negotiation by pushing their limits that come into question. After that, negotiating down a little makes government funded crackdowns more appealing for everyone, and they’ve still effectively set their own rules. Even if they lose a few million in fights, it’s something they’re committed to fighting.
    • ChuckMcM 6y ago
      Perhaps. Maybe it is like a plane that is consistently losing altitude. At some point that becomes unsustainable. My reasoning is as follows; The only business that makes a profit in all of the Alphabet companies is search advertising. Everything else lives off the excess thrown off by search. Which isn't to say that they don't have other large business revenues, just that they don't make any money. Youtube being the poster child. And it consistently skates the line between slight profit and slight loss and never comes close to the margins that Google would need to make it an independent P&L center. Then, the profits on search ads have been falling, for at least a decade now. Inside Google that was reflected by cutting costs and deleting benefits. Killing projects that weren't profitable and shedding businesses that weren't ever going to be profitable. Then it started showing up by more an more ads on things. The sad truth is that if you are getting less per ad, you can always add additional "inventory" and keep your numbers looking good. The cost has been that search results have suffered. I worked there 4 years. Got a good look inside the sausage factory as it were, and frankly the huge profitability of search ads in the beginning instilled a culture that literally couldn't see operational efficiency as a thing. I don't think they will be able to shed that culture before it is too late. But what is too late? Well if you can't find a business to cover the profits that are evaporating from search, you have two choices, cut costs or monetize more. The former makes you not a 'fun place to work' and cuts into recruiting and productivity, the latter cuts into market share as your product is less and less differentiated. Say what you want about Marissa Mayer, she did get that aspect of Google. And if you're old enough to remember Alta Vista, the "premier" web search engine from 1995, you probably watched how. when it lost its edge against Google, it went crazy with advertising to try to pull up from a collision with bankruptcy. One need only look at two things, the amount of money Google is increasingly paying to people to send search traffic to it, and the growth of "search engines" like Duck Duck Go which use Bing results to populate their SERPs, to see that Google is losing here. Those costs further erode profits and market share. And when that erosion hits hard enough it becomes self sustaining, like a dam that has a small crack which becomes a torrent. A number of people I know from the search business, former Googlers, some who are still Googlers, investors, media, and engineers I met while working on building and deploying the Blekko search engine with their founding team, are all following along as well. I don't think one of them thinks Google is "doing well" at this point. Sure lots of people were skeptical back in 2012 when I started saying it, but now pretty much everyone can see the pattern. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Now don't misunderstand. We would all love for them to pull out of their current trajectory[1], but temper that hope with observations that they are not. I have seen too many "Gorillas" (in the Geoffrey Moore lexicon) go down this path to have any reasonable expectation that they will survive it. If they follow the classical Silicon Valley playbook, they need to finish their masterpiece "Grand Headquarters Vision" so that they leave behind a tomb for others to remember them by. I have some great memories of TGIF meetings at Google which were held in Building 42, which had been the centerpiece of Silicon Graphics view of its rightful place in the world. I tried to tell them to be respectful of the ghosts that walked the halls, but they didn't understand what I was saying. [1] Well to be honest a couple of them would be happy to see Google die but I'm not one of them.
• gentleman11 6y ago
  An independent filmmaker and game dev I follow just deleted 99% of his videos after getting the email about this. I wish I didn’t try on it so much. There’s not a real alternative
• antpls 6y ago
  I bet the decision comes after the surge of VOD upload by Twitch streamers trying to not get caught by DMCA. You can say bye bye to the thousands of relaxing ASMR and ambiance videos on YouTube. Thanks NewPipe and youtube-dl for allowing us to watch ad-less videos.
• jessaustin 6y ago
  The best creators are demonetized, anyway. They wouldn't want a toilet paper ad to be besmirched by association with intelligent entertainment.
• johnnujler 6y ago
  Now is the time HN. We need a decentralised YouTube alternate.
• sireat 6y ago
  What does it mean if your Youtube videos are unlisted? The videos are educational meant for classrooms only content. You still get ads no matter what? Time to invest in a a Vimeo account or ugh.. self host.
• chenpengcheng 6y ago
  this shitty move would be neutralized if you own Google stock.