10 ms·

Tell HN: "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”

I opened youtube this morning to see a big popup: Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube - It looks like you may be using an ad blocker. - Ads allow YouTube to be used by billions worldwide. - You can go ad-free with YouTube Premium, and creators can still get paid from your subscription

ta1243 3y ago
Youtube premium doesn't stop the adverts, you need sponsorblock for that.
- sli 3y ago
  This is conflating two otherwise unrelated things that just look similar if you squint.
  - speedgoose 3y ago
    The video ads and the native video ads.
  - ta1243 3y ago
    An advert for grammarly inserted by youtube and an advert for grammarly inserted by the content creator. Both are adverts.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
theiwahejdn 3y ago
[flagged]
rolph 3y ago
https://invidious.io/ https://invidious.io/ https://invidi.link/ https://invidi.link/
- bazmattaz 3y ago
  Invidious is great and all but they need a complete redesign. It looks like it was design by a developer
thirteenfingers 3y ago
I also started getting that yesterday, but curiously I was still able to watch videos after closing the popup (without turning off my ad blocker).
- beardog 3y ago
  At least for some users, they eventually start completely disabling the video.
clessg 3y ago
I got this last night too. Somehow I got past it by refreshing, or going back/forward, I can’t remember exactly. I’m sure it’s coming permanently soon though. Sad days.
tclancy 3y ago
Ah, that's why the videos stopped working for me at home over PiHole.
- bazmattaz 3y ago
  Was a solution finally built to block YT ads with PiHole? I haven’t used it in a year or two and last I heard it was very hard / impossible to block YT ads because (like Facebook and Instagram) the ads are all served from the YT domain. How did you do it? Can you link to a guide or docs to do it?
  - tclancy 3y ago
    I didn't. What broke was now embedded videos (at least in iOS Safari) no longer work and I have to click to see them in the app.
superkuh 3y ago
They're not actually ad blockers. They are javascript exploit protection. It just so happens a good fraction if not the majority of exploits come in through ad systems in general. It's a rare thing a website itself is going to attack you. It's always some code/media imported from a third party domain/ip. ie, ads.
- guraf 3y ago
  You're right, YouTube ads are notorious for being JavaScript heavy and served by a third party.
  - jefftk 3y ago
    I can't tell if you're being sarcastic? YouTube ads are served by Google, just like the rest of YouTube. You can verify this by looking where your network requests go in devtools. (I used to work on ads at Google, but in a different area and don't know anything about YouTube beyond what I can see in devtools.)
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
textadventure 3y ago
As soon as I get that, I'll be having yt-dlp very handy.
- Etheryte 3y ago
  While that works for now, if Google ever took interest in it I think it would be pretty straightforward to break any libraries like that. If you change either the endpoints or the model or etc with any reasonable frequency the library authors couldn't possibly keep up. Google can orchestrate their rollouts so their things always keep working while the library users are always in for a surprise. This is one of those things that could also be automated and put on a cron if one was really into it. In general though, I think for the time being this is luckily not a big enough of a dot on their radar for them to care.
  - dewey 3y ago
    It's usually not that easy for companies to move that fast as there's a lot of devices with YouTube apps that are still actively used but not updated frequently. Think old Android devices or Smart TVs.
  - a257 3y ago
    > this is luckily not a big enough of a dot on their radar for them to care. Funnily enough, Google doesn't allow yt-downloader extensions on the Chrome web store. They will cite you rule #4, and send you a rejection letter for "Facilitating unauthorized access to or download of copyrighted content or media, specifically, YouTube." The irony of course is that they allow downloader extensions for other websites. That they specifically prohibit youtube downloaders while allowing downloaders for almost any other website smells suspiciously like anti-competitive behavior to me. On the other hand, Firefox's addon store is free from these restrictions, so you can find tons of yt download extensions there.
  - nvm0n2 3y ago
    They've already been experimenting with that for months. Using yt-dlp can get your IP address blocked: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/7860 https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/7860
simonbarker87 3y ago
This is where I get conflicted with ad blockers, on the one hand most website ads are trash, on the other hand there is great content on YT and I want those creators to make enough to carry on to get to the level where they proper sponsors. But, YT is so egregious with its ad insertions at times that it drives me mad and I don’t trust the creators will get fairly compensated if I go to premium.
- nickthegreek 3y ago
  The creators get more money per view from a premium member than an ad-supported viewer. So not only does being a paying member give you a better experience, it puts more cash in the pocket of those you watch.
  - simonbarker87 3y ago
    Not arguing for the sake of it but is that confirmed? I assume the more I watch the less each creator gets? No idea what the algorithm is they use to share the money out
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      I think they sum up global watch minutes, despite the bias that causes.
    - coldpie 3y ago
      You can find lots of discussion with a quick web search, but yes, it seems to be pretty well supported. Speaking more broadly, there's the simple fact that people deserve to be paid for the work they do. Many places don't allow you to pay with money, they force you to pay with ads. I find viewing ads to be an unacceptably high price, so I use an ad blocker, and I just go away if they turn me away for that. But for places that do give a money option, like YouTube, I jump for it, as I find that to be a far more ethical business model[1]. I'm happy to support businesses that give me the option to pay by doing exactly that. In other words, I wouldn't worry so much about the very fine details. And supporting your creators on Patreon will give them way more money than any amount of individual YouTube viewership. [1] Yes, I know they're still tracking me. That doesn't bother me as much as viewing ads or supporting the ad-based clickbait attention grabbing business model, so I think it's still a win.
m_0x 3y ago
This was to come as ad blockers impacts Google's revenue directly. I mean it's just one guy maintaining an addon against a trillion dollar company that spies us constantly.
SeanAnderson 3y ago
Is this with uBlock Origin or ABP?
- jcollins1991 3y ago
  Not OP, but I got this with uBlock Origin earlier.
  - SeanAnderson 3y ago
    Good to know. I have uBlock but haven't seen this push yet. I wonder what the technical implementation of their anti-adblock solution looks like
matsz 3y ago
Until YouTube starts injecting ads into the video stream (like Twitch), it's not going to be effective at all. There's no way to do a client-side anti-adblock and not have it bypassed. And TBH: since YouTube is not doing that, I think they might've decided the cost of that solution outweighs the projected revenue so they've chosen a cheaper solution. In Twitch's case, more of the audience might be techy, so ad injection ended up being the more optimal option.
- Retr0id 3y ago
  Sponsorblock already exists as infrastructure to slice out ads embedded into the video streams themselves. Of course, the sponsor segments weren't put there by youtube, but the same (or similar) solutions would apply if they were. It's much easier for anything non-live.
  - WaxProlix 3y ago
    The ads don't always have to be injected into the exact same parts of a video, and YT can also choose not to stream any more bits until it thinks something's been "watched".
  - bentcorner 3y ago
    Sponsorblock would be easy to work around if ad-breaks were randomly selected. Whenever you upload a video YT could process the video and "search" for good ad-break locations, at display time client bits get pushed ads randomly, making time-code blocking useless. They could even upsell to content creators by giving them the means to dynamically replace sponsors in old videos using the same tech, maybe with some knobs and switches for content creators to select where sponsor breaks occur.
    - kzhe 3y ago
      I guess something could detect if the frame shown is a frame from the video and if not skip
    - allanwind 3y ago
DueDilligence 3y ago
[dead]
CoastalCoder 3y ago
FWIW, I'm not seeing this at the time I'm writing this comment. Not sure if it's A/B testing, or my combo of Chrome Extensions, or something else at play.
- IMSAI8080 3y ago
  Pretty sure it's A/B testing. I'm logged in with uBlock Origin and no anti-adblock is visible. I've seen someone on Reddit complaining they were getting this and loads of people replied to say they were not. They're probably trying to figure out how many users/views they will lose or how many new premium subscribers they get or something like that.
  - fifteen1506 3y ago
    I hate A/B testing. Puts the feedback and protest mechanism working on those who complain the most. If you are a techie, you are forced to yell or silent quit the website, and most of the times I really don't have the time to waste yelling.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > I hate A/B testing. I agree. As a user, A/B testing is a horrible practice.
    - bazmattaz 3y ago
      My team rely on a/b testing. It’s the only way we can test whether the tweaks in our ML model produce positive results or not. Playing devils advocate here I think it’s actually a good idea that YT are testing this. They need to understand how big of a negative impact this would be if released. If enough users hate this change as you and I suspect then hopefully YT see these results in their tests and revisit their approach. A/b testing stops the worst user experiences from getting rolled out. Our company did a high profile a/b test that got a lot of negative feedback from users and the whole redesign it got canned because of it.
      - 3y ago
fidotron 3y ago
The insidious aspect of this is the bait and switch YouTube did to consolidate their monopoly. A huge amount of videos were uploaded under the (idealistic and misguided) pretence they would be freely accessible without ads and so on. Had the YT UX been this way the whole time then the online video landscape would be much more competitive today.
- wombat-man 3y ago
  How would youtube work without ads or subscriptions? Do you just not want there to be something like youtube?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - xigoi 3y ago
    Federated. Lots of people willing to host some videos on a server in their basement.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Where did it say or imply they'd be accessible without ads? YouTube has had ads since the early days (2008 specifically).
  - mahogany 3y ago
    > 2008 specifically Perhaps the parent comment is talking about pre-Google and you are talking about post-Google? I don’t know if the parent’s claim is correct about a bait and switch, but I can confirm that pre-Google YouTube did not have (video) ads and felt very much like a place for small independent creators. And from my memory, widespread ads on every video did not come into existence for many years. Originally they were only on selected monetized videos.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    It used to be the case that you had to be a YouTube partner to monetize your videos. They changed it so that you now have to be a partner in order to demonetize your videos. So anyone who just uploaded a video in the ~12 years between YouTube having monetization and monetization being mandated got ads put on their work retroactively and without permission.
JCharante 3y ago
I opened youtube this morning and did not see a popup because I already pay for Youtube Premium. They even have cheaper pricing in developing markets.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
fifteen1506 3y ago
Honestly that's one of the reasons I use Brave, I want to support creators. Pure adblocking doesn't. Micropayments require cash, which sometimes is not handy to spend.
avalys 3y ago
[flagged]
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  I use ad-block everywhere, but this is the right take. Youtube even gives an option to use it without ads.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Where was that logic when they were crushing all the competition by subsidizing Youtube with the rest of Google's money?
  - wombat-man 3y ago
    you're mad they didn't start charging and pushing ads earlier?
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      Actually, yeah, that's a reasonable thing to be upset about. They used the lack of forced ads to ensure that competitors also could not force ads. Now that they've captured the market, they force ads.
      - wombat-man 3y ago
        Well if they forced ads earlier than whatever competitor they had that didn't would be doing the same thing but with a smaller runway. If all free video sites had ads, I think just on pure speed and scale youtube probably had higher costs overall anyway.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      I'm annoyed that people act like it's narcissistic or entitled for users to be mad that now that YouTube has killed most of their competition by subsidizing the business with Google money, they want to start doing the exact thing everyone else had tried to do, except now there isn't any other comparable option. Normally when a business takes massive losses to drive competition out in an industry that's hard to break into, then once they're sufficiently dominant, starts to raise prices, it's an antitrust issue.
neither_color 3y ago
YouTube has been getting passive aggressive lately. My homepage is gone now because I have search history off. It used to just show me videos of channels I'm subscribed to but now I have to click on "Subscribed" to instead. Anyone know a quick way to redirect the root and ONLY root page of Youtube to my subscriptions on Firefox and Safari? I'm a premium subscriber btw so this is just obnoxious. For those unaware, if you browse anonymously you get ads even if logged into Premium.
- benhurmarcel 3y ago
  I just bookmark the "subscriptions" page instead of the homepage.
extr 3y ago
The youtube company wants me to stop unblocking their ads. That's okay, I'll still keep watching that garbage.
rhinoceraptor 3y ago
I get that it's annoying, but YouTube Premium is by far the best value streaming subscription I pay every month. I once cancelled it and couldn't make it a day before re-subscribing.
- bazmattaz 3y ago
  I think it depends how much YT you watch. I’d say I watch about 2-3hrs a week and use an as blocker so premium just isn’t worth it for me. If I watched much more i totally would pay
munchinator 3y ago
What I do is click the 'Report' button in the corner of that notification and then file a report saying that I received this pop-up, but that I do not have an adblocker. I like to think that if enough of us file reports, Youtube will think their system is falsely detecting adblockers.
slenk 3y ago
I do not understand why people refuse to pay for other people's work, even indirectly. YouTube Premium gives creators a pretty decent cut as well, coming from someone with monetized youtube vids...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- doublerabbit 3y ago
  How much is this decent cut?
  - slenk 3y ago
    It's actually been a bit. I haven't published in 90 days, because of that I lost monetization status and I can't see my previous payment breakdowns. ^^ Reasons I don't like youtube. I will keep looking. If I remember correctly it was like 15-20% of total revenue I was getting - of course it depended on the period.
- kristofferR 3y ago
  Youtube Premium is a waste of money, they bundle a crappy $11/m music service with it, for $13/m. I'd pay $2/m, or even $4 bucks, for ad-free Youtube, but I'm not buying an additional music service.
rich_sasha 3y ago
I don't quite get the holy outrage at commercial websites including ads. I mean, I like annoying irrelevant intrusive ads as much as the next person, but that's part of the damn product. Don't like it, don't use it. Or pay YouTube premium. I don't take much issue with ad blockers either, but think it's totally fair enough if YouTube wants to dump their shitstream of ads on consenting users.
factorymoo 3y ago
Potential solution: download all videos locally [1] As an added benefit, you'll skip all sponsored content. Just put this in your terminal once you install yt-dlp: yt-dlp --sponsorblock-remove all URL "put a youtube URL here without quotes" [1] https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
shapenamer 3y ago
I cancelled YT premium because it would still show me ads while using chromecast sometimes. 100% chance they will start showing ads to premium users if they actually manage to shut down ad blockers. Just like cable TV does. Pay for the service, watch ads half the time anyway.
dredmorbius 3y ago
At this writing, Invidious and Piped don't seem affected. These are alternate front-ends which can be self-hosted or have numerous public instances. I suspect yt-dlp and VLC will also function well. Your best video option is a third-party media viewer, in any regard. Invidious: <https://invidious.io/ https://invidious.io/> Piped: <https://piped.video/ https://piped.video/> yt-dlp: <https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp> Fork of youtube-dl, command-line client which can download or stream to a local player, supports video, audio only, and many, many, many, many services / hosts other than its namesake. VLC: <https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ https://www.videolan.org/vlc/> Full GUI media player, includes streaming capabilities for multiple sites & services. There are numerous other media player front-ends for Linux and other platforms such as Xine, mplayer, and more, check your OS's package archive / repos.
dang 3y ago
Related: YouTube's crackdown on ad blockers intensifies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37782171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37782171 - Oct 2023 (140 comments) YouTube is testing new “skip ads” button that makes it just a bit harder to skip - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37224622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37224622 - Aug 2023 (12 comments) YouTube is testing a three-strikes policy for ad blocking - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36747367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36747367 - July 2023 (72 comments) YouTube is blocking videos for users who block ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36583277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36583277 - July 2023 (91 comments) YouTube Threatens to Cut Off Ad Blocker Users After Just Three Ad-Less Vids - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36538577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36538577 - June 2023 (50 comments) YouTube confirms three-strikes test for ad blocking - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36535417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36535417 - June 2023 (7 comments) YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36517238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36517238 - June 2023 (1343 comments) YouTube Blocks Ad Blockers Amid Declining Ad Revenue - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277079 - June 2023 (30 comments) YouTube on TVs getting unskippable 30-second and pause screen ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35986992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35986992 - May 2023 (190 comments) YouTube is going to stop you from using ad blockers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35954648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35954648 - May 2023 (23 comments) YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35892512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35892512 - May 2023 (1405 comments) Apparently Ad Blockers are not allowed on YouTube. Is this a new thing? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35883457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35883457 - May 2023 (52 comments) YouTube May Force You to Watch 10 (Or More) Unskippable Ads in a Row - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32911676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32911676 - Sept 2022 (128 comments) The free YouTube tier is about to become unbearable with even more ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32866976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32866976 - Sept 2022 (96 comments) YouTube ads appear to be ramping up, with as many as 10 unskippable ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32859438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32859438 - Sept 2022 (143 comments) YouTube Free Is Silently Testing 5 Ads, Instead of 2, Before Your Video Starts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32851367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32851367 - Sept 2022 (21 comments) YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32835071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32835071 - Sept 2022 (266 comments) YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25149206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25149206 - Nov 2020 (758 comments) Tell HN: Adblocker doesn't block YouTube ads anymore - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658093 - March 2020 (17 comments)
tomjen3 3y ago
I got the same, but I don't run an adblocker, I just run Brave, which doesn't block ads, but does block trackers. Anyway it is only on a subset of accounts, because opening the link in private mode worked.
gymbeaux 3y ago
I use Firefox now and don’t miss Chrome at all. The ad blocking continues.
pwagle 3y ago
Most of the channels I follow report having been demonetized (and for bogus and/or unspecified reasons. Why should I care about channels I don't watch?
sona125 3y ago
Simply put, "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube" means that YouTube does not allow users to block ads while using their platform. This policy is in place to ensure that YouTube can continue to provide free access to their site and services to billions of users worldwide. If you are seeing the message "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube" while trying to watch videos, there are a few things you can do to fix the issue. Method 1: Use The Brave Browser Method 2: Use UBlock Origin Method 3: Use Anti-Adblock Killer Script Method 4: Use Third-Party YouTube Apps For detailed explanation for each method check: https://wealthquint.com/bypass-ad-blockers-are-not-allowed-on-youtube-77613/ https://wealthquint.com/bypass-ad-blockers-are-not-allowed-o...
sona125 3y ago
https://wealthquint.com/bypass-ad-blockers-are-not-allowed-on-youtube-77613/ https://wealthquint.com/bypass-ad-blockers-are-not-allowed-o...

ta1243 3y ago

Youtube premium doesn't stop the adverts, you need sponsorblock for that.

sli 3y ago
This is conflating two otherwise unrelated things that just look similar if you squint.
- speedgoose 3y ago
  The video ads and the native video ads.
- ta1243 3y ago
  An advert for grammarly inserted by youtube and an advert for grammarly inserted by the content creator. Both are adverts.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

theiwahejdn 3y ago

[flagged]

rolph 3y ago

https://invidious.io/ https://invidious.io/ https://invidi.link/ https://invidi.link/

bazmattaz 3y ago
Invidious is great and all but they need a complete redesign. It looks like it was design by a developer

thirteenfingers 3y ago

I also started getting that yesterday, but curiously I was still able to watch videos after closing the popup (without turning off my ad blocker).

beardog 3y ago
At least for some users, they eventually start completely disabling the video.

clessg 3y ago

I got this last night too. Somehow I got past it by refreshing, or going back/forward, I can’t remember exactly. I’m sure it’s coming permanently soon though. Sad days.

tclancy 3y ago

Ah, that's why the videos stopped working for me at home over PiHole.

bazmattaz 3y ago
Was a solution finally built to block YT ads with PiHole? I haven’t used it in a year or two and last I heard it was very hard / impossible to block YT ads because (like Facebook and Instagram) the ads are all served from the YT domain. How did you do it? Can you link to a guide or docs to do it?
- tclancy 3y ago
  I didn't. What broke was now embedded videos (at least in iOS Safari) no longer work and I have to click to see them in the app.

superkuh 3y ago

They're not actually ad blockers. They are javascript exploit protection. It just so happens a good fraction if not the majority of exploits come in through ad systems in general. It's a rare thing a website itself is going to attack you. It's always some code/media imported from a third party domain/ip. ie, ads.

guraf 3y ago
You're right, YouTube ads are notorious for being JavaScript heavy and served by a third party.
- jefftk 3y ago
  I can't tell if you're being sarcastic? YouTube ads are served by Google, just like the rest of YouTube. You can verify this by looking where your network requests go in devtools. (I used to work on ads at Google, but in a different area and don't know anything about YouTube beyond what I can see in devtools.)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

textadventure 3y ago

As soon as I get that, I'll be having yt-dlp very handy.

Etheryte 3y ago
While that works for now, if Google ever took interest in it I think it would be pretty straightforward to break any libraries like that. If you change either the endpoints or the model or etc with any reasonable frequency the library authors couldn't possibly keep up. Google can orchestrate their rollouts so their things always keep working while the library users are always in for a surprise. This is one of those things that could also be automated and put on a cron if one was really into it. In general though, I think for the time being this is luckily not a big enough of a dot on their radar for them to care.
- dewey 3y ago
  It's usually not that easy for companies to move that fast as there's a lot of devices with YouTube apps that are still actively used but not updated frequently. Think old Android devices or Smart TVs.
- a257 3y ago
  > this is luckily not a big enough of a dot on their radar for them to care. Funnily enough, Google doesn't allow yt-downloader extensions on the Chrome web store. They will cite you rule #4, and send you a rejection letter for "Facilitating unauthorized access to or download of copyrighted content or media, specifically, YouTube." The irony of course is that they allow downloader extensions for other websites. That they specifically prohibit youtube downloaders while allowing downloaders for almost any other website smells suspiciously like anti-competitive behavior to me. On the other hand, Firefox's addon store is free from these restrictions, so you can find tons of yt download extensions there.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  They've already been experimenting with that for months. Using yt-dlp can get your IP address blocked: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/7860 https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/7860

simonbarker87 3y ago

This is where I get conflicted with ad blockers, on the one hand most website ads are trash, on the other hand there is great content on YT and I want those creators to make enough to carry on to get to the level where they proper sponsors. But, YT is so egregious with its ad insertions at times that it drives me mad and I don’t trust the creators will get fairly compensated if I go to premium.

nickthegreek 3y ago
The creators get more money per view from a premium member than an ad-supported viewer. So not only does being a paying member give you a better experience, it puts more cash in the pocket of those you watch.
- simonbarker87 3y ago
  Not arguing for the sake of it but is that confirmed? I assume the more I watch the less each creator gets? No idea what the algorithm is they use to share the money out
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    I think they sum up global watch minutes, despite the bias that causes.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    You can find lots of discussion with a quick web search, but yes, it seems to be pretty well supported. Speaking more broadly, there's the simple fact that people deserve to be paid for the work they do. Many places don't allow you to pay with money, they force you to pay with ads. I find viewing ads to be an unacceptably high price, so I use an ad blocker, and I just go away if they turn me away for that. But for places that do give a money option, like YouTube, I jump for it, as I find that to be a far more ethical business model[1]. I'm happy to support businesses that give me the option to pay by doing exactly that. In other words, I wouldn't worry so much about the very fine details. And supporting your creators on Patreon will give them way more money than any amount of individual YouTube viewership. [1] Yes, I know they're still tracking me. That doesn't bother me as much as viewing ads or supporting the ad-based clickbait attention grabbing business model, so I think it's still a win.

m_0x 3y ago

This was to come as ad blockers impacts Google's revenue directly. I mean it's just one guy maintaining an addon against a trillion dollar company that spies us constantly.

SeanAnderson 3y ago

Is this with uBlock Origin or ABP?

jcollins1991 3y ago
Not OP, but I got this with uBlock Origin earlier.
- SeanAnderson 3y ago
  Good to know. I have uBlock but haven't seen this push yet. I wonder what the technical implementation of their anti-adblock solution looks like

matsz 3y ago

Until YouTube starts injecting ads into the video stream (like Twitch), it's not going to be effective at all. There's no way to do a client-side anti-adblock and not have it bypassed. And TBH: since YouTube is not doing that, I think they might've decided the cost of that solution outweighs the projected revenue so they've chosen a cheaper solution. In Twitch's case, more of the audience might be techy, so ad injection ended up being the more optimal option.

Retr0id 3y ago
Sponsorblock already exists as infrastructure to slice out ads embedded into the video streams themselves. Of course, the sponsor segments weren't put there by youtube, but the same (or similar) solutions would apply if they were. It's much easier for anything non-live.
- WaxProlix 3y ago
  The ads don't always have to be injected into the exact same parts of a video, and YT can also choose not to stream any more bits until it thinks something's been "watched".
- bentcorner 3y ago
  Sponsorblock would be easy to work around if ad-breaks were randomly selected. Whenever you upload a video YT could process the video and "search" for good ad-break locations, at display time client bits get pushed ads randomly, making time-code blocking useless. They could even upsell to content creators by giving them the means to dynamically replace sponsors in old videos using the same tech, maybe with some knobs and switches for content creators to select where sponsor breaks occur.
  - kzhe 3y ago
    I guess something could detect if the frame shown is a frame from the video and if not skip
  - allanwind 3y ago

DueDilligence 3y ago

[dead]

CoastalCoder 3y ago

FWIW, I'm not seeing this at the time I'm writing this comment. Not sure if it's A/B testing, or my combo of Chrome Extensions, or something else at play.

IMSAI8080 3y ago
Pretty sure it's A/B testing. I'm logged in with uBlock Origin and no anti-adblock is visible. I've seen someone on Reddit complaining they were getting this and loads of people replied to say they were not. They're probably trying to figure out how many users/views they will lose or how many new premium subscribers they get or something like that.
- fifteen1506 3y ago
  I hate A/B testing. Puts the feedback and protest mechanism working on those who complain the most. If you are a techie, you are forced to yell or silent quit the website, and most of the times I really don't have the time to waste yelling.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > I hate A/B testing. I agree. As a user, A/B testing is a horrible practice.
  - bazmattaz 3y ago
    My team rely on a/b testing. It’s the only way we can test whether the tweaks in our ML model produce positive results or not. Playing devils advocate here I think it’s actually a good idea that YT are testing this. They need to understand how big of a negative impact this would be if released. If enough users hate this change as you and I suspect then hopefully YT see these results in their tests and revisit their approach. A/b testing stops the worst user experiences from getting rolled out. Our company did a high profile a/b test that got a lot of negative feedback from users and the whole redesign it got canned because of it.
    - 3y ago

fidotron 3y ago

The insidious aspect of this is the bait and switch YouTube did to consolidate their monopoly. A huge amount of videos were uploaded under the (idealistic and misguided) pretence they would be freely accessible without ads and so on. Had the YT UX been this way the whole time then the online video landscape would be much more competitive today.

wombat-man 3y ago
How would youtube work without ads or subscriptions? Do you just not want there to be something like youtube?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- xigoi 3y ago
  Federated. Lots of people willing to host some videos on a server in their basement.
hot_gril 3y ago
Where did it say or imply they'd be accessible without ads? YouTube has had ads since the early days (2008 specifically).
- mahogany 3y ago
  > 2008 specifically Perhaps the parent comment is talking about pre-Google and you are talking about post-Google? I don’t know if the parent’s claim is correct about a bait and switch, but I can confirm that pre-Google YouTube did not have (video) ads and felt very much like a place for small independent creators. And from my memory, widespread ads on every video did not come into existence for many years. Originally they were only on selected monetized videos.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  It used to be the case that you had to be a YouTube partner to monetize your videos. They changed it so that you now have to be a partner in order to demonetize your videos. So anyone who just uploaded a video in the ~12 years between YouTube having monetization and monetization being mandated got ads put on their work retroactively and without permission.

JCharante 3y ago

I opened youtube this morning and did not see a popup because I already pay for Youtube Premium. They even have cheaper pricing in developing markets.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

fifteen1506 3y ago

Honestly that's one of the reasons I use Brave, I want to support creators. Pure adblocking doesn't. Micropayments require cash, which sometimes is not handy to spend.

avalys 3y ago

[flagged]

xboxnolifes 3y ago
I use ad-block everywhere, but this is the right take. Youtube even gives an option to use it without ads.
dotnet00 3y ago
Where was that logic when they were crushing all the competition by subsidizing Youtube with the rest of Google's money?
- wombat-man 3y ago
  you're mad they didn't start charging and pushing ads earlier?
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    Actually, yeah, that's a reasonable thing to be upset about. They used the lack of forced ads to ensure that competitors also could not force ads. Now that they've captured the market, they force ads.
    - wombat-man 3y ago
      Well if they forced ads earlier than whatever competitor they had that didn't would be doing the same thing but with a smaller runway. If all free video sites had ads, I think just on pure speed and scale youtube probably had higher costs overall anyway.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    I'm annoyed that people act like it's narcissistic or entitled for users to be mad that now that YouTube has killed most of their competition by subsidizing the business with Google money, they want to start doing the exact thing everyone else had tried to do, except now there isn't any other comparable option. Normally when a business takes massive losses to drive competition out in an industry that's hard to break into, then once they're sufficiently dominant, starts to raise prices, it's an antitrust issue.

neither_color 3y ago

YouTube has been getting passive aggressive lately. My homepage is gone now because I have search history off. It used to just show me videos of channels I'm subscribed to but now I have to click on "Subscribed" to instead. Anyone know a quick way to redirect the root and ONLY root page of Youtube to my subscriptions on Firefox and Safari? I'm a premium subscriber btw so this is just obnoxious. For those unaware, if you browse anonymously you get ads even if logged into Premium.

benhurmarcel 3y ago
I just bookmark the "subscriptions" page instead of the homepage.

extr 3y ago

The youtube company wants me to stop unblocking their ads. That's okay, I'll still keep watching that garbage.

rhinoceraptor 3y ago

I get that it's annoying, but YouTube Premium is by far the best value streaming subscription I pay every month. I once cancelled it and couldn't make it a day before re-subscribing.

bazmattaz 3y ago
I think it depends how much YT you watch. I’d say I watch about 2-3hrs a week and use an as blocker so premium just isn’t worth it for me. If I watched much more i totally would pay

munchinator 3y ago

What I do is click the 'Report' button in the corner of that notification and then file a report saying that I received this pop-up, but that I do not have an adblocker. I like to think that if enough of us file reports, Youtube will think their system is falsely detecting adblockers.

slenk 3y ago

I do not understand why people refuse to pay for other people's work, even indirectly. YouTube Premium gives creators a pretty decent cut as well, coming from someone with monetized youtube vids...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
doublerabbit 3y ago
How much is this decent cut?
- slenk 3y ago
  It's actually been a bit. I haven't published in 90 days, because of that I lost monetization status and I can't see my previous payment breakdowns. ^^ Reasons I don't like youtube. I will keep looking. If I remember correctly it was like 15-20% of total revenue I was getting - of course it depended on the period.
kristofferR 3y ago
Youtube Premium is a waste of money, they bundle a crappy $11/m music service with it, for $13/m. I'd pay $2/m, or even $4 bucks, for ad-free Youtube, but I'm not buying an additional music service.

rich_sasha 3y ago

I don't quite get the holy outrage at commercial websites including ads. I mean, I like annoying irrelevant intrusive ads as much as the next person, but that's part of the damn product. Don't like it, don't use it. Or pay YouTube premium. I don't take much issue with ad blockers either, but think it's totally fair enough if YouTube wants to dump their shitstream of ads on consenting users.

factorymoo 3y ago

Potential solution: download all videos locally [1] As an added benefit, you'll skip all sponsored content. Just put this in your terminal once you install yt-dlp: yt-dlp --sponsorblock-remove all URL "put a youtube URL here without quotes" [1] https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

shapenamer 3y ago

I cancelled YT premium because it would still show me ads while using chromecast sometimes. 100% chance they will start showing ads to premium users if they actually manage to shut down ad blockers. Just like cable TV does. Pay for the service, watch ads half the time anyway.

dredmorbius 3y ago

At this writing, Invidious and Piped don't seem affected. These are alternate front-ends which can be self-hosted or have numerous public instances. I suspect yt-dlp and VLC will also function well. Your best video option is a third-party media viewer, in any regard. Invidious: <https://invidious.io/ https://invidious.io/> Piped: <https://piped.video/ https://piped.video/> yt-dlp: <https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp> Fork of youtube-dl, command-line client which can download or stream to a local player, supports video, audio only, and many, many, many, many services / hosts other than its namesake. VLC: <https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ https://www.videolan.org/vlc/> Full GUI media player, includes streaming capabilities for multiple sites & services. There are numerous other media player front-ends for Linux and other platforms such as Xine, mplayer, and more, check your OS's package archive / repos.

dang 3y ago

Related: YouTube's crackdown on ad blockers intensifies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37782171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37782171 - Oct 2023 (140 comments) YouTube is testing new “skip ads” button that makes it just a bit harder to skip - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37224622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37224622 - Aug 2023 (12 comments) YouTube is testing a three-strikes policy for ad blocking - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36747367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36747367 - July 2023 (72 comments) YouTube is blocking videos for users who block ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36583277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36583277 - July 2023 (91 comments) YouTube Threatens to Cut Off Ad Blocker Users After Just Three Ad-Less Vids - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36538577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36538577 - June 2023 (50 comments) YouTube confirms three-strikes test for ad blocking - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36535417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36535417 - June 2023 (7 comments) YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36517238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36517238 - June 2023 (1343 comments) YouTube Blocks Ad Blockers Amid Declining Ad Revenue - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277079 - June 2023 (30 comments) YouTube on TVs getting unskippable 30-second and pause screen ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35986992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35986992 - May 2023 (190 comments) YouTube is going to stop you from using ad blockers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35954648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35954648 - May 2023 (23 comments) YouTube tests blocking videos unless you disable ad blockers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35892512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35892512 - May 2023 (1405 comments) Apparently Ad Blockers are not allowed on YouTube. Is this a new thing? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35883457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35883457 - May 2023 (52 comments) YouTube May Force You to Watch 10 (Or More) Unskippable Ads in a Row - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32911676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32911676 - Sept 2022 (128 comments) The free YouTube tier is about to become unbearable with even more ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32866976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32866976 - Sept 2022 (96 comments) YouTube ads appear to be ramping up, with as many as 10 unskippable ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32859438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32859438 - Sept 2022 (143 comments) YouTube Free Is Silently Testing 5 Ads, Instead of 2, Before Your Video Starts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32851367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32851367 - Sept 2022 (21 comments) YouTube currently testing 5 to 10 unskippable ads before video starts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32835071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32835071 - Sept 2022 (266 comments) YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25149206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25149206 - Nov 2020 (758 comments) Tell HN: Adblocker doesn't block YouTube ads anymore - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658093 - March 2020 (17 comments)

tomjen3 3y ago

I got the same, but I don't run an adblocker, I just run Brave, which doesn't block ads, but does block trackers. Anyway it is only on a subset of accounts, because opening the link in private mode worked.

gymbeaux 3y ago

I use Firefox now and don’t miss Chrome at all. The ad blocking continues.

pwagle 3y ago

Most of the channels I follow report having been demonetized (and for bogus and/or unspecified reasons. Why should I care about channels I don't watch?

sona125 3y ago

Simply put, "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube" means that YouTube does not allow users to block ads while using their platform. This policy is in place to ensure that YouTube can continue to provide free access to their site and services to billions of users worldwide. If you are seeing the message "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube" while trying to watch videos, there are a few things you can do to fix the issue. Method 1: Use The Brave Browser Method 2: Use UBlock Origin Method 3: Use Anti-Adblock Killer Script Method 4: Use Third-Party YouTube Apps For detailed explanation for each method check: https://wealthquint.com/bypass-ad-blockers-are-not-allowed-on-youtube-77613/ https://wealthquint.com/bypass-ad-blockers-are-not-allowed-o...

sona125 3y ago

https://wealthquint.com/bypass-ad-blockers-are-not-allowed-on-youtube-77613/ https://wealthquint.com/bypass-ad-blockers-are-not-allowed-o...