15 ms·
YouTube blames ad blockers for slow load times, not the browser
- aa_is_op 3y agoThis is a lie. The slow-down of YouTube page loads was done on purpose. YouTube worked perfect with ad-blockers for a decade. It only started now.
- Roark66 3y agoThe title is wrong. They don't "blame ad blockers" they admit they slow down ad blockers. So it is their conscious choice, not some sort of "adblockers cause issues" thing.
- drngdds 3y agoSimultaneously irritating and "well yeah." No one likes ads or monthly subscriptions, but serving video is expensive, so why not deprioritize the users who are giving you zero dollars and zero cents?
- timeon 3y agoWhy they bought popular free platform when they are struggling to maintain it? Youtube is go-to platform for video publishing because it started as free platform. When they captured this segment of web, they have overloaded it with ads. I do not expect anyone serving me for free. But it is not bearable when everything and everyone expects you to use these walled gardens.
- tg180 3y ago>when they are struggling to maintain it? YouTube is not losing money, it's a significant contributor to Alphabet's overall revenue. They are not struggling to maintain it, they're trying to milk the cash cow...
- timeon 3y agoThat is probably true. I was just reacting to: 'serving video is expensive'.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago> YouTube is not losing money, it's a significant contributor to Alphabet's overall revenue. There's no contradiction between those two ideas. Something that loses a lot of money is more likely to be a significant contributor to revenue, because you can't lose a lot of money without seeing a lot of use. But why would anyone care about revenue? Is it a significant contributor to profit? Last I heard, Alphabet doesn't even provide a breakdown of how much of its money comes from YouTube.
- krsrhe 3y ago[dead]
- nickthegreek 3y agoHow is youtube a walled garden?
- timeon 3y agoI consider tracking [0] and excessive Ads as wall. Many sites that are not behind the wall are providing part of their content through embedded Youtube videos. In order to see that content you need to agree with tracking. Those sites use Youtube just because it is often considered as standard.
- Workaccount2 3y agoYoutube's destiny was always to be ad supported or a subscription. If you think there can be a free platform (truly free) I highly encourage you to look up the fate of youtubes biggest competitive threat of the last decade: Vid.me, an actually whole hearted VC funded attempt to dethrone youtube. And it worked great for a bit..
- JKCalhoun 3y agoIt would be nice if Google charged what it cost to store/deliver the content. I mean they aren't paying for the content — that's on the backs of the content creators, most of which I suspect see no positive cash-flow for their time and effort. I'd also like to see 70% of the subscriber money go to the content creators (which appears to be the new standard royalty cut) and do away with the ads, ad revenue. Wanting both ad revenue and subscriber money is a bit like the bait-and-switch we saw from cable television when it debuted.
- mvdtnz 3y agoThere are no ads for subscribers though.
- nickthegreek 3y agoThere is no bait and switch. There are 2 options, ad-supported and ad-free.
- Moldoteck 3y agoquestion is, will I, as ublock user & premium payer have this problem?
- nickthegreek 3y agoI have not.
- karmakaze 3y agoDoes it make pragmatic sense? What percentage of folks with Firefox using ad-blockers will even know the reason for the slowdown and be motivated to disable their ad-blocker or pay for premium. If it's purely punitive, that's their prerogative. I can't see this small sliver of volume impacting operational cost or even opportunity cost. Lower usage, even from those using ad-blockers isn't a metric to strive for.
- ravenstine 3y agoYeah, it would be conversions of ad-blockers to Premium subscriptions. And they will get some of those, maybe even a lot. I believe it will be a challenge for YouTube to convince enough of those people using ad-blockers to convert. I've considered getting Premium, and perhaps I will eventually because the experience in the YouTube app on the TV (not "YouTube TV") has become so unpleasant because of ads. But I really don't want to. I don't trust YouTube to not roll out "reasonable ads" for Premium in the near future. If Amazon decides to retroactively place ads on their TVs, YouTube more easily can do the same for Premium. It'd be one thing if YouTube was a different company, in which case I wouldn't hesitate to pay. But we know the kind of people they are.
- jmnicolas 3y agoCan't you use some kind of DNS blocker (like pi-hole or the other one) to block ads on your TV?
- ravenstine 3y agoYes, but not when I'm using my YouTube account on someone else's TV to show them something.
- karmakaze 3y agoI was thinking the conversions from Firefox users using adblockers would be too small--but they have to do this otherwise there's an incentive to switch from Chrome. Edit: Just saw this post "In June 2024, ad blockers such as uBlock Origin will be disabled in Chrome 127". So there's an incentive either way. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38361758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38361758
- karaterobot 3y agoGoogle openly admitted this, as the article makes clear but the headline of this post does not.
- zlg_codes 3y agoI expect them to ratchet it up eventually and begin threatening Google Accounts for those who use adblockers. They'll just dress it up in Terms of Use or some bullshit, and the Javascript Cold War begins.
- lcmatt 3y agoEasy solution is to create a new account that's only used for Youtube - or even easier don't login at all.
- egberts1 3y agoYouTube is riding a bicycle. YouTube sticks a rod into its wheel spoke while moving. YouTube blames Ad Blockers.
- TomK32 3y agois there a tiktok of this?
- bheadmaster 3y agoWhat's a tiktok?
- StevenXC 3y agoIt's kind of like a Vine.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bheadmaster 3y agoSo it's some sort of Windows Emulator?
- baz00 3y agoThe only slow load time I get on YT is that bit where yt-dlp is running.
- cheschire 3y agoI wish there was a plugin for yt-dlp that would feed the video ID over to SponsorBlock, get the sponsor segments, and then during the yt-dlp post-processing steps it would clip out the sponsor segments.
- baz00 3y ago--sponsorblock-remove all
- dleslie 3y agoyt-dlp --sponsorblock-remove all
- PawgerZ 3y agoAs others have commented, there is a way to do this with yt-dlp. Here's a link to the other options that yt-dlp allows https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#usage-and-options https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#usage-and-options
- yownie 3y agoGoogle is and has forever been evil, never lose sight of that.
- ta1243 3y agoThey literally had "be evil" in their corporate motto from the very start.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoIf it's any consolation, they did ultimately decide they couldn't continue to follow that motto. My favorite joke in this vein is "You can't spell slaughter without laughter!"
- 93po 3y agoDo not. Be evil. They left out a period
- solardev 3y agoIn reality, "don't" was always just a typo of "donut". The early founders were cupcake fans. Ask yourself, which came first in Android?
- pcurve 3y agoThis is hilariously petty it's almost The Onion worthy. If they keep at it, John Oliver will pick it up.
- dr-detroit 3y ago[dead]
- unnouinceput 3y agoI don't know what is happening here. I get on youtube every single day and I have Firefox with uBlock and NoScript, as I had them since ~2018 when I moved off Chrome. There is absolutely no delay for me at all. No change in any delay, same today as it was a week before or the weeks before that. Also I'm an uBlock user since times immemorial, on Chrome before Firefox too, so I never saw any ads. The only time I see ads are when my clients share their screen and trust me, I install uBlock instantly in their browser.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- teddyh 3y agoDon’t forget to install SponsorBlock, too. <https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/>
- chankstein38 3y agoIt's so good! I don't pay $20/mo for YouTube Premium just to have creators take away literally the only benefit of paying for premium by shoving their own ads in.
- BuyMyBitcoins 3y agoI’m just thankful the team of people working on uBlock Origin and its filters are managing to stay one step ahead of Google. Seeing those anti-adblock popups made me realize how much of a habit watching YouTube has become for me. Before anyone asks, I don’t care about the moral or ethical concerns of adblocking. Nor do I ever plan to pay Google for YouTube Premium. If Google wins the adblocking war I’ll begrudgingly find another platform.
- worklaptopacct 3y agoI just don't get people who discuss the morality of ad blocking. You see the corporation as a human, while it sees you as an optimization metric.
- Hamuko 3y agoNot every website with ads is owned by a corporation though.
- worklaptopacct 3y agoYes, but we are talking about YouTube, aren't we?
- Hamuko 3y agoI only saw people talking about "morality of ad blocking", not "morality of ad blocking on YouTube".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- plagiarist 3y agoThey might find a more willing audience if they behaved respectfully. Instead they are partnering with ad networks that use pop ups, automatic redirects, take over scrolling behavior, content overlays, load in ads that shift the content around while I am trying to read it, and so forth.
- amelius 3y agoEFF should make a plugin that webmasters can add to their websites. Then whenever Google does bad things, the plugin will show a warning popup when the user agent is Chrome.
- vouaobrasil 3y agoThe problem is not that Google wants to put Ads on YouTube. The problem is that they are putting too many ads there, a disproportional amount of them. Based on the money they are pulling in, they could easily put fewer, less intrusive ads on the platform and still make a healthy profit. The fact that they are going above and beyond is what makes people angry. YouTube may be the property of Google but they got so successful due to all of society and most people have the intuitive sense that Google is taking more than their fair share from society now. The problem is not technical, and as long as Google continues to make their profits soar beyond what they deserve, people will continue to use adblockers.
- 93po 3y agoKids will endure any amount of ads and there are a ton of them using YT. Adults will pay for premium.
- vouaobrasil 3y agoWe should not have a near-ubiquitous social phenomenon like YouTube showing advertisements to children. One might respond that it is up to the parents to limit this, but what will become of society with the children who do not have such parents? It may be the responsibility of the parents BUT regardless, we will all suffer the effects of hyper-comercialized children.
- kkkkkkk 3y agoTV was a thing for decades and they showed more ads than YouTube does today, at least in the US.
- vouaobrasil 3y agoTrue, and ads were damaging back then as well, and I believe that was also quite problematic for society. However, we should also note that ads have gotten worse, more insidious, and personalized with tracking and that's rather creepy.
- skymast 3y ago[dead]
- throw7 3y agoDo Be Evil.
- ChumpGPT 3y agoWhy log in? You know what channels you follow, just don't log in and use an add blocker. Who needs their recommendations, I can find my own content.
- Hamuko 3y agoI hope Google knows that I'd rather stare five seconds at a half-loaded DOM than watch their ads.
- chankstein38 3y agoRight? I'm not sure how "This page will take 5 seconds to load for you now" is supposed to be worse than "Loud music and loud talking will start immediately and you'll be forced to stare at it for at least 5 seconds before hitting skip... maybe... we might also force you to watch the whole thing" Seems like a no-brainer I'd rather deal with 5 seconds extra added to my load times.
- whatwhaaaaat 3y agoI do not let my kids watch YouTube but one of them wanted a very specific blippi episode so I put it on and watched it with them. YouTube showed them the beginning of an IDF ad with dead bodies. On a small children’s blippi episode. Not signed in but unbelievable still. I had seen this specific ad and stopped it before we got to the dead bodies. My kids won’t touch another google product until they make their own decisions. (13 or so). It also made me question the motives of someone paying to play ads with dead bodies on children’s shows.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago> It also made me question the motives of someone paying to play ads with dead bodies on children’s shows. I recently went through this. I disabled targeted ads on my Google account so then Google deigned that every video (child-friendly content or not) needed to have the nastiest ads available. They are absolutely twisting your arm into giving them your personalization so they don't show your kids "inappropriate ads". It was then that I swore to never pay for Premium because it's like paying the mafia protection money so they don't cut my gas line under the stove and blow up the entire place.
- whatwhaaaaat 3y agoIt’s truly unbelievable. Give a strike to a streamer playing sons of the forest because of rendered dead bodies but happily play and ad over and over with actual dead bodies in it on a children’s show. I’m not for the government getting in the middle of online content but what in the hell are YouTube thinking with this?
- whatwhaaaaat 3y agoOn review this was not blippi. This was on a fire truck recording. Still a show primarily watched by children but no less important to get facts right.
- drannex 3y agoImpressive (and sad...) how adding: www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), 5000, 0.001) to my uBlock origin filter list made YT much snappier on Firefox.
- alad_ 3y agoWhat does this do?
- literalAardvark 3y agoDecreases the timeout of something by 3 orders of magnitude... I guess resolve events. https://chat.openai.com/share/4df5d57e-9d2f-407f-9f8b-910a6a694f5d https://chat.openai.com/share/4df5d57e-9d2f-407f-9f8b-910a6a...
- drannex 3y agoYT/google has hardcoded a delay just for Firefox users for web page and video loading, this removes that timeout sequence so it loads instantly.
- trash_cat 3y agoThat´s an interesting FF extension idea...
- yandroid 3y agothank you!!!!
- whywhywhywhy 3y agoAll the trappings of a company that considers itself irreplaceable. Which a few years ago we might have all agreed on but consider this, what if Tiktok launched a long form version of their algorithm with a strong web viewing experience and better payouts for creators. In that world would YouTube seem irreplaceable or would it seem more like a relic.
- _thisdot 3y agoSeems like Twitter/X is trying something of that sort. Facebook tried with Facebook Watch and wasn’t really successful. So I’m doubtful TikTok will be able to
- I_Am_Nous 3y agoTikTok might just move backwards compared to Youtube. Youtube had longform first, then shorts. If TikTok just keeps bumping up the max video length over time, or maybe adds another tab for longform videos with a separate algorithm, I could see it being more successful since they are already known for video. Didn't Facebook also inflate viewer numbers and force video uploads to Facebook (no more sharing a Youtube link)? I remember back in the day the Glove and Boots channel started uploading their content on both Youtube and Facebook, which cut the viewership numbers to plummet on both platforms. They had to take a hiatus for a while to figure out how to fix the issue so their business wasn't destroyed. If I am remembering correctly, then Facebook "tried" but they really didn't do a great job to actually make it work.
- whywhywhywhy 3y ago>Facebook tried with Facebook Watch and wasn’t really successful. So I’m doubtful TikTok will be able to Have you used Tiktok because it's kinda bizarre to try and compare those two companies let alone hold Facebooks failure up as a reason why the most popular platform for generation Z wont be able to take out an incumbent that's lost it's way. Not to mention YouTube has severely limited it's algorithm in response to the radicalization scare while Tiktok has a scarily accurate and fast different type of algorithm entirely.
- kevincox 3y agoI'm missing the point how changing the user agent resolves the delay? It is quite possible that this was an attempt to hinder ad blocking but why would changing the user agent to Chrome while maintaining all of the same ad blockers remove the slowdown? I actually still think that there is a decent change that this wasn't fully intentional (as in the task wasn't to user-agent detect non-Chrome and slow it down) but the explanation doesn't cover why this delay depends on the user agent?
- luthMan 3y agoThen why do I only get the 5-second-long skeleton UI on Firefox? I use both Firefox and Chrome with uBlock. But I only get the slow loading UI on Firefox. If I change the User Agent in Firefox to Chrome, then it loads as fast as in Chrome. This is deliberately set in place to be slow on Firefox.
- BoppreH 3y agoI'd love to disable my ad blockers and pay for video content (as I do for Netflix and Nebula), but YouTube has time and time again disappointed me. Some of the most egregious instances: - Overzealous Content ID and lack of punishment for false claims. I understand it's more lightweight than DMCA and easier for YouTube, but when you're such a cultural hub the standards should be higher. - Rewarding longer videos and causing even the most straightforward 30-second content to balloon to 12+ minutes. - Hiding all content on Home until you enable "watch history" (hey, why not give me suggestions based on my carefully curated list of subscriptions?). - Promoting absolutely bottom-of-the-barrel Shorts content. - Favoring provocative content, creating the alt-right pipeline[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right_pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right_pipeline
- chankstein38 3y agoAnd, for some damn reason, FORCING you to see Shorts. I can't even tell it not to show Shorts on my home page without "Will re-enable in 30 days." Like NO I don't want shorts why would you re-enable?!
- RedlineTriad 3y agoThere is a very nice list of ublock origin filters[0] that removes all shorts from subscriptions, home page, and even the nav menu item for them. Direct links to shorts still work though, in case someone sends a link or something. Improved my YouTube experience a lot. [0] https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts
- chankstein38 3y agoThank you for this!
- rchaud 3y agoUI defaults are powerful. For 15 years, YT has been providing an old-school "TV-like" experience, with 16:9 video, 10 minute-plus "episodes". That model is dead, especially with how YT does ads, which annoy users. They want to move mobile users to the TikTok model ASAP, which allows them to throw in many more ads in a natural way compared to what they currently have.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- francis-io 3y agoI use Firefox and ublock origin. I also have a Youtube premium account. When I change my firefox useragent to windows/chrome my load times go from 5-10 seconds to under 1.
- huimang 3y agoIf you watch youtube that much, then just pay for premium. Seems the philosophy here is because adblockers are technologically feasible, you're entitled to use a service for free. Because ads have some issues, blocking them and never contributing a cent in other ways is acceptable. A video here and there is whatever. But it's hypocritical to watch many videos per month and expect to not pay for it - unless you also expect to not get paid for your work or services.
- beej71 3y agoI personally can't in good conscience pay Google any money when they push initiatives that go against my interests.
- huimang 3y agoSo theft is acceptable if the other party does things you don't necessarily agree with. Interesting.
- beej71 3y agoI never said it was ok to steal from Google. You certainly won't find any Google property at my house. I did say it was unethical to pay them, though.
- huimang 3y agoTaking something (content) without paying is theft. It also is theft from the person who made the video you're watching.
- JetSpiegel 3y agoBut they just send it when you request it, is that theft? Is is theft is you eat dozens of unlimited breadsticks?
- 3y ago
- _gabe_ 3y agoIf only there were an affordable subscription plan people could buy to avoid the ads? I do find it funny that people who make well over $100K a year will jump through so many hoops to avoid a $20 a month subscription cost. Then, when YT finally says no more and makes the experience worse for these people, the justifications and complaints start rolling out like there’s no end! And if you only watch YT occasionally, meaning the subscription isn’t worth it, then I think watching a couple ads for the 1-2 videos you watch a month is a great compromise! I watch YT all the time, and the ads are not excessive compared to cable, or heck, even popular streaming nowadays! The new streaming platforms make you pay a subscription, give you reduced video quality, and have the gall to slap you with a ton of ads! One final note (that I’ve mentioned on HN before): the channels on YT have full control over whether or not ads play, and where and when the ads play. Of course the channel owners won’t publicly announce this, because it’s much easier to let YT take the PR hit for the ads. And because I know it will be asked why I’m any sort of authority on this, I have a channel with 50K subscribers and have experimented with turning ads off on particular videos to see if YT respects that decision, and they do.
- toastercat 3y ago1. YouTube is a worse experience on Firefox than Chrome even with adblock turned off 2. uBlock Origin or NewPipe provide better YouTube viewing experiences than YouTube Premium. And they are free and open-source.
- pixxel 3y agoI do find it funny that people who pay for YT jump into every adblock thread and shill for an evil megacorp. This is Hacker News. Or was.
- bastard_op 3y agoSo instead of showing nasty finger pointing messages shaming you, they're just going to start screwing with people introducing random delay and fud. Lovely, they should just start flashing the goatse guy if you use an adblocker and let you know what they really think of you. I'm not surprised most gapps work like crap under firefox, and I can't even leave reviews for things there as it hasn't worked under FF in like 10 years. It's like the old IE6 days all over, but now Google is the new Microsoft.
- Garvi 3y agoI see the real issue in the lack of competition. Which unfortunately is an inherent attribute of the nature of social sites, as the natural tendency is to form a monopoly even quicker than in other economic areas. This makes me not buy the idea that Youtube cannot survive without ads. I bet there are startups out there that would kill to be in Youtubes position sans the ads. "That's surely unsustainable" one might think. But I believe Youtube already markets the rankings of videos and how high up they are displayed in your feed and search result. I ran my own subjective experiments on Youtube, trying to determine the effects of the "not interested" and "don't recommend" buttons on channels I have never clicked but seemed to be promoted. The result was that there are seemingly promoted channels that transcend any such functions. Nothing political as the most significant example was a popular youtuber. Of course one can put that down to the normal workings of the youtube algorithm, but that's kind of the problem: those two cannot be discerned, which means Youtube can make money this way if they chose to. Other realistic sources of income: The US government stepping in and subsidizing, because of the cultural relevance and impact. Or the continuation of the current economic model: long term stock investments, raising the value of a google account ownership and acquisition of customers for other google products.
- xinayder 3y agoI opened a video on YouTube today on my work laptop. I have Firefox and uBlock Origin installed. At one point the video playback started to slow down, the audio was playing but the video was freezing and stuttering. I paused the video and checked the UBO tooltip - 930 ads (elements) blocked. And they want to tell me it's UBO causing slowness???
- jkmcf 3y agoThe prevalence of ad blockers indicates a problem with the product and product pricing. I'd gladly pay YouTube for premium, but my family does not watch enough YouTube to justify US$23/mo. IMO, the content and software industry has a pricing problem. From $80/yr (or nothing!) for a weekly blog subscription to software subscription licensing for products that might be feature-complete-ish after the first year. Maybe the economics/market research doesn't support people who are fine supporting at a lower price but not the requested price. Or, maybe the recent zeitgeist of "fewer people paying more" works out well for creators.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago"To support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube, we've launched an effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience. Users who have ad blockers installed may experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using." The beginning of the first sentence is what we might call "framing". It's hilariously deceptive. Let's remove it. "We've launched an effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience. Users who have ad blockers installed may experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using." Readers can deduce YouTube's motivations.