6 ms·

Yeah YouTube are getting shittier by the day. I keep getting banners telling me that ad blockers aren't allowed on YouTube. Stuff is pretty unwatchable now with

by neepi 1y ago

Yeah YouTube are getting shittier by the day. I keep getting banners telling me that ad blockers aren't allowed on YouTube. Stuff is pretty unwatchable now without them. Well fuck you I'll just download the videos with yt-dlp instead. If that stops working, I'll not bother.

Glittergorp 1y ago
You can use piped. https://github.com/TeamPiped/documentation/blob/main/content/docs/public-instances/index.md https://github.com/TeamPiped/documentation/blob/main/content...
- neepi 1y ago
  Too unreliable. I just use yt-dlp and throw it on VLC on my iPad with airdrop. If it's not worth that effort it probably wasn't worth watching anyway.
  - nicce 1y ago
    There will be a time when computing is so cheap that ads will be injected to the stream in such a way that it is impossible to remove them without real-time AI detector that indentifies the parts where ads are.
    - prickledponcho 1y ago
      Sponsor Block add-on works well for this, but entirely dependent on ads being at fixed time in the video.
      - polivier 1y ago
        Future versions could id the start and end frames of the ad and thus be able to detect the segment anywhere in the video.
    - Gareth321 1y ago
      By then we will have real-time AI detectors to identify and remove ads. Begun, the LLM ad wars have.
      - sph 1y ago
        Laws of thermodynamics suggest it will be easier for ad companies to find a way to spam you, than for you to bypass all of their ads. These real-time AI detectors cannot be very cheap to run/train.
        busymom0 1y ago
        If a human can tell what content is an ad (which is also required to be disclosed by the platform anyway), then an AI should be able to detect it fairly easily too.
        Gareth321 1y ago
        They have a financial incentive to bypass our LLM ad-blockers but visual recognition is a fairly milquetoast function for LLMs even today. They will attempt to present ads in an unusual way to fool the models; the models will get updated; they will change their tactics again. It's the same cat and mouse game we play today but fought with LLM models instead. I'm confident we win such a fight.
    - PaulKeeble 1y ago
      The problem Youtube has is that it wants to make sure you can't skip the ad, so it has to signal in some way to its front end and app that this segment is an ad. That mechanism can and will be used to skip it with other clients. They can put the ads in band of the video stream like twitch does but if they are genuinely indistinguishable then they are also fast forward and skippable.
      - Phui3ferubus 1y ago
        TYT has to mark the ad segment, they are required by law to do it. And no matter how they try to obfuscate it, their own webpage must be able to extract that info, and present it to user. So it is pointless to integrate ads if you are going to provide the timestamps to skip. Just look how Facebook does it, there is no "Sponsored post" anywhere in HTML, the literally place entire alphabet multiple times, each letter in separate span/paragraph tag, and then use CSS to actually style that into a message of their choice. All of that work just to prevent simple adblocking rules to work.
      - error503 1y ago
        If they're injecting targeted ads in the stream, then the stream producer must be 'smart'. It's not much of a stretch for it to enforce playing out the segments at approximately realtime (or whatever speedup they want to allow), and to force the advert segments to play out before anything past them. Some sidechannel could be used to inform the client about what's going on and produce a sensible playhead position. It seems inevitable that this is the end game, and I don't really see viable ways around it for realtime playback. For offline playback, yeah, presumably that sidechannel includes enough information to cut out the ads.
    - neepi 1y ago
      Already use sponsor block to stop the meat flavoured AI promoting shitty VPNs in the middle of their streams.
  - Glittergorp 1y ago
    I appreciate it isn't brilliant. I use it as a fallback.
hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
Refreshing works for me, for now at least.
nubinetwork 1y ago
What ads? I run the equivalent of pihole, and use a Samsung TV user agent on YouTube.com/tv and I never see ads, except for an occasional banner on the home tab.
- esskay 1y ago
  Pihole isn't, and hasn't been able to block youtube ads for several years now, so if you aren't seeing ads its something else stopping them. Ads are served from the same dns address as videos, so a dns block is incredibly poor for youtube.
achrono 1y ago
I think it's time for creative solutions on this front. This plugin business is a little like a cop living in a house of thieves. For instance, how about an app that will basically detect an ad and visually overlay a blank blob over the ad video (and of course mute, or even just transmute, the audio). We'd still pay that tax in terms of time, having to sit through those 30-60 seconds, but it's way better than also surrendering your mind to the utter intrusion.
npteljes 1y ago
>Stuff is pretty unwatchable now without them. Subscribe to Premium, and the Google ads are gone. I think it's only fair, given how vast and complex YouTube is as a service.
- amrocha 1y ago
  There was a headline here the other day that Youtube Premium Lite will now have more ads. Eventually Premium will have ads too. It’s just a matter of time.
  - npteljes 1y ago
    I don't think I can solve these problems that far ahead. Currently, and for some good years now, YT Premium has not had any Google ads. I think subscribing to it it's presently a good value, and that's about it. We are free to cancel our subscription and do whatever adblocking we can when the ads eventually come. I feel the outrage against the free YT, the free Spotify, and probably other services is misplaced, since these providers offer fair subscription prices that make the UX completely normal. I don't see why we, as users, should fight this. This fight could be allocated to actually pressing issues, or used as energy to give to the content itself that we get from these services. But I guess this is something that is up to each individual.
    - amrocha 1y ago
      You’re right that you can always cancel your subscription. Personally it just feels kinda like buying time, so I’d rather have a more permanent solution. The enshittification seems inevitable.
      - npteljes 1y ago
        Yes to all points, and the subscription still makes sense. Why not make your life easier and less cognitively burdened for a few meager dollars per month? And then re-think the plan when you are uncomfortable with it in the future. I understand the yearn for stability, but it's futile. With services, there is no permanence, and so it's unreasonable to expect such. Even the very legal and social structure that underpins it all is constantly shifting. I suggest a hybrid solution: really take part in systems that you find worthwhile, like YouTube. Pay for it so that you can feel you did your part. And take care of yourself with a plan B, in case plan A betrays you. For example, keep a public playlist with the videos you really don't want to lose, and sync them to your hard drive from time to time with yt-dlp.

by neepi 1y ago

Glittergorp 1y ago

You can use piped. https://github.com/TeamPiped/documentation/blob/main/content/docs/public-instances/index.md https://github.com/TeamPiped/documentation/blob/main/content...

neepi 1y ago
Too unreliable. I just use yt-dlp and throw it on VLC on my iPad with airdrop. If it's not worth that effort it probably wasn't worth watching anyway.
- nicce 1y ago
  There will be a time when computing is so cheap that ads will be injected to the stream in such a way that it is impossible to remove them without real-time AI detector that indentifies the parts where ads are.
  - prickledponcho 1y ago
    Sponsor Block add-on works well for this, but entirely dependent on ads being at fixed time in the video.
    - polivier 1y ago
      Future versions could id the start and end frames of the ad and thus be able to detect the segment anywhere in the video.
  - Gareth321 1y ago
    By then we will have real-time AI detectors to identify and remove ads. Begun, the LLM ad wars have.
    - sph 1y ago
      Laws of thermodynamics suggest it will be easier for ad companies to find a way to spam you, than for you to bypass all of their ads. These real-time AI detectors cannot be very cheap to run/train.
      - busymom0 1y ago
        If a human can tell what content is an ad (which is also required to be disclosed by the platform anyway), then an AI should be able to detect it fairly easily too.
      - Gareth321 1y ago
        They have a financial incentive to bypass our LLM ad-blockers but visual recognition is a fairly milquetoast function for LLMs even today. They will attempt to present ads in an unusual way to fool the models; the models will get updated; they will change their tactics again. It's the same cat and mouse game we play today but fought with LLM models instead. I'm confident we win such a fight.
  - PaulKeeble 1y ago
    The problem Youtube has is that it wants to make sure you can't skip the ad, so it has to signal in some way to its front end and app that this segment is an ad. That mechanism can and will be used to skip it with other clients. They can put the ads in band of the video stream like twitch does but if they are genuinely indistinguishable then they are also fast forward and skippable.
    - Phui3ferubus 1y ago
      TYT has to mark the ad segment, they are required by law to do it. And no matter how they try to obfuscate it, their own webpage must be able to extract that info, and present it to user. So it is pointless to integrate ads if you are going to provide the timestamps to skip. Just look how Facebook does it, there is no "Sponsored post" anywhere in HTML, the literally place entire alphabet multiple times, each letter in separate span/paragraph tag, and then use CSS to actually style that into a message of their choice. All of that work just to prevent simple adblocking rules to work.
    - error503 1y ago
      If they're injecting targeted ads in the stream, then the stream producer must be 'smart'. It's not much of a stretch for it to enforce playing out the segments at approximately realtime (or whatever speedup they want to allow), and to force the advert segments to play out before anything past them. Some sidechannel could be used to inform the client about what's going on and produce a sensible playhead position. It seems inevitable that this is the end game, and I don't really see viable ways around it for realtime playback. For offline playback, yeah, presumably that sidechannel includes enough information to cut out the ads.
  - neepi 1y ago
    Already use sponsor block to stop the meat flavoured AI promoting shitty VPNs in the middle of their streams.
- Glittergorp 1y ago
  I appreciate it isn't brilliant. I use it as a fallback.

hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago

Refreshing works for me, for now at least.

nubinetwork 1y ago

What ads? I run the equivalent of pihole, and use a Samsung TV user agent on YouTube.com/tv and I never see ads, except for an occasional banner on the home tab.

esskay 1y ago
Pihole isn't, and hasn't been able to block youtube ads for several years now, so if you aren't seeing ads its something else stopping them. Ads are served from the same dns address as videos, so a dns block is incredibly poor for youtube.

achrono 1y ago

I think it's time for creative solutions on this front. This plugin business is a little like a cop living in a house of thieves. For instance, how about an app that will basically detect an ad and visually overlay a blank blob over the ad video (and of course mute, or even just transmute, the audio). We'd still pay that tax in terms of time, having to sit through those 30-60 seconds, but it's way better than also surrendering your mind to the utter intrusion.

npteljes 1y ago

>Stuff is pretty unwatchable now without them. Subscribe to Premium, and the Google ads are gone. I think it's only fair, given how vast and complex YouTube is as a service.

amrocha 1y ago
There was a headline here the other day that Youtube Premium Lite will now have more ads. Eventually Premium will have ads too. It’s just a matter of time.
- npteljes 1y ago
  I don't think I can solve these problems that far ahead. Currently, and for some good years now, YT Premium has not had any Google ads. I think subscribing to it it's presently a good value, and that's about it. We are free to cancel our subscription and do whatever adblocking we can when the ads eventually come. I feel the outrage against the free YT, the free Spotify, and probably other services is misplaced, since these providers offer fair subscription prices that make the UX completely normal. I don't see why we, as users, should fight this. This fight could be allocated to actually pressing issues, or used as energy to give to the content itself that we get from these services. But I guess this is something that is up to each individual.
  - amrocha 1y ago
    You’re right that you can always cancel your subscription. Personally it just feels kinda like buying time, so I’d rather have a more permanent solution. The enshittification seems inevitable.
    - npteljes 1y ago
      Yes to all points, and the subscription still makes sense. Why not make your life easier and less cognitively burdened for a few meager dollars per month? And then re-think the plan when you are uncomfortable with it in the future. I understand the yearn for stability, but it's futile. With services, there is no permanence, and so it's unreasonable to expect such. Even the very legal and social structure that underpins it all is constantly shifting. I suggest a hybrid solution: really take part in systems that you find worthwhile, like YouTube. Pay for it so that you can feel you did your part. And take care of yourself with a plan B, in case plan A betrays you. For example, keep a public playlist with the videos you really don't want to lose, and sync them to your hard drive from time to time with yt-dlp.