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I recently stopped watching youtube altogether and surprisingly haven't been missing it. And I used to watch a LOT (like hours per day) of youtube, mostly quali

I recently stopped watching youtube altogether and surprisingly haven't been missing it. And I used to watch a LOT (like hours per day) of youtube, mostly quality educational/scientific content. But ultimately you'd be surprised how much you don't need in your life. And side effect is no more ads. If someone sends me an occasional youtube video to watch, I'll take a look, but otherwise no engagement with the platform. I'd highly recommend everyone try reducing their intake of passive entertainment like youtube and redirecting that time towards more creative or mindful pursuits.

grugagag 1y ago
Large parts of the world population are addicted to these platforms. It’s tobacco 2.0
- satoru42 1y ago
  Tiktok is opium 3.0, but this time it's not UK selling the drugs.
xdfgh1112 1y ago
Not surprising at all. We delude ourselves into thinking we're better because our brand of slop is educational, but it's still slop.
stickfigure 1y ago
Or just pay for it? I have my whole family on my plan. Nobody gets ads. It is a bargain. You're right, I could probably finish my motorcycle build projects without videos. But why??
- righthand 1y ago
  > You're right, I could probably finish my motorcycle build projects without videos. But why?? > redirecting that time towards more creative or mindful pursuits.
- baxuz 1y ago
  Google just bumped the subscription cost for my 2-person household to 18,99€ I don't want to pay for 6 members. I don't want YouTube Originals. I sure as hell don't want YouTube Music. And I'd really like it if I didn't have to manually set my videos to the premium bitrate every damn time. I'd be fine with paying 10€ for no ads + premium. But for almost 20€/month, I'm thinking of just going back to adblockers. For 20€/month I expect them to not allow any sponsored content in my feed, including those served by the authors. Luckily I kinda have that option with sponsorblock.
- atomicnumber3 1y ago
  Yeah, I'm with you on this one. I pay for YT premium family, and it's basically the only subscription in 2025 that feels worth it to me. My wife watches YouTube instead of cable TV, so it's already a cheap cable bill. But you also get YouTube music! Which I'll admit is a slightly janky music app since it also kind of sits on top of YouTube videos that it decides are mostly music. But their actual music selection is good if you kinda know how to navigate the UI to the "real" music.
  - tabony 1y ago
    A lot of people will spend $30 at a coffee shop in a week. Maybe $150 in one month. I think $15 for a whole month of entertainment, tutorials, and useful content and to pay the people who create the videos is worth it.
    - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
      You also have to account for whatever awful thing Google is likely to do with your $15.
      - Workaccount2 1y ago
        Like giving 55% of it to content creators
        __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
        Or lowering the price at which you can buy an election outcome.
        salawat 1y ago
        Or routing it to support work for countries with profitable contracts, but questionable dedication to human rights.
        Hackbraten 1y ago
- Karupan 1y ago
  I’d gladly pay for YouTube or other Google services when they offer an option to not track my activity at all. For me it’s not about seeing ads just on YouTube, but being tracked all through the web and still being served inappropriate or spammy ads.
  - dimator 1y ago
    at this point, there's no use in implanting the goal posts into the ground, they're going to be moved again in a few seconds.
  - jama211 1y ago
    Then just use a burner account with a fake name…
  - andrekandre 1y ago
    > when they offer an option to not track my activity this right here, im not opposed to paying for content, but the tracking and sharing is a big concern for me too if all i'd watch are tv shows like netflix its one thing, but yt has such broad content i'd rather not be advertised/tracked about stuff i just clicked once and never again...
    - euleriancon 1y ago
      While I strongly doubt this fully disables tracking, you can at least disable your watch history on youtube which will have the effect of the recommendation algorithm not adjusting to your preferences. You can change it from Google account > Data & Privacy > History Settings > youtube History If you have youtube premium + a general purpose ad blocker + disable watch history its really hard to tell if you are being tracked. If you do decide to disable watch history, be prepared for just how terrible the median youtube interest is. All recommendations become beyond worthless.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- BeetleB 1y ago
  If someone really likes Youtube content - sure, I guess. For me the cost isn't worth it - when I compare with other streaming services. I got rid of the Youtube app from my Roku many months ago, and I haven't missed it. That wouldn't be the case for most other streaming apps that I still have. I think for me - right from the day Youtube launched - I never liked the interface. It's the worst streaming interface of all the streaming services.
  - the_af 1y ago
    Hm, in my opinion there's no such thing as "YouTube content". Content, that's the blanket word I object to. What there is is people (and companies) uploading stuff. Some useful, some entertaining, some mindless, some for me, some not for me. I cannot say "YouTube content" is -- or is not -- for me because the notion is meaningless. Individual videos and channels are definitely for me, and are hard to find elsewhere. YouTube by itself is not a thing.
    - whatevertrevor 1y ago
      Yeah putting a reaction video in the same category as a video essayist/documentary is strange. In a sea of content farm videos there are still many interesting islands of thought-provoking stuff on youtube.
- throwawaygmbno 1y ago
  Or just block the ads, let others subsidize it for me until the executive greed eventually turns the product to crap and we collectively move on to the newer options that have filled the gap. Cable used to mostly be ad free as well. Now normal TV shows are 21 minutes with 9 minutes of ads. Older TV show reruns are actually sped up with parts cut out of them. Google created a monopoly by making the product great with unobtrusive ads and now is trying to change the deal. There is absolutely already a plan in place where the number of paying premium users hits some critical number and they "test out" short ads. I am not going to reward them. I just checked my uBlock stats inside of AdNauseum on my personal laptop. This is a machine I have not used regularly in over 2 years. Being generous I am assuming every ad blocked was static, not animated, had no sound, and required no interaction by me to skip, so just was a one second glance. I have gotten back 115+ days of my life to do things I actually want to do. 10.34 million ads. From one single machine, in just Firefox. I now have AdGuard on my network and use Tailscale to block ads on all my devices. There is no world where I ever go back to seeing ads that I can block and definitely will not be rewarding them for trying to push ads on what was a great product.
  - scoofy 1y ago
    Everyone wants to talk about other people being greedy when justifying their own coincidental preference for not giving away money they don’t have to. Nebula is there, it’s not free either.
    - tossandthrow 1y ago
      Things at scale are so incredibly cheap if you take out unnatural profits. This argument doesn't really hold.
      - scoofy 1y ago
        They split revenues 55/45 with creators. That level of profit sharing is basically unheard of in television, film, books, etc. Again, yea, there are monopoly concerns, but you’re going to move the goalposts to “anything scalable” being worth stealing from then good luck to you. I’m not going to pretend I don’t use Adblock, but when sites actually enforce using it, I’m not going to pretend they’re evil for doing it.
- solannou 1y ago
  I'm barely sure that the long term strategy of YouTube is "more ads". The premium account won't be always ads free
  - jvolkman 1y ago
    But it is now. And there's no contract, so it's easy to cancel if that ever changes.
  - motoxpro 1y ago
    This is a big misunderstanding of the business model. The price might go up, but there will always be a tier with no ads.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - pclmulqdq 1y ago
      Unfortunately, the way ads work, the people who pay to avoid ads are inevitably the ones worth advertising to. The Nash equilibrium is that every user sees ads.
      - motoxpro 1y ago
        This is why the price goes up. If the LTV of a "good" user (e.g. user who buys things from ads) is X, you price the non-ad tier at X + Y. Y is the premium you pay for not wanting to see ads. So you're right, but also wrong, in that you can extract EVEN MORE money from the user you were talking about through a non-ad tier. Companies (Meta, Google, etc) get better at advertising -> LTV goes up -> non-ad tier goes up
      - tshaddox 1y ago
        That sounds off to me. I would think that the people who pay to avoid ads are very likely to jump to ad blockers if the ad-free subscription ceases to exist. Not to mention that they’re going to be very unlikely to convert on advertising.
- stiray 1y ago
  People dont understand how world works. Management reward are tied to earning more money. As long this is true, the next year, the reward will be tied to earning even more. The more you pay, the more it will cost. And when people wont be prepared to pay more, alternative model will be invented, like adding ads to paid content. There is only one way to stop this - break it from the start and make it nonviable, don't pay. They are trying to block ads blockers as some manager wasn't able to get reward. Or is worried he wont get it. And this means that money that can be collected from ads has peaked. Now come the "optimizations", now payable, then no longer free, later payable with ads, then they will squeeze content creators, that will move to other platforms where you will have to pay for multiple platforms where you were once watching it for free on YT. Sounds familiar? Made it as short as possible, but this could be wall of text, from comparing to what happened to streaming services etc. Without piracy (not advocating but it is a fact that it forced publishers into internet model) we would probably still buy content on CDs and DVDs, maybe BluRays. Greed of infinite growth in finite system has destroyed the planet and you can bet it will destroy YT too.
  - BobbyTables2 1y ago
    Except the alternative model will be invented even when people can pay more — do both and make even MORE. It used to be practically shameful for large companies to run ads on their websites. They had clean websites with only their content. Especially for subscribers. Now they’re all filled with ads!
- petesergeant 1y ago
  > Or just pay for it? So I do now, but only since I moved to a country where it doesn't cost so much. I watch maybe 6 hours absolutely tops of YouTube a month? I get charged $7/m for it, which still feels usurious, but in the UK they want almost $17/m which is firmly in "go fuck yourself" territory. I'd like them to tier pricing so casual users like me aren't paying for people who are using YouTube as their primary entertainment mechanism.
  - Mindwipe 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - amoss 1y ago
      $17 is about £12.69 at the moment so there does not seem to be any dishonesty in the claim.
    - interloxia 1y ago
      They want 23.99€ for a family account for me. It's hard to say if it's fair or reasonable but it's too rich for me.
    - petesergeant 1y ago
      > No it isn't. YT Premium in the UK is £12.99. https://www.google.com/search?q=12.99+GBP+in+USD https://www.google.com/search?q=12.99+GBP+in+USD > It's funny how people are so dishonest on HN seriously?
    - latentsea 1y ago
      £12.99, which is around $17 USD, which is what the person you're replying to stated, though American defaultism kicked in and they didn't specify which dollar, but still. So... yes it is?
- ratmeadow 1y ago
  My higher point was you probably don't need video entertainment in your life. Surely you would agree that just about any hobby is more holistically enriching than watching youtube? Not to mention other issues surrounding mass video content.
  - jama211 1y ago
    You vastly underestimate the practical uses of youtube. Crash course alone gets millions of people through their formal education.
  - layer8 1y ago
    YouTube provides a lot of information and learning material for hobbies. That’s what I mostly use it for, besides music, and movie reviews which save so much time compared to having to watch the movie (so do reduce time spent with video entertainment).
- Gareth321 1y ago
  I used to, but I stopped recently. 1. They still serve ads. Often for Google products underneath the videos and in the feed. Content creators are also allowed to turn on contextual ads over the top of videos, as well as merchandise underneath their videos. 2. Sponsored segments are unbelievably widespread now, and can take up significant portions of the video. These are ads, and they are also permitted by YouTube. 3. YouTube has been making the service worse and worse as time goes on. I cannot turn off shorts, even though I despise them. They're all over my feed. Removing the downvote score means I cannot tell if a video is spam before clicking on it now. Ostensibly YouTube serves more video hours now, but at our expense. 4. YouTube recently raised my price 40% overnight. There was space for reasonable prices without making their service worse. They crossed that line for me and I think for many others too.
  - I_Can_Fix_YT 1y ago
    If you use Firefox Nightly (mobile) then you can: 1. Fully block ads with uBlock Origin 2. Block in-video sponsorships with Sponsorblock 3. Block all shorts permanently with Hide Youtube-Shorts These 3 extensions fix your issues. There is also an extension to bring back downvotes. I do not use it but I think it is widespread enough to be useful as spam detection. This also allows you to listen to videos with your screen turned off and gives you the option to have the video playing in a tiny screen so you can watch it while doing other things on your phone.
    - Gareth321 1y ago
      Thank you. I assume this isn't available on iPhone?
      - idonotknowwhy 1y ago
        Nowhere near as good as Firefox on Android. That said you can get a clunky version with Brave. It's got a block and You can use use picture in picture to throw the video in the background. It sometimes pauses if you lock the screen but if you play around, there's a kind of race condition where you hit play again at the right time and it'll work. There's also uYouPlus if you have a way to load apps without going through the store.
- kerkeslager 1y ago
  I will never pay for an ad-supported product. As long as YouTube accepts money from advertisers, their loyalty is split between users and advertisers. And advertisers will eventually win: if YouTube Premium gains traction, advertisers will be willing to pay more for access to premium users, and YouTube can only ignore that for so long. YouTube Premium will have ads eventually--it's just a matter of time. It already happened to cable, it happened to Prime, and it will happen to every streaming service that relies on ads eventually. The only answer is to support companies that do not receive any money from ads (i.e. Kagi). Until that exists for streaming, I'm blocking ads and not giving them a cent.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- entropie 1y ago
  > Or just pay for it? I have my whole family on my plan. Thats exactly what some mobster would say to you when asking/forcing you for some money to buy protection for his etablisment. I see that you can argue that you use a service that costs money. Yes. But the advertising is unacceptable not only because it is advertising, but also because of its content AND the way it is delivered. You can't support that.
- DavideNL 1y ago
  > Or just pay for it? on top of all the things already mentioned like privacy issues, etc. - you'll also still see "Branded Content" when paying Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_content - because of Googles "monopoly", they take a big % of your money, instead of you actually paying the content creators themselves.
dleslie 1y ago
Turns out some of the best science shows are on PBS and Nebula.
- edoceo 1y ago
  3-2-1 Contact
memset 1y ago
What do you do with all the extra time? How do you keep from sliding back?
- alexjplant 1y ago
  I install the "Undistracted" extension in all of my Brave instances. In addition to having the ability to block arbitrary URLs it has many site-specific options like blocking YouTube recommendations or the LinkedIn timeline, all of which I ruthlessly enable. You can also set it to only work on certain days and times of the week. It's immensely useful. I also pay for Kagi which has the ability to block certain domains from results. I'd imagine that blocking Instagram, Reddit, Youtube, etc. would also prevent rabbit-holing.
- joshvm 1y ago
  Top tip from using only high-latency satellite internet for long periods: add a significant delay to every request to problematic sites. As soon as the dopamine loop is broken, you'll find the wait so frustrating that you won't bother.
  - safety1st 1y ago
    I love this idea, what sort of technical methods do you have in mind for implementing it?
    - joshvm 1y ago
      I imagine there are tools that will artificially slow down requests. The lazy way would be to VPN somewhere as far away as possible and throttle your bandwidth. That would get you 250ms of round trip latency for free. In Antarctica we had up to 3000ms on a bad day. You learn to do stuff offline, build from source instead of download compiled binaries and use Kiwix. Nowadays it's less of an issue because you can ask LLMs questions and have them search for you and all you need to transfer is text. Much much easier than loading heavy websites. This app looks fun: https://jagt.github.io/clumsy/index.html https://jagt.github.io/clumsy/index.html (randomly interferes with your packets)
OhioMan2943 1y ago
i deleted my youtube accounts and switched to patreon- can still see new videos on youtube from my patreon people cause im notified but it's far more intentional and quality content
- coffeefirst 1y ago
  I’m increasing obsessed with the idea that the user—not some engagement algorithm—should be in the drivers seat. This is an interesting way to go about it…
  - wussboy 1y ago
    I’m starting to look at “engagement” as an anti-statistic. Like, if you’re chasing engagement, what other more meaningful thing are you ignoring? Or, the more engagement something has, the less value it has to society.
  - layer8 1y ago
    You can use YouTube with just the subscriptions list and never visit the algorithmic tab. That’s how I use it most of the time.
bigbuppo 1y ago
I did the same thing with Netflix. Also, killed off my Prime subscription and quit the entirety of Amazon. Well, except for AWS, because that's going to be impossible until they accidentally all the data. As for youtube, I just pay for ad free. If they ever start violating that they'll also be banished to the corn field.
mayli 1y ago
True, I have the same feeling. It's nice to limit my time spending on yt or other passive entertainment.
the_af 1y ago
For some of us, YouTube is part of our creative and mindful pursuits. It either drives our interests (much like reading a magazine about specialized topics would, in the past), or explains how to do something, or simply builds a community of like minded people all over the world. I find the argument of "how much you don't need in your life" not very compelling. On one hand, we "need" very little: health, food, shelter. On the other, a life worth living is made of everything else that is not, strictly speaking, truly needed: ideas, hobbies, passions, entertainment, projects, etc.
- uncircle 1y ago
  Passively consuming content is not the same as reading a magazine or a book. Agreed that anyone can fill their own free time with whatever they want. But youtube is just junk food for the mind, packaged as stuff that interests you. It’s conveniently split to increase ad revenue, uses clickbait to drive engagement, and all the techniques developed on TV the past 80 years to keep us glued in front of the screen. Youtube and the “content” itself is designed to keep you watching. And I say that as someone who used to mainly watch long form essays, not the trending bullshit. It’s all just distraction and opium for the masses, disguised as edutainment.
  - the_af 1y ago
    > But youtube is just junk food for the mind, packaged as stuff that interests you This is demonstrably false. There's no such thing as "YouTube stuff", there's thousands of people uploading videos, some interesting to you, some not, some junk, some very in-depth, some garbage, some very thoughtful -- Sturgeon's Law applies. There are music videos, science videos, history videos, hobby videos, videos analyzing everything under the sun (e.g. the amazing Every Frame A Painting), etc. I don't know which videos you watch, but mine aren't "junk food".
    - uncircle 1y ago
      It is not demonstrably false. You operate under the assumption that more knowledge and the more you know about things, the better. So from your point of view spending 12 hours watching philosophy essays and history videos can only be a good thing. Well, I strongly disagree with this (widespread) premise. It is still marketing-driven consumption and another form of pervasive distraction which plagues the modern world, whether you spend 6 hours watching reality TV or essays on the conquests of Genghis Khan. What matters is how much time you spend in a stupor passively receiving useless information, to detach yourself from a reality you have no control over; the content itself is just a matter of taste. I want to stress there is of course a difference between decompressing with a nice and well-written YouTube video after dinner and wasting your life watching memes. But it is still a form of distraction, and YouTube does its utmost to make the experience as exciting and addictive as possible, just like McDonalds.
bowsamic 1y ago
> mostly quality educational/scientific content Probably because it wasn’t. In my experience even the stuff people consider quality on YouTube is still kinda gross engagement bait, especially things like video essays (which are an absolute plague imo)
p2detar 1y ago
I have also greatly decreased the time I watch YT and I have not been missing it. I used to have playlists, favs, lots of channels to follow. I stopped doing all that. Occasionally I’d “watch“ something on the background while I work, but it has to be non-engaging. The truth about YT is—you don’t need it.
gizmodo59 1y ago
Same! It has gotten a lot more expensive and even if I pay for premium, content creators show sponsored ads. I don’t know what I’m paying for.

grugagag 1y ago

Large parts of the world population are addicted to these platforms. It’s tobacco 2.0

satoru42 1y ago
Tiktok is opium 3.0, but this time it's not UK selling the drugs.

xdfgh1112 1y ago

Not surprising at all. We delude ourselves into thinking we're better because our brand of slop is educational, but it's still slop.

stickfigure 1y ago

Or just pay for it? I have my whole family on my plan. Nobody gets ads. It is a bargain. You're right, I could probably finish my motorcycle build projects without videos. But why??

righthand 1y ago
> You're right, I could probably finish my motorcycle build projects without videos. But why?? > redirecting that time towards more creative or mindful pursuits.
baxuz 1y ago
Google just bumped the subscription cost for my 2-person household to 18,99€ I don't want to pay for 6 members. I don't want YouTube Originals. I sure as hell don't want YouTube Music. And I'd really like it if I didn't have to manually set my videos to the premium bitrate every damn time. I'd be fine with paying 10€ for no ads + premium. But for almost 20€/month, I'm thinking of just going back to adblockers. For 20€/month I expect them to not allow any sponsored content in my feed, including those served by the authors. Luckily I kinda have that option with sponsorblock.
atomicnumber3 1y ago
Yeah, I'm with you on this one. I pay for YT premium family, and it's basically the only subscription in 2025 that feels worth it to me. My wife watches YouTube instead of cable TV, so it's already a cheap cable bill. But you also get YouTube music! Which I'll admit is a slightly janky music app since it also kind of sits on top of YouTube videos that it decides are mostly music. But their actual music selection is good if you kinda know how to navigate the UI to the "real" music.
- tabony 1y ago
  A lot of people will spend $30 at a coffee shop in a week. Maybe $150 in one month. I think $15 for a whole month of entertainment, tutorials, and useful content and to pay the people who create the videos is worth it.
  - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
    You also have to account for whatever awful thing Google is likely to do with your $15.
    - Workaccount2 1y ago
      Like giving 55% of it to content creators
      - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
        Or lowering the price at which you can buy an election outcome.
      - salawat 1y ago
        Or routing it to support work for countries with profitable contracts, but questionable dedication to human rights.
        Hackbraten 1y ago
Karupan 1y ago
I’d gladly pay for YouTube or other Google services when they offer an option to not track my activity at all. For me it’s not about seeing ads just on YouTube, but being tracked all through the web and still being served inappropriate or spammy ads.
- dimator 1y ago
  at this point, there's no use in implanting the goal posts into the ground, they're going to be moved again in a few seconds.
- jama211 1y ago
  Then just use a burner account with a fake name…
- andrekandre 1y ago
  > when they offer an option to not track my activity this right here, im not opposed to paying for content, but the tracking and sharing is a big concern for me too if all i'd watch are tv shows like netflix its one thing, but yt has such broad content i'd rather not be advertised/tracked about stuff i just clicked once and never again...
  - euleriancon 1y ago
    While I strongly doubt this fully disables tracking, you can at least disable your watch history on youtube which will have the effect of the recommendation algorithm not adjusting to your preferences. You can change it from Google account > Data & Privacy > History Settings > youtube History If you have youtube premium + a general purpose ad blocker + disable watch history its really hard to tell if you are being tracked. If you do decide to disable watch history, be prepared for just how terrible the median youtube interest is. All recommendations become beyond worthless.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
BeetleB 1y ago
If someone really likes Youtube content - sure, I guess. For me the cost isn't worth it - when I compare with other streaming services. I got rid of the Youtube app from my Roku many months ago, and I haven't missed it. That wouldn't be the case for most other streaming apps that I still have. I think for me - right from the day Youtube launched - I never liked the interface. It's the worst streaming interface of all the streaming services.
- the_af 1y ago
  Hm, in my opinion there's no such thing as "YouTube content". Content, that's the blanket word I object to. What there is is people (and companies) uploading stuff. Some useful, some entertaining, some mindless, some for me, some not for me. I cannot say "YouTube content" is -- or is not -- for me because the notion is meaningless. Individual videos and channels are definitely for me, and are hard to find elsewhere. YouTube by itself is not a thing.
  - whatevertrevor 1y ago
    Yeah putting a reaction video in the same category as a video essayist/documentary is strange. In a sea of content farm videos there are still many interesting islands of thought-provoking stuff on youtube.
throwawaygmbno 1y ago
Or just block the ads, let others subsidize it for me until the executive greed eventually turns the product to crap and we collectively move on to the newer options that have filled the gap. Cable used to mostly be ad free as well. Now normal TV shows are 21 minutes with 9 minutes of ads. Older TV show reruns are actually sped up with parts cut out of them. Google created a monopoly by making the product great with unobtrusive ads and now is trying to change the deal. There is absolutely already a plan in place where the number of paying premium users hits some critical number and they "test out" short ads. I am not going to reward them. I just checked my uBlock stats inside of AdNauseum on my personal laptop. This is a machine I have not used regularly in over 2 years. Being generous I am assuming every ad blocked was static, not animated, had no sound, and required no interaction by me to skip, so just was a one second glance. I have gotten back 115+ days of my life to do things I actually want to do. 10.34 million ads. From one single machine, in just Firefox. I now have AdGuard on my network and use Tailscale to block ads on all my devices. There is no world where I ever go back to seeing ads that I can block and definitely will not be rewarding them for trying to push ads on what was a great product.
- scoofy 1y ago
  Everyone wants to talk about other people being greedy when justifying their own coincidental preference for not giving away money they don’t have to. Nebula is there, it’s not free either.
  - tossandthrow 1y ago
    Things at scale are so incredibly cheap if you take out unnatural profits. This argument doesn't really hold.
    - scoofy 1y ago
      They split revenues 55/45 with creators. That level of profit sharing is basically unheard of in television, film, books, etc. Again, yea, there are monopoly concerns, but you’re going to move the goalposts to “anything scalable” being worth stealing from then good luck to you. I’m not going to pretend I don’t use Adblock, but when sites actually enforce using it, I’m not going to pretend they’re evil for doing it.
solannou 1y ago
I'm barely sure that the long term strategy of YouTube is "more ads". The premium account won't be always ads free
- jvolkman 1y ago
  But it is now. And there's no contract, so it's easy to cancel if that ever changes.
- motoxpro 1y ago
  This is a big misunderstanding of the business model. The price might go up, but there will always be a tier with no ads.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - pclmulqdq 1y ago
    Unfortunately, the way ads work, the people who pay to avoid ads are inevitably the ones worth advertising to. The Nash equilibrium is that every user sees ads.
    - motoxpro 1y ago
      This is why the price goes up. If the LTV of a "good" user (e.g. user who buys things from ads) is X, you price the non-ad tier at X + Y. Y is the premium you pay for not wanting to see ads. So you're right, but also wrong, in that you can extract EVEN MORE money from the user you were talking about through a non-ad tier. Companies (Meta, Google, etc) get better at advertising -> LTV goes up -> non-ad tier goes up
    - tshaddox 1y ago
      That sounds off to me. I would think that the people who pay to avoid ads are very likely to jump to ad blockers if the ad-free subscription ceases to exist. Not to mention that they’re going to be very unlikely to convert on advertising.
stiray 1y ago
People dont understand how world works. Management reward are tied to earning more money. As long this is true, the next year, the reward will be tied to earning even more. The more you pay, the more it will cost. And when people wont be prepared to pay more, alternative model will be invented, like adding ads to paid content. There is only one way to stop this - break it from the start and make it nonviable, don't pay. They are trying to block ads blockers as some manager wasn't able to get reward. Or is worried he wont get it. And this means that money that can be collected from ads has peaked. Now come the "optimizations", now payable, then no longer free, later payable with ads, then they will squeeze content creators, that will move to other platforms where you will have to pay for multiple platforms where you were once watching it for free on YT. Sounds familiar? Made it as short as possible, but this could be wall of text, from comparing to what happened to streaming services etc. Without piracy (not advocating but it is a fact that it forced publishers into internet model) we would probably still buy content on CDs and DVDs, maybe BluRays. Greed of infinite growth in finite system has destroyed the planet and you can bet it will destroy YT too.
- BobbyTables2 1y ago
  Except the alternative model will be invented even when people can pay more — do both and make even MORE. It used to be practically shameful for large companies to run ads on their websites. They had clean websites with only their content. Especially for subscribers. Now they’re all filled with ads!
petesergeant 1y ago
> Or just pay for it? So I do now, but only since I moved to a country where it doesn't cost so much. I watch maybe 6 hours absolutely tops of YouTube a month? I get charged $7/m for it, which still feels usurious, but in the UK they want almost $17/m which is firmly in "go fuck yourself" territory. I'd like them to tier pricing so casual users like me aren't paying for people who are using YouTube as their primary entertainment mechanism.
- Mindwipe 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - amoss 1y ago
    $17 is about £12.69 at the moment so there does not seem to be any dishonesty in the claim.
  - interloxia 1y ago
    They want 23.99€ for a family account for me. It's hard to say if it's fair or reasonable but it's too rich for me.
  - petesergeant 1y ago
    > No it isn't. YT Premium in the UK is £12.99. https://www.google.com/search?q=12.99+GBP+in+USD https://www.google.com/search?q=12.99+GBP+in+USD > It's funny how people are so dishonest on HN seriously?
  - latentsea 1y ago
    £12.99, which is around $17 USD, which is what the person you're replying to stated, though American defaultism kicked in and they didn't specify which dollar, but still. So... yes it is?
ratmeadow 1y ago
My higher point was you probably don't need video entertainment in your life. Surely you would agree that just about any hobby is more holistically enriching than watching youtube? Not to mention other issues surrounding mass video content.
- jama211 1y ago
  You vastly underestimate the practical uses of youtube. Crash course alone gets millions of people through their formal education.
- layer8 1y ago
  YouTube provides a lot of information and learning material for hobbies. That’s what I mostly use it for, besides music, and movie reviews which save so much time compared to having to watch the movie (so do reduce time spent with video entertainment).
Gareth321 1y ago
I used to, but I stopped recently. 1. They still serve ads. Often for Google products underneath the videos and in the feed. Content creators are also allowed to turn on contextual ads over the top of videos, as well as merchandise underneath their videos. 2. Sponsored segments are unbelievably widespread now, and can take up significant portions of the video. These are ads, and they are also permitted by YouTube. 3. YouTube has been making the service worse and worse as time goes on. I cannot turn off shorts, even though I despise them. They're all over my feed. Removing the downvote score means I cannot tell if a video is spam before clicking on it now. Ostensibly YouTube serves more video hours now, but at our expense. 4. YouTube recently raised my price 40% overnight. There was space for reasonable prices without making their service worse. They crossed that line for me and I think for many others too.
- I_Can_Fix_YT 1y ago
  If you use Firefox Nightly (mobile) then you can: 1. Fully block ads with uBlock Origin 2. Block in-video sponsorships with Sponsorblock 3. Block all shorts permanently with Hide Youtube-Shorts These 3 extensions fix your issues. There is also an extension to bring back downvotes. I do not use it but I think it is widespread enough to be useful as spam detection. This also allows you to listen to videos with your screen turned off and gives you the option to have the video playing in a tiny screen so you can watch it while doing other things on your phone.
  - Gareth321 1y ago
    Thank you. I assume this isn't available on iPhone?
    - idonotknowwhy 1y ago
      Nowhere near as good as Firefox on Android. That said you can get a clunky version with Brave. It's got a block and You can use use picture in picture to throw the video in the background. It sometimes pauses if you lock the screen but if you play around, there's a kind of race condition where you hit play again at the right time and it'll work. There's also uYouPlus if you have a way to load apps without going through the store.
kerkeslager 1y ago
I will never pay for an ad-supported product. As long as YouTube accepts money from advertisers, their loyalty is split between users and advertisers. And advertisers will eventually win: if YouTube Premium gains traction, advertisers will be willing to pay more for access to premium users, and YouTube can only ignore that for so long. YouTube Premium will have ads eventually--it's just a matter of time. It already happened to cable, it happened to Prime, and it will happen to every streaming service that relies on ads eventually. The only answer is to support companies that do not receive any money from ads (i.e. Kagi). Until that exists for streaming, I'm blocking ads and not giving them a cent.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
entropie 1y ago
> Or just pay for it? I have my whole family on my plan. Thats exactly what some mobster would say to you when asking/forcing you for some money to buy protection for his etablisment. I see that you can argue that you use a service that costs money. Yes. But the advertising is unacceptable not only because it is advertising, but also because of its content AND the way it is delivered. You can't support that.
DavideNL 1y ago
> Or just pay for it? on top of all the things already mentioned like privacy issues, etc. - you'll also still see "Branded Content" when paying Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_content - because of Googles "monopoly", they take a big % of your money, instead of you actually paying the content creators themselves.

dleslie 1y ago

Turns out some of the best science shows are on PBS and Nebula.

edoceo 1y ago
3-2-1 Contact

memset 1y ago

What do you do with all the extra time? How do you keep from sliding back?

alexjplant 1y ago
I install the "Undistracted" extension in all of my Brave instances. In addition to having the ability to block arbitrary URLs it has many site-specific options like blocking YouTube recommendations or the LinkedIn timeline, all of which I ruthlessly enable. You can also set it to only work on certain days and times of the week. It's immensely useful. I also pay for Kagi which has the ability to block certain domains from results. I'd imagine that blocking Instagram, Reddit, Youtube, etc. would also prevent rabbit-holing.
joshvm 1y ago
Top tip from using only high-latency satellite internet for long periods: add a significant delay to every request to problematic sites. As soon as the dopamine loop is broken, you'll find the wait so frustrating that you won't bother.
- safety1st 1y ago
  I love this idea, what sort of technical methods do you have in mind for implementing it?
  - joshvm 1y ago
    I imagine there are tools that will artificially slow down requests. The lazy way would be to VPN somewhere as far away as possible and throttle your bandwidth. That would get you 250ms of round trip latency for free. In Antarctica we had up to 3000ms on a bad day. You learn to do stuff offline, build from source instead of download compiled binaries and use Kiwix. Nowadays it's less of an issue because you can ask LLMs questions and have them search for you and all you need to transfer is text. Much much easier than loading heavy websites. This app looks fun: https://jagt.github.io/clumsy/index.html https://jagt.github.io/clumsy/index.html (randomly interferes with your packets)

OhioMan2943 1y ago

i deleted my youtube accounts and switched to patreon- can still see new videos on youtube from my patreon people cause im notified but it's far more intentional and quality content

coffeefirst 1y ago
I’m increasing obsessed with the idea that the user—not some engagement algorithm—should be in the drivers seat. This is an interesting way to go about it…
- wussboy 1y ago
  I’m starting to look at “engagement” as an anti-statistic. Like, if you’re chasing engagement, what other more meaningful thing are you ignoring? Or, the more engagement something has, the less value it has to society.
- layer8 1y ago
  You can use YouTube with just the subscriptions list and never visit the algorithmic tab. That’s how I use it most of the time.

bigbuppo 1y ago

I did the same thing with Netflix. Also, killed off my Prime subscription and quit the entirety of Amazon. Well, except for AWS, because that's going to be impossible until they accidentally all the data. As for youtube, I just pay for ad free. If they ever start violating that they'll also be banished to the corn field.

mayli 1y ago

True, I have the same feeling. It's nice to limit my time spending on yt or other passive entertainment.

the_af 1y ago

For some of us, YouTube is part of our creative and mindful pursuits. It either drives our interests (much like reading a magazine about specialized topics would, in the past), or explains how to do something, or simply builds a community of like minded people all over the world. I find the argument of "how much you don't need in your life" not very compelling. On one hand, we "need" very little: health, food, shelter. On the other, a life worth living is made of everything else that is not, strictly speaking, truly needed: ideas, hobbies, passions, entertainment, projects, etc.

uncircle 1y ago
Passively consuming content is not the same as reading a magazine or a book. Agreed that anyone can fill their own free time with whatever they want. But youtube is just junk food for the mind, packaged as stuff that interests you. It’s conveniently split to increase ad revenue, uses clickbait to drive engagement, and all the techniques developed on TV the past 80 years to keep us glued in front of the screen. Youtube and the “content” itself is designed to keep you watching. And I say that as someone who used to mainly watch long form essays, not the trending bullshit. It’s all just distraction and opium for the masses, disguised as edutainment.
- the_af 1y ago
  > But youtube is just junk food for the mind, packaged as stuff that interests you This is demonstrably false. There's no such thing as "YouTube stuff", there's thousands of people uploading videos, some interesting to you, some not, some junk, some very in-depth, some garbage, some very thoughtful -- Sturgeon's Law applies. There are music videos, science videos, history videos, hobby videos, videos analyzing everything under the sun (e.g. the amazing Every Frame A Painting), etc. I don't know which videos you watch, but mine aren't "junk food".
  - uncircle 1y ago
    It is not demonstrably false. You operate under the assumption that more knowledge and the more you know about things, the better. So from your point of view spending 12 hours watching philosophy essays and history videos can only be a good thing. Well, I strongly disagree with this (widespread) premise. It is still marketing-driven consumption and another form of pervasive distraction which plagues the modern world, whether you spend 6 hours watching reality TV or essays on the conquests of Genghis Khan. What matters is how much time you spend in a stupor passively receiving useless information, to detach yourself from a reality you have no control over; the content itself is just a matter of taste. I want to stress there is of course a difference between decompressing with a nice and well-written YouTube video after dinner and wasting your life watching memes. But it is still a form of distraction, and YouTube does its utmost to make the experience as exciting and addictive as possible, just like McDonalds.

bowsamic 1y ago

> mostly quality educational/scientific content Probably because it wasn’t. In my experience even the stuff people consider quality on YouTube is still kinda gross engagement bait, especially things like video essays (which are an absolute plague imo)

p2detar 1y ago

I have also greatly decreased the time I watch YT and I have not been missing it. I used to have playlists, favs, lots of channels to follow. I stopped doing all that. Occasionally I’d “watch“ something on the background while I work, but it has to be non-engaging. The truth about YT is—you don’t need it.

gizmodo59 1y ago

Same! It has gotten a lot more expensive and even if I pay for premium, content creators show sponsored ads. I don’t know what I’m paying for.