7 ms·
Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play while you're away."
- xeonmc 8mo agoThis is nothing. Wait until you see what the eye-tracking technology Amazon has been developing for their workers could be used for.
- add-sub-mul-div 8mo agoMaybe Spotify didn't do this first but they're the ones I blame. They pause an ad while the output is muted.
- djhn 8mo agoWhich platform is that on? How would they know the operating system sound levels?
- tencentshill 8mo agoDrink verification can to continue
- MiiMe19 8mo agoI was thinking the same thing lmao
- Havoc 8mo agoThat was my immediate reaction too. Can't believe how prescient a 4chan post about a doritos munching neckbeard was 13 years ago. For those not in the loop: https://imgur.com/please-drink-verification-can-dgGvgKF https://imgur.com/please-drink-verification-can-dgGvgKF
- inigyou 8mo agoAnd they can do it now that Sony's patent on this technology has expired!
- bombcar 8mo agoIt’s getting more invasive. Drink the damn can.
- ge96 8mo agoI'm still unable to accept that people accept ads as a part of life. I can't use instagram it's full of ads. I did finally get YT premium convinced by people on here but UBO all the way. Thankfully I never got sucked into Twitch. I get it too I'm a bad person for not accepting articles where every other paragraph is an ad.
- ozgrakkurt 8mo agoYoutube is still very much ad spam even if you block the ads. Of course it depends on what kind of videos you watch. But videos themselves are becoming more ad filled and lower effort for me. I mainly consume software, gaming, cooking and hardware news videos. Huge portion of human effort going to ads is really sad
- ge96 8mo agoI watch stuff related to photography/cinematography, fishing (creeks), hobby electronics stuff, cars. That's most of it. Some makers like Hyperspace pirate. Travel videos like Japan Maibaru travel is good. Music recommendations, search a song and click on the "Song name + mix". The travel stuff I don't travel myself but the mood/atmosphere is great like Japanese towns near coast lines. It's funny being a developer you don't watch much developer content like Primogen though I'm jealous these guys can just talk into a camera and make money. It is a skill to be likeable/mass appeal, being entertaining. I already know the ad anyway, "this video is sponsored by SquareSpace". Bro I'm not going to use square space alright, I'm going to go into VS Code, make a SPA, host it on S3, buy a domain, connect the DNS, setup up ALB, CDN, setup RDS, cognito and then I'll have a website. Oh I also need github actions to do the build and push out the new changes. Will throw this random comment in. Competition with the masses is hard. I paid a friend of mine $100 per song he produced for me (which were bad). But then I can go on Epidemic Sound and for $10/mo pick from a shit ton of good songs... how does a single creator compete with that.
- michaelt 8mo agoThe extension 'sponsorblock' automatically jumps over ad reads in the video, with user-submitted start/end data.
- TulliusCicero 8mo agoLong ad breaks were real annoying on Twitch, I try to watch the same streamers on YouTube now if possible, since I have a YouTube family subscription (seems like avoiding ads on Twitch requires a subscription to each streamer?). That YouTube is much better technically (e.g. immediate rewinding) is also a nice bonus. Edit: I'm seeing now that there's something called Twitch Turbo for $12/month to avoid ads, though YT premium family still seems like a better deal as long as you have 2+ people for it, since you also get a YouTube music sub and, y'know, no ads on the rest of YouTube proper.
- jeffwask 8mo agoTwitch Turbo used to be Twitch Prime and was free with your Prime subscription.
- jasomill 8mo agoYou can get a free subscription to a single Twitch channel per month with Prime. Twitch Turbo is site wide. IIRC other Twitch Prime benefits (free games, DLC, etc.) were rolled in to the Amazon Gaming brand, and more recently Luna.
- andrewflnr 8mo agoThis is something that browsers should solve.
- kg 8mo agoUnfortunately, browsers "solved" this by intentionally adding APIs that enable websites to do this to you. It wasn't possible to abuse users this way until the relevant APIs for detecting focus and occlusion were added. :(
- roywiggins 8mo agohttps://github.com/mozilla/video-bg-play https://github.com/mozilla/video-bg-play
- andrewflnr 8mo agoThis, but as a built-in browser feature, configurable per-site, and also for all the other potentially useful/creepy web APIs.
- thih9 8mo agoBoth could work. The API could be permission based. E.g. without consent the app would always see itself as in focus.
- titzer 8mo agoIt's a huge conflict of interest for an ads company to develop a browser, let alone the browser with...(checks notes)...77% market share.
- xenadu02 8mo agoBut just use Chrome! Our website only works in Chrome. Everyone should just be using Chrome. What's wrong with a Chrome monoculture? :)
- sunaookami 8mo agoSo one could stub out https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Page_Visibility_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Page_Visibi... or fake it via an extension (there are actually some already that disable the API by injecting JS that always returns "visible", f.e. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/disable-page-visibility/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/disable-page-visibi...). Don't know if there are more.
- thih9 8mo agoIn some way it’s a feature, leaves more room for products that are more user friendly. Of course overall it's still bad; this framing gives me some hope at least.
- nyeah 8mo agoYeah. But anything bad does that.
- organsnyder 8mo agoThey'd all enshittify in similar ways if they got traction.
- ortusdux 8mo agoI think it was the MPAA that tried to develop DVD players with cameras so they could count room occupancy and lock the content if you were tying to exceed the terms of their license.
- Legend2440 8mo agoPlease drink verification can. (This never happened though. The MPAA did a lot of shady things with DRM, but not this.)
- throwaway85825 8mo agoI believe this was a Microsoft patent related to the kinect.
- deltoidmaximus 8mo agoWas it Sony that had the patent on a device that would require the watcher to say the product name out loud to the microphone to continue watching? The product to my knowledge doesn't exist but the patent for it did.
- ge96 8mo agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/fj24w7/sony_was_granted_a_patent_to_make_a_tv_that_will/ https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/fj24w7/sony_...
- jackdoe 8mo ago> claude fork chromium, remove the api so it knows if the tab is open, always return true, compile it and replace my current chrome with it
- toomuchtodo 8mo agohttps://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...
- TulliusCicero 8mo agoSeems like something a plugin could solve.
- ratelimitsteve 8mo ago>claude build a plugin to do the above
- ozlikethewizard 8mo agoNot sure it can with the v3 changes.
- nticompass 8mo ago> use firefox, install uBlock Origin
- hedora 8mo agoThis is the only correct answer. The second firefox is actually no longer viable, I guarantee you chrome is going to rapidly go closed source or require software attestation to prevent modification (not sure what the analogous plan for Safari will be, but it won’t be good). The passkey stuff is a step in this direction.
- jasomill 8mo agoPasskeys work with Firefox.
- PeterStuer 8mo agoTwitch has been speedrunning their own demise. Maybe the people on charge have personally invested heavily in Kick?
- jeffwask 8mo agoWhen it stopped being about people playing games and became discount reality TV, it's death nell was rung.
- throwaway85825 8mo agoThe trashiest moved to kick. Twitch is mostly soft porn now.
- neko_ranger 8mo agoThank you for telling me where they went so I know not to go there
- slumberlust 8mo agoRight, but which streams specifically...so I can block them of course.
- throwaway85825 8mo agoThere is an online community forum that discusses the individuals in the trash streams that will go unmentioned.
- duxup 8mo agoEven when it was about games there was an absurd amount of "games ... but the host has almost uncovered boobs pointed at the screen" content. Felt like Twitch was always teetering on the edge and really nobody with any power cared to avoid the inevitable.
- impish9208 8mo ago
- dundarious 8mo agoI am just today experience an issue where the volume is reset 100% for each ad. Ads play, I turn volume down to 8%, I have the tab still on display (though I have focus on a separate window), and when the 1st ad ends, the 2nd ad is as loud as 100% even though the slider remains at 8%. Click to reset it to 8%, then 3rd ad plays at 100%.
- NewJazz 8mo agoNot sure if this applies, but might be worth consideration https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/10/06/no-more-loud-commercials-governor-newsom-signs-sb-576/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/10/06/no-more-loud-commercials-g...
- samtheDamned 8mo agoha! This was my first thought too. Ridiculous behavior either way, ads have gotten out of control.
- maskull 8mo agoI noticed during the olympics that they would hide the in-page volume controls during commercials. I hadn't seen that before. Fortunately it's still possible to mute via the tab control.
- SunshineTheCat 8mo agoThis is related but also kinda an aside: has anyone been able to find a solid, reliable ad blocker for Twitch? Brave use to block it for a while by default (it does great on YouTube ads). There also use to be a ping pong between Twitch and some chrome extensions which worked temporarily and then Twitch broke a week later. The best I've been able to find is Alternate Player for Twitch.tv which does hide the ads (essentially freezing the stream while they play), but I have been unable to keep the stream playing ad free for quite some time.
- baal80spam 8mo ago> The best I've been able to find is Alternate Player for Twitch.tv which does hide the ads (essentially freezing the stream while they play), but I have been unable to keep the stream playing ad free for quite some time. This is not my experience. Alternate Player for Twitch.tv essentially ignores twitch ads for me. Using Brave, not sure if this is relevant.
- sunaookami 8mo agoSame but Firefox. The stream quality is downgraded to ~360p while an ad plays though. But I rarely watch Twitch so eh, good enough for me. And it gets rid of all the cancerous ADHD-ridden stuff.
- vodofrede 8mo agoFirefox, uBlock Origin, then follow the linked section of the Twitch Ad Solutions GH. This has worked for me for a very long time. Use the VAFT script. https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions?tab=readme-ov-file#applying-a-script-ublock-origin https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions?tab=readme-ov...
- impute 8mo ago"for a better experience" Do people writing this type of copy actually believe this?
- ratelimitsteve 8mo agoyou'd be amazed what you can believe when eating food and sleeping indoors depends on that belief
- hn92726819 8mo agoYou may be surprised to hear that many people work to make a living and then just go home. Not every employee has to drink the kool aid to make a living.
- chmod775 8mo agoNo, they do not. They just value their silicon valley paycheck over personal integrity. And really, this isn't a big deal. It's a bold lie everyone can see through, but it's not nearly as consequential as other bold lies society tolerates or is complicit in. Many of these lies make modern society function in the first place - they're necessary fictions everyone participates in. This lie is... laughably irrelevant, which is why calling it out won't make you a pariah. People are jumping at the chance to point and laugh when doing so carries no consequence. Other examples of inconsequential bullshit: "Your call is very important to us", "We value your privacy", "We're like family here", and "It's not about the money". tl;dr: "whatever."
- toss1 8mo agoThey don't specify who gets the "better experience" (hint: it is them, harvesting the ad dollars)
- EarlKing 8mo agoIt's like someone saw an episode of Black Mirror and Idiocracy and went, "That's it! That's what we need to do!" and began using them as a playbook. Yeah, I'm sure this won't drive massive adoption of ad blockers or anything.
- hydrogen7800 8mo agoGood fiction writers seem to have a very deep understanding of human behavior, both as individuals and groups/systems. It's probably a combination of art imitating life, imitating art, and part prediction based on this understanding how human behavior and human systems evolve and interact.
- ozlikethewizard 8mo agoFriendly reminder to use a browser you can disable the active tab apis in, IronFox / LibreWolf are both great (Mobile / Desktop), Firefox if you value convenience the most.
- j1elo 8mo agoWhy does the Window Manager have to provide focus and even visibility info to the application? I could foresee an evolution of runtime controls where "Is Focused" is a user-selectable permission for apps, just like how the browser requires user approval to allow web notifications or PeerConnection access to network or webcams.
- iroddis 8mo agoI think this case was the browser was active, but not the tab, so the browser reports that. Many, many telemetry metrics have been added in the name of power and efficiency. If a page refreshes every 30 seconds, is it still worthwhile doing it when the tab isn’t active? It would be better to wait until the tab is active again, then refresh immediately. That being said, all of these capabilities are a privacy nightmare, only increasing the precision of browser fingerprinting and user monitoring. Firefox could have taken a stance on refusing to implement them, but I don’t think it has an easy opt out.
- pseudalopex 8mo agoDisable Page Visibility extension is available for Chrome and Firefox. And StopTheMadness for macOS Safari.
- redox99 8mo agoBecause it's pretty useful, for example to avoid refreshing data if the tab is unfocused and refresh immediately on focus.
- CamperBob2 8mo agoJust think. No matter how bad a day you're having at the office, somebody had to come to work and implement this.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- jraph 8mo agoAnd could have decided not to work for Amazon in the first place.
- nozzlegear 8mo ago> Avoid minimizing or muting Twitch for a better experience. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that it's not possible for javascript to detect that you've muted the browser tab itself, at least. Doesn't solve the problem of them checking whether you have the tab focused, of course, but it should be mutable.
- hedora 8mo agoI suspect this is one of the less nefarious reasons age verification is getting pushed so hard. 2026: you need a webcam to prove your age. 2030: we know you have a webcam because you verified your age. It must be left on with echo cancellation and background noise suppression disabled so we can hear the ad we are playing. <insert obvious ways in which this will be misused here>
- naikrovek 8mo agothat's the thing about advertisers. people who don't want to see them get very good at ignoring them, and finding ways to prevent them entirely via technical means. this means that advertisers must constantly move the "we won't cross this" line further and further into absurdity. it will never stop. not ever, not so long as people have things to sell. i hope i'm dead when ad viewing only counts when you buy the advertised product. "Thank you for your Twitch subscription. You've used all of your paid time, and can no longer view streams. But, good news, buy 1 product advertised to you in the next 15 minutes and you'll get another 24 hours of streaming!" then watch as they increase the number of products you must buy while decreasing the number of hours you get from it. it will never ever stop. advertising should be illegal or be highly regulated. the arms race between viewer and advertiser will never stop until one or both of those things happen.
- inigyou 8mo agoAt that point why wouldn't they just make you pay money directly to Twitch, and skip the ad nonsense?
- commandlinefan 8mo agoThat was a black mirror episode.
- haunter 8mo agovaft with uBlock Origin works perfectly https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions
- red-iron-pine 8mo agoso basically a more upbeat version of that Black Mirror episode?
- inigyou 8mo agohttps://xcancel.com/KryDotExe/status/2026806591517856208 https://xcancel.com/KryDotExe/status/2026806591517856208
- MiddleEndian 8mo agohttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-page-visibility/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-page-...
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- JeremyStinson 8mo agoIn addition to what Twitch is doing, a banner popped up in the Android YouTube app stating that you need to upgrade to Premium to be able to "Jump Ahead to parts other users think are valuable". Different from skipping 10 seconds at a time, but there's a non-zero chance that'll be pay-walled too. It'll only be a matter of time until you can't do anything but watch whatever content Google has curated for you, with no chance to adjust anything at all.
- EmptyCoffeeCup 8mo agoAt that point, you stop watching, right? Youtube isn't some life or death resource - if they go too far, users will switch off.
- KomoD 8mo ago> a banner popped up in the Android YouTube app stating that you need to upgrade to Premium to be able to "Jump Ahead to parts other users think are valuable". You can still scrub the video manually, that's just a separate "Jump ahead" button that skips past the most skipped section. I don't have a problem with it because they didn't take anything away from me.
- dogleash 8mo ago> Premium to be able to "Jump Ahead to parts other users think are valuable". This is Google's euphemism for building a SponsorBlock equivlient into youtube. It just sounds terrible if they come out and tell you that in addition to removing their ads, they're selling an adblocker. They don't want you adblocking their ads, but they'll gladly charge you to do it to someone else.
- Pooge 8mo agoIs there an about:config setting to disallow JavaScript access to tabs?
- arkaic 8mo agoWhen those commercials start playing at the gas pump I instinctively turn away out of sheer principal.
- ThePowerOfFuet 8mo agohttps://xcancel.com/KryDotExe/status/2026806591517856208 https://xcancel.com/KryDotExe/status/2026806591517856208