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YouTube Will Bully you into subscription and even so will show you ads

52 points by atum47 ↗ HN
YouTube did it. It managed to get me to subscribe. With loud (way louder than the videos), repetitive, unskippable ads that has nothing to do with me, I figured YouTube was trying to bully me into paying, so I did. I payed, so I could enjoy videos without being interrupted every 5 minutes. But you know what? YouTube is still not happy. Today when I opened the app on my phone, it still showed me an add. It is infuriating at least. This won't probably make it, but I needed to share.

https://imgur.com/a/BM7XoTe

The image above is an ad inserted in the middle of the recommend content, but before that there was a full page ad about the same crap, which I could not get a screenshot.

43 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 78.8 ms ] thread
pwg
Solution: youtube-dl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube-dl)

Download the videos, and the only ads/interruptions you get will be the ones the creators directly recorded in the videos.

suby
Just use ublock origin. You can continue using the youtube site as normal, but now without the ads.
jhclouse
That doesn’t work on the mobile app though, does it?
HKH2
Out of the box, Brave is pretty good at blocking ads.
JoshTriplett
Use m.youtube.com in Firefox, which lets you use uBlock Origin or ABP. Works great for just about everything, except that it doesn't support casting to a Chromecast (unless you cast your whole screen).
navjack27
I'm not sure what you paid for but I have YouTube premium and have had it for a couple months now and I haven't had an ad anywhere... I got it cuz my router's diversion ad blocker stopped working as well.
MajorBee
I can only assume YouTube views such ads as merely part of their recommendation engine and, thus, quite different from "third party" adverts.
fbrncci
I'm kind of at a loss at the route Youtube is taking. Not just with their obnoxious ads, but also them pushing shorts so hard. Like someone else commented you can use youtube-dl. On Android NewPipe (https://newpipe.net/) works with it. And as for the shorts... I ended up blocking the Youtube app on my phone (can't uninstall it..), those shorts just aren't good for the social media addiction I am trying to beat.
canistel
+1 for Newpipe. Not available in Playstore, but easily installable as an apk.

You can disable or uninstall the stock Youtube app (or any app for that matter) through adb :-

pm disable-user --user 0 com.blah.blah

pm uninstall --user 0 com.blah.blah

aero-glide2
You can disable directly from Settings.
fbrncci
It used to give me this option, but no longer does. The uninstall option is just greyed out on my OPPO phone.
prirai
Uninstall it with adb.
mey
On mobile, I have had success with using Firefox, ublock origin and privacy badger making for a reasonable (for me) mobile YouTube experience.
kalleboo
If they didn't show the link to join the BTS dance challenge, millions of teen k-pop fangirls would be furious. It's a lose-lose situation.

I got the same thing, but didn't see it as an ad but rather as an event-type thing. Surprised they're showing it outside of Asia. I've had YouTube Premium for years and have been very happy with it. It also pays the content creators way more than ads.

cercatrova
- uBlock Origin on desktop, Android

- SponsorBlock (blocks in video sponsorship ads) on desktop, Android

- YouTube Vanced on Android (includes SponsorBlock support)

- AdGuard on desktop and mobile

- SmartTube on TV

Use all of these and you'll never see another YouTube ad.

dbcooper
Any tips for Twitch?
jjcon
You can sideload Twitch++ if you are on iOS (removes all ads)
jjav
> Use all of these and you'll never see another YouTube ad.

I mean yes, but the OP already paid for youtube subscription as they said. So they shouldn't have to do anything to never see an ad again.

jjcon
Use Cercube if you are on iOS (works just like Vanced, just need to sideload via altstore)
readflaggedcomm
SmartTube seems to be only for Android.

I wish there were something unofficial for Roku, too. (None of the lists of private channels show anything promising.)

jhart99
I also just got the full screen ad on the phone app. I've been a YouTube subscriber for ages and this is the first time I have had an ad like this. I agree it is BS even if YouTube doesn't think it is an ad, it definitely was an ad.
grawprog
>YouTube did it. It managed to get me to subscribe. With loud (way louder than the videos), repetitive, unskippable ads that has nothing to do with me, I figured YouTube was trying to bully me into paying, so I did. I payed, so I could enjoy videos without being interrupted every 5 minutes. But you know what? YouTube is still not happy. Today when I opened the app on my phone, it still showed me an add.

Yes this is called marketing. You'd think on a place like HN that espouses the virtues of capitalism above all else and is the very definition of corporate culture, what with being designed around creating startups with VC money, you'd think people on here would be wiser to the ways of corporate bullshit.

People on HN literally live that shit every day, yet are regularly surprised by the levels of bullshit international mega corps pull. I don't understand it. You people made this shitty world. Own it.

orangepanda
> https://www.youtube.com/premium

> “Ad free”

> “Watch videos uninterrupted by ads”

No. An ad is an ad no matter what synonym you use. Still showing ads, after explicitly claiming they wont, is false advertising and against consumer protection laws

fluxem
Even when you paid for YouTube premium, you still have to deal with baked in sponsorship, which dilutes the value of the subscription. Those sponsorships are 2min of 10 min videos.

Besides that, many creators pad their videos to 10min mark to get adroll. "Hey guys. This is ... Please like the video, subscribe to the channel". This is especially annoying in tutorial videos, where they take 10min to explain how to crop a photo for example. You get to the end, just to discover they used a slightly older version of program.

(That's why I love lockpickinglawyer. 2 min videos straight to the point.)

The problem is, the current reward structure push creators to pad their content and add sponsorships. YouTube Premium doesn't address those problems.

high_byte
I gave up a whole ago. I came to accept to be bullied into being ~10$ short for YouTube and Spotify. I use ad block and everything, but just for the sake of occasionally using it over the phone or TV. I'd rather this than being screamed at by ads.
senectus1
I pay as well and dont get adverts on my mobile devices... are you sure youre signed into the app with the right account?
upbeat_general
Maybe you weren't logged in or there was some caching bug requiring you to quit and/or sign in again after subscribing?

I'm fairly confident YouTube premium wouldn't exist if it still showed ads as it's easy to verify (as in you did in your case)...

resfirestar
It feels like a stretch to call this an ad. Does the strip of recommended movies across my homepage on desktop, which appears despite being a premium member and having adblock turned on, also count as an ad? Arguably it might be more of an ad since it's actually trying to get me to buy something, not just entice me to watch videos. Not to mention all the times I've the phrase "Get YouTube TV". I guess it comes down to personal preference and it ought to be more customizable but my point is YouTube "advertising" their own stuff to premium members has long been part of the experience.
ique
To all the people suggesting ad blockers, read the post and look at the image. There is no adblocker in the world that would block this. It’s a suggested video, a feature built specifically by youtube to push ”premium” content. The full page ad is also a new type of thing for youtube to market its own events.

Clearly youtube doesn’t see this as ads (though it is) and no adblocker would see them as ads either.

TakawaraJu
I was in the same situation but went down the route of setting up a pi hole.
rakshazi
I wish content makers migrate to PeerTube instead of YouTube...
tomhoward
It’s an internal product/feature promotion. It’s uncool to title the post and word the complaint (thereby attracting enough rage-votes to get onto the front page) by making the impression that they’re still running pre-roll video ads before the videos you watch.

The issue you’re complaining about is a relatively very minor inconvenience, and they would reasonably argue it’s helpful to make users aware of new features.

lutusp
There are better solutions to this problem. Here's mine:

"YouTube Ad Killer:" https://arachnoid.com/VLC_utility/

This free, open-source (Windows/Linux) shell script captures a clipboard URL and runs VLC to show the video, which stops the ads.

Instead of clicking a YouTube video, you copy its URL onto the system clipboard. VLC automatically launches and plays the video without the usual YouTube ads. Qualifier -- ads that are part of the video itself aren't stopped.