Mashable reports that users ran into a black screen on YouTube, and that it stayed for about 6 seconds before the video began playing. The reports indicate it affected several browsers including Firefox, Edge, Vivaldi.
Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad. While that’s certainly a better experience, it does waste precious seconds of our time. A simple workaround for the black screen on YouTube is to just refresh the page, hit F5 as soon as the page starts loading. uBlock Origin’s filters were updated with a patch to resolve the problem, the add-on updates its filters automatically. If you are still experiencing the black screen issue, just open the extension’s dashboard and manually update the filters. This tug-of-war is getting annoying, but it appears to me that Google’s efforts are actively promoting the use of ad blockers, instead of attracting new subscribers.
I remember a time when ads weren’t crazy intrusive. They weren’t being shoved into every os and app and website.
There wasn’t 20 of them on every page, and advertisers weren’t trying to harvest my data to the point where they knew every last detail of my personal life.
And I didn’t mind having them in order to have “free” content. But they got greedy and now I’ll block them in every chance I get.
Maybe forcing ads into everything isn’t the answer.
you’re misremembering the time. ad blockers aren’t new and they were invented for a reason. people forget pop up ads could literally cover your entire screen and they were so bad that blocking them was a browser feature. popups are blocked by default even today.
They block pop-up windows but now website designers have discovered they can just do soft pop-ups. The worst websites have at least 3, the cookie wall, the newsletter and some pay wall or offer, often overlapping.
yeah, not my point though. my point is there’s never been a time for unintrusive, respectful ads.
I went to my banking account page, where I can make transfers and look at my money. My ad blocker had blocked a GIANT ad in the center of the screen.
Not to mention that ads are a prime vector for malware and spyware (well, more spyware on top of the ad vendor itself).
I wonder how this affects people that setup Pi Hole and VPN and all that.
I don’t think DNS black holing was ever effective against YouTube ads. I use mullvad with a DNS filter for ads + uBO and still got served a few ad placeholders from YouTube in the past 10 days. I believe the actual ad was blocked by uBO, not the DNS filter.
You are correct. Google serves ads from the same domains as the actual legitimate content therefore sending those requests to null via DNS blackhole would simply block YouTube entirely. UBO and other browser extensions strip out or work around the problematic code itself to render a functioning page without the ads.
Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad.
Yeah. The time lost is a shame but the ad is far worse.
if im gonna lose time regardless, i’d rather spend it staring at 6 seconds of black nothingness, than 15 seconds of PragerU talking about how slavery was a boon the black man.
Out of principle, if I can’t block or skip an ad, I’m closing the window. I’d rather not use the service than be force-fed advertising.
I take public transit on the daily, and that’s just about the only place I can’t avoid advertising.
It’s not so bad. You can just treat it as the dimming of the lights/countdown timer you see in theatres, in the lead-in of the film.
They should play some chill classical music to replace whatever ad that’s being blocked
deleted by creator
If that’s what it comes to then so be it. I’d rather stare at the void than an ad.
What’s the endgame here for users?
Do we just want a reasonable subscription price? Something we can genuinely afford?
If youtube doesn’t play ads then they cant remain a service. At least not as it is today. Hosting costs money.
Im not shilling for them, i dont want ads either. And google are a terrible company. But im trying to be realistic.
Do we want cheap subscription?
Or a reduced service that can be maintained without so many ads
Do we just want 5 second skippable ads back?
Im just seeing this fight progressing to the point were youtube becomes subscription only and the ad blocker users have to pay or lose the service they obviously want to access.
They’re already harvesting my data. The greedy fuckers can fuck right off if they think I’m going to pay a subscription for that. It’s not as if Google isn’t profitable as it is. They just want more, and it will never be enough.
I remember the days of tasteful ad banners on the internet. Those are long gone. Now everything has to be an obtrusive unskippable autoplay 30 second ad or cover half the screen.
It is not reasonable the browse the internet without an adblocker anymore, regardless of privacy concerns…
I remember when banners weren’t tasteful and the internet was the wild west
There already is a subscription service, it’s called YouTube Red or Premium or something.
Yes, i said that, that one point was more about making it cost less so its affordable.
I think the baseline of what I would want is:
- Have actual moderation of the ads. Don’t allow malware ads, don’t allow porn ads etc
- Don’t allow obtrusive ads, or at least categorize them and have preferences. Do NOT play my ads 2x the volume of whatever I was watching.
- Don’t interrupt my video with ads. Play before or after. Ideally after, but I can see why that would not be feasible. I guess it is also feasable if the creator marks ad breaks, like the current-day sponsor segments.
I genuinely thing Youtube premium is alrightish as it is. I wouldn’t pay for it; though, since I do not want to give my money to Google. They are getting enough out of me that I don’t want to give them.
I honestly just want the alternatives, like PeerTube, to have a funding model, which allows creators to get paid. Donations? Sure. Optionally ads? Sure. I think peertube having opt-in ads that go for the creator would go a long way.
Don’t interrupt my video with ads. Play before or after. Ideally after, but I can see why that would not be feasible. I guess it is also feasable if the creator marks ad breaks, like the current-day sponsor segments.
FYI ad placement and type is decided by the creator not youtube. If you see a video full of ads in the middle it’s because the creator of that video chose it to be so.
That’s not necessarily true (though I’m sure in most cases it is). I remember cases where creators had to specifically ask Youtube support to disable mid-roll ads since they were disabled on the creators side but viewers still saw them. Also happened with non-monetized videos/channels. But it’s been at least a year since I saw the last case of that, so maybe Youtube has fixed it in the meantime.
Yeah, just like Twitch, it seems that YouTube has a way of conveniently “forgetting” these directives every now and then
Yep. Sadly, in both companies management seems to be kinda inept when it comes to building proper user support
Not inept, malicious.
I’m actually rediscovering YouTube right now. A few years back it seemed like too many attempts were a huge unskippable ad, for a short video. Ads were way too high a percentage. And even when a video was a bit longer, any attempt to scroll was met with more ads, and maybe getting reset to the beginning
This time around, I typically see one ad, skippable after 5 seconds, then another every 15 minutes or so. While I’d rather not have ads, it’s not bad. Even better, content has matured enough in the years since I first tried it, that there’s actually longer stuff worth watching: the percentage of ad time is much lower, so I do get entertainment value rather than just be fed constant ads. I could watch that.
I’ve been toying with a “Pay Per View” model for a bit. But it’s sort of modified.
Basically you can “pay what you want” on a per view basis. You as a user get to decide how valuable your view is and pay a creator that much each time you watch a video. Maybe this gets linked to watch time somehow to avoid people just spamming short content. YouTube presumably gets a cut to keep the lights on.
Creators making actually good content will hopefully attract viewers willing and able to pay, and viewers that have the means and really like a creator can up the amount they are paying. This could be on a per channel basis, or just a blanket setting of I pay someone ¢10 a view or something.
Idk, seems like a bit of a silly idea now I type it out
Its very socialist. So i like it.
Let creators choose: normal ads or sponsors. Not both. YouTube getting part of the sponsorship deal.
If they choose ads, YouTube goes back to 1 shippable ad after 1 second.
OR
A subscription which is just “no ads”. No YouTube music, not Google drive, no nothing. Just a cheap “no ads” subscription.
That being said, even if option 1 happens, I’m probably not uninstalling ublock. Once YouTube forced me to install it, it’s impossible to use the internet without it. Actions have consequences.
My problem is that paying for premium doesn’t actually remove the ads. YouTube fucked creators so hard that they started running their own sponsorship segments and product placements. So with premium I’m still paying to watch ads.
Well thankfully SponsorBlock still works whether or not you’re a Premium subscriber. There’s also always YouTube ReVanced for mobile (which has SponsorBlock built-in). There’s no reason to ever have to put up with an online ad, no matter the source.
Sure but I’m not gonna pay for something I still have to actively fight with is the point.
Me personally? I just want to watch them burn. Google I mean. This is my endgame
I love this
Yeah if we applied modern politics to corporations I think a lot of solid bbq could come out of it.
We need to start to shit on exxon like we shit on republicans
Remember when good ads used to be unobtrusive? Return to that.
Do we just want a reasonable subscription price?
Yay, basically. I paid for premium when I could afford it because I want the platform to keep working and I hate ads.
Premium prices went up without a lot of value for me so I quit paying. Technically premium offers a lot but the core feature that I actually cared about (YouTube without ads) never changed in value. If I had the option of only paying for that, I’d do it. To me, YT is a higher priority than any other streaming service. But they don’t provide a way for me to only pay for the stuff I care about
I’d seriously consider a sub that just removed ads if the price is fair. I don’t give a shit about premium, red or whatever it’s called.
I can understand, I would feel better watching a black screen than an ad trying to psychologically manipulate you in a personalized way.
the moment I see a damn grammarly ad on freetube I’m dropping $100 on real debrid
I find myself watching less and less youtube. Till is no longer part of my daily routine.
I backed up a few videos that I loved using tubearchivists and move on to other platforms.
I’m into small web and the fediverse now.
I remeber when it was all about the YOU part of tubin’. Real people making real content because they wanted to show it to you.
When they first started getting paid they just made more of that same stuff, heck plenty of reviewers could even be trusted as they made the reviews on their own accord.
It was my go to place for entertainment, information and to help me decide to get brand x or y for the product i need.
Nowadays i just have it on as it’s less annoying than cable but nothing is actually interesting anymore. Mature youtubers who have turned into adhd 9yo olds just to try and stay relevant, people messing with annoying sounds effects just because they read it catches the viewers attention…video’s nowadays are an attack on my home space, constantly triggering me with noise or ads just to be annoying. It’s become exhausting to consume content.
Same goes for instagram which i very much liked, it’s on constant mute for me and the only reason i’m still around is because it’s become a habit and titties.
This is what I and many others on these forums have been trying to bring back and spread. People should exchange ideas based on logic and good humour, not money.
Ironically I’m enjoying it for the first time ever at the moment.
We were going away on holidays and would have patchy internet and I needed to make sure my iPad addicted kids has plenty of content for the the road. I decided I was too old and too busy to spend hours stealing YouTube content with shitty apps and just bit the bullet, got a VPN and signed up for a family plan of YouTube plus through Nepal for like $4 / month.
And now without ads and the bullshit I have for the first time found creators that I like, and I put on videos throughout the day. Also because it comes with music I actually use my google speaker for more than just alarms and timers because I refuse to buy Spotify.
The $4 is actually good value. I’m as surprised as the next person.
I’ve seen videos mentioning they have started cancelling plans opened on a different region to save money using VPN software, so be careful how much you rely on it.
Nobody mentioning Grayjay for Android?
I have never used peertube or heard about it until i signed up for social medias in the fediverse I only heard of rumble and odessy
Ever since YouTube started this nonsense I moved to invidious and haven’t looked back
This nonsense is about one step away from affecting Invidious too.
I tried using invidious but its was super slow and i only ever got 720p max is this fixed?
I have a lot of love for invidious, but I love in fear of yt finding a way to nullify it with some fuckery.
Recently they started blocking ips of VPS providers… so I can’t run an instance on a VPS, it has to be local.
If your seconds were that precious you shouldn’t be wasting them watching YouTube.
Some people have an ethical objection to advertisements.
Hey, seconds add up fast if you’re watching a lot of videos.
The day adblocks/yt-dlp finally loose to google forever is the day I kiss youtube bye-bye. No youtube premium, no 2 minute long unskippable commerical breaks. I am strong enough to break the addiction and go back to the before-fore times when we bashed rocks together and stacked CDs in towers.
Peertube, odysee, bittorrenting, IPTV. Ill throw my favorite content creators a buck or two on patreon and watch their stuff their if needed.Weve got options, its a matter of how hot you need to boil the water before the lowest common denominator consumer finally has enough.
It isn’t fair to expect free hosting from platforms where creators are expecting revenue for original content.
Hoping for piracy means you expect someone else to pay.
Google should be pressured into changing their policies so user experience feels less disruptive and provide a healthy monetization
Video hosting is one of those things which can probably never be done profitably. But that’s okay, lots of things can’t be done profitably but still exist.
The internet used to be almost entirely run by passionate individuals with no thought towards how they’re going to make any money.
The long-term solution is probably something like inter-connected peertube instances provided by some of the big video creators with lots of patrons, and if someone gets big and starts making patreon money, they can make their own instance and start hosting their own videos.
Crowdfunding is ideal for every problem on Earth. It’s the peaceful future
don’t bother, Lemmings have this weird entitlement that should be able to watch any video anywhere in the world for completely free, no ads and definitely won’t pay for it, because storage and bandwidth don’t cost anything and Google should be glad, they are blessed by their eyeballs.
Nebula has some of the better creators anyway.
Same. I do enjoy sitting back and skimming trough the sub content every now and then, but I have gotten to a point recently, where I might as well save my time by not watching them. Definitely not watching 10+ sec ads before I can see the video.
I’ll take a black screen over an ad any day of the week. Screw ads.
relevant - “YouTube server-side ad injection faq” from Ajayyy, the developer of SponsorBlock
https://gist.github.com/ajayyy/f7b1807e13731c25cef4c2c057d022bc#file-faq-md
