ad blocker no longer works with youtube?

[MitchT]

Now getting pre-roll ads (albeit blank) on my old Mac. Haven't used my new Mac yet today. At £14.99 a month for premium YouTube is in danger of becoming like town centres where everyone shuts up shop because of business rates and no one goes because of parking charges because the authorities are too brain dead to see that if they charged less they'd actually make more.

[Lucas Ayde]

Durzel said:

It’s £16.99/month last I checked.

If you VPN to Turkey or Pakistan or something then it’s 1/10th of the price. If I could be bothered to do that (I don’t want to have to create another YouTube account and start from scratch with recommendations etc) I would.

As it is I just suffer the ads (on iPhone)

(Yes I’m aware that the relative wealth and incomes of UK vs Turkey are different therefore that’s why the prices are different, but it’s an identical service so it grates)

The individual plan is £12.99 a month .. if you are being asked £16.99 for it you are likely trying to sub on an Apple device through the app, where you'll be paying the 'Apple tax' on transactions of about 30% that Google will pass on to you. You can subscribe through a regular browser to avoid that. The premium sub will still be active if using iDevices.


Given that I'm paying £10.99 a month to Netflix for a service I hardly ever watch (I need to catch up on a few shows and cancel that one), a TV license works out at £13.25 per month and I now literally watch Youtube instead of broadcast TV (hence no longer paying for a license), I think that's pretty good value. The music service is a great bonus too - I now use it for almost all music listening at home.

[Solocle]

MitchT said:

Now getting pre-roll ads (albeit blank) on my old Mac. Haven't used my new Mac yet today. At £14.99 a month for premium YouTube is in danger of becoming like town centres where everyone shuts up shop because of business rates and no one goes because of parking charges because the authorities are too brain dead to see that if they charged less they'd actually make more.

I gave in and got Premium yesterday, mainly to avoid ads on smart TVs.

I paid 99.00. Hyrvnia.

VPN to Ukraine

[TameRacingDriver]

Megaflow said:

dapprman said:

LunarOne said:

Youtube Premium. A few quid a month, you still support the channels you enjoy while never seeing any ads. And you get Youtube Music included. Why wouldn't you?!

You might want to read about the adpocolypse and the vast reduction in incomes for non-US YouTubers (probably US ones now as well). Additionally, if you watch educational historical channels which cover war (channels such as The Great War and World War Two) then they are already demonetised and so receive no income regardless of whether you watch premium or not.

Wish there was a way to block on Android TV. I watch YouTube on my TV set using the native (Android TV) app.

So do I! I do most of my watching on an Android TV and the adverts got to the point of making it unusable. I had a Pi-Hole for a while, but they they started embedding adverts, or something, that stopped that working. I have had to go down the Premium route, which sadly I signed up for before I realised I could use a VPN to get it cheaper.

Does SmartTube not work on Android TV? I use it on my firestick (which is Android) and it works brilliantly. Probably better than the official app.

[egomeister]

Solocle said:

I gave in and got Premium yesterday, mainly to avoid ads on smart TVs.

I paid 99.00. Hyrvnia.

VPN to Ukraine

Did you do this on an existing account or create a new one specifically for the task? I'm wary about pushing the get arounds on my main account should they decide to arbitrarily close it in the future

[Solocle]

egomeister said:

Did you do this on an existing account or create a new one specifically for the task? I'm wary about pushing the get arounds on my main account should they decide to arbitrarily close it in the future

Existing account, although not the one that has been my primary account in the past.

[egomeister]

Solocle said:

egomeister said:

Did you do this on an existing account or create a new one specifically for the task? I'm wary about pushing the get arounds on my main account should they decide to arbitrarily close it in the future

Existing account, although not the one that has been my primary account in the past.

Ok, thanks. I wondered if there was some limitations depending on the declared location of the account. Unless you are actually in Ukraine

[FourWheelDrift]

FourWheelDrift said:

Chrome extension Fadblock, it's skips to the end of adverts in 50mlilseconds so you might see a flash image but doesn't really interrupt the main video the advert was loaded so no creator revenue lost I guess.

Fadblock author on reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/177ijjb/...

Fadblock on github as it can also be installed to other browsers - https://github.com/0x48piraj/fadblock?search=1

Fadblock chrome extension - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fadblock...

It certainly zaps midroll adverts I have tested that right now.

Also confirm (as I disabled other blockers) that it also blocks pre-roll adverts too, well it plays them in 50 milliseconds. Almost zero intrusive.

[untakenname]

I don't have any issue paying £12.99 a month as it's far better value than say BBC licence fee.

119 said:

Why would I?

I am sure they are doing just fine, and i suspect the only people complaining are the advertisers.

Out of interest, if the add is blocked, do the YTers miss out on that revenue as well/

The same mentality is why many shops in the high street are now having to shut down.

Youtube factor in the viewing demographic when calculating payouts as well as any click throughs when paying out to content creators so a livestream gamer will earn a lot less for the same amount of views/playback time as someone who for instance creates content for a niche which has an older demographic with money to spend.

Edited by untakenname on Thursday 19th October 13:43

[g4ry13]

How efficient are these adverts for companies anyway? Don't most people ignore / skip the tat or people selling "financial independence / passive income" courses?

I imagine the number of people that actually click on these links and then purchase the services must be a miniscule number. Maybe that's all that is needed to make it worthwhile but seems very inefficient to me.

[Derek Smith]

YouTube has recently passed Netflix as the top video source for teens in the US. It's fair to say 'only just' with YT at 29.1% and Netflix at 28.7%, but if you were marketing to teens, you'd consider it.

How effective an ad would be can only be answered by the company, but if they persist in booking them, I'd say it gave ROI.

[Megaflow]

TameRacingDriver said:

Megaflow said:

dapprman said:

LunarOne said:

Youtube Premium. A few quid a month, you still support the channels you enjoy while never seeing any ads. And you get Youtube Music included. Why wouldn't you?!

You might want to read about the adpocolypse and the vast reduction in incomes for non-US YouTubers (probably US ones now as well). Additionally, if you watch educational historical channels which cover war (channels such as The Great War and World War Two) then they are already demonetised and so receive no income regardless of whether you watch premium or not.

Wish there was a way to block on Android TV. I watch YouTube on my TV set using the native (Android TV) app.

So do I! I do most of my watching on an Android TV and the adverts got to the point of making it unusable. I had a Pi-Hole for a while, but they they started embedding adverts, or something, that stopped that working. I have had to go down the Premium route, which sadly I signed up for before I realised I could use a VPN to get it cheaper.

Does SmartTube not work on Android TV? I use it on my firestick (which is Android) and it works brilliantly. Probably better than the official app.

I tired it but could not make it work. The TV needed a particular format of USB stick to be able to see it, but if it was in that format, the mac could then not see it. Bit of a chicken and egg situation. Could have been me though

[TameRacingDriver]

I don't know if I'm typical in this regard but I'd probably say that 99% of adverts are completely wasted on me, as I just head straight for the skip button asap and rarely ever pay any attention to the content.

Occasionally one piques my interest and I may see what it's all about but this doesn't necessarily translate into a purchase so again the net benefit is very small or none to the company. However even this is very rare.

I treat TV adverts exactly the same, most TV gets recorded and the ads are played at 32x so they are over in seconds.

Some adverts are actually so irritating that they would ensure I would never buy that product just for that reason (bitter, moi? ) so in those cases their advert has the opposite effect.

For the most part, if I need something I'll decide what and when and then do my research. It's a miniscule number of times an advert on its own has ever made me interested in or actually buy a product.

I guess they must work to some degree as they wouldn't do it otherwise but they're generally wasting their time with me and I suspect I'm far from being alone.

[TameRacingDriver]

Megaflow said:

I tired it but could not make it work. The TV needed a particular format of USB stick to be able to see it, but if it was in that format, the mac could then not see it. Bit of a chicken and egg situation. Could have been me though

What Android TV device are you using? I'm not quite sure I follow what you're saying about using a USB stick... I'd have assumed an Android TV device would be an HDMI stick or set top box which again would link via HDMI.

The app would then need to be sideloaded onto the device which generally entails turning on developer mode, allowing unknown sources for installation and downloading an app called downloader which would allow you to download and run the apk file (similar to an exe setup file in windows, but for Android). There should be some guides floating around on Google.

[pocketspring]

Adblocker has updated, getting rid of Youtubes can't use it because of an adblocker.

[TameRacingDriver]

I feel like this is going to turn into a long thread over time

[Megaflow]

TameRacingDriver said:

What Android TV device are you using? I'm not quite sure I follow what you're saying about using a USB stick... I'd have assumed an Android TV device would be an HDMI stick or set top box which again would link via HDMI.

The app would then need to be sideloaded onto the device which generally entails turning on developer mode, allowing unknown sources for installation and downloading an app called downloader which would allow you to download and run the apk file (similar to an exe setup file in windows, but for Android). There should be some guides floating around on Google.

It’s a Sony TV with the Android system. It has a USB socket, so I tried putting smarttube on a USB and plugging it into the TV to install it.

[Bullett]

If they offered a version without music/downloads or background for £5-8 a month for just add free I'd be right on that.
The music is what's driving cost here, it's similar to Amazon/Spotify but not as good as it only really seems compatible on desktops/phones and tablets. None of my streaming devices support it directly.
Don't need to download videos, don't need to have background play.
Now they might be good for some people but a 'basic' plan would do me.

[TameRacingDriver]

Megaflow said:

It’s a Sony TV with the Android system. It has a USB socket, so I tried putting smarttube on a USB and plugging it into the TV to install it.

Ah I see. My suggestion would be to pick up a cheap firestick in the sale, and use that. I don't rate the smart features built into TVs.

[GravelBen]

FourWheelDrift said:

FourWheelDrift said:

Chrome extension Fadblock, it's skips to the end of adverts in 50mlilseconds so you might see a flash image but doesn't really interrupt the main video the advert was loaded so no creator revenue lost I guess.

Fadblock author on reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/177ijjb/...

Fadblock on github as it can also be installed to other browsers - https://github.com/0x48piraj/fadblock?search=1

Fadblock chrome extension - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fadblock...

It certainly zaps midroll adverts I have tested that right now.

Also confirm (as I disabled other blockers) that it also blocks pre-roll adverts too, well it plays them in 50 milliseconds. Almost zero intrusive.

Thanks, good find! Working well for me on Firefox so far (available directly from Firefox add-ons/extensions menu).