We all know that YouTubers make their money from ads on YouTube. Heck, until I was summarily demonetised last year, I was receiving a few dollars every month from Google which I was very grateful for. However, my penury state notwithstanding and Google’s aggressive stance on adblockers has made the YouTube viewing experience a painful exercise.
Three Strikes And You’re Out!
Google is said to be experimenting with what is colloquially known as ‘three strikes’ in some countries, whereby if an adblocker is detected on YouTube, the user is given three chances to allow ads, following which, if the user does not comply after the third warning, they may be blocked entirely from viewing YouTube videos. This is a dilemma across the entire Internet because here at DCT we rely on ads to keep the site going, yet I think it’s fair to say that the ads on this site are reasonable. On the other hand, YouTube ads are now so prolific that in a 30-minute video, one can be blasted with an ad at the beginning, one at the end, and several throughout the video, thus ruining the viewing experience. This is particularly true on the mobile YouTube app (not mobile browser) where ad bombardment is now down to a fine art.
Workarounds
I use Opera which has an integrated adblocker, but that’s not enough, so I installed uBlock Origin which has resulted in Google not detecting any kind of adblocker on my system, so my YouTube viewing is completely free of ads, much to my relief. It’s available on the Chrome Web Store if you want to check it out.
I’m well aware that ads drive the Internet and keep most sites financially viable. Heck, many sites even have premium options by subscription with no ads at all because, let’s face it, someone has to pay the bills. However, when you’re already making billions and decide to increase your already inflated YouTube Premium service, it seems like a slap in the face.
$14 per month is a lot of money for most of us, so it begs the question – how much more money does Google want to gouge out of us?
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I use the app built into my cable system and I’ve had to deal with ads 30 minutes long. I am not joking. YouTube expected me to watch a 30-minute ad (a video from another channel) before watching my 5 or 10-minute video. I even skipped watching some longer videos and movies because the advertising was so ridiculous, seemed like an ad was popping up every 5 minutes or so. TV was never this bad.
What if you use a software program to download the YouTube videos? Could that be a solution to the adds? Honestly I have NOT experienced any adds on YouTube, Mindblower!
Hope you don’t mind me butting in here Marc… Yes, downloading the videos will bypass the ads. That’s why I download most of what I want to watch. But YouTube might try to block that eventually.
No problem, Terry.
Yes, downloading videos is one way, but some of us like to spend a few hours watching our favourite music, so that might be a chore.
I use Firefox with an extension called “YT Siphon”. When I see that YouTube is going to shove ads down my throat, a simple hotkey combo (ALT+J) redirects the video to a third-party video player called “Piped”.
Mindblower, I’m curious to know which browser you use and if you use an adblocker.
Sure Marc. Mostly use Firefox with YouTube and I use several programs to block ads (without any conflict), Mindblower!
4K Video Downloader is excellent for this.
I use the Brave browser. It’s native ad-blocker works swimmingly well for most sites, but it recently ran me into the Three Strikes zone on YouTube. Dang! I just added the U Block origin extension and randomly romped through a dozen YouTube vids with no ads in sight. Hooray! Let’s all cross our fingers that this one will stay under the radar.
Oh yes. I’m liberating the DCT site to keep you a bit more solvent.
Oops. I do not see a way to libertate individual sites with the uBlock Origin extension. Could you add a feature on that please?
https://davescomputertips.com/how-to-whitelist-a-website-in-an-ad-blocker/
I can’t see how advertisers think they make much money from these ads. Who watches them and buys what they show, very few I imagine, And it makes the viewer hate the advertiser. But it must pay else they wouldn’t advertise. How much does an advertiser pay google? – I suppose it depends how many are shown but does that mean the whole ad or even if only a few seconds are viewed?
To have an ad for 2-3 minutes before a video starts means I don’t see that video.
The Brave browser works excellent for no YT blocking.
$14/month is absolutely ridiculous for YouTube, especially when many, if not most of us could care less and have no interest in YouTube Music. If they were smart, which apparently they are not, they would offer three separate services. YouTube Video, Music and the bundle. I might be willing (a big if) to pay 4 or 5 bucks for the video service without ads, but they have a mistaken idea on YouTube’s value proposition. I pay enough for streaming services, and YouTube simply is not in the same league as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc..
it’s not so bad when the post you’re trying to watch advertises as they don’t seem to over do it; but YT wanting to get in on the act really makes the experience bad. it’s like cable tv. you pay for the service and then they want to bombard you with more so they can line up at the trough. it’s all about the greedy getting greedier.
Marc. I received my AdGuard newsletter which contains very interesting information on how to combat this YouTube ptoblem. If interested check out this link. Mindblower!
https://adguard.com/en/blog/index.html