The problem with ads is the company getting the money for running them outsources this function likely multiple times. The solution is actual simple change the laws so the the company that provides the ads is responsible for any damage they might cause. No issue for content providers who actually create the ads themselves or at least know the company that is paying them to advertise. Most ads are some massive advertising pools that pretty much have no rules and they would go out of business either because the company displaying the ad did not want to take the risk of when the first company get sued they turn around and sue these ad pool companies.
mike.stavola
Honorable
- Jan 8, 2019
- 12
- 13
- 10,515
The entire YouTube user base- "We all want you to address the massive bot issue!"
Youtube- "We hear you! We're going to ban ad blockers!"
Everyone else- "What? We wanted you to address the bots! They're using racial slurs and making death threats and doxing users!"
Youtube- "Oh, sorry, we'll take care of it! Now video producers will be more restricted and we replaced the entire reporting system with AI. That *definitely* made things better!"
Everyone- "OH NO, NOW IT'S WORSE!"
Youtube- "... And we're restricting ad blockers further. Totally hear you guys, thanks for speaking up!"
Youtube- "We hear you! We're going to ban ad blockers!"
Everyone else- "What? We wanted you to address the bots! They're using racial slurs and making death threats and doxing users!"
Youtube- "Oh, sorry, we'll take care of it! Now video producers will be more restricted and we replaced the entire reporting system with AI. That *definitely* made things better!"
Everyone- "OH NO, NOW IT'S WORSE!"
Youtube- "... And we're restricting ad blockers further. Totally hear you guys, thanks for speaking up!"
What's funny is that they want it all. They want everyone watching one centralized platform so they can "control the message" on "sensitive" topics; they don't want you making comments they disagree with, or down-voting content on "causes" they support; and they want you to watch the ads (i.e. pay for this privilege).
Every pay/premium service that starts out promising no ads eventually starts serving you ads.
Every pay/premium service that starts out promising no ads eventually starts serving you ads.
The irony is once a platform tries to sneakily prevent the "wrong message" it's actually an admission they lost the narrative and are desperately trying to do damage control.
If even the selectively projected stats start to portray the actual reality in direct contrast to "the message".... stop collecting stats. etc
- Jun 28, 2024
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- 10
Ok so heres the thing that most companies dont seem to get. Yes theres people that want to see no ads at all, but what i think the BIGGEST problem is, is just how many ads youtube and websites in general have. Its to the point where if you on mobile alot of websites are nearly unusable without using an adblock because there are so many intrusive ads that it makes it impossible to even read the content to begin with.
Video ads up top and bottom of the screen. Scrolling ads. Ads that pop up everywhere every 10 seconds. Even most "articles" on most sites is nothing but one big ad disguised as an article itself. The internet has become nothing but ads anymore and in order to even read or view anything you have to try navigating around ads that takes up like 80% of the screen.
This is why i only use brave both on my phone and pc, and only watch youtube on my tv through smarttube. The amount and types of ads have gotten completely rediculous, and has gone from mildly annoying to making visiting any website a frustrating experience. If they ever find a way to get rid of adblockers altogether, on websites and youtube, then im just gonna leave the internet completely.
Its really just not worth it anymore to go online period without an adblocker, and its nobodies fault but companies like google and the websites themselves. I get that it costs money to run a website. I get people need to get paid. Hardware, domains, staff all costs money. But this isnt the way. When you make it such a frustrating experience to visit your site to begin with, eventually people are just going to stop coming to it at all.
Video ads up top and bottom of the screen. Scrolling ads. Ads that pop up everywhere every 10 seconds. Even most "articles" on most sites is nothing but one big ad disguised as an article itself. The internet has become nothing but ads anymore and in order to even read or view anything you have to try navigating around ads that takes up like 80% of the screen.
This is why i only use brave both on my phone and pc, and only watch youtube on my tv through smarttube. The amount and types of ads have gotten completely rediculous, and has gone from mildly annoying to making visiting any website a frustrating experience. If they ever find a way to get rid of adblockers altogether, on websites and youtube, then im just gonna leave the internet completely.
Its really just not worth it anymore to go online period without an adblocker, and its nobodies fault but companies like google and the websites themselves. I get that it costs money to run a website. I get people need to get paid. Hardware, domains, staff all costs money. But this isnt the way. When you make it such a frustrating experience to visit your site to begin with, eventually people are just going to stop coming to it at all.
- Jun 28, 2024
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- 10
If you use smarttube on your tv it has the option to skip mid video adrolls and works pretty well. I usually dont use it myself as most of the channels i watch their ads are actually relevant to me and i dont mind sitting through them in case it actually does help.
Its all the others with all the scammy, new wave of "as seen on tv" ads that i cant stand. I dont care about this new mobile game or app or hearing about it every 5 minutes. Pds debt solutions, factor, rocket money, raycon, manscaped etc. All that as seen on tv garbage i could care less about.
- Jun 9, 2025
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I don't watch the ads. I mute the volume and simply stare at the bottom right corner until the Skip button appears and click it, so I have no idea what the ad is trying to sell me. If a YouTuber includes ads in their stream I skip forward 30 seconds. I'm looking for information, not to be sold something I don't want.
SyCoREAPER
Splendid
- Jan 11, 2018
- 1,186
- 479
- 21,520
The ads aren't even the biggest issue. It's channels that have sponsors, merch advertisement, etc.. sprinkled throughout their videos. You finally get done one ad, sponsor crap plays and bam, another ad.
Furthermore, how can you claim YouTube be ad-free (if one pays for such) when content creators can put their own ads in videos? That's why I cancelled. I then allowed ads on a per content creator basis. If they're going to play this game I'll just stop using it altogether.and wait for the YouTube competitor and replaced to make it's appearance.
Google is and has been on a sinking ship.
Furthermore, how can you claim YouTube be ad-free (if one pays for such) when content creators can put their own ads in videos? That's why I cancelled. I then allowed ads on a per content creator basis. If they're going to play this game I'll just stop using it altogether.and wait for the YouTube competitor and replaced to make it's appearance.
Google is and has been on a sinking ship.
John Nemesh
Distinguished
- Mar 13, 2013
- 93
- 26
- 18,660
SyCoREAPER
Splendid
- Jan 11, 2018
- 1,186
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- 21,520
Why would anyone pay for something that doesn't do what it says.
Ad-free doesn't just imply or mean YT ads, it is a blanket statement. Sponsor and Merch fills are ads. The official app doesn't let you skip them, "other app" even when user coupled with a valid paid subscription are breaking the TOS.
Easy fix on PC, for now, not so much mobile.
And before some bleeding heart, think of the children, comes along.. skipping sponsorships and merch doesn't hurt the creator be it manual or tool assisted. It's not guaranteed income like ads and if that means those skips hurt the viewer retention in x-out-of-y minutes per video viewed, that's in the creator.
Google needs to put a leash on YT. "Making a living on YT" is a choice, not a right, if ad revenue doesn't cover that then it's not a sustainable job for you. Google has a problem with off-platform IAP, why doesn't that apply to YT? That's ads they aren't getting a cut on.
Furthermore you know they don't care because they allow all this clickbait and (bad) AI slop but as long as there's revenue it doesn't matter, we don't matter.
They are on a spiral downward. They were losing to OpenAI, came back with their halfbaked Gemini all while losing even diehards of their search engine. Now Perplexity has come along, GPT has gotten better and IMO ended Google Search. Google is grasping for air after being in the dominant position for so long they got lazy and content milking consumers and treating us like guinea pigs while increasing prices, stripping features and not listening.
Googled go way deeper than YT and this is their latest Nintendo Raptor-Attack to show signs of life and recoup some money but will end up hurting themselves more.
*And catching a breath /rant *
tamalero
Distinguished
- Oct 25, 2006
- 1,310
- 307
- 19,670
I wonder if the CEO worked or had someone that worked in Twitch, because Twitch did the same crap and made a lot of streamers flee.
Similar to how Facebook now doesn't give a crap about reliability of the content as long it has "interactions".
90% of my facebook feed is pure promoted crap, almost nothing from my timeline and almost 60% of the quick videos are AI slop shock stuff.
- Jun 10, 2025
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The thing I find very funny about all of Google's efforts to fight ad blockers: sure there's a small handful of people who will always use them no matter what and Google is never going to win them over. But for most ad block users, we're only using them because the ads are so oppressive. If Google actually dialed back on the ads and enforced rules for scam ads or the really weird things I've gotten, I would actually tolerate watching ads. (seriously it was a two hour long unskippable ad with just smoke coming from the bottom of the screen and reading something that I think was in Arabic. I was working something away from the remote and walked back after 5 minutes of it not going away thinking "wtf was going on") sidebar and banner ads are alright, video start ads are tolerable. Tired of mid roll ads. Sidebar or banner ads that make noise should be banned across the entire Internet. If you make an ad that makes noise I will do everything in my power to explicitly never use your product.
- Jun 10, 2025
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I can say I'm happy my solution on mobile works flawlessly and have never had it not work.
EzzyB
Upstanding
- Jul 12, 2024
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- 260
This is true. We will always be able to control what is viewed, even to the point of telling the site we're watching it and simply not displaying it locally.
My pet-peeve about online advertising is that it's so awful. It's awful because the site you are visiting refuses to police it. So we get ridiculous lies in political ads, ads for scam products, etc.
Want to fix it Mr. Website owner? Serve the ads from the domain the site is on, that easy. Can't be blocked without blocking the content we came to see. Of course we will then come after YOU for all the trash ads you serve... Yeah, don't want to deal with that, do you?
John Nemesh
Distinguished
- Mar 13, 2013
- 93
- 26
- 18,660
Blah blah blah. If you have Premium, you don't get ads from YouTube...but content makers will still put ads in their content....which, of course, you can fast forward through. At this point, I would say that you don't agree with how the platform actually WORKS, because if not for ads and ad money (or a slice of Premium subscription money) NONE of the content you watch on YouTube would even exist!
The people who MAKE the content deserve to be compensated for their hard work...and you have two choices...watch ads, or pay for Premium. You don't have any entitlement to view the content for free without ads, I don't understand how people feel justified stealing content by using adblockers. You all get what you deserve when YouTube blocks the blockers. Pay or leave.
SyCoREAPER
Splendid
- Jan 11, 2018
- 1,186
- 479
- 21,520
The solution that works for many got my 1 account soft banned after x-years out of the blue and another 3 perma-banned the second they signed into YT. After that I stopped using it.
But for now we'll see how it all goes. It's always car-mouse and someone finds a workaround. If they don't I simply won't use YouTube anymore
- Dec 12, 2024
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June 11, 2025 - I totally agree with your comment "Vivaldi, my favored browser and DuckDuckGo both have very much less users and, they still work seamlessly with adblocking on." I use both on my Win11 desktop PC. I use Ghostery on my Win10 desktop PC, which I am watching ad less YouTube videos as I right this. I have experienced "notices" from YouTube to disable my ad blocker, but I just refresh the page and carry on watching the video. I have no ad blocker on my Apple Mac Mini and see ads before the selected video plays. It's not a big deal for me, and I do understand YouTube trying to make a buck.
- Dec 12, 2024
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June 11, 2025 - I use both Vivaldi and DuckDuckGo on my Win11 desktop PC. I use Ghostery on my Win10 desktop PC, which I am watching ad less YouTube videos as I write this. I have experienced "notices" from YouTube to disable my Ghostery ad blocker, but I just refresh the page and carry on watching the video. I have no ad blocker on my Apple Mac Mini and see ads before the selected video plays. It's not a big deal for me, and I do understand YouTube trying to make a buck.
This is unfortunately the attitude that causes the problem. If everyone immediately closes out the connection when a ad plays they might get the message. The main issue is you get say a 30 second add and watch 10 second of the video to find it is not what you are looking for. You go to the next and they play a 30 second add. You end up having to watch more adds than content.
- Jan 20, 2010
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Besides voting with our clicks, what other options do we have? I've only posted a handful of videos in my life, but I'm seriously thinking I might use another platform, next time I do.
So, what other video platforms are there, aside from the ones owned by other big social media companies? The only one that comes to mind is Vimeo.
I guess Flickr supports videos, too. Not sure if you can do it with a free account, though.
We directly and indirectly attack the advertiser. For example if mcdonalds plays a add and the next time I see their store all I get is the bad feeling about the store because all I remember is something was getting in the way of my viewing. It is having the exact reverse effect that mcdonands paid for.
Now if they were to realy upset someone it does not take much to post a bunch of false information about a product. The cost in advertising and other costs to fix this is going to far exceed any revenue they get for their advertising campain.
I wonder if the adverting exec ask for the number of impression they get from people who are running ad blockers. They have to know that people that run ad blockers are not very recptive to ads and if a platform then tries to force a ad on these people that will cause a negative impression. Or maybe they have no clue and need a bunch of people to send them email explaining why they are getting ripped off and why because of a ad they will never buy the companies product and will tell all their friends to not buy it either.
I actually did call a company that was advertising on one of those over the air tv channels that is not a main network. They played the same ad for a AC company three times in a row. The guy that ran the AC company thanked me for calling him since he pays everytime they play the ad.
Now if they were to realy upset someone it does not take much to post a bunch of false information about a product. The cost in advertising and other costs to fix this is going to far exceed any revenue they get for their advertising campain.
I wonder if the adverting exec ask for the number of impression they get from people who are running ad blockers. They have to know that people that run ad blockers are not very recptive to ads and if a platform then tries to force a ad on these people that will cause a negative impression. Or maybe they have no clue and need a bunch of people to send them email explaining why they are getting ripped off and why because of a ad they will never buy the companies product and will tell all their friends to not buy it either.
I actually did call a company that was advertising on one of those over the air tv channels that is not a main network. They played the same ad for a AC company three times in a row. The guy that ran the AC company thanked me for calling him since he pays everytime they play the ad.
- Dec 12, 2024
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Hi thanks for you reply and comments. I think that you will notice that I prefaced my comments with the following " I use both Vivaldi and DuckDuckGo on my Win11 desktop PC. I use Ghostery on my Win10 desktop PC, which I am watching ad less YouTube videos as I write this. I have experienced "notices" from YouTube to disable my Ghostery ad blocker, but I just refresh the page and carry on watching the video." So, my point is, I can and do use ad blockers when watching videos when I want to. YouTube attempting to force me to watch ads usually lasts a second or two, and when there is a second ad it never runs and my video starts without a problem. As to YouTube's business model. It's their service, and they have every right to get revenue from it if they so desire. We on the other hand don't have to use the service. I'm more concerned about the streaming services that screw their subscribers over by offering subpar film and TV productions. We pay and they provide crap which often borders on political/social propaganda. Stay well.
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