YouTube is killing one of its most annoying features in April

https://www.androidcentral.com/apps-software/youtube-overlay-ads-going-away

by KomoD • 3 years ago

19 44 3 years ago

androidcentral.com

jayknight• 3 years ago

Does this include the Youtube TV offer that I have to decline every couple of days?

KomoD2• 3 years ago

Probably not

paulpauper• 3 years ago

Nothing will ever be more annoying than in-video sponsorships

falcor842• 3 years ago

Really? Nothing?! I much prefer skippable in-video sponsorships that pay the creator directly over biddable ads or paywalls.

And if this really bothers you, there's this Firefox extension to skip them:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sponsorblock/

billpg• 3 years ago

Yes. Tell me all about this magical VPN service. I'll be listening while I look for the jump-ten-seconds button.

Nextgrid2• 3 years ago

SponsorBlock is a good solution.

JohnFen6• 3 years ago

But YouTube has no control over those.

Nextgrid2• 3 years ago

They make the rules? They can "outlaw" those any time they wish and ban anyone not complying.

And if crap funded by cheap airbuds, sketchy VPNs (reliant on fear-mongering/false advertising), pay-to-win mobile games, etc goes away with it that's even better.

Alifatisk3• 3 years ago

I wish I could turn my screen off while using the app without having to pay

DonBarredora• 3 years ago

Revanced

earthling81182• 3 years ago

Good luck installing it and getting it to work

falcor842• 3 years ago

I wish I could go to a supermarket and take whatever I want without having to pay /s.

I generally dislike Google's business strategy, but I do like YouTube Premium. YouTube gives me a lot more value than any other streaming service, and I'm happy there's an option to pay for an ad-free experience.

neovialogistics• 3 years ago

NewPipe

earthling81182• 3 years ago

I do wish for that. However that isn't the same as streaming with the screen off. Phone batteries drain far too quickly.

serf• 3 years ago

burning watts to punish a non-paying customer is a pretty crummy strategy towards the world at large, not just the leech of a user.

Alifatisk3• 3 years ago

I get your analogy but I would not say it's the same thing, is it?

Sometimes when I listen to something on Youtube, I put my phone away while doing something else. So I don't see the ad either way, I just hear it.

The only difference this makes is my phone lasting longer.

Cerium• 3 years ago

I like the feature that turning the screen off pauses the app. It is an easy way to pause the video when I want to direct my attention elsewhere. I have refused to sign up for paid since I don't want to lose the feature.

kyoob• 3 years ago

It's overlay ads, for folks who don't want to click through.

2OEH8eoCRo02• 3 years ago

What's that? I use NewPipe

flangola7• 3 years ago

NewPipe + selfhosted SponsorBlock + uBlock Origin + locally hosted DNS w/ filter lists and DNS intercept.

RSS feeds for platforms that still support it. JavaScript-stripping proxies like Nitter for those that don't.

Sometimes I even turn off media loading. I like my internet to look more like a newspaper (before they were filled with ads too) than a blinking neon casino.

alvatech• 3 years ago

click-bite title should be edited to reflect this.

quadrangle• 3 years ago

I understand that there's a weird critical mass issue with adblocking. If everyone blocked ads, they'd do more to either paywall everything or fight harder against the blockers. That said, in a harmful world, we should be taking defensive action. Nobody should be using YouTube or anything else on the internet without adblocking.

acomjean2• 3 years ago

To be fair to YouTube, they at least give you the option of giving them money to make the ads go away.. except sponsored videos.

acomjean2• 3 years ago

Maybe they can wait till the video finished before blocking 75% of it with suggestion overlays too.. of course then the buffer some videos have at the end would be unless, but still ok.

albert_e• 3 years ago

some of the best YouTube videos are those that just run for 1-2 minutes and get straight to the point in answering a question you have or showing how something is done

the overlay suggestions that they show have many times obscured the actual content of the video

I am amazed this feature did not get killed instantly

every pixel and every frame of a video is potentially useful content...how can they force overlays that cannot be turned off or dismissed

g42gregory• 3 years ago

When I read the title, I thought for a second that they are killing the censorship “feature”. I find it quite annoying.

JohnFen6• 3 years ago

I've never seen the overlay ads (because I use Premium), but from their description, they sound like exactly the sort of ads that broadcast TV stations started doing. Those ads are what got me to stop watching broadcast TV.

Macha• 3 years ago

Huh, these were the oldest youtube ads, they used to just have the "ads by google text ads" in a box back in the day youtube let you have custom CSS for your profile.

JohnFen6• 3 years ago

Perhaps I have seen them, but forgot all about them? I don't know. But I watched very nearly zero YouTube videos before I signed up for premium, because the ads put me off. That the ads put me off implies that I did see the overlay ones and have blocked the memory of them from my mind.

In any case, I don't know precisely what they are and am assuming they're like the ones broadcast TV uses.

everdrive• 3 years ago

I was hoping for “Shorts”

JohnFen6• 3 years ago

I was, too. Shorts are a serious plague on my YouTube experience. I really wish there were a way I could filter them out.

Zanovis• 3 years ago

You could use revanced!

eig• 3 years ago

The following UBlock Origin filter works for filtering shorts on my subscription page:

  www.youtube.com##yt-icon.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer.style-scope:not([hidden]):upward(6)

tech234a• 3 years ago

Original source: https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/204945026/

proactivesvcs• 3 years ago

As reported on a Web site with overlay adverts, which disrupt the reader being able to read the article.

pfoof• 3 years ago

So, no chance of YT banning ads that have double the video's volume?

olliej• 3 years ago

Could this be rewritten as “YouTube recognized that making ads so annoying that YouTube was unusable without an ad blocker made people install ad blockers, thus making even the unobtrusive ads go away”?

mansion7• 3 years ago

That's all well and good, but I'd prefer a way to let us hide "mixes" and "shorts".

Instead, they've actually removed the ability to select "not interested" using the Android app. Clicking the button to do so simply plays the mix! Very vexing.

YouTube is killing one of its most annoying features in April

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