Firefox users are reporting an ‘artificial’ load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it’s part of a plan to make people who use adblockers “experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using.”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    All of the people saying “I’d rather wait five seconds than watch an ad” seem to be optimistic that it will continue to be 5 seconds and YouTube won’t keep upping it.

    • xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      8 months ago

      But they can’t extend it longer than the shortest ads, since then it’ll affect users after they watch ads too, which kinda defeats the point

      • aidan@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Exactly, so this still guarantees a better experience than ad viewers because you will always have the minimum ad length

    • gh0stcassette@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      8 months ago

      Honestly, worst case scenario, if YouTube manages to completely eliminate adblockers, maybe by making some kind of cryptographic system where the browser has to provide a token embedded inside the ad video stream in order to access the video, I would still use an extension to mute sound and draw a black bar over the ads while technically playing them in the background, it’s not the wait time that bothers me, it’s how repetitive and obnoxious the ads are, I just don’t want to perceive them.

      • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 months ago

        “Which color hat did the extra in the background of your latest ad wear?” Wrong answer = 10 ads.

        If they could, YouTube would hire someone to sit on your couch and make sure you consume the ads with your utmost attention.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I’ll take 20 minutes of silence over 1 second of ads. I will never willingly watch an ad I didn’t explicitly request. Ever.

      Life is short and I won’t devote any of it to advertisements.

      That being said, I do pay for YouTube premium because I do use it a lot and understand that the platform has every right to make money. But that makes what they’re doing with Firefox and ad blockers worse.

    • HowManyNimons@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Ads are psychological abuse. I will not watch them. If YouTube make it too hard to use their service without watching ads, I don’t need to use YouTube.